2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, MAY 8, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 10

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The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. D. Lovick: It is my pleasure to introduce a very special guest in the gallery today. Ms. Ndèye Fall, the director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization here in Canada and also the UNESCO representative to Canada, is joining us here. As I think most members will be aware, Ms. Fall was at the grand celebration we had on Friday -- namely, the UNESCO biosphere reserve in Clayoquot Sound. She is going to be staying for a few days to meet with various government officials and to talk about other interesting programs that UNESCO is responsible for. I would ask all my colleagues in the House to please join me in making Ms. Fall welcome and also in wishing her the very best for a successful stay in her dealings with all the parts of government while she is here.

[1410]

Hon. G. Mann Brewin: In the gallery today is a visitor, Dr. Renee Patenaude. She recently completed her PhD in psychology at Simon Fraser University on how children cope with divorce. She is visiting Victoria for a brief vacation, and I ask the House to please make her welcome.

I. Chong: Today I am pleased to have two sets of introductions. I would first of all like the House to welcome two classes of visiting students from Fairburn Elementary School. There are 28 of them here today. and they are accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Bradford, and up to five adults. They have just had a tour of the Legislature, and they're here to watch question period. I would ask the House to welcome that group of students and adults.

Secondly, hon. Speaker, today it was my very distinct pleasure to host a luncheon for several of our leaders in the Victoria area Chinese community. I'm pleased that they were able to join me for lunch, because many of these leaders have provided invaluable service to our community but have not taken the opportunity to visit this precinct. For many this will be the first time they've been in these buildings and the first time to observe question period. I would like the House to welcome the following people: Mr. Paul Chan, Mr. Thomas Chan, Ms. Georgina Wong, Ms. Kileasa Wong, Mr. Ben Low, Mr. John Cheung, Mr. Harry Wong, Mr. Henry Low, Mr. Kim Eng and Mr. Frank Wong. Also, it is a great pleasure that we have with us today, accompanying them, our mayor His Worship Alan Lowe from the city of Victoria, who also happens to be a Chinese Canadian -- the first Chinese Canadian to be elected mayor of a provincial capital, as well as the youngest mayor ever elected to the city of Victoria. I hope the House will make them all very welcome.

G. Campbell: The Centennial Foundation is a non-profit organization which was founded five years ago. Its goals are to highlight the positive contributions and achievements of Sikh Canadians. Its aim is to portray as accurate and positive a picture as possible. It has awards which are given out on an annual basis, the Centennial Sewa Awards. Those awards are given to both Sikh Canadians and non-Sikh Canadians. Previous recipients have included Roy McMurtry, philanthropist and novelist June Callwood, Michael Ondaatje, Haroon Siddiqui -- many Canadians who have made huge contributions. I am very pleased today to inform the House that two British Columbians were recipients of the Centennial Sewa Awards on Saturday, May 6. One is CBC journalist Belle Puri, and the other is the MLA for Okanagan West, Sindi Hawkins. I hope we'll give them both our congratulations.

Tabling Documents

Hon. P. Ramsey: I ask leave to table performance plans.

Leave granted.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Last week I had the pleasure to table performance plans for all government ministries. Today I rise to table performance plans for Crown corporations for 2000-2001. On budget day, March 27, we introduced the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act here. That act requires performance plans for Crown corporations to be tabled in the Legislature. While that act is not yet law, we're not going to wait; we're acting now. Tabling the performance plans for Crowns is yet another step to ensure transparency and accountability.

I have performance plans today for B.C. Hydro, Rapid Transit Project 2000, B.C. Transit, B.C. Rail, B.C. Lottery Corporation, B.C. Assets and Land Corporation, Columbia Power Corporation, homeowner protection office, B.C. Housing, B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, Fisheries Renewal B.C., Forest Renewal B.C., B.C. Assessment Authority, B.C. Ferries, Tourism B.C., British Columbia liquor distribution branch, the Provincial Capital Commission, B.C. Buildings Corporation and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Hon. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table these performance plans for the 2000-2001 year.

[1415]

Oral Questions

FORMER B.C. HYDRO
CEO COMPENSATION

G. Campbell: The Hydrogate scandal has already cost taxpayers $10 million. Today we have learned that the taxpayers' costs are going to go up even more. My question is to the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro. Will he confirm today that after years of denial, the government has now been faced with paying Mr. John Sheehan $1 million for wrongful dismissal?

Hon. D. Miller: I can confirm -- maybe not down to the penny -- that the settlement is in that range, Mr. Speaker. I can also reiterate what I did last year in this House in question period.

The so-called Hydrogate scandal was an issue that arose because of an allegation by the Opposition House Leader that in pursuing the Raiwind project, it was a deal for "friends and insiders" of the government and that it was done to avoid taxation. I would remind the House that the judgment in Mr. Sheehan's case put the lie to those allegations. They were completely unfounded -- untrue.

With respect to the issue of Mr. Sheehan's dismissal and subsequent court action, the courts found that while Mr.

[ Page 15368 ]

Sheehan had committed errors in judgment, they upheld his right to severance. Hydro initially launched an appeal against that decision, and there was a cross-appeal from Mr. Sheehan. Hydro, using their own judgment, made a determination that it was preferable to settle the matter out of court. The result is what we're discussing right now.

The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition has a supplemental question.

G. Campbell: Thank goodness someone was paying attention to B.C. Hydro, because no one on that side of the House -- in the NDP -- was. This minister and this government have been responsible for the people of British Columbia -- the taxpayers of British Columbia -- losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of their incompetence.

I understand today that Mr. Sheehan will be paid $700,000 in severance and over a quarter-million dollars for legal costs. That means one thing. It means that Mr. Sheehan was right, and the government was wrong. Once again it is the taxpayers of British Columbia who are going to have to pay the price -- $1 million in settlement. Will the minister have the decency to stand up and apologize to B.C.'s taxpayers today for his government's incompetence?

Hon. D. Miller: It's interesting how the opposition mentality appears to me to be one in which all the wrongdoing goes to others, and they have absolutely no responsibility or obligation to attempt to even try to get near the truth when they make allegations. And I would repeat for all members: the Opposition House Leader made serious allegations in February of 1996 that this Raiwind power project was put together to avoid paying tax. It was put together to benefit. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, I listened carefully. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Miller: . . .to the opposition's questions. They don't want to listen to my answer. The courts found that there was not one whit of substance to the allegations made by the opposition. Did they have a role in this case? I'd say they had a very big role in this case.

The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition has a further supplemental.

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, this is just another in a long string of legal costs which taxpayers in the province of British Columbia are having to pay: Frank Dixon, John Sheehan, libel suits, the government wilfully breaking contracts with the private sector -- millions of dollars in legal costs and putative damages.

My question to the minister is: when will the government stop using our legal system and the taxpayers' pocketbooks to cover up its incompetence and backstop its mistakes?

[1420]

Hon. D. Miller: You know, Mr. Speaker, I want to continue to try to respond in a very open way about this matter. But I am dismayed. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Miller: . . .and clearly all of us ought to be concerned when we see judgments of this nature. Very real people were hurt in 1996 as a result of allegations made by the opposition. Very real people -- Mr. King was one of them -- were hurt and damaged. Their feelings and reputations were damaged by allegations made by that opposition, which were subsequently found by the courts to be false. Have they ever. . . ? I asked them last year if they would bother, now that the truth is out -- whether they would be prepared to stand and apologize to all those people that they damaged with a false accusation. . . .

Hon. Speaker, it's clear they don't care about any of those people. They don't care about any of those people, and they now have an opportunity -- because there has been a very large out-of-court settlement -- to try to gain some political mileage again. But. . .

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

Hon. D. Miller: . . .regardless of the mileage they do gain, hon. Speaker, the fact is that they maligned real British Columbians, and they don't care at all about that.

ASSOCIATION OF
B.C. PROFESSIONAL FORESTERS

G. Abbott: Last week in estimates I questioned the Forests minister about the role of professional foresters. The minister responded by saying: "One of the problems is that there's not a governing body that regulates. . .the professional foresters. . . . "

Well, on Friday the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters sent a letter informing the minister: "We are appalled and disturbed that you would not know that we are the regulatory body in question." They go on to say: "We find it particularly surprising, given that the first major speech you gave as minister was to our annual meeting on March 2."

Will the Minister of Forests explain why he didn't know that the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters serves as a regulatory body?

Hon. J. Doyle: You're right. It was one of the first speeches I made in Prince George to this group. I did make a mistake when I spoke in estimates last week, and I was actually going to mention this afternoon in estimates, hon. member, that I had made a mistake in estimates last week.

The Speaker: The member for Shuswap has a supplemental question.

G. Abbott: Clearly that's not good enough. Three days ago the minister didn't even know the association existed, and clearly he should have, hon. Speaker. He is supposed to be the Minister of Forests.

As the association notes, they have 4,000 members in this province, including 1,000 members who work for the Ministry

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of Forests -- including the chief forester and the assistant deputy minister. Can the Minister of Forests tell us this: who finally tipped you off that the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters was a regulatory body?

Hon. J. Doyle: Mr. Speaker, I answered the question a minute ago. I realized I'd made a mistake when I was in estimates last week. I was going to mention it in estimates this afternoon -- that I'd made an honest mistake.

[1425]

G. Plant: You know, the admission of error does not put an end to the public interest in knowing how we got to the position where a Minister of Forests could stand up in this House and deny any knowledge of the regulatory body that constrains 4,000 men and women who manage forest practices in this province. The forest industry is still the number one industry in British Columbia, but it won't be for long if there is a minister in charge who doesn't know the first thing about his ministry. So my question to the Minister of Forests is this: how can the public be expected to have any confidence in his administration when he doesn't even know the most basic facts about forestry in British Columbia?

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel I answered the question. I'd wonder just what that member from Vancouver knows about forestry and the fact that it's the biggest part of the economy in the province of British Columbia and will continue to be, because this government has done land use planning -- things that this opposition speaks against. This opposition talks about 100 million cubic metres of cut per year, when it's maybe not sustainable. So I'd say that you should do a little bit of learning, hon. member, before you stand up and ask questions about forestry.

The Speaker: The member for Richmond-Steveston has a further supplemental.

G. Plant: Actually, it occurred to me to wonder how it was that someone who has been an elected official in a forest-dependent community -- Golden, to remind the member -- for almost a quarter of a century could stand up in this House and after 24 years of representing that community -- a forest-dependent community -- apparently not know about the association for registered professional foresters.

As the minister no doubt has discovered, courtesy of the note written for him by his officials, the association has an 11-person council -- nine of whom are elected and two of whom were appointed by the minister. So my question is this: who are the two people appointed by the Ministry of Forests to the council? And is he satisfied with their performance?

Hon. J. Doyle: I will take that question on notice.

The Speaker: The question is taken on notice.

REMOVAL OF MLA
FROM BCBC BOARD OF DIRECTORS

M. de Jong: We thought it was tough as opposition to get information out of the government, but it turns out that the problems we face are nothing compared to the difficulties members of the NDP's own caucus face getting information from the government. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, if you will, the surprise of the member for Victoria-Hillside when he showed up at a meeting of the BCBC board of directors, only to be told that he'd been dumped. There's an OIC dated April 20 that says he's been canned. The member says that no one bothered to tell him. The government Whip says something quite different; he says he was informed.

So to the Finance minister: which member is telling the truth, and just what kind of operation are you running over there when members of the government's own caucus don't know when they've been turfed off the BCBC board?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It must be a slow day. I mean, I've been reading "Today's News," and I think I've found every question they've asked so far.

The appointment of boards of B.C. Buildings Corporation, a very well-run Crown corporation, is made by cabinet. I don't divulge cabinet confidences and how those things are determined. I think we'll have ample opportunity to debate B.C. Buildings Corporation in this chamber. The appointment of board members was done in the usual way, and the usual notifications were made.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Matsqui has a supplemental question.

M. de Jong: The member was appointed a year ago to a three-year term, and suddenly he disappears. This is the government. . . . The Premier said the other day: "I am not a vengeful person." Well, the one member who spoke out against government budgetary matters gets kneecapped and discovers, when he attends the meeting, that he's been dumped, and no one has bothered to tell him. I thought there was a ban on non-essential travel over there.

I guess the question for the Finance minister is: how much taxpayers' money did that member spend going to a meeting that he wasn't even allowed to be at? How much money is this government wasting because they just don't seem to be able to talk to one another?

Hon. P. Ramsey: British Columbia Buildings Corporation is one of several Crown corporations. We've tabled their performance plan in the House today, so we can debate it during estimates. There are many important issues regarding ensuring that B.C. Buildings Corporation plays a sound role in assisting government operations -- many important questions. This is not one of them.

[1430]

M. de Jong: I've got OIC 595 in my hand. It's dated April 20, and it's got two signatures on it. It's got the Finance minister's signature, and it's got the Premier's signature on it. The only person, apparently, that didn't know he had been booted off of the BCBC board was the member for Victoria-Hillside. The government Whip says: "No, that's not true. I communicated that to the member in charge." Who's telling the truth over there, Mr. Speaker? This is the minister responsible. Is it the government Whip, or is it the member for Victoria-Hillside? Who's telling the truth?

The Speaker: The light to end question period has come on. I'll ask the minister to give a very brief answer.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Everybody appointed to or removed from the board of B.C. Buildings Corporation was informed of that action after OICs were passed.

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The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

Ministerial Statement

YOUTH WEEK

Hon. G. Bowbrick: Hon. Speaker, I rise to make a brief ministerial statement. This week is Youth Week. For the next five days all around this country politicians will say things like: "Youth are our greatest resource" and "Youth are the future." While there's some truth to these comments, what we risk during this week is being too patronizing towards youth, if we're not careful.

As we get older, we all like to think that somehow younger generations are different than we were when we were young. But the reality is that young people are simply at a different point in their lives, a point that we were all at at one time. They have hope, but they also have insecurities that they face. They're working towards the job or career of their choice, and they want to know that educational opportunities are there for them when they need them. They want to know that as they get older, the planet will still be in good shape and the air will be clean for them to breathe and for their children to breathe. They are concerned about their lives, but they're also optimistic about the quality of their lives. For most of us in this House, if we think back, we'll see these traits in ourselves when we were their age.

So while Youth Week is an important reminder, as a government we must focus on the concerns of youth every week, not just on Youth Week. I'm proud to say that we have, and we continue to try and do that. Whether it's freezing tuition fees for the fifth year in a row, expanding our grants program to include third- and fourth-year students or increasing operating funds at our post-secondary institutions by $85 million this year, we're providing opportunities for our young people when it comes to education and training. Whether it's a protected-areas strategy that has doubled the amount of B.C. parkland in this province in the last ten years or whether it's a significant investment in public transit or environment youth teams, we've taken steps as a government to provide a healthy and clean environment now and for future generations. Whether it's the Nisga'a treaty or any of the many other treaties on which we're making progress, aboriginal youth will have the resources and the hope they need to carry on with their lives. So not just for this week but for each week of the year, I challenge all members of this House to keep in mind the needs of youth in their communities. Our government has and will continue to do so.

The Speaker: To reply, the hon. member for Chilliwack.

B. Penner: Hon. Speaker, it's my pleasure to reply for the official opposition and address the minister's comments regarding Youth Week. First of all, though, I would like to note some disappointment that notwithstanding this government's pledge to operate in a more open and forthright manner, the minister failed to give the official opposition notice of his ministerial statement.

Nevertheless, it's important to recognize that unlike almost every other province in Canada, we are fortunate that we have a rising number of young people that comprise our demographics in British Columbia. Other provinces are going to be facing a more stressful challenge in the years ahead in servicing public institutions, because they will not have the tax base that British Columbia hopefully will have if we're able to keep our young people here in the province.

Unfortunately, the insecurities that the minister referred to, which are facing our young people, are in large measure brought about by this government's lack of performance in handling the B.C. economy. For the last two months in a row the province has lost a significant number of jobs, bucking the trend across the Canada. While it's true that the unemployment rate has decreased, that's only because a large number of people have given up looking for work. The overall number of people actually working in British Columbia has dropped dramatically in the last two months.

[1435]

British Columbia has had, for many years now, the highest rate of youth unemployment west of Quebec. That is unacceptable, and it's time that we take action in British Columbia to lower taxes and to increase investment in the province, so that our young people don't have to move outside of British Columbia, don't have to move south of the border and don't have to move east of the border. They can live and work in British Columbia to fulfil their opportunity right here.

Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Lovick: I call Committee of Supply. In this chamber, we shall continue debating the estimates of the Ministry of Forests. In the other chamber, we shall begin debate on the estimates for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)

On vote 34: ministry operations; $297,814,000 (continued).

G. Abbott: Undoubtedly, those who have been following the estimates will recall that at the time we recessed on Thursday afternoon, we were talking about some forest health issues. The member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head was pursuing a line of questions, and I think she would like to continue that.

[1440]

I. Chong: I would like to continue with the area that I was pursuing last Thursday, regarding the gypsy moth aerial spray program. When I began my questions to the minister, I was trying to determine whether or not the aerial spray program that was performed here in the greater Victoria area last year was in fact effective -- in that the gypsy moth problem that had occurred had been eradicated after the aerial spray program was initiated. I can appreciate the minister's comment, brief as it was at the time, that we could never 100 percent eradicate it.

However, the whole intent of an aerial spray program as I understand it, when the public is asked to endorse it, is to provide eradication. Because of his comment that we can never eradicate the gypsy moth 100 percent, I would like to know to what extent we expect an eradication -- whether it's

[ Page 15371 ]

Hon. J. Doyle: I know we were on this issue last Thursday when we ran out of time. The federal government is the one that puts the quarantine in place. It's through a ministry agency, CFIA. For instance, in 1998 there were 585 male gypsy moths on southern Vancouver Island, and today there are two. So we feel this spraying was a success, and we feel we have done the job we wanted to do.

I. Chong: I thank the minister for those numbers. While I can appreciate that the numbers determined in 1998 were 585 and that now they're down to two, the question that still remains to be answered is whether or not the kind of determination that was done in 1998 for the counting of the 585 is consistent with the determination done now that states it's at two.

The questions that have been posed to me by those who are opposed to aerial spraying have suggested that the way of testing, I suppose, where the gypsy moth has expanded, has not been done on a consistent basis, in that there have been fewer traps placed in some areas and more traps placed in other areas.

[1445]

I just want to have some assurance that, if we are trying to be consistent to determine whether the eradication has been successful, the traps that were placed there in 1998 were in fact also placed in the same positions and the same areas in 1999 or the year 2000 -- whenever that was done. Otherwise, if you're putting traps in areas where there were no gypsy moths, how do we know that the number that has decreased to two is in fact correct? I hope the minister and staff can appreciate what I'm trying to establish here.

Hon. J. Doyle: The federal government is the one that does the trapping. It's done scientifically. They place traps around the areas where there was a problem. Hon. member, when we say it's down from 585 to two, we believe that to be true.

Hon. Chair, could I ask if it's possible for a five-minute recess? I just have business outside the House for a couple of minutes.

The Chair: Certainly. Committee will recess until 2:55 p.m.

The committee recessed from 2:47 p.m. to 2:54 p.m.

[S. Hawkins in the chair.]

I. Chong: Before the brief recess, I was asking the minister about the effectiveness of the aerial spray program on the gypsy moth and the method to determine that effectiveness. In particular, when the minister responded that the federal government was responsible for placing the traps to determine that. . . . I'm just trying to get to the heart of the answer there, that in fact the federal government is consistent in placing the traps where it originally placed them when they determined there was a pest problem and when it subsequently went back to ensure that there was no longer a pest problem that they put the traps in the same spots, or close to or in proximity to the same spots. Only then can you actually have a true evaluation of the effectiveness of the program. If the minister is not aware of that, then I guess I would ask the minister: why would his ministry not have that kind of coordination with the federal government, which is responsible for that part of this?

[1455]

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

Hon. J. Doyle: We are confident as a ministry that the protocol we have with the federal government is adequate work. We feel that it has worked, and we feel that the spraying has done the job that it was set out to do in the southern Vancouver Island area.

[S. Hawkins in the chair.]

I. Chong: I will therefore accept that as the minister's response at this time -- that the protocols are in place. If further details are requested of him, perhaps the staff will provide further details of that protocol arrangement to satisfy those who may contact me and ask me. However, I also just want to further ask the minister to verify or confirm that in the area that is now being looked at for aerial spraying or where aerial spraying has begun -- the Burnaby area -- the same kind of process was in place, that the same protocol was undertaken to ensure that there was in fact an established pest there and that the evaluation of the success of the program would also be done in a consistent manner the following year. If the minister would like to confirm that, then I can just follow up with one final question in this area.

Hon. J. Doyle: Absolutely.

I. Chong: The next question I would just like to ask is in fact the cost of the program. I can't determine cost through the estimates blue books. I remember that last year, when I asked the Minister of Forests as to the cost of this program, what was determined to be a $2 million or $2.5 million program had actually escalated to $3 million or over $3 million. It had actually gone over budget. I'm wondering whether the minister could advise this House as to what amount of money has been allocated this year to the gypsy moth aerial spray program in the Burnaby area. In fact, does it appear to be sufficient, or will there be more funds required? I know it's in progress, and it's sometimes hard to determine that you'll be going over budget, but I understand there are ways and means to establish or determine that.

Hon. J. Doyle: The budget is $500,000. The member also asked if we will have enough. That's an unknown right now. We hope we have enough, but if we need more moneys, we'll get more moneys to deal with the problem.

I. Chong: To the minister, $500,000 seems like a reasonable amount given the severity of the problem, particularly if we were looking at quarantines. But it's substantially less than last year. Last year -- I'm just looking at my notes -- $3.7

[ Page 15372 ]

million was expended. So this is about a sixth or a seventh of the amount. Is the area in the Burnaby area that much smaller, or have we gained efficiencies in other areas? Can the minister just confirm that?

Hon. J. Doyle: In last year's budget we sprayed 14,000 hectares -- the area of southern Vancouver Island that we spoke about a couple of minutes ago. This year it's 300 hectares in Burnaby.

[1500]

J. Wilson: I would like to go back to where we left off last week and talk about the problem with the pine beetle. I'd like the minister's help here to kind of refresh my mind to get into this. I believe that the number of hectares that were infected in the provincial forests was 195,000 hectares. Is that the correct figure?

Hon. J. Doyle: That is correct -- 195,000.

Hon. D. Miller: Madam Chair, I could probably pose some questions about forestry, but I'll try to avoid the. . .and ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Hon. D. Miller: In the gallery with us today is a group of grades 6 to 10 students from the Agnes L. Mathers Secondary School in Sandspit, Queen Charlotte Islands -- Haida Gwaii. Right on. They're accompanied by their teachers, Faye Burles, Peter Gajda and Tracey Cowpar. I would ask all members to give them a very warm welcome.

J. Wilson: So I presume this 195,000 hectares would be referred to as red attacks or older?

Hon. J. Doyle: Due to a little bit of noise, which actually is leaving the chamber right now, I missed the question. If the member could repeat it.

J. Wilson: Certainly. I'd love to repeat that. The volume of land that is infected by the pine beetle that the minister is using. . . . Is he referring to red attack in this area?

Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is yes.

J. Wilson: What was the date of this assessment, when it was completed?

Hon. J. Doyle: The data was summarized on February 11, 2000.

J. Wilson: Now, when the minister refers to the area of land that is affected, is he referring specifically to the total volume of infected areas? When the pine beetle comes in, it will attack an area. It might be small; it might be ten hectares, 20 hectares, 100 hectares or smaller. Is the total volume affected simply those pockets of infection? Or does it encompass the entire land base out there, where you have pockets of infection scattered all through it?

Hon. J. Doyle: It is an estimation of the pockets of infection around the province. That's where the 195,000 comes from.

J. Wilson: Then we have the areas of land between the pockets that are not included in that number. That's my understanding.

I also wanted to clarify a point. The minister said something last week about harvesting this 195,000 hectares. I understood him to say that he thought it would be something that would be accomplished this year.

[1505]

Hon. J. Doyle: We try to harvest as much as we can, but a big part of this is in parks and is not harvested.

J. Wilson: I wasn't on the subject of parks here. Excuse me if I've got things wrong, but the number I wanted was the number of infected hectares of timber in the working forest in the province. That's the number that I need.

Hon. J. Doyle: There are roughly 67,000 hectares in parks. So I agree; the member maybe didn't ask the question correctly. There are about 130,000 hectares outside of parks or in the harvesting area of the province.

J. Wilson: So we have 130,000 hectares in our working forest that need to be dealt with. Would the minister care to give us an estimate as to what he thinks they can actually harvest this year in this red attack?

Hon. J. Doyle: Out of that 130,000 hectares in the province, we do our best to harvest as much as possible. We do emphasize the green attack not the red attack areas, the areas which have gone red already.

J. Wilson: Are we going to concentrate on the red attacks? Or are we now dealing with green attacks? Could the minister lay out, if he possibly can. . . ? I don't believe it would even be possible to have any idea where the green attacks will stand this year, because we haven't reached that point where we've got the bugs moving -- this summer. We are either dealing with red or with green or with both.

Now, when I ask what volume the minister thinks they will harvest, it wouldn't really matter. But I would like to know -- it only makes sense to do as much as you can -- how much. The minister must have some idea of how many cubic metres they intend to harvest this summer on beetle kill.

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have the numbers as to just what we're hoping to cut this year. But where the beetle attack is the worst, that's the area we're trying to get in, if at all possible, and get that wood out first.

[1510]

J. Wilson: Well, if we don't know what we're going to cut this year, does the minister know what was harvested last year -- in the year '99-2000 -- in beetle wood?

Hon. J. Doyle: We don't have those numbers right now. We will do our best, hon. member, to get the best estimates possible and get them forwarded to you as soon as possible.

J. Wilson: I realize that he doesn't have all of the staff here, maybe, that he would need to get these numbers. But in 1998-99 there was a harvest of 579,000 cubic metres of beetle

[ Page 15373 ]

wood. If we don't have a number for the following year, does his staff know whether there was an increase or a decrease in the harvest and, if there was an increase, an estimate of how big a percentage increase it would be?

Hon. J. Doyle: I had said that there were 195,000 hectares affected in the province. The member says there were 579,000. Does he mean that so many cubic metres were harvested? Sorry, I just wanted to clear that point.

Following up on the answer I just gave to the member, while we're making sure we're talking about hectares or cubic metres, scaling does not. . . . Whenever the wood goes over the scale, it does not break down that it's pine beetle versus other wood that goes over the scale. That's why we're having trouble getting you an estimate, hon. member.

J. Wilson: I can understand the difficulty in producing statistics. But surely he should be able to tell me whether or not there was an increase in the harvest in the year 1999-2000 over the previous year -- and roughly. I don't need it right down to the last cubic metre. But roughly how much of an increase was there last year? Or was there a decrease?

Hon. J. Doyle: When we compare 1998-1999 versus '99-2000, we assume that there was more harvested last year than the year before.

J. Wilson: I would hope there would be an increase. If we look at the volume of wood out there that's infected -- and this is red I'm talking here, because that's the only figure we have. . . . Last winter was probably the mildest winter we've had in recent history in the interior of British Columbia. We can expect quite a flurry this year with the beetle infestation, because there was nothing really to drop the numbers back. If we take the red wood alone, we're looking at roughly 30 million cubic metres of wood that needs to be harvested.

What will we do with that volume? If the minister says we will harvest it, and we do, what are we going to do with that volume of wood?

[1515]

Hon. J. Doyle: The focus of harvesting. . . . The Ministry of Forests is working with the industry out there as we try to get the green attack. We do take some red, but we do work and have worked, I think, well in the past year and other years and would work in the future as best as possible. I think there is a good relationship between the industry and the Ministry of Forests as far as dealing with this problem.

The member made reference to last winter being the warmest for many, many years. Likely I mentioned last week that the statistics tell us that in the last ten years, the winters were the warmest that were recorded in the last 100 years. That's no doubt why we have a problem with the enormity that we do today.

J. Wilson: My memory is short, but I still remember last winter. It was probably the warmest of the last ten.

Now we have refocused here. We have gone from dealing with the red attack out there, which was last year's. We have now refocused, and we're going to deal with the green attack of this year, which hasn't occurred yet. Does the minister have any guesstimate of the volume that he's going to have to deal with if he takes on and tries to harvest the green attack that will occur this summer?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry -- looking at the whole province and the 71 million cubic metres that we cut and did last year and cut this year -- feels we have the capacity, working with the industry, to address the pine beetle outbreak in the province. We're doing our best. Everyone is doing their best to deal with the problem, and that's pretty well all I can say. That's what we all pray -- that it can be dealt with. We all hope, of course, that Old Man Winter decides this winter and the next two or three winters that we'll have a good spell of cold weather. That will assist all of us -- that there won't be the spread of the pine beetle across the province any more than it is today.

J. Wilson: Does the minister have a figure at hand for how many cubic metres of this bug-wood the industry can process in any given year? What is that volume?

Hon. J. Doyle: Mills throughout the province and in the affected areas and, of course, your area and the area north of you are some of the worst in the province. Mills are doing their best to have the capacity to deal with the pine beetle problem wood to the best of their ability. Now, if it gets worse -- hopefully it doesn't -- there may come a time when there's more and more. They're doing their best. Everyone is doing their best to make sure that we can get that wood out and get it run through mills as quickly as possible. It's to do with the capacity of the mills and the ability to get it out of the bush. Everybody is doing their best to deal with the problem.

[1520]

J. Wilson: I guess the minister didn't hear me very well. I asked him if he could tell me what volume of wood the mills are able to process of this kind of beetle wood. How many cubic metres of wood can they process in any given year?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as how much can be run through mills in an individual year, any year, it has a lot to do with the mill's capacity, how many shifts work in that mill, and at the end of the day, what markets there are for this wood out there when these companies make it into lumber or whatever product.

J. Wilson: I can't help but feel somewhat evaded here, because we should know what our capacity would be. I would like to read to the minister a quote from last year's Forestry estimates and by the Minister of Forests, who, in my opinion, was quite knowledgable. And we were dealing with this problem. It says here:

"But there's only so much you can do to move the licensees into cutting the beetle-kill wood. There's only so much market for pine, for example. What we're finding now is that if you salvaged every tree that was attacked, you wouldn't have markets. You'd be shutting down some operation somewhere because you don't have a market for it. So there are volume limits. There's only so much that the market will buy."

". . .current management practices and very aggressive beetle control can't keep up with the amount of beetle-kill across the whole forest. . . . So you ask the licensees to take as much as they can and run it through their mills. Clearly you can't use the beetle-kill to make plywood, so don't expect the plywood producers to buy the beetle kill."

[ Page 15374 ]

"They can run full-out -- three and sometimes four shifts -- and they can't process it all. What I said was that some of the mills are plywood mills, and as a rule, they can't process small pine. They don't make pine plywood that I'm aware of."

Hon. J. Doyle: Mills in the province have increased the amount of pine beetle wood that they bring into their mills. But at the end of the day, the markets out there will determine how much they take into their plants. I feel that is as far as I can go in answering just what can happen with this wood once it's cut and brought into the mills. The mills do their best, with every shift possible put on. But at the end of the day, they have to be able to market this product.

[1525]

J. Wilson: What I hear the minister saying is the same thing I heard last year -- that we can't process the volume of wood because we couldn't sell it all. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: At this point, when we talk to the industry, they've been able, working with ministry staff, to make sure that we get the green-attack wood out of there. That will hopefully lead to making sure the problem is contained, if not done away with.

J. Wilson: It seems like we're kind of chasing our tail here -- the minister is, anyway -- and going around in circles. He's going to deal with a green attack this year -- he doesn't even have any idea what it will be -- and that's what we're going to harvest. We haven't identified it; we don't know where it is. We've got 30 million cubic metres of red wood there that we couldn't sell -- or not all of it. We could sell a portion of it, yes, but a big portion of it we can't sell because we're going to flood the market. So where does that leave the forest industry in the interior of British Columbia in the next ten years?

Hon. J. Doyle: In 1999-2000 we did ground surveys, and we identified 22,000 hectares through those surveys. We're doing our best, as I said earlier, to deal with this problem. There may be capacity problems out there; I hope there are not. But we are willing to work with the industry -- the Ministry of Forests and industry together -- to see what we can do to contain this problem, which became very bad because we've had ten of the warmest winter in the last years. The member alluded to last winter being the warmest of those; possibly it was. But we've had ten years where we haven't had the necessary cold spells that do a very good job in helping Mother Nature kill this bug. That's the way it is contained. We're doing our best to deal with the problem to the best of our ability.

J. Wilson: Is there any change in the policy of the ministry with the approach they're taking to the harvesting of this wood?

Hon. J. Doyle: No, there's been no change in policy. But if the problem does continue to get bigger, we'll have to make sure that we work as best we can with the industry to make sure that at the end of the day, they get markets or can make this into some product that they can sell in the marketplace.

J. Wilson: If the minister doesn't think the problem is big now, how much bigger does it have to get before he's going to realize we have to take some drastic action here?

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel that the ministry, working with industry, is taking this very, very seriously. For instance, last year we put in $7 million; this year we're putting in $10 million. We do take this very, very. . . . It's a concern to us. Forestry is the backbone of the economy of this province. It is a concern to many, many communities. It's a concern to the Ministry of Forests. It's a concern to all four million people in British Columbia, including myself. We're doing our best to address it. We put the $7 million and $10 million into those for that reason.

[1530]

J. Wilson: There are quite a few people that maybe wouldn't agree with the minister that his best is good enough. There are a lot of areas out there that have been or are being identified every day. If the minister would reconsider the issue of time frame around approvals for some of these small areas, cutblocks, and if he would reconsider the volumes that they will allow out on a cash-sale basis once. . . . It sits at about 500 cubic metres right now, and on certain occasions it can go up to 2,000 cubic metres.

The turnaround time is one of the biggest factors that stops people from going out and harvesting. They can go out and find them; they can identify the bugs. The work's pretty well all done for the ministry, because people are looking for an opportunity to go to work. But when they do identify the problem, it sits there for six months, in some cases, and simply fulminates and grows larger, and they may not even get approval. So the incentive to find these is destroyed in a lot of cases.

I'd like to maybe go back and look at the issue of this pine being used in the plywood industry. I'm wondering if the minister is going to push the plywood companies to use some pine in their product.

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry is open to working with the industry to see if plywood manufacturers or others that are not presently using pine-beetle wood could start to use it. Maybe that would mean you could take more of it out of the bush and into the marketplace. As far as the member's questions over the last whatever minutes, I'd just like to refer to a news release of March 6, 2000, from the CLMA-NFPA Mountain Pine Beetle Emergency Task Force on some of the things that we are doing jointly with industry. In the 1999-2000 season the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks worked with industry on a variety of initiatives to battle the beetle in the working forest. Initiatives taken this year include streamlining of government processes to modify existing plans and permits, increased aerial and ground information collection activities to allow for aggressive and jointly developed mountain pine beetle management plans, accelerated road construction to improve access to green attack stands and stands most at risk of beetle attack, and an enhanced program aimed at reducing mountain pine beetle populations, not just salvaging damaged wood.

J. Wilson: I've pretty well run my course here, but I would like to just point out one fact about the plywood

[ Page 15375 ]

industry and pine. They've been making pine plywood for, I don't know, probably 20 or 30 years now. I know any pine tree that will make a peeler log can be shipped for peeler wood; that's been ongoing. They do use it, and they use it extensively. To buy fir plywood today is harder than it is to buy anything else, because it's a select product now that we are into pine plywood production. That's just to bring the minister up to speed so that he does understand that it is used extensively.

[1535]

One of the problems the minister may be unaware of that I have encountered with the ministry working on this problem. . . . I've had several contractors who've got a small business sale, and they're out there. They've got their equipment in the bush, and they may see that the attack has moved from where they're working into the. . . . They've riven it out, but in the meantime, it may have expanded to include another little zone around that. It might be 100 trees, 200 trees -- whatever. They're there; they're harvesting what they've riven out, and the ministry staff comes in. They say: "Well, would you like us to go and take these few trees out just on the other side of the line? If you want us to, we can rive them, because they're now green attacks, and if we don't do it now, it's just going to spread."

In almost every case they have been told that: "No, you don't need to do that. We can re-do this sale, or we can set up another sale and you can come back at a later time." And in many cases, it's four to six months before you come back. Those bugs have gotten into the trees; they've killed those trees. Depending on the time of year, it could be another year down the road before you come back to harvest them, and by then they're red and they've gone on.

So what you're doing out there is not working, and I think it's time you took a real hard look at it and made some quick decisions. The time to study this is over; it's past. We don't have time. We don't have the luxury any longer to study this problem and watch it escalate to the point where in ten years we will not have a forest industry left in the interior of British Columbia, when it comes to pine trees and mature stands of pine timber there. It's got to be dealt with; it's got to be dealt with immediately, fast. The decisions have to be made -- not studied and made next year or the year after.

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't think we are studying it. If you ask the industry, by and large, they agree that we are working well on this problem together. It's not perfect, I'm sure -- the way we're working on it. But we're doing our best and are pretty well in agreement between the industry and the ministry that we're working well to address -- I agree with you -- a very serious problem in our province.

G. Abbott: I pretty well want to wrap up the discussion of the forest health issues here. We may revisit the important concern, I think, that my colleague from Cariboo North has raised around the empowerment of ministry officials to deal with on-the-ground problems as they appear. But I think we can come back to that, and the minister can perhaps prepare himself for that when we get to the salvage issues or, possibly, to the small business forest enterprise program, which come a little bit later here.

In terms of closing this off, we've talked about the number of hectares that are currently affected -- 195,000. My recollection from previous debate is that we do not have comparable figures for '98 and '99. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: We don't have any numbers here other than the 195,000 hectares that we're speaking about.

G. Abbott: The other figures I want to get are. . . . The minister has noted that for the fiscal year 2000-2001, $10 million has been allocated for forest health issues. For '99-2000, we of course recently approved the special warrants for $7 million for that fiscal year. What are the comparable figures for 1998-99 and 1997-98?

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have the two years that you're asking for, but I promise to get you those numbers, hon. member.

G. Abbott: I look forward to that. I think part of the problem with the way in which this particular problem, the mountain pine beetle, has grown is that for a period of time -- and I would point particularly to the years '97, '98 and '99 -- the responsibility for this was, in large measure, off-loaded onto Forest Renewal B.C. I don't believe that the Ministry of Forests was able to give it the attention that it needed during those critical years. But that, I guess, is a debate for the historians. We don't have the figures for those years right now. Perhaps they'll rush in the door now that I've put forward the controversial thesis that there was an off-load that had an impact here.

I'll leave that aside for now, and if the minister does get the figure and he wants to challenge that thesis about the FRBC off-load, we can perhaps do it at some later point when we have all of the information that we'd need to have an informed debate around that.

[1540]

I'd like to move on to roads and bridges, if I could. I know that one of my colleagues has some questions on this. We've had some discussion of this earlier as we were looking at the ministry's business plan, so I don't propose to spend a lot of time here. Could the minister just. . . ? I'll give him all the questions here, and he can take a few moments to consult with ministry officials -- whatever it takes.

This is essentially the information I need to know: the allocation for roads for 2000-2001 and the allocation for bridges. Then I would like to have a breakdown, on the road side, between funds for maintenance and funds for new roads. Similarly, I would like a number for maintenance of bridges and a number for replacement or for new bridges. So if the minister could take a few moments and provide me with that, then I'll invite my colleague to. . . .

Hon. J. Doyle: For roads for this year, maintenance on roads is $7 million. For bridges, we have $10 million for maintenance on existing bridges. New bridges and new roads are paid through a development cost on stumpage working with the companies.

G. Abbott: I'll invite my colleague from North Vancouver-Seymour to pose his questions.

D. Jarvis: I just want to ask the minister a couple of questions in regards to road deactivation, if you wouldn't mind. As you can appreciate, there are a lot of people out there who feel that this action of the government is not held in that high esteem in some areas. I want to know if the purpose

[ Page 15376 ]

of the deactivation has been changed at all, or if the intention of the ministry is to change it somewhat from what it has been in the past.

Hon. J. Doyle: There has been no change in the policy of the ministry regarding road deactivation. At the same time, of course, roads that are main arteries are left, by and large. Roads that go out to a specific stand of trees -- by and large, if those roads are deactivated and replanted, it does help once you get back to how much land there is for growing trees around the province.

[1545]

D. Jarvis: Sometimes it's hard to appreciate what the purpose of this is, in the sense that it certainly is affecting even salvaging out in the woods for blowdowns and all the rest. They're going to have to come in and rebuild those roads. We're talking about mining -- the question of disrupting staking that's going on in those areas. This is not just something I said by myself. I have reports of this coming in all the time -- wondering how this is going to affect forestry operations in the future as far as firefighting goes, having to rebuild roads. It is certainly going to impair what has been going on for the last one hundred years in this province with regards to hunting and fishing and recreation, because those roads are. . . .

Is there not some way that they could have put in either water dams or culverts to compensate for the fact that. . .just ripping up a road?

Hon. J. Doyle: Across the province -- your constituency and maybe people that you're speaking for, hon. member -- there's always a balance between those who want the road deactivated and put back into forestry. . . . Of course, there are many, many people -- either for recreation or for business, like mining or others -- who want the road to stay in. The policy of the ministry is: leave the main artery and consult as much as possible with some of the other user groups that you mentioned or that I would think of in my constituency as to whether the road should or shouldn't be deactivated.

You make some reference to firefighting. By and large, pretty well 100 percent of the firefighting in the province is done by helicopter -- or from the air.

D. Jarvis: I appreciate that most of the firefighting is done from the air, but I was also talking about the log-salvaging end of it and going in to look after blowdowns and things like that that make it a more healthy forest.

Also, in the last statement you made, sir, I question the part about cooperation between your ministry and other ministries. I know for a fact -- and I'm going to take it up again this year with the ministry that looks after mining -- that there was no consultation whatsoever. I would get calls, as the mining critic, from people out there that had all their staking torn up as a result of the deactivation. Then I'd phone the mining ministry, and they'd say: "Well, we'll talk to them, because we knew nothing about it." The next thing you know they'd say: "We can't do anything about it; they're the top dogs in the province at the moment."

That's what I was leading to when I asked: is there any change in the purpose of what your intention is with regard to really cooperating with, say, the mining industry and other people that actually do need it? There's an economic value to this province with recreation, hunting, fishing and mining. It would be interesting to know just what the costs are with regard to the actual deactivation versus the impairment to the other economical values of the province that used to be here because we had roads that we could go on throughout the province. Half this province was staked, in the mining end of it -- and exploration of this province -- through roads that were already paid for by taxpayers in this province. Now you're proceeding to destroy all these subroads throughout this province and impair the recreation and exploration of this province.

Hon. J. Doyle: It is the policy of the ministry that before we deactivate roads, we do our best to consult with users or potential users out there. At the present time there is an ongoing look, between the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Mines, at the very questions that you asked: does the Ministry of Mines have any interest out there today -- or do they think they will have tomorrow -- on a road that Forests deactivated?

[1550]

G. Abbott: I do want to echo the sentiments of my colleague. The minister's right about trying to strike the balance; that's certainly the case. But the issue is one that certainly I hear about, and I know the mining critic hears a lot more about it than I do. Where there is not an obvious case where there is a potential looming liability or an issue like that, I'm hoping that the two ministries will start to work much more closely together around deactivation issues. It does seem to be an issue that regularly rears its head. I guess it's another example. . . . We have, in many locations in the province, not only the forest resource but mineral resources as well. Somehow we have to develop systems to make sure that those two resources are managed compatibly.

The minister noted, in response to my earlier question, that the $17 million that is in this year's budget was for the maintenance of roads and bridges. Did I understand the minister correctly that new Forest Service roads and Forest Service bridges are now going to be paid for through a stumpage allocation negotiated with the industry? Did I hear that correctly?

Hon. J. Doyle: In new areas of the province that industry wants to get into, that's always been part of the policy -- that was paid back through stumpage or a development charge. The company would work with the ministry to pay for that new structure or new road.

G. Abbott: I was certainly aware of that. I guess the question I'm trying to get a grip on here is. . . . Presumably, every year there is some addition to what is legally termed "Forest Service road," on which there may be any indeterminate number of Forest Service bridges. That's the particular area I'm canvassing here. When we're going into new areas and the road is going to become a Forest Service road, the ministry's position is now that any new road -- any extension to the Forest Service road network and the bridges contained within it -- is going to be the subject of payment by a negotiated stumpage amount.

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as major tenure holders, there's no new policy in place. What has been in place for some years is

[ Page 15377 ]

still in place. The only people, as the member knows and I'm sure will agree with me, that the ministry does build roads for is small business sales.

G. Abbott: Does the minister have an anticipated figure around what dollar cost there would be through the stumpage system for the development of new roads in 2000-2001? And is there an estimated cost to those roads through that period, or is it something you simply add up at the end of the year?

Hon. J. Doyle: I don't have that number with me. Bill Howard, who was here on Thursday, I think it was, would have that number. But I will get that number to the member.

G. Abbott: We'll move on, then, in the absence of those figures.

The next item on the list is forest recreation. We canvassed that fairly extensively when we were looking at the business plan.

I now have the one newspaper article that was briefly referred to in our previous discussion, rather than just a summary of it. It talks about forestry staff being given power to ticket campers. My understanding from the discussion we had earlier in these estimates was that while the power may be extended to ministry officials through regulation, it was the intention of the ministry not to introduce ticketing in 2000-2001 but, where it's necessary, to either receive payment or give an order to vacate. Is that correct?

[1555]

Hon. J. Doyle: That is correct. The policy at the present time is that the officer or someone representing the Ministry of Forests would speak to the person who is camping and ask them to pay the fee. If they don't, we would ask them to vacate the camping spot.

G. Abbott: So the staff will have the ticketing power, but it will not be used. Instead, an attempt would be made to see the site vacated. Again, the minister can correct me if there's anything wrong in that summary.

The other point that I thought should be noted from the article is a quote from the ministry official involved, who is the recreation forester for the Kamloops forest region. He says: "We're doing the best we can to get staff in the field, particularly on weekends and long weekends." Again, the thing that concerns me. . . .

When we talked about the cost to the ministry in relation to the revenues which the ministry receives through the $27 annual fee or the somewhat smaller nightly fee, the minister indicated that, generally, staff weren't being specifically dispatched to go out and collect fees from Forest Service sites. Rather, when they were in the area, they would attempt to collect the fees and check on the sites and so on. And I'm sure that's true. The concern I have here is that there is a suggestion that we're going to be getting forestry staff into the field on weekends and long weekends to try to deal with the use of Forest Service sites at that time. I think the minister can probably anticipate my question. We're probably looking at some considerable overtime if, as a strategy, we're going to be sending Ministry of Forests officials out on those long weekends to somehow try to come to grips with campers in the approximately 1,300 Forest Service campsites in the province. What can the minister say in response to that issue?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as long weekends or other weekends throughout the year, when forestry campsites are being used by the general public, the ministry has always tried to have staff out there. If it was a busy weekend, there might be reason to go out just to see what's happening or if there's been any damage or any noisy parties disturbing other campers. By and large, in a season like that, we do try to reschedule that ministry person so they have another day or two off during the week.

G. Abbott: I don't actually want to minimize the challenge that faces the ministry around managing those 1,300 sites, although, you know, I think that probably the great majority of the 1,300 sites are remote enough that there aren't a lot of problems. But certainly there's a significant percentage of the Forest Service campsites that are close enough to civilization, if we can call it that, that we get all the social problems around rowdiness and so on that occur in those sites. I guess it goes back to: how are we going to manage these sites? I offered the minister my, hopefully, constructive comments on this earlier in our debates, and again we can perhaps just talk about it for a moment.

[1600]

If we are going to have fairly substantial recreation sites that contain a lot of sites are quite close to civilization and are heavily used on weekends, and we encounter all these problems, it seems to me that we are almost to the stage where the Ministry of Forests might want to look at a system of contractors to maintain them on an ongoing basis, rather than engaging ministry personnel to go out on their long weekends when they should, I think, be enjoying some time off and, further, are probably being paid at some considerable expense in overtime to manage that. Perhaps that's another suggestion that I'm putting forward, and I'll invite the minister's comments with respect to it.

Hon. J. Doyle: In the many, many sites we have across the province, there are 31 enhanced sites, and we have been using contractors on those sites to take care of costs that the member mentioned. But I would mention again that for any officers of the ministry that do work, we do try to reschedule their shifts so that Saturday, Sunday or whatever days you were speaking about are regular working days.

G. Abbott: Unless any of my colleagues have questions with respect to. . . . My colleague has a question or two with respect to forest recreation.

I just want to advise the minister, because I know this will require a change of staff: we're moving on to fire protection next. So just alert the staff that they can probably move in, and then we'll be ready to go straight away when we get to that.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

I. Chong: I just would like to ask the minister, very briefly, for what his ministry or staff have been doing in working towards an area of forest recreation -- that is, many of the tourism opportunities that are occurring in the forest. Many businesses which are, in fact, established and heavily dependent on forest opportunities -- the visual viewscapes, etc. -- have indicated that there have been some forest policies in place whereby they're causing some. . . .

This is difficult, I guess, in these forest tourism businesses. It has to do with a lack of communication, perhaps,

[ Page 15378 ]

with the officials involved who don't advise these lodges and these resorts as to the future prospects of the areas, whether we're talking about possible cuttings of timber or perhaps even roadbuilding -- things like that. Those all affect these forest tourism-dependent jobs and business opportunities. My concern is not so much the ministry having the authority to do these things, but the ministry staff not communicating with the Small Business, Tourism and Culture ministry staff as to what the long-term goals or long-range plans are here. If the minister could just advise what interministerial discussions are ongoing in that nature to protect forest tourism opportunities, I would be most appreciative to hear it.

Hon. J. Doyle: The member has a good question, as they're both very, very important parts of our economy. Forestry, of course -- and through it, tourism -- has been and has continued to grow to be a very, very important part of our economy. When licensees start harvesting in an area that is close to a recreational site, we advise them to try their best to work with recreational activity in that area, so that little cars and big truck are not trying to use the same bit of road, which may be narrow in some cases.

G. Abbott: I'd like to move on to the fire protection section now. I think there has been a change of leadership at the protection branch in the past year. Perhaps the minister would care to introduce the new director and advise, for the record, whether the general strategy or the ministry's plan with respect to the management of fire protection has changed in the past year.

[1605]

Hon. J. Doyle: The person to my right is the person you are referring to: Gary Hartwig. As far as additional equipment that we have hired -- what we have added to his department -- we have added one new air tanker to that department.

G. Abbott: The business plan makes a few notes about fire protection in the past year. Generally speaking, in the summer of 1999 the natural situation was better, in terms of the heat, the drought and so on. My understanding is that, as a consequence, the damage from forest fires was far less considerable in '99 than in '98, when of course there were the huge fires at Salmon Arm and near Kamloops.

In the interval between the summer of 1998 -- when we had quite catastrophic conditions -- and the summer of '99 and the pending summer of 2000, what, if anything, has changed around the ministry's strategy for managing fire protection?

Hon. J. Doyle: If the member is referring to the ombudsman's report on the fire in Salmon Arm or other activity in the province, there were 20 recommendations from that report. Eighteen have been put in place, and there's two that staff continue to work on -- if that's where the member was going.

G. Abbott: That is correct; that's pretty much where I'm going. Perhaps the broader issues around whether fire management strategies are the same in 2000 as they were in 1998 will become clear in this discussion of the recommendations that were put forward by the ombudsman in "The Silver Creek Fire Review." I don't propose to go through all of them. But a few were identified by the previous minister as issues which he, as Minister of Forests, acknowledged had substance and which he indicated the ministry would be attempting to make some adjustments to accommodate. I'll run through a few of them.

One, on page 48 of "The Silver Creek Fire Review," talks about the communications system. The ombudsman notes: "These communications problems are a real concern and should be acknowledged and addressed by the MOF. The ombudsman finds, therefore, that the communication that was in place to fight this fire appears to have been inadequate." He's making reference there particularly to the communications system that existed in the valley around Silver Creek. From the ministry's perspective, have those communications issues been resolved?

Hon. J. Doyle: The recommendations that the member refers to have been taken care of.

G. Abbott: The second issue that I want to pursue -- again, in terms of recommendation -- is from page 51 of the report. It relates to the failure to designate an air operations boss during the early days of the fire. The ombudsman notes on page 51: "The Silver Creek fire started on July 29. On August 13 the need for an air boss had still not, it appears, been adequately addressed." He goes on to say: "Given the incredible strain on resources over the course of this busy fire season, we do not doubt that the MOF was doing its best to fill this position. Nevertheless, the early requests for a designated air boss do not appear to have been filled. This deficiency must be addressed to ensure that the air operations boss is in place when requested and required."

[1610]

The former minister noted that they had some concerns with that recommendation, but they were going to be looking at it as well. It may be that in every season, there is a different recipe that's required on the part of the protection branch to deal with the situation. Again, we can talk about '98 and '99 as good comparisons. In '98 there had been an extended drought through much of the interior of the province -- perhaps on the coast as well. The forests were tinder-dry, and the possibilities of the kind of situation that did arise through lightning or otherwise were, I think, reasonably apparent. It was a different set of circumstances in '99, where we didn't have the extended drought -- more precipitation and not the desperate situation.

Obviously 1998's not going to be the last time that we ever see the combination of circumstances that we had in '98. What has the ministry done to prepare itself around ensuring that the concern raised by the ombudsman doesn't occur again?

Hon. J. Doyle: Action taken by the Ministry of Forests. . . . I'll just read from the document that is in place for all ministry staff that are dealing with fire action: "Protection program will continue to designate air branch directors" -- air bosses that were referred to by the member -- "to large fires and as well shall continue to put air branch directors and air support tactical group supervisors on standby when fire occurrence predictions indicate major fire activity."

G. Abbott: That sounds like a reasonable way to manage that situation.

There are a couple of other issues. One, the ombudsman had considerable discussion. . . . Here we're on pages 54 to 56.

[ Page 15379 ]

The ombudsman had a fair amount of discussion around the width of fire guard that would be appropriate. He notes here, for example:

"The ombudsman does not have the expertise to determine what the ideal size of the fire guards ought to have been for the Silver Creek fire. As can be seen from the excerpt set out above, there are general guidelines for determining fire guard width. The actual widths will depend on a myriad of factors. The ombudsman is satisfied, however, that this is obviously an important issue that needed to be raised in this report. After considering the pertinent material, the MOF should develop guidelines on determining fire guard width."

[1615]

Hon. J. Doyle: I'll just read from the reply of the ministry to the recommendations of this report:

"Fire guard width is a function of several geographic" -- just where we are in the province -- "fuel, fire behaviour and control variables. Fire guards and their uses are covered in training material used in British Columbia in many other agencies. We will continue to use this training material and incorporate the tables suggested in the report. It should be noted that the type of widths of fire guards used in British Columbia are those used all across Canada and around the world."

Hon. J. Doyle: It is at the discretion of the fire boss as to whether he or she feels there should be some variables as to the width of this fire guard. It's at the discretion of the person right there on site.

G. Abbott: I'm understanding from that, that there is no statutory provision that stands in the way of the exercise of authority by ministry personnel in that instance.

I'd like to move on to page 58, then, in which the ombudsman titled the issue "Central Control of Operations v. Local Decision-Making." He notes, for example: "While the ombudsman is satisfied of the importance of a central organization for resource allocation, there appears to be a need for discussions to take place with a view to ascertaining whether the system requires improvement. These discussions are occurring."

That was around an issue which certainly I heard some things about in the wake of the fire in Salmon Arm. That was, how the energies of the district staff were being incorporated into the overall firefighting effort that was being coordinated by the fire protection branch. I don't know what's been done in the interim between the fire of 1998 and today around how those local energies would be incorporated into a major centralized firefighting effort such as we'd have on a very substantial blaze like the Silver Creek fire. The minister noted that discussions were occurring. What has been the product of those discussions?

Hon. J. Doyle: The air boss in the place can take local people and bring them under his command to reply, to work, on any incident that may arise. I'll just read about action taken by the ministry on the report that you're quoting from, hon. member. "For the long-term, fire centres will usually be able to cover the logistics support function for this incident. In some cases, however, depending on workload, the function will be transferred either to the incident command team or by establishment of an area command organization. In this situation, the logistics will be handled at site, and local resources will be sourced directly."

[1620]

G. Abbott: The other issue raised on page 58, and then a variant of it on page 59, are recommendations 9 and 13. Recommendation 9 reads: "The ombudsman is satisfied that safety concerns prevented the use of heavy equipment and ground crews at night during the early stages of this fire. The ombudsman also finds that early start times were ordered by the overhead team prior to August 5, but not necessarily implemented effectively."

Recommendation 13 around the use of heavy equipment: "The ombudsman is of the opinion that the current preorganization system for the deployment of heavy equipment can be improved. The ombudsman endorses the recommendation of the Garnet fire review that the MOF revisit its policies and procedures used to identify and qualify manpower and equipment resources that can be hired locally to fight fires."

Certainly one of the most prominent criticisms in the wake of the Silver Creek fire was whether local heavy equipment resources had been used effectively. Indeed, there is obviously some question in the mind of the ombudsman on that point. What has been done by the ministry to deal with that in the past year and a half?

Hon. J. Doyle: We have taken steps to make sure that the person in command locally, on the site, can determine start times as to the needs of the situation in the field.

G. Abbott: The next question on a recommendation. . . . I guess this goes back a little bit to the question my hon. colleague raised about deactivation of logging roads. Again, I'll quote recommendation 14: ". . .the MOF should revisit its policy in relation to the deactivation of main logging roads in areas designated as extreme fire hazard to ensure that these roads are readily accessible for any future firefighting efforts." Is that a recommendation the ministry has embraced in terms of maintaining that access unless there is some compelling issue to require that a road be deactivated?

Hon. J. Doyle: Out of the 20 recommendations referred to earlier, 18 were completed. There are two that we're working on. This is one of the two that we're continuing to work

[ Page 15380 ]

on, because there is a balance, as the member would understand, as to just which roads should be deactivated and which ones shouldn't be.

G. Abbott: Is the ministry, as it reviews that. . . ? I'm presuming that the 18 have been embraced and completed. I'm presuming that the two that haven't been have not been completed because the ministry rejects the premise around which they are advanced by the ombudsman. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: No, the ministry is not rejecting the two that are still under discussion. We're just still continuing to work on them. They're just not as easily solved as every one of us would like. We continue to work on them.

G. Abbott: I'm presuming that either a ministry official or a group or committee of ministry officials is looking at the deactivation of roads question in relation to the possible use of logging roads in firefighting. Are they also at the same time looking at some of the questions around accessing mineral and other resources, as the member for North Vancouver-Seymour put forward?

[1625]

Hon. J. Doyle: This is an ongoing issue that really, at the end of the day, has to be addressed road by road as to the feeling of the community and people that the ministry may consult with. When I spoke to the hon. member that you mentioned, the mining critic, some time ago, he said there was communication going on between the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Forests as to claims that they may be working on today and want to work on tomorrow as far as deactivating or not deactivating a road.

G. Abbott: How does the minister anticipate that final conclusions about this deactivation issue will be completed? Will there be at some point a report from the ministry around what roads need to be maintained for potential firefighting purposes? How will a policy adjustment, as appears to be required, be made here?

Hon. J. Doyle: We are continuing to work with other ministries, as I mentioned earlier. At the end of the day a policy will be put in place as to how we'll deal with activating or deactivating roads.

G. Abbott: The other point and recommendation on page 61: "The MOF keep the general public reasonably informed of decisions made regarding tactics or problems that arise when the public is voicing concerns. For example, the ombudsman believes that the public should have been provided with an explanation for the reduced air activity on July 31, August 1 and August 2."

The issue of what kind of air response there was at that particularly critical juncture was, of course, something that prompted all kinds of speculation and rumour in the public at that point in time. This was probably quite an unusual situation for the ministry. Certainly it was an unusual situation as far as I was concerned, where we had a fire that was within the sight of a population of about 15,000. We tended to have a fair number of those 15,000 doing a bit of armchair-quarterbacking on how it should be managed.

I think the ombudsman rightly points out that in those kind of situations. . . . Hopefully, we don't have too many severe interface fires like Silver Creek, but odds are that we will. What's the ministry doing or proposing to do to meet this recommendation of the ombudsman?

Hon. J. Doyle: Following up on the questions, the response from the ministry. . . . We will take steps to improve the information we provide to the public. We're adding detail to the fire information teams and public information officers. It contains more detail regarding fire suppression strategies and how different resources are used. The July 31-August 1 and 2 weekend that the member asked about. . . . In response: "A reduction in the air activity at certain times during this fire occurred to allow ground crews access to the fire lines to continue control action." We will address this recommendation in conjunction with action recommendations.

G. Abbott: Could the minister identify the second of the 20 recommendations that the ministry has been unable to put in place?

[1630]

Hon. J. Doyle: The other recommendation was recommendation 13, to do with heavy equipment, and we're still working on that recommendation.

G. Abbott: We've discussed recommendation 13, so I wish the ministry well in coming to grips with that. Again, that certainly was one of the areas where I fielded a lot of concerned calls about how effectively that equipment had been utilized and deployed and so on during the firefight in that case.

Before I leave the issue of fire protection, I do want to say that I want to give the district staff in Salmon Arm a pat on the back for, I think, an exceptional job of following up on the broad range of issues that develop after a very large fire has occurred immediately adjacent to a substantial urban area. I think they have done an exceptional job of dealing with those difficult issues -- from the possibility of landslides, to issues around the insect infestations that can follow and the kind of damage that occurs when fires happen. I do want to pass along to the minister my view that district staff have done an exceptional job there. Certainly that job is not going to be complete for a while, but I think they've done a very good job, an exceptional job, and I want to recognize that to the minister.

Hon. J. Doyle: I will pass that on to staff, and I agree: those individuals in that area or at any fire in the province do put in the extra mile and are always there. At the end of the day they live in those communities, they live in this province, and they went to school a long time -- many of them to university and college -- to become foresters. They're good citizens. And I agree; they did a very, very good job during this very difficult time, with the fire so close to a community and concerns about individuals and/or property.

G. Abbott: I want to move on now to the small business forest enterprise program, and I'm presuming that may require a change of staff. Does the minister want to take a couple of minutes to do that, or would he like to proceed straight away?

Hon. J. Doyle: Maybe if we could have a two-minute break just while the appropriate staff come in, and maybe we have to make a visit to some other room in this building.

[ Page 15381 ]

The Chair: We'll take a recess, then, for just two minutes, if you're in favour.

The committee recessed from 4:34 p.m. to 4:37 p.m.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

G. Abbott: I want to ask the minister just a few questions around the small business forest enterprise program. I'll refer him initially to page 153 of the estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2001. According to the estimates, the investment in silviculture in 2000-2001 appears to be a reduction of about $9.6 million, or 23 percent, from the previous fiscal year. Is that correct?

Hon. J. Doyle: Silviculture costs vary according to just what is needed in that year. The estimate was $41 million, and actually it was $31 million that was invested.

G. Abbott: Is the reduction in the two years in any way attributable to increased responsibility on the part of FRBC for delivering that?

Hon. J. Doyle: No.

G. Abbott: The estimates, on page 153, refer to an expenditure of $39.2 million on roads. Now, we've just had a discussion about roads, earlier in these estimates. How does the ministry go about sorting out with the industry what portion of responsibility for maintenance, or indeed for the creation of new roads, should be carried by the small business program, as opposed to being carried by the industry through the stumpage allocation?

[1640]

Hon. J. Doyle: In some cases we do share with the person that gets a sale; if we do, then we share in the development cost of that. In some cases there are roads already there, very, very close by. So it's just according to the situation in different parts of the province as to whether the road is built already or roads have to be built.

G. Abbott: In arriving at the figure of $39.2 million for roads under the small business forest enterprise program, are there some assumptions made in developing that figure that there would be some negotiation with the industry around when the program should appropriately carry it and when the industry should appropriately carry it? Obviously the $39.2 million is a projection. Is it based on the assumption that there will be ongoing negotiations between the industry and the program around division of responsibility -- or, more precisely, division of cost?

Hon. J. Doyle: The $39.2 million reflects the actual cost of getting out to develop that wood. To the best of our ability, the $39.2 million are the dollars that we had to spend to access the wood.

G. Abbott: Further down on page 153, again in the budget for the program, there is an allocation of $14.5 million for what's termed "Disbursements -- other." Given that that's a fairly substantial figure, could the minister provide me with an accounting for that $14.5 million?

Hon. J. Doyle: On the $14.5 million that the member asked about, the ministry has gone to a new budget system. That reflects the capital accrual for building roads and other expenditures that are needed.

G. Abbott: Perhaps given that we have a $39.2 million expense for roads, I'm just puzzled how that becomes a "Disbursements -- other" under this budget.

[1645]

Hon. J. Doyle: The $14.5 million is for roads that the ministry has already built and that we're using again to access wood.

G. Abbott: I want to turn to a little broader question around the small business program, and that is its degree of success in serving the client group or the stakeholder group which the program was initially and presumably is still designed for. That, of course, is small business. The smaller producer, perhaps a remanufacturing or value-added operation where the company in question doesn't have an annual allowable cut that they can access, has to survive either by making wood purchases on the open market or by accessing small business sales.

I've had the pleasure of visiting a number of them over the past years. Delta-Cedar Products in Delta, for example, is a good example of that. Without having an ongoing timber licence, they have actually developed quite a remarkable business, where they have a range of products from primary right up to the highest-end value-added products.

Of course, lots of these smaller companies -- I mean, smaller in relation to major licensees in the province -- are very concerned about the ongoing availability of wood for them through the small business program. What steps -- and the minister can take some time and discuss this with staff -- does the ministry take to ensure that in fact the small business program serves the client group or the stakeholder group for whom this program was designed?

Hon. J. Doyle: The small business program is a very, very important part of the economy of our province, especially the value-added sector. Presently 13 percent of the tenure in the whole province is in the small business program -- something that the former minister initiated, and I continue. I actually had a meeting some weeks ago with the value-added sector. They come down here once every quarter. We have a discussion. They meet with the minister; they meet with ministry staff and try to work out any problems that either party has as far as delivering wood to this very important and growing part of our economy.

G. Abbott: One of the concerns that one frequently hears -- and I think that the minister would be in a far better position to evaluate this than I would -- is that, through one means or another, some of the larger companies are in fact able to take over small business sales. As a consequence, the small business group that would like to access it is frozen out.

Again -- and the minister has more or less restated the premise I have about that -- what, if anything, is the strategy of the small business forest enterprise program in dealing with that particular issue?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as the safeguard to make sure that the smaller companies, which might be one or two people or

[ Page 15382 ]

maybe larger. . . . I'm sure that there is wood available for them. The majors are not allowed to bid on these sales.

[1650]

G. Abbott: Whether that in fact keeps them out of the back door is obviously the object of considerable debate within the industry and one that will undoubtedly go on for some time to come.

In terms of the small business sales volumes. . . . Again, one of the concerns that is raised forcefully to me is that over time -- and perhaps this is a reflection of the initiative, which we discussed the other day, of the small business program attempting to address the accumulated undercut, and perhaps this is a product of this. . . . The concern is essentially that the small business sales volumes have been getting larger and larger -- in some cases up to 70,000 cubic metres. So they are substantial indeed. Is that in fact the case from the minister's perspective -- that there are more of these larger sales going out through the small business program than would have been the case say a year or two or five years ago?

Hon. J. Doyle: There has been. The proportion of larger sales has increased as we've been trying to get rid of the undercut or undersales that we've had in the past just to get caught up in that.

G. Abbott: Has the uptake on those larger sales been encouraging from the program's perspective?

Hon. J. Doyle: All the sales have sold.

G. Abbott: I think those pretty much are my questions at this point on the small business program -- unless the minister now has the information, which he didn't have a day or two ago, about how the reduction in the accumulated undercut was going. Again, the core of the matter is this: the program is hoping to address 2.1 million cubic metres of the accumulated undercut in the current fiscal year. My understanding was that that would leave probably somewhere between seven million and eight million cubic metres of accumulated undercut from the past few years remaining to be dealt with.

The minister didn't have an answer to that question when I asked it a couple of days ago. Is that figure available to the minister now?

Hon. J. Doyle: The overall target for this year is 2.1 million cubic metres. Last year, 1999-2000, it was 600,000 cubic metres.

G. Abbott: I'd like to move on now to the Forest Practices Board, if I could. Hopefully you have appropriate staff here to answer the questions that I have on that.

[1655]

The first question that I have relates to a submission that was made to the public hearing on the possibility of a land transfer to MacMillan Bloedel -- now, of course, Weyerhaeuser -- surrounding compensation for the lands and cutting rights expropriated for parks purposes by the province. I was surprised -- and perhaps the ministry was surprised as well -- that the Forest Practices Board chair of the day made some comment to the Forest Practices Board with respect to whether that change should occur.

Does the minister see that as an appropriate expression of the board's authority -- to be commenting on an issue such as compensation for park creation?

Hon. J. Doyle: With respect to the M&B-Weyerhaeuser transfer, the Forest Practices Board has a fairly wide mandate, so I'd assume, from that point of view -- as far as the wide mandate that they have -- that that's why the chair commented on this.

G. Abbott: Does the minister see such commentary as being within the statutory authority of the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: To the degree that it impacts on the Forest Practices Code, I would say that the chair had the right to make his comments.

G. Abbott: It's my reading of what the chair said that it may have gone beyond simple reference to the code. But I guess, again, perhaps that's a debatable proposition, and I don't intend to pursue that further.

More importantly perhaps, in December 1999 the Forest Practices Board released an audit of the government of British Columbia's framework for enforcement of the Forest Practices Code. Indeed, on January 11 of the present year, they issued a news release around this issue, entitled "Ministries Need to Coordinate in Enforcing the Forest Practices Code." The news release says a number of things, the most important of which is: "The current framework may not achieve what government has intended."

The ministry has had a few months now to consider the recommendations and the report that was put before them by the Forest Practices Board. Is the ministry prepared, at this point, to comment on what its view is with respect to the report from the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry hasn't yet completed evaluation of the report we received, I think you said, back in January 11 of this year -- is that right? But one thing I can say on recommendations, is that a lot of valuable experience and learning has been gained. It is now an appropriate time to evaluate and adjust the way enforcement of the code is carried out.

G. Abbott: We've had some discussion of the code previously in estimates, so I don't think we need to spend an enormous amount of time on this. But I think some of the points that have been made by the Forest Practices Board are ones which we really need to take seriously, particularly in conjunction with some of the concerns raised previously in these estimates around the code and its enforcement.

[1700]

Let me just quote from the second paragraph of the news release of January 11, which summarizes the board's findings: "Government does not have a clear strategic framework for code enforcement in place. Policy is incomplete, enforcement approaches are inconsistent across forest districts, and the ministries have not developed measures to evaluate their progress and success in enforcing the code. In addition, there is little information provided to the public about enforcement of the code."

Now I think that's some pretty strong language from the Forest Practices Board about enforcement of the code in the

[ Page 15383 ]

province. How does the government propose to go about addressing what I see as very serious criticisms by the board of established practice?

Hon. J. Doyle: I met with the Forest Practices Board a couple of months ago -- I just can't remember. We must remember that the Forest Practices Board -- as the member knows, and he didn't state that they weren't -- is an independent board, and it's good that they are. There's always room for improvements, and I look forward to recommendations that they or anyone else makes. We don't always agree with all their recommendations; we don't always disagree. They make recommendations; sometimes we disagree with the recommendations.

The Ministry of Forests, for instance, has set up quality assurance to look at code efficiencies. The Minister of Environment is also looking at doing work. I think recommendations that are made by anyone in the province, including the Forest Practices Board. . . . Many, many times there's food for thought in those recommendations, and it's good that they're bringing them forth -- the board or other people.

G. Abbott: Further to that, the Forest Practices Board goes on to note: "The board's main concern is the lack of a coordinated approach to enforcement by the Ministries of Forests, Environment, Lands and Parks and Energy and Mines and the risk this creates that some code requirements are not properly enforced."

I think it's interesting to juxtapose this obvious criticism by the board with the discussion we had around the Gary Bull report, where we see that when we compare British Columbia to Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, the regulatory framework in all those other jurisdictions is far simpler than in British Columbia -- not to say the standards are any less, but rather the delivery is of a simplified, streamlined nature in relation to British Columbia. I'd like the minister to address that particular quote I just read with respect to the board's concern around the lack of a coordinated approach to enforcement by the ministries involved.

[1705]

Hon. J. Doyle: When the code was brought into place, there was a joint strategy between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests. I do feel -- and I agree with the member -- that there's always room for more work with ministries working together to make sure that the red tape is cut to the bare, bare minimum. There's always room for improvement.

G. Abbott: Again, I hope the minister can forgive me if we're back to some territory we've discussed before, but just so I'm clear, what is ongoing in terms of intraministerial and/or interministerial discussions around improving this situation? I think we referred to a committee of ADMs that were working on this previously, but presumably the government wants to come up with some definitive response to what's being expressed in this report by the Forest Practices Board. How's the province going to give effect to that?

Hon. J. Doyle: As we speak, each agency of government -- be it in the Ministry of Forests or Ministry of Environment, for instance -- is coming up with recommendations that would assist with the problem that's being discussed by the member now.

G. Abbott: In a subsequent paragraph, the board notes: "Finally, the board found that district forest managers have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to enforcing the code in the ministry's small business forest enterprise program, because they are also responsible for managing the program." In the context of our discussion around the small business program, what does the government make of that?

Hon. J. Doyle: As far as the Forest Practices Board's recommendation regarding potential conflict that the district managers may have, the Forest Practices Board mentioned this, and the ministry has done its best to put safeguards in place. At the same time I'd have to say -- and I know that you weren't in any way attacking the district managers, hon. member -- that there was never any actual conflict found that any district manager had committed.

G. Abbott: I'll ask the minister to make reference to page 3 of the audit by the Forest Practices Board. There are a couple of points that need to be raised here, and I don't propose to spend a lot of time on it. Obviously the ministry is still studying this and is not prepared to bring forward a definitive response to it at this point. But the minister may wish to comment on a couple of points.

Under "Adequacy of the Code as a Legislative Framework for Enforcement," summary of the audit findings notes, for example: ". . .many of the persons interviewed, who are involved with enforcement, are critical of the code and do not think it is adequate when it comes to enforcement." Obviously there's some concern out there in the field about how this is all working out. In the short term, are there any actions planned by the ministry and/or government to deal with this apparent concern?

Hon. J. Doyle: It's the hope of the ministry that the quality assurance will address these programs. There is also ongoing training that hopefully would take care of the concerns that were raised by the Forest Practices Board.

[1710]

G. Abbott: When we discussed the broad future of the code and the way in which, in the future possibly, some savings might be achieved both for government and for industry, we talked about the possibility of third-party audits and certification becoming a way in which a results-based code could be achieved. Does the minister see that as consistent with what is being said here by the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry believes that we have an adequate system in place. We believe that as we work through the code pilots and, of course, as we work towards certification, it will take care of concerns that have been raised by the Forest Practices Board in their recommendations.

G. Abbott: Again, on page 3 under the heading of "Interministry Coordination and Ministry Activities," the board makes a few comments. I'll just pick out a few of them here -- hopefully not cherry-picking. I'm just trying to get to the core of the concerns expressed by the board: "The three ministries have not coordinated enforcement efforts, as was originally intended by government."

Then it goes on to talk about the role of MELP and of Energy and Mines, and so on, in enforcement of the code. It

[ Page 15384 ]

notes on page 4: "The Ministry of Energy and Mines has effectively withdrawn from enforcement of the Forest Practices Code, but confusion over some responsibilities still exists." It goes on to talk in a little more detail about that. For example, where there are mining activities within access roads and power transmission line corridors, the Ministry of Energy and Mines views enforcement in those areas as a responsibility of Forests, while Forests views it as a responsibility of Energy and Mines. Have these kinds of issues been sorted out since the board issued their report, or are they still being sorted out?

Hon. J. Doyle: As the member knows, the Ministry of Forests is the leader on this. The Ministries of Mines and Environment have had to adjust their priorities as they work on this.

G. Abbott: But has the specific concern that is raised in this report -- between the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Forests -- been resolved?

Hon. J. Doyle: On the second part of the question, we are working jointly with the ministries that were just mentioned: Forests, Environment, and Energy and Mines.

G. Abbott: So from that I would deduce that we are still in the process of sorting that issue out.

[1715]

Under the heading of "Executive Leadership," we also see some significant concerns raised. Again, I'll quote:

"The necessary control over field operations is not being exercised by management and is contributing to inconsistencies. A lack of effective direction from ministry executives has resulted in an assortment of different structures, policies and procedures in regions and districts, which contributes to inconsistent approaches to enforcement. The lack of effective direction and the lack of corporate objectives for enforcement means staff does not have the necessary guidance to develop consistent approaches to code enforcement."

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry is taking steps to ensure that. . . . Of course, each manager is an individual and maybe looks upon the code question differently than another one. But the ministry is taking steps to make sure that we do coordinate and that the same rules apply across the province.

G. Abbott: Just a final note here, from the audit. Again I'll quote: "Government has not established measures to monitor and assess its enforcement performance, which is necessary to guide improvements. The ministries are largely unable to assess the effectiveness of enforcement of the code because they have not set objectives or developed measures against which to assess performance." And then at the end of that paragraph it reads: "Government's performance measurement and accountability for code enforcement is largely absent." That passage is certainly around how the government has achieved or has attempted to achieve performance measures on the enforcement side.

Let me pose the question broadly enough here, so that perhaps we can wrap this all up in one package for the minister to come back with an answer for me. Obviously there's a criticism here about the absence of enforcement of performance measures. The minister may want to comment on that specifically, but I also want to invite the minister at this point in time -- because I've pretty much concluded my questions on the audit by the Forest Practices Board. . . . What's the time line that the minister envisages to bring about that definitive response of the ministry and/or government to the issues raised by this Forest Practices Board audit?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry has a draft response presently, and we hope to respond officially back to the board this month.

G. Abbott: If I understood the minister's response correctly, there is a draft response to the report of the Forest Practices Board that is presumably being circulated within government and between the responsible ministries. Is that draft response something that will be circulated to other stakeholders as well, or is it an intragovernmental document at this point?

[1720]

Hon. J. Doyle: The draft response we are referring to is intragovernmental.

G. Abbott: What does the minister think would be the approximate timing of the formal response? Obviously the draft's there now. And if it's going to be circulating for a month, is it reasonable to suppose that the government's formal response to this will be made public between one and two months from today?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry hopes to have its final response back to the board in early June 2000.

G. Abbott: The government's final response to the board will be in early June 2000. Does the ministry -- or govern- ment, more broadly -- propose to make that public at that time, or do they propose to make it public after the board has had an opportunity to consider it?

Hon. J. Doyle: As soon as the board gets it, it would only be fair to have the board take a look at it. But of course, as soon as it is out there we will make it public -- hopefully as soon as the board has had a courtesy look at it. But at the end of the day, it is FOI'd anyhow. So as soon as the FOI board has a look at it, it will be made public. That's the plan.

G. Abbott: That's all the questions I have with respect to the Forest Practices Board report. That would allow us to move on to aboriginal issues, unless the minister has anything he wishes to add with respect to the Forest Practices Board report.

Hon. J. Doyle: I feel that the Forest Practices Board does a very, very good job. It is important that we have an independent body that looks and sometimes says that many, many times we're doing things right; other times they feel we're not doing things right.

They do travel out there in the province when it's necessary. They meet on a very regular basis. The member, I know,

[ Page 15385 ]

knows many of the people who sit on that board. The time that they bring and the strength that they bring to this board are great. And they're to be commended for the work that they do -- the chair and all the members and staff with the Forest Practices Board.

G. Abbott: I do want to move on to aboriginal forestry issues again. We've had a considerable discussion of this particular area in the context of the Ministry of Forests business plan. We went through a number of parts of the ministry strategy with respect to that, so I think I can keep my questions to a minimum today for the balance of that discussion. There's a couple of things we need to talk about. Obviously we have been through, in the past 12 months since the last time we sat here for Forests estimates, a dynamic and challenging time with respect to the management of some issues in this area. Obviously I'm being very diplomatic in setting this out.

The first question I have is whether the events of the last 12 months have prompted, on the part of the ministry, any changes with respect to consultation guidelines that have been used by the ministry. I'll invite the minister to outline more broadly any other changes that may have occurred since last year's estimates on this particular front.

[1725]

Hon. J. Doyle: When Delgamuukw came down -- I just can't remember when that came down -- it meant that the Ministry of Forests had to make some changes. We're doing our best to work with the first nations sector in the province, as the member knows, in looking at joint agreements and other ways. Tenure holders are working in many, many cases with first nations people. First nations people are looking, in some cases, at getting into one sector or another of the Ministry of Forests. I think that the answer is to get joint agreements and work with people, sit down and work together, versus standoffs that we have with one another sometimes -- or first nations people have, to do with concerns they have with lands that they feel are possibly theirs without a treaty being in place.

G. Abbott: Is the ministry working on what might be termed a first nations forest strategy to embody a number of the initiatives which the minister has just outlined? Is there a first nations forest strategy, and what steps is the ministry taking to have first nations actually buy into that?

Hon. J. Doyle: The first nations strategy is under review by government as we speak but is not yet completed -- first nations strategy to deal with issues that the member raises.

G. Abbott: What can the minister provide me in the way of detail around the completion of the first nations forestry strategy? Is that something that the ministry is looking to complete in the short term? Or is it a broader-term strategy, perhaps similar to the one that is outlined in the Wouters report?

Hon. J. Doyle: I think the best example would be the agreement that was signed a couple of weeks ago with the Wet'suwet'en up in Smithers. We're still working, as I said, on the strategy for first nations. There are some possibilities in some cases that the province. . . . The 5 percent takeback could be an answer in some cases. We do continue to consult with industry and first nations people to see if there are some agreements that could be reached in various parts of the province.

K. Krueger: I want to briefly ask about the problem of the bridge which was burnt at Adams Lake and the fact that there is a ferry being used to raft people back and forth because of the bridge being gone. Interfor, which has a sawmill -- Adams Lake lumber division -- actually has approved cutting permits for the area from which they're cut off because of the bridge having been burnt. It's causing some supply problems.

One of the things that I learned in investigating this matter was that FRBC actually had a plan, not too many months after the bridge was burned, to replace it with a Bailey bridge. I gather that they had engaged in preliminary discussions with the aboriginal people. We're told by senior levels of the ministry not to proceed, the rational being that a non-treaty band was not to be seen to have had a win of some kind. I wonder if the minister could comment on whether he and his officials are familiar with that issue.

[1730]

Hon. J. Doyle: It's the belief of the ministry that the bridge in question is a Ministry of Highways bridge. Also, we have not said that we would not work out agreements with non-treaty first nations.

K. Krueger: I'm aware that it's a Highways bridge, but I'm told that there was a deal in the making to replace it using FRBC funds. It certainly is a Forestry issue in that that would provide for access to approved areas for cutting permits. Furthermore, it's an issue where government needs to have a look at the big picture. The Bailey bridge would cost, as I understand it, $300,000 to install. The ferry is costing $750,000 a year to run on demand; it's also a hardship to people living on the other side. In the four years that the ferry has had to be in service, that's $3 million, which is ten times what I'm told the Bailey bridge would cost.

I wonder if the minister would commit to looking into this and seeing if we could put a stop to that unnecessary expense by having FRBC get that plan rolling again to replace the bridge with a Bailey.

Hon. J. Doyle: I'd be more than happy to investigate. I would agree with the member. I know the area reasonably well, and it has been an inconvenience to many, many people during the term of this ongoing dispute. Hopefully resolution can be worked out very soon.

G. Abbott: That completes my questions on aboriginal forestry issues. We'll certainly look forward to seeing the results of the first nations forest strategy which the ministry is preparing. That obviously is going to be a significant milestone in meeting what has been a considerable challenge to the ministry in the past several months. I do hope the ministry is successful in that, and I hope that we can provide for some public discussion of that in weeks and months ahead as well. It is of obvious importance to first nations as well as to licensees across the province.

In terms of moving on to other issues. . . . Go ahead.

Hon. J. Doyle: Previously in estimates, when the hon. member for Shuswap asked about the source of funding for

[ Page 15386 ]

the forest policy review, I stated that the $501,585 -- I think I stated approximately half a million dollars -- that the jobs and timber accord advocate identified as the cost of the review was paid for jointly by FRBC and the Ministry of Forests. I think I said it was roughly 50-50. I would like to correct this statement. FRBC does provide funding for the operation of the advocate's office, including the salaries of the advocate and his staff. However, the Ministry of Forests was the source of funding for the review that Mr. Wouters did. I just wanted to correct that statement, which was made some time last week in estimates.

G. Abbott: The value-added questions that I had have been addressed at a number of points now through the estimates process. We discussed a number of those points under the Ministry of Forests business plan, under the small business forest enterprise program and elsewhere in the extensive discussion of the ministry's estimates that we have had to this point. There may be other issues that come up in the context of FRBC, but I think I've pretty much exhausted the questions I have, so I would like to move on to community forests.

Here I'm really just looking for an update from our last estimates about the number of community forest licences that are in existence in the province, the number of applications which have been submitted to the ministry for community forests, and, of those, how many remain under active consideration.

[1735]

Hon. J. Doyle: Whenever the panel was together looking at community forests in the province. . . . At the time that they were out there and asked for interest back from individuals or groups in the province, there were 88 letters of interest shown, 27 actual offers came in to that panel, and actually seven of those 27 were offered licences to have a community forest.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise what process the balance of 20 applications is going through? Are they still under active consideration? I guess that might be the best way to put it. Or has the ministry for one reason or another concluded that those are not practical applications for community forests?

Hon. J. Doyle: Out of the 27, there were seven offered, as we agreed on. Out of the 20 remaining, there are possibly one or two or three more we might look at putting out.

G. Abbott: Is the proposal from Lumby and area one of those three or four?

Hon. J. Doyle: The request from Lumby, which I'm also familiar with, did not make the shortlist. The main reason that the Monashee community forest group didn't get an okay from the panel is because no timber was identified in the area that they could use for a community forest.

G. Abbott: Would it be correct to assume that the principal challenge around the creation of additional community forests in British Columbia revolves around finding suitable timber to provide for the community forest, without breaching contractual agreements which already exist with licensees? Is that fair? Or are there other issues that come into play, for example, in the consideration of the three or four that remain?

Hon. J. Doyle: There is great interest across the province. Many communities have approached me, and other members in this House, because they think a community forest is the way to go. I guess one of the great success stories out there is likely Revelstoke -- with which the member is very familiar, as am I. But as the member alludes to, there's no doubt that it is easy to say that we'd like a community forest -- wherever it may be -- but there are many areas of the province where there is just no unallocated timber available.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise. . . ? I'm presuming -- perhaps incorrectly, and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong -- that the three or four that remain under consideration are aware that they remain under consideration. When is the ministry likely to report out to them about the success or otherwise of their applications?

[1740]

Hon. J. Doyle: On the other potential community forests in the province, there's been no advice given to any one of those that may get it. We hope in the coming months to have made make a decision and to get something out to the would-be successful applicants.

G. Abbott: Unless there are other members of the House who have additional questions on community forests, I'm happy to move on. We have discussed the current status of the woodlot program in the context of the ministry's business plan. So unless others have questions, I'd like to move on to salvage.

I want to begin by perhaps rephrasing the important question that was put forward by the member for Cariboo North. That is the very practical question around how the mountain pine beetle infestation can spread without notice and how the ministry can respond to that spread in the field. The example the member for Cariboo North cited was when the ministry anticipates a certain block of timber has been infested. Suddenly either the applicant or the ministry discovers that in fact the area that has been identified doesn't incorporate all the area of new bug infestation. When that occurs, does the ministry staff have the discretionary authority to extend the lines or to make the revisions that would be necessary to capture the unanticipated beetle infestation?

Hon. J. Doyle: Many times a contractor has a contract to cut a certain block and possibly over that line where they may see a problem. It might be -- it most likely is -- somebody else's cutting area. The ministry does have a framework in place where we could fast-track and make that timber available faster than normal. Because if it is a problem. . . . That was mentioned earlier on by the member for Cariboo North -- concerns that he and others had. It's very complex sometimes, because legally you are not allowed to go into another person's cutting area. But we do all we can to make the trees available for harvest as soon as possible.

G. Abbott: I can appreciate the complexity that the minister alludes to. Obviously, in the adjacent lands where the infestation has moved, there may be some kind of contractual arrangement with a licensee that provides them with the rights to harvest timber there. Again, obviously it is going to be a challenge for the ministry to sort that out.

In the current epidemic situation that we face in the province, I am satisfied with the minister's suggestion that the

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ministry has put fast-tracking mechanisms in place to deal with it. It's going to be absolutely imperative that they have the ability to do that. In the absence of it, we are going to see a continuing spread without any hope of ever actually bringing it under control, in my estimation.

[1745]

Hon. J. Doyle: I agree with the member to the extent that if someone has set up out there in the bush, and maybe a few yards or 100 or 200 yards away from where they're set up, they see some pine beetle problem. . . . If they could cut those trees -- a hectare or maybe less -- it would take care of the problem. The ministry has agreed with people who bring up that concern. We have a strategy in place to fast-track a cutting permit, as long as it's not a problem with the other licensee, to take those trees down.

G. Abbott: On the broader issues of small-scale salvage, certainly I frequently hear from constituents who are concerned in one way or another about small-scale salvage rules. Again, the ministry has a considerable challenge in trying to balance off the demand for these small-scale salvage sales against maintaining control over what occurs in the woods.

Does the ministry pretty much leave it to each district office to sort out its policies in relation to small-scale salvage, in terms of what the cash sales volume maximum would be and so on? Is it left to the districts, or are the districts bound by some overall provincial policies with respect to small-scale salvage?

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry works with local districts to develop targets. Just for the member's interest, in '98 and '99 the target for salvage wood was 467,000 cubic metres. Actually, we accomplished 580,000. In '99-2000 the target was 501,000, and we accomplished 830,000. But I will agree with the member: it is a problem. I was in a café at Malakwa some time ago, visiting Rhona Martin, the chair of the regional district. The member and I both know the individual well and know Rhona's coffee spot, where you can have a good chat about many, many issues. I was talking to a couple of people who were having troubles regarding salvage. In their view, they've seen something out there that they thought they could turn into a few jobs to feed their families.

K. Krueger: I have a circumstance similar to what the minister just described. I wanted to raise it with him, as I have with the previous Forests minister each year. I started out in my constituency with a number of people on welfare coming to me saying: "We used to be salvage loggers, and we can't get access any longer." I went through a series of steps, and the previous minister found the money in FRBC to provide an employee, dedicated out of the Clearwater office, to oversee small-scale salvage initiative logging for that district. But a 10,000 cubic metre maximum was placed on the amount of wood that these salvage loggers could pull out in a year.

Salvage logging makes so much sense to me. It's a fire-avoidance issue. If the logs are lying there turning tinder-dry, they become a fire hazard. Or it's potentially a bug-infestation issue, if they give rise to bug infestations. It's really been an economic boon in the little community of Vavenby, which I represent. I've been hearing numbers of up to 100 people employed because of the 10,000 cubic metres that's been allowed. It's been an excellent thing for us.

It seems to me a really artificial and unnecessary constraint to hold people to that 10,000-cubic-metre maximum when there is a whole lot more available. There is a threat of pine bark beetle infestation in the area, and we talked about the devastating infestation at Tweedsmuir Park last week. I'd certainly like to see that headed off in my area as well.

Additionally, one of the targets of the pine bark beetle seems to be the white pine in particular, and that's a species of great interest to us in the area. We have a value-added plant in Kamloops -- a very successful one -- called Paul Creek Slicing, which processes purely white pine. Talking about value-added, it shaves it down to 30 slices per inch and turns it into veneer. It employs dozens of single mothers. It's a great little plant, but it always has a supply problem. Again, I'm really sensitive to anything that wastes white pine. While we have these small areas that appear to be giving rise to some beetle habitat, I think it would make a lot of sense to go in and cut them down.

[1750]

Close to the end of last year, we ran into a problem where the 10,000 cubic metres had been reached for the area, and the salvage loggers had to be cut off. At that time, in November, they had generated over $85,000 in stumpage revenue according to the ministry's table that was given to me, and I think everybody was delighted with that. Even if one employee had to be dedicated, I doubt if he cost the ministry $85,000. But people started getting notices like this one, dated November 1, 1999: "The Clearwater district small-scale quota has been met. Only emergency forest health issues will be dealt with. Staff priorities are being directed to other program priorities and client needs. Please reapply in the 2000 fiscal year." These people had to start actually laying employees off, which is a real shame.

The major licensees have been tremendously cooperative up there; they'll buy all the wood these people can generate. Not only that, they've found new markets for themselves, like a place in Alberta that takes dry fir cut to specs by a little portable sawmill that one of these fellows has introduced. He's employing half a dozen people, where he used to be on welfare himself.

I've been thrilled with this, but the previous minister and I couldn't get past the 10,000-cubic-metre maximum. Without taking a lot of time on it, I'll refer the new minister to his letter of October 4, 1999. He explains to me in essence that if he allowed any more than 10,000 cubic metres, he'd have to take it out of the small-scale business program, which just doesn't make sense, when these logs are going to rot in the bush if they aren't taken out. There was a really humorous -- if it weren't for the negative results -- paragraph at the end of this letter. I'll skim. It says:

"In respect to utilizing URLs, you should be aware of the implications of using these volumes as a source of fibre for the SSSI. URLs by definition are timber volumes destroyed or damaged by natural causes such as fire, wind, insects and disease and are not recovered through salvage operations. If URLs were to be utilized by the SSSI, the chief forester would be required to reconsider whether those volumes should be classified as URLs or as part of timber resource included in the AAC determination. The effect of including URLs that are recovered under SSSI may have a positive or a nil effect on the AAC."

[ Page 15388 ]

the 10,000 cubic metres. If we have to admit that, we'll take it out of somebody else's AAC. With respect, that's Monty Pythonesque. It's not really something that I think we should allow to continue. I think that we should let these people take everything they can, salvage everything they can. They leave plenty of bark and branches and stumps and so on for the biodiversity concerns.

I don't in any way want to come across as criticizing the staff of the forest district, because I think they've been terrific. They're really trying to work within the boundaries that they have. They're really good people. They're trying to do practical things despite what amounts, I think, to a silly constraint. I wonder if the minister could commit to having a real good look at not considering the salvage volume as a part of anybody's AAC. It's material that is just going to waste, potentially giving rise to fire hazard or bug infestation, when it could be generating economic activity for people who desperately want it.

Hon. J. Doyle: In the Clearwater area, which the member represents and is concerned about, the 10,000 cubic metres was not. . . . We didn't say it could just be 10,000; that was the target. It was more. I think that if you look back over the last couple of years and the numbers that I gave to the member for Shuswap a few minutes ago, we have been increasing the amount of salvage wood per year. In '98-99 the target was 467,000; we brought 580,000 out. In the year '99-2000 the target was 501,000; we brought out 830,000.

I would be happy to work with the member to see what we could do to increase the amount that we bring out. There's no doubt there are many, many cases. . . . It might only feed one family, but that's very, very important. There are many, many places like the company you mention that does the slicing. . . . It creates many, many jobs, feeds families and keeps some small communities sustainable.

K. Krueger: I really appreciate that. I look forward to working with the minister on that. Does the minister agree that it's possible that we could see this salvage logging allowed without it coming off any licensee's AAC or the small business program?

[1755]

Hon. J. Doyle: I'll promise the member and other members in the House that have similar problems that I will do my best to work with ministry staff to see what it is legally possible to do.

The Chair: Member, noting the time.

K. Krueger: I'll do one more quick question, then, and make the necessary motion.

I really appreciate the common sense demonstrated by the answers I've just had. Part of the whole picture is that the staff feel somewhat overwhelmed by the paper they process to deal with each of these very small -- sometimes just one or two -- log applications. If we could find a way to relax the red tape -- and I know there have been some initiatives in that regard. . . .

Apparently in the past it used to be as simple as an employee pulling up in a green forestry pickup and having a look at whatever had been identified and writing up a little contract on the fender of his truck and allowing people to go ahead. Perhaps when you have someone with a proven track record in salvage logging who isn't going to abuse the privilege or harm the resource, we could get more back toward that.

Having heard the admonition of the Chair, if the minister would like to respond, that's great. Or if the minister would like me to, I'll. . . . Okay.

Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry is always open to more streamlining and ways we can do business differently.

Noting the time, I would ask that we report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

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 moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.

The committee met at 2:44 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS

On vote 41: ministry operations, $36,744,000.

The Chair: Minister, as you deliver your remarks, would you introduce your staff for us, please.

Hon. C. McGregor: It is my pleasure to be here today to present the estimates of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for the year 2000-2001. I would like to begin by introducing the staff that's here, although I believe our critic has met them all.

First, on my right, is my deputy minister Suzanne Veit. Sitting behind her is Lori Wanamaker, assistant deputy minister, corporate services. Also in the gallery are Leta Hodge, executive coordinator for the deputy minister's office; Dale Wall, assistant deputy minister of local government; Harry Diemer, executive director, safety engineering services division; Brian Walisser, executive director of the corporate policy branch; and Judy Brachman, director of communications.

[1445]

[ Page 15389 ]

Hon. Chair, it's really a pleasure for me to be here, although I am new to this job, having had it for a grand total now of nine weeks. One of the first commitments I made as Minister of Municipal Affairs was to make myself as accessible as possible to local governments. Despite having been on the job for a relatively short period of time, I added up the other day that I've had more than 60 meetings to date with mayors and councillors or representatives from regional districts. I've tried to take a fairly high pace in terms of meeting with representatives of local government to make sure that I can, first and foremost, be an advocate working with them on the issues that are important to them.

One of the things that I've learned is that we do have very fine staff in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I don't say that because of my personal experience -- although certainly they've been very supportive to me -- but in large part because of what representatives from local and regional governments across British Columbia say about the very helpful nature of the staff. I know that the members opposite who will be here over the course of the next day or two will also acknowledge that those staff have been extremely helpful to regional governments around the province.

I'll begin by summarizing the past year. There have been a number of ministers over the past year, so I'm summarizing some of the work that has been done by others. It has been a very complex and challenging year in many ways. I think, though, we've made substantial progress on a number of key areas. I want to highlight the minister's four key strategic directions.

The first, and probably one that many local governments represented, would see the highest priority as modernizing the legislative and financial relationship between the province and local governments. The second area, strategic direction, is supporting the implementation of regional growth strategies, and I'll speak more about that later. Thirdly is an effort to reform the province's safety system to help meet the changing service demands as well as technological changes; and fourthly is to continue the work, as we do always, to improve core ministry services.

All of these objectives are designed to improve the quality of life for our residents across British Columbia and to help create and support vibrant and sustainable communities. I look forward to a discussion with the critic and other members opposite as to how, I'm sure, we all share those mutual goals.

I'd like to start, if I could, by talking briefly about Municipal Act reform. Much of the work of the past year has been directed toward what we call achieving substantial completion of Municipal Act reform. It's been a three-year initiative, designed to give local governments more autonomy and more flexibility, while ensuring at the same time that their citizens are provided with appropriate opportunities to participate in local government decision-making. I look forward to introducing the third year of that legislative reform sometime very soon.

Legislative change began in 1998. At that time, the key objective of local governments was to recognize local government as an independent, responsible and accountable order of government. We made that statement in the preamble and the text of the act, and in fact we were the first jurisdiction in Canada to do so. In 1999 we continued to update the Municipal Act. Largely, the greatest reform in that area was to give municipalities broad service and regulatory powers that would allow them to focus on delivering quality public services to their communities.

We give local government more autonomy in a number of key areas, balanced, of course, with stronger accountability provisions to ensure that the values of openness and transparency were preserved. We also streamlined financial reporting requirements, while ensuring that municipal financial statements were consistent with generally accepted accounting principles. Additionally, we set out new and clear guidelines for open meetings, and we strengthened the campaign disclosure guidelines.

There was extensive consultation, both prior to and during that three-year legislative reform process. In the past year we surveyed local governments on their views. We held numerous formal and informal briefings on the content of the package, and we co-hosted symposiums on legislative reform with UBCM, the Union of B.C. Municipalities. We also involved a number of interested parties outside of local government, including, of course, citizens, as a way of making sure our discussions included accountability measures that are important to the broad general public.

[1450]

The new legislation will require less frequent changes, which I think is a very good feature of the act. That means we'll be able to focus our work from preparing legislation to the implementation of that legislation. The work around implementation over the coming year will be aimed at profiling many of the new opportunities contained in the legislation into local government practice. We're going to host a number of regional workshops with local governments. We're planning to prepare guides and resource materials for both council and residents, as well as continuing the important role of providing ongoing support and advice from ministry staff to municipal governments and municipal officials. I want to make sure that the new legislation is working for local governments, and we'll be collecting feedback in the coming months and make more adjustments as necessary.

Turning now to the theme of regional growth strategies, it's true that we are faced with pockets of development and population around the province. Many urban centres, in particular, will continue to experience pressure for growth. That means pressure on things like air and water quality, land costs, affordability of housing, transportation systems and, of course, government services. Regional growth strategies are a tool that gives governments the opportunity and ability to address these concerns.

Currently greater Vancouver and Nanaimo regional districts have such plans. The Thompson-Nicola regional district, which is the regional district I come from, is in the final stages of adopting their regional growth strategy, as is the Central Okanagan regional district. We're also expecting soon that both the Fraser Valley and the capital region will move closer to the completion of their regional plans over the coming year. The work that has been done to date has already enabled local government to work together to address joint issues of concern. We are confident that as these strategies are completed, they will provide an enduring basis to guide the future development of urban areas.

Having spoken to some of the pressures of large urban centres, we also need to consider the issues for smaller and more remote communities. We continue to support the needs

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of these communities within the ministry. This year the ministry's budget contains $1.4 million to support the community of Gold River, which is adjusting to the closure of its largest employer, the pulp mill. We are also currently working with the community of Tumbler Ridge on similar transition issues. Our budget also contains $12 million for the Fair Share agreement in the Peace River, which provides the Peace River communities with a share of oil and gas revenues.

As well, our new water and sewer infrastructure program addresses the needs that are often critical in smaller communities. I recall a conversation with Mayor Popovich on Vancouver Island, at one of the first regional meetings that I attended, where he talked about infrastructure being a tool for economic diversification for small communities, and I would agree with him on that point.

On the financial side, there is no question that reductions in unconditional grants to local governments have provided challenges to them. However, in 1999 we said we would protect the level of funding for small and medium-sized communities that depend most on provincial support, and we have continued to do that. In 1999 we also introduced a new traffic-fine revenue-sharing program, and we have continued to maintain that funding level. This program recognizes local governments' efforts to implement traffic safety programs, and their associated costs.

Additionally, as I referenced earlier, we are entering the second year of a three-year $150 million infrastructure program to improve local services and help strengthen B.C.'s improving economy. A good-news piece of this is the growth in B.C. environmental technologies and how they are giving us an opportunity to offer very effective solutions in wastewater management.

I'm very pleased that our government has taken steps to initiative something we call the green economy initiative. Some describe it as B.C.'s advantage, because not only are we engaged in progressive environmental regulation, but having passed those kinds of policy platforms, it has forced increasing new technologies upon our entrepreneurialship in British Columbia. In fact, we lead many other jurisdictions in the world in developing new technologies to meet the kind of tough measures that we've taken to protect the environment in dealing with things like wastewater.

[1455]

We're moving away from sort of end-of-pipe engineering solutions into closed loops and pollution prevention models, leading the world in terms of new technologies and showing the world, as we did at Globe 2000, the kind of company that has grown here in direct response to our environmental strategies as a province.

I would like to speak briefly on property assessment, because my staff have informed me of the progress we've made in relation to tax and assessment policy. We've reduced the assessment appeal backlog, and we are seeing benefits in relation to tax-base stability. We have rewritten the appeal legislation. We've introduced new case management procedures, and we've enhanced the Property Assessment Appeal Board organizational structure and finally taken steps to enhance the professionalization of the board members.

I'd like to talk briefly about the ministry's safety programs. We do have a very good record in our safety branch, but we also face challenges both over the next year and beyond. This will lead to changes in the way we carry out our business. Economic growth can be expected to increase demands on our safety programs. The ministry's safety programs are keeping pace with the huge volume of new safety-related materials and products and the new technologies and services which follow. Our ministry will make greater use of technology to improve the efficiency of safety systems, improve service to our clients and maintain high standards for public safety.

As the provincial economy continues to expand, demands on the safety system will increase, as I said earlier. The ministry will need to meet this demand with technology as well as operational efficiencies that will free up resources that can be reinvested in inspection and other compliance monitoring services. In addition, we are planning major changes for legislation governing these safety programs, based on the recommendations of "The Next Horizon" report, which arose out of the safety systems review. I intend to put forward comprehensive safety legislation which will both streamline and modernize the regulatory system while maintaining high standards for public safety.

On the corporate side of the ministry, we continue to manage greater demands on our corporate services, such as the financial, human and information resource services, as well as maintaining current programs. My government's priority and my priority is to make sure we create a more accountable and open government, which will increase the need for effective business planning and performance measurement. The ministry implemented an integrated planning and reporting process in 1999-2000. This process will continue to evolve in 2000-2001, with an improved performance measurement as a key objective.

The ministry will be facing significant challenges in dealing with an aging workforce, so we will need to develop a human resource management plan which includes comprehensive training and development to assist with career progression for staff and, at the same time, work to expand the equity and cultural diversity of our workforce. We will continue to work toward a workforce that is representative of B.C.'s diverse population. The use of the Internet and web-based technologies present new opportunities to provide services in a more convenient way to our ministry clients and the public and new opportunities for communicating with local governments, clients, other ministries and the general public.

I'll conclude by saying that I've outlined the key objectives, but there are many other important programs and policies that our ministry is responsible for, and I do hope we'll have the opportunity in time to discuss them. One small example is the library services branch, which provides grants and programs to what I would call the best public library system in Canada.

I'll conclude by saying that it really is an honour and a privilege to serve as the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I'm enjoying the work that I've had the opportunity to begin in working with local governments. It's certainly clear to me, not only as a local resident but as someone who works with local governments every day, that there are no issues more important than those close to home. Those are represented by local government interests, and I want to work with them as part of a team to address their concerns.

[1500]

T. Nebbeling: First of all, I would like to share my appreciation for staff having come together with some of my

[ Page 15391 ]

colleagues and myself. We did a briefing, and we went briefly over a number of issues. It was really helpful to have a little bit of a heads-up. I appreciate it, and I share in the minister's words.

It's true what the minister stated: she is of course a new minister, but she is also a minister in a long line of ministers. Over the last five years since 1995, I believe we have seen five ministers. I should say that when I travel in the province and meet with council or board members of regional districts, or when I meet council members who come and visit Victoria and often ask for a quick meeting with me as well, I do not share the optimism that the minister reflected in her statement, as far as the feeling that council and board members have when it comes to the relationship between Victoria and the communities.

Without putting blame on staff, I think that to a certain extent, the reason we have had five ministers in such a short period of time means there has been little continuation of one direction by a minister. That may well be in part the reason that there is some discomfort in that relationship. I hope that during the estimates we can highlight some areas that I think are often the areas where the crunch comes and where the level of discomfort is most prominent.

The minister spoke about her pleasure with the fact that we now have gone two years full-speed and are in the third year of the rewrite of the Municipal Act. The minister feels that the rewrite has really led to the empowerment of communities -- "local governments" may be a better expression -- and a higher level of accountability by these local governments to the people they serve.

I will bring up this particular issue quite early in the estimates. On the one hand, yes, especially in the second part of the rewrite, there has certainly been a focus on the empowerment of small, local interests. The empowerment of local government has not necessarily gone parallel with that. I say that particularly because of section 3 of the Municipal Act, where the delegated powers are presented as reaching further than they have done in the past. However, at no time should any council member translate that as that the direct powers that government represents can be overruled by these delegated powers. To me, that means that nothing really has changed.

There's a lot more wording in the act and changes in the sections that have been trying to paint a picture of: "Listen, we'll let you do this. . . ." But at the end of the day, there is still that leash. If the Ministry of Municipal Affairs is not content or happy with a decision made by local powers, local governments, the ability to yank on that leash and say, "Forget it" is still there.

So the empowerment of local governments today has not been delivered. We have been given a little bit longer leash. That's part of the problem when I talk with council members as well: the expectation. When this whole process of the rewrite of the Municipal Act started two or three years ago, it created expectations that have not necessarily been fulfilled. We will bring that into the estimates discussion, but I want to highlight some of the feelings and emotions that I get coming back to me when talking with council members.

[1505]

Certainly one is, as I already said, the feeling that the local community has been empowered, not necessarily the councils themselves. That's one serious one.

The other thing that I keep hearing when I meet with council and board members is that the promise of a much more transparent Municipal Act is, up to this point, clearly not delivered. Prior to the initiative of rewriting the Municipal Act, one of the reasons that was always identified was the fact that we had a Municipal Act which had been created over many, many years. It has lost a lot of its transparency because of the additional sections that have been added on to the Municipal Act over the years.

I think the expectation, in my sense, of a more transparent act and an act that consisted of fewer sections was prevalent and has not been delivered on. When we started, it was 1,260 sections, I believe. Today I think the act is 1,033 sections, if I'm not wrong, and we still have the third section coming. So God knows how many sections. . . . The third part of the rewrite is coming, most likely, next week or maybe even this week. I don't know how many sections there are, but I expect that it will be fairly comprehensive, because in the third section you are trying to cover a lot of territory. So I just hope that at the end of the day, after three years of working towards certain goals, you're not going to finish up with an act that has more sections than we started with. That would really violate the whole initial reason for doing the rewrite.

The minister also touched on the grants and the reduction of grants and that there are certainly messages coming from throughout the whole province -- how the impact of the grants has really undermined the financial management of many municipalities, towns, cities and boards as well. I should not include regional boards in that, because they are never really part of that.

However, what I'm disappointed in -- and I haven't really been given any signals that I'm wrong -- is that there is clearly still no consideration given to a financial management strategy for local government. The minister is most likely aware that in 1998 a task force was called together between the UBCM and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and members of the MOA, the Municipal Officers Association. After a couple of workshops, some suggestions and some recommendations were made to the minister. I've seen the report. I have not yet seen one move by government to incorporate, in their financial management strategy for local government, some new opportunities that were discussed by this task force.

I think that is really one of the shortfalls, because it is the financial management of local government today that is really undermining the quality of local government that we used to have. Local governments are no longer in a position to do the things that they should do -- unless they go back to the traditional source, which is the property tax base. And of course these days that is almost impossible, considering the enormous pressure of taxation that people face from all forms of government.

So not having heard anything in that regard -- that there is something in the last portion of the rewrite of the Municipal Act to give municipalities a feel that things are happening -- I think it's a failure. Maybe I'll get proven wrong when we see the third rewrite, but so far I haven't heard anything of that.

The other area that I think needs attention during the estimates, Madam Minister, is that when. . . . One thing that I noticed has escalated tremendously over the last two or three years is the polarization between rural and urban councils. I fear that the polarization has really become an element in

[ Page 15392 ]

making councils dysfunctional. Cooperation is often lacking in pursuing objectives that would be beneficial to all. That one is from a rural area and one is from an urban area is often the reason that progress cannot be made.

Again, I would like to see how Municipal Affairs is trying to open a door to find a solution to this, because it can't go on. It is big problem for UBCM; I'm sure you have no doubt, and you're fully aware of that. Ultimately, it will be Municipal Affairs that has to take a lead role in finding a common ground for these two different groups that, through polarization, are really becoming ineffective.

[1510]

It is sad, but every meeting I've attended where a conflict developed, it was always by single parties focusing on the negatives of a direction, rather than what they would have in common -- a take on the positive. So, hopefully, we can discuss that as well. But again, I don't hear anything that can address that particular problem right now.

I looked for it, actually, in the growth strategy -- if there was going to be something there. And I have to say that the growth strategy and its success or its failure. . . . I have to use the regional district that I live in, and that is the SLRD, Squamish-Lillooet regional district. The incredible struggle that these communities are going through and certainly the polarization between these communities that for 20 years have worked together and now suddenly are at loggerheads with each other, because they can't agree or find comfort with the conditions under which they are supposed to create this growth strategy. . . . So, again, I hope that we can spend some time on that one as well.

Altogether, when I talk about the rewrite of the Municipal Act -- what I think has been the main objective of this government over the last three years -- I think we are still in a status quo. There is still a lot of conflict, and I do not, at this point, see what is there to solve these problems.

Another area where I. . . . How long have I been speaking -- ten minutes, five minutes, four minutes? It doesn't matter.

Interjections.

T. Nebbeling: Five minutes.

Another area of conflict that concerns me seriously is the whole Islands Trust situation and the. . . . Maybe the best way I can describe my feelings is by quoting a person who did a study recently for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs -- or maybe for the Islands Trust. I don't know who did the study, but she concluded her study about what the Islands Trust represents today with the words: "It stinks." I've smelled that for a long time.

I have from time to time talked to the Islands Trust about certain issues, and I think we really have to spend some time on not only where it has gone wrong but how this can be pulled back together again.

When we are getting to the Islands Trust, I would like to really focus on the mandate of the trust and what today is being taken on as a responsibility by the trust. I think they are two very different things, and it may well be part of not only discontent between industry and the Islands Trust, but I think even among islands themselves.

When I go to Saltspring, they don't talk well about some other places, and it's unfortunate, because I think the mandate, the objective, of the trust is a very good one. I would hate to see the trust go away -- which is an option, considering the study. The reason for the trust going away is not that we have succeeded in putting in a mechanism that will indeed preserve and protect the islands and their environment, as the mandate is, but that it will be driven by the lack of a working relationship -- or the ability for a working relationship -- between the various islands. So we really have to spend some time there and, hopefully, through discussion we can find some directions in that one as well.

I've talked about the grants. We are going to visit the Assessment Act as well. In general, I should say that it's a group of people that most people never talk to. It's an authority that does its thing. The only people who talk to Assessment are the other people who appeal the assessments, but in general, we do not know the people who work behind the scenes and put it all together. I have made a point of learning more about them, and I'm tremendously impressed by their professionalism and the way they handle many, many issues that are all people-driven issues. There is a lot of fairness in their action, and I think their programs, in general, reflect an extremely professional business attitude. I have high regard for the group that I have met. However, there are some areas that have to be addressed, and we'll get to that one.

I mentioned the provincial growth strategy. I'm far ahead in my speaking than the little notes that I've made here. I'd like to. . . .

[1515]

A Voice: It's a book.

T. Nebbeling: Yeah. But I've only done two pages, and there are 1,600. This is like the Municipal Act. [Laughter.] Thanks for that hit.

I think I will conclude my remarks by once again stating that I appreciate staff.

One other point I'd like to raise, and that is more a flag that has been raised with me. But I have no reasons why; I hope that we can find the reason. That is the safety review issue. I keep hearing -- suddenly, out of nowhere -- in almost every other piece of paper I see, that there is a safety record requirement, there is a provincial safety review, there is a new direction toward public safety. I need to know where it comes from. And hopefully we can find or discuss some of the means that the government believes that they can introduce to further the cause of public safety.

Having said that, I appreciate having been given the time to quickly do an overview of some of the things that I felt I wanted to say today. Hopefully, we can go through a good estimates process.

Interjections.

T. Nebbeling: May I continue, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: The floor is yours. The member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi on vote 41 -- provided your colleagues are in agreement here.

T. Nebbeling: Well, we have a code that if they're not in agreement, I will know. Madam Chair -- Mr. Chair -- through you to the minister. . . .

[ Page 15393 ]

The Chair: Respect for the Chair is of the utmost necessity if we're going to have. . . . [Laughter.]

T. Nebbeling: Maybe it is a cold, Mr. Chair, but I didn't look, I just listened.

I would like to ask a few questions -- nothing serious -- about the expenditures for the year 1999-2000. Over the last number of years, we have seen a considerable reduction in -- "job description" is the wrong word -- the workload that is within the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, at least the traditional workload.

Of course, I first of all think about the reductions in grants that have been initiated by this government over the last couple of years. With the reduction of the grant money available, I presume that there is a reduction of workload in deciding how funds are being distributed. That is one area that I've noticed. We are aware, I should say, that the housing portion that was part of Municipal Affairs in the past has been transferred to another ministry.

What amazes me slightly is the fact that in '96-97 the cost of the workforce was 8.1 percent. With all this reduction, I now see the cost of Municipal Affairs for salaries and benefits to be 18 percent. What I don't understand is: although you have a much lower workforce need because of the reduction in projects you're involved with, the cost of the employees and their benefits has gone up -- has doubled -- since 1997. Can the minister explain that to me how that is possible?

Hon. C. McGregor: I understand what the member is trying to ask in terms of reduction in workload. I just point out that while there has been a reduction in unconditional grants -- it's somewhere between $145 million and $150 million since the 1996-97 period that the member makes reference to -- those grants were formula-driven. And while I appreciate that the member thinks that's a reduction in workload, in fact the work that actually went on was in the doing the math to formulas in order to generate cheques to municipal governments. That is not the bulk of the work that the ministry does. The bulk of the work remains. The workload that was in place in '96-97 remains as it is now in terms of the kind of support, advice and so on that municipal governments are given through this ministry.

[1520]

In particular, the member did make reference to the fact that housing is no longer within this ministry. That is correct. There has been an adjustment in the budget. Twelve individuals and the dollars to support that program were transferred to the Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security. The overall impact of what I've just described in the elimination of unconditional grants is what changed that percentage. So when your budget is this big and then you apply a percentage to it, then the percentage is lower; when your budget is reduced, your percentage for staff salaries becomes higher. It's a mathematically driven formula, member.

T. Nebbeling: I understand that the percentages fall differently. If you have a budget of $300 million and now suddenly you have a budget of $100 million, obviously that percentage is different. But the workload itself and the cost, the amount -- and that's what I'm talking about; I'm talking about the actual salaries -- of salaries has increased compared to 1996-97. It has doubled. In spite of the minister saying, "Well, we did not really, under the old formula, have a lot of labour output. It was just more handling of the cheques," or whatever, there must still have been a fair amount of staff involved in deciding how these projects were allocated.

I remember from my personal experience that whenever we had grant applications, not only did we talk with Municipal Affairs but we had visitors from Municipal Affairs, we had some regional people. The reduction in grants compared to then must, in my opinion -- and maybe that opinion is driven by more of a businesslike approach than anything else -- have led to serious reduction for that kind of work, hence less employment in that sector. If the minister says, "No, that has not happened," then what I hear -- that the workforce that was there then is still in place, doing the same thing but working with much less grant money. . . . That to me just makes no sense. Are some of these people working in other areas within the ministry, or. . . ?

Hon. C. McGregor: The unconditional grants program, while being a large part of the budget a number of years ago, is not a budget that employed a great deal of staff in order to support it. In fact, there was only one analyst who did the work in terms of generating the formula, and then there were electronic transfers directly to municipalities. So unconditional grants do not require the kinds of staff support that the member described in terms of the ongoing dialogue between Municipal Affairs staff and local governments.

Conditional grants, on the other hand -- as the member I'm sure is aware -- do require a great deal of dialogue between the ministry and member governments, often on the phone, letters and correspondence back and forth, continued conversations about how to meet program criteria, and so on. That level of work continues to remain.

[1525]

The member did make note of the total number of staff available that are working in the ministry now compared to '96-97. We don't have the exact number of staff that were working in the ministry in the '96-97 budget. We estimate it to be about 500. If it's important for the member to know more specifically, we can take that on notice and provide it at some later time. Currently we employ 452 staff, so there has been some reduction since '96-97 -- not a great deal, but some. In terms of workload across the ministry, there's been a great deal of emphasis, as my remarks earlier indicated, around Municipal Act reform. That has been a project that has generated a great deal of work right across the ministry -- everyone from analysts up to senior staff members.

T. Nebbeling: I'm not going to go much further on this point except to say, to the minister through the Chair, that '96-97 was the first year -- was it not? -- of the three-way split with the federal and the local governments. Was '96-97 not the first? Or was it the second year?

A Voice: In '94-95, we should have done those. . . .

The Chair: It helps if debate is conducted through the Chair.

T. Nebbeling: If the Chair was paying attention, I would, but he's reading. . . .

The Chair: Hon. member, it helps if the debate. . .

T. Nebbeling: To the minister through the Chair.

[ Page 15394 ]

The Chair: . . .is conducted through the Chair.

T. Nebbeling: So '94-95 was the first year? So this was the third year in '96-97 -- because those are the numbers I was given. They had a $300 million budget, almost, compared to $45 million now. The $300 million, I think, was all conditional money. Do you have the unconditional grant budget for that year? If I can get that number later, that's fine with me. Yeah? Okay.

Back to the housing policy and building policy branches that left the ministry. What was the financial impact of that transfer?

Hon. C. McGregor: The transfer of that program had a financial impact of about $600,000.

T. Nebbeling: Were there any other elements of what used to be Municipal Affairs' responsibility that were transferred to other agencies or ministries?

Hon. C. McGregor: We also lost responsibility for a Crown corporation, the homeowner protection office. The minister, when she left the portfolio, also took on the responsibilities of the Vancouver agreement. While there was no staff allocation or budget allocation to that within this ministry, it was that minister's responsibility. She took it with her when she went to a new portfolio.

T. Nebbeling: When we look at the total salary and benefit budget for this year, does that include the FTEs that are not occupied today or that are vacant -- the 27 positions, I believe, open within the ministry? Does that number include those, or would they be in addition?

Hon. C. McGregor: To the best of our knowledge, it includes most of those vacancies, but not all. Some of the vacancies that are not filled or represented in that number include co-op student positions that might come available over the course of the year.

[1530]

T. Nebbeling: That number, I take it, is insignificant in the total scope.

Hon. C. McGregor: The number would be four.

T. Nebbeling: Can the minister tell me the role of Municipal Affairs in the distribution of funds that are coming from the ticket program of the AG's office? I'm talking about photoradar or police tickets that are written in certain municipalities because of red lights. You do play a role in that? Last year it was $13 million.

Hon. C. McGregor: We have a $13 million allocation in our budget that will flow through to municipalities based on a formula that's driven largely on the costs of policing programs, size of municipal authority and so on. That's paid out through our ministry at the end of October.

T. Nebbeling: As the minister is aware, this has been a very controversial issue that has been going on for years now. Many communities at one point refused photo radar in the community because they didn't see any direct benefit to themselves -- if photo radar was going to be a financial benefit. The attitude of some communities changed last year when the red-light video monitoring program was introduced -- although this is the AG's office, and I'm not going to ask you anything about the program. The revenue from red-light monitoring was supposed to be also in part channelled to local governments.

What I would like to know is: what is the role of Municipal Affairs? Are you just a mailing office for the cheques? Do you play a role in establishing how much goes to each community that receives funds? I may have more questions like that, depending on the answer.

[1535]

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate that the member understands that much of this is the responsibility of the Attorney General. What the Attorney General's office does give to us is information about the total police costs per municipality. Then we apply the formula that is authorized under section 8.1 of the "Local Government Grants Regulation." That is based on a percentage of police costs. Those numbers are then driven for each municipality, and then we send out cheques. We've announced allocations for this year, but those cheques will flow in October.

T. Nebbeling: First of all, if I understand right, each community that will receive a grant under this program has been notified of the individual amount. I suppose I am correct in assuming that.

I may have to go to the AG's office with my next question, but I'll try it on you. You say that you have a formula. Can you extrapolate on that -- what that formula is and what it is based on? What was the base that was started last year to establish this allocation of funds through the various communities?

Hon. C. McGregor: I want to be really clear about how this is done, so I hope the member. . . . I'm reading from the written description of exactly what the formula is. The appropriation is established on the basis of the amount being equivalent to the incremental violation ticket revenue estimated in 2000-2001 over the base year that was established in 1997-1998. It's the incremental violation ticket revenue. The formula calculates local policing costs as a proportion of the aggregate municipal policing expenditures.

T. Nebbeling: It's the base year '97-98 that gives me some concerns, because much of the revenue we see flowing now within that ticketing program comes from the red-light video program. Of course, in '97-98 that program was not in existence.

Two points. First of all, how is that revenue introduced into the program? If it is, then we should have seen a considerable increase of revenue to be disbursed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, because the $13 million that was put in the program last year was basically exclusively for the radar. Either photo radar has come down and the red-light video has made up for it, or somehow the red-light video program and its collection of funds have not been transferred into the program. Has the minister anything to say on that?

[1540]

Hon. C. McGregor: The member asked some questions about revenue coming from different sources, and those ques-

[ Page 15395 ]

tions are best asked of the Attorney General. I can't speak to those. To summarize, it is important for the member to know that it was a Treasury Board decision that determined the allocation of $13.2 million. We generated that number based on the local costs that are assimilated by local government as a result of traffic fines.

I think it is important to know that while photo radar is included in the overall expenditures, there are actually no local costs to photo radar.

T. Nebbeling: I will bring this back to the AG's office, because I thought there was a clear understanding for certain communities to allow this photo radar approach or the red-light video approach in their communities. There was going to be a percentage not based on what the cost was for community but based on the actual revenue extracted from the program. It's not fair to make the minister. . . . Do you want to address it?

The Chair: The member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi on vote 41. I would caution the minister and the member that the debate is really helpful coming through the Chair. It keeps me interested and awake.

T. Nebbeling: I will be silent on that one. I could say something.

I would now like to go to Bill 88 from 1999 and ask some questions on the consequences and results based on that, but I will wait till the others are here.

As an introduction, in my opening words I already reflected some of my concerns that I think are consequences of having Bill 88, the second portion of the rewrite of the Municipal Act introduced last year.

Section 3 is still something that I find difficult to swallow, if indeed the commitment made by Municipal Affairs through local government is meant in 100 percent of its intent. When the minister said that we are most likely the first jurisdiction to have introduced such enabling legislation, such empowering legislation. . . . The minister is most likely aware that Alberta had some changes made to their municipal affairs as well, and what they especially focused on Alberta was empowerment.

[1545]

By the way, we did visit the Alberta approach to empowerment of local government. Have staff, since our last estimates, looked at how Alberta did it? Have they found anything where they said that in the future it would maybe merit being considered in British Columbia as well? One point is that we were not the first jurisdiction that started to look at how we can empower local councils to do the things that are most important for local communities.

Last year we also looked at Newfoundland, which has got its city charter now. That, to me, was always an example -- I think I said it last year -- of how a municipal act that is intransparent and difficult to comprehend definitely for local elected officials. . . . We saw that replaced with a document that had 160 sections, I believe. They focused, in Newfoundland, on real empowerment and found ways to do that under the constitution of Canada.

Are we going to see anything that comes closer to what Alberta and Newfoundland did? Or are we going to get stuck with section 3 as it stands today, which I described as nothing more than a longer leash?

Hon. C. McGregor: Hon. Chair, I do apologize for my earlier infraction in talking across the room, and I will try to avoid it in the future.

I think it's commendable that the member opposite is interested in what Alberta and Newfoundland are doing related to local government reform. Our staff are very aware of some of the approaches that have been taken in other jurisdictions. However, here in British Columbia we decided to take a made-in-B.C. approach, if you will. We engaged in a multi-year approach to deal with the currently existing act. Our approach was to work collaboratively with local and regional governments and the UBCM to develop a legislative platform that met the needs of local government and the provincial government. I think that our level of reform is superior to others, in fact, because of the kind of approach we've taken by designing it directly in consultation with the local governments.

[1550]

You can take approaches that do it in a different way -- that say we're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start all over again. When you take that approach, what can happen sometimes is that you then have to engage in a series of amendments in subsequent years to fix the problems that you thought you had solved with the new legislative approach. New problems are determined, and those need a legislative solution.

I'm not trying in any way to suggest that other jurisdictions haven't put as much effort into recognizing local governments as we have. We were the first jurisdiction, I'm told by staff, to recognize local government as a level of government. Others followed our suit, including Alberta and Newfoundland, but they took a different approach. We don't apologize for the approach we've taken here in British Columbia. It's been very collaborative. I think it was a B.C.-based approach, and it's been very well supported by past and current members of UBCM.

T. Nebbeling: In the past I have questioned the three-year approach. Not to assure that local communities have the input needed to come up with an act that would not only reflect the desires of the communities but also give the communities the sense that they are truly a part of the creation of this Municipal Act. . . . I don't want the minister to take credit for the initiative.

It may be this government that started it, but I would like to remind the minister that in 1995 the B.C. Liberal Party introduced a community charter that was reflective of the new way that local government would relate to the provincial government. Without saying that, I do see in Bill 31 and in Bill 88 certain elements that were in the community charter introduced by Gordon Campbell in 1995. For myself, that charter reflected more of a community-sponsored. . . . That charter was also created with the cooperation of local communities and UBCM.

However, we are three years ahead now, and we live with the consequences. I dare say that one of the consequences of having gone through this three-year program is that there's a true burnout within communities. I had it illustrated last week when I spoke to some council members who even felt, the last time when they came to a symposium in Richmond. . . . The first day they had enough energy to go through it, but the second day they were flat, and all they could think was: how do we get out of here?

[ Page 15396 ]

The danger of the approach we've taken is that the participation of local government has not been exclusively vigorous. There is a burnout factor; everybody's tired. Last year the experience of local government, because of the political reality of the time, was very discouraging. We all remember the president of UBCM coming to meet with the then Premier. Some of the quotes by various parties were in the newspaper. Local government really felt that they were asked to go through a process, but ultimately, when they put their points on the table, they were not necessarily heard.

That's part of the reason why people -- I, at least -- do not get that sense that we have done something remarkable here. As I said, the one thing people tell me all the time is that they do not understand the new act; they find it more complicated. Right now, if you get the big Municipal Act binder with the old numbers, and somebody takes the time to look up a section -- looks for section 235, which is now 204. . . . That's very complicated, especially for newly elected people who try to get a feel for what the Municipal Act is all about. They are proud to be a council member, and they want to know what they're supposed to be doing. They really have a hard time.

[1555]

I get the same comments from MOA members -- the clerks and the administrators. These are the people who have to show council how the Municipal Act works, how it is interpreted. They have figured it out, but it's a job. It's a problematic type of thing that should have been avoided and could have been avoided if we had done the one-time swoop. That for me is very essential.

When the minister tries to defend the system about empowerment and broad service powers, I think the other provinces have done it better. If the minister wants to go deeper into it, that's fine. We had this discussion last year, if the minister or her staff remembers. I think we still have to come back to this Municipal Act and see how we can make it more understandable, more user-friendly -- so to say. That will be part of future years and future action.

What I would still like to ask, pertaining to section 3. . . . We know the Nisga'a deal, of course, is over and done. Part of the sales job, so to say, that the government made at the time to sell the Nisga'a deal to the public was that the form of government that was introduced was a municipal-style government. I'm not going to have a debate today; that is all behind us. What I would like to know is: is there still involvement by Municipal Affairs, now that the Nisga'a deal is over, in any way, shape or form, be it in an advisory form, be it. . . ? Are there still certain sections of lands within the Nisga'a nation that are owned by the private sector? How is that relationship going to develop between Municipal Affairs and the new Nisga'a government?

[1600]

Hon. C. McGregor: Let me begin by saying I appreciate the member's comments about the efforts that many representatives from local government around the province have made as part of the design and development of the Municipal Act reform. It has taken considerable time, because we've taken this multi-year approach. It has taken considerable energy on the part of many representatives of local government and their staff.

As an aside, as a teacher I know something about the teaching-learning cycle. While the member might believe that an approach that says all at the same time might work, as a teacher I can tell you that my instructional strategies always took an incremental approach. That is in large part how most of us learn better -- by connecting knowledge with knowledge we previously have. Starting with something you already know and understand, building incrementally on that, can be a very successful approach in learning new things. I offer that as an observation on my part, not to challenge that there couldn't be another way of doing it. Certainly that's an approach that can work as well.

In terms of what local governments have told us in this approach, we did have some very successful symposiums. I'll speak specifically to the last symposium, because the member also made reference to that. We had a larger participation then we've ever had before at a symposium, even more people who were interested in participating. I think that speaks to a higher level of interest rather than a lower level of interest. The evaluations we had were extremely positive.

Having said that, I think the member makes extremely good points about the issues related to implementation and how we do need to focus next on understanding the act, doing more workshops together to talk about what tools the new act gives a local government in terms of taking different approaches to service arrangements, and so on. There is a lot we can do together to learn, in the context of this act, about the new opportunities it affords and those that have changed so that everyone becomes as intimately familiar with it as those who have written the legislation.

On the question of the Nisga'a, in fact we will be having some direct conversations with them in terms of our safety programs. There is a requirement for the Nisga'a to meet or beat the same standards we have if they are to engage in managing those programs within their own area of jurisdiction. We will be engaging in direct discussions with them on that point. Broadly, we engage with UBCM in conversations relating to Nisga'a and other aboriginal government issues, but staff can think of no other specific matters that we are discussing with the Nisga'a.

T. Nebbeling: I wasn't having any example, see. It was just that I wondered, as this is the first major treaty that has been completed, with quite a few complications. . . . I'm thinking, for example: what the basis is now for the relationship for people who own private land within the Nisga'a nation? How are they administered? Are they under the administration of the Nisga'a nation? Is the property tax, for example, that would normally go to another government now going to the local government there? What is the relationship between Municipal Affairs and these property owners?

[1605]

Hon. C. McGregor: We are trying to search our collective memory on the question of property tax payable. We would ask the member if he would address his question to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs -- although he's just finished his estimates, has he not?

Interjection.

Hon. C. McGregor: Okay, then let me say that I'll take that question under advisement, and we'll get back to the member.

We did come across information around support to the regional district in terms of electoral representation. There's an

[ Page 15397 ]

annual cost of about $12,000 that the province agreed to assist the regional district with in funding the cost of the electoral area representative in that area. It comes into effect for a maximum of 12 years.

T. Nebbeling: The bottom line is that section 3 in no way, shape or form applies to the Nisga'a nation or anything that resembles it. Am I correct in my assumption?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, that is correct.

T. Nebbeling: I would now like to move on to section 57(1), and that has to do with the registration of a non-resident property elector at the time of voting. This whole issue of non-resident property voting rights has changed and changed again over the last couple of years. This is exclusively for non-residents, and it should be known to the minister that there is a large group of very dissatisfied property owners in the province, especially in the urban areas, where the owners of commercial properties cannot vote in a municipal election because their residence is outside the area. As an example, somebody owns a business in Burnaby, owns the property in Burnaby and pays the property taxes in Burnaby but lives in Vancouver just over the bridge, and that person has no right to elect. . . .

This issue comes up many, many times. I would like to ask the minister if she contemplates any changes in the next version of the Municipal Act to address that problem.

Hon. C. McGregor: The answer is no.

T. Nebbeling: Does the minister believe in the principle of representation by taxation?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, I believe broadly in that principle, but the member knows that in 1994 there was a change made to the act that does not any longer permit those voting rights for non-resident owners, and that's been a longstanding change. I appreciate that the member may have a different view, but it wasn't a part of last year's Municipal Act reform.

T. Nebbeling: In 1994 when this Election Act was created, there was a tremendous debate in the communities, as the minister is most likely aware. At that time, there were certain principles introduced. Some were acceptable; some were not. One group that was not allowed to vote was second homeowners -- the non-resident property owner. Since the debate was widespread and very broad and lengthy, the government changed its mind. This issue was not really part of it.

Since that time in 1994, other changes have been made to the Municipal Act, including people's rights to vote in a municipal election with the requirement of 30 days residency. In 1994 the act actually included provisions so that people could walk into town, say they liked it there, and they could vote. That clearly showed a problem, and again the government showed a willingness to change the act.

I do not understand why, if the minister believes in the principle of representation by taxation, she violates that principle when it comes to the commercial sector. The business sector is so often part of the community's well-being. Businesses are asked to participate in fundraisers; they are asked to sponsor youth teams in a community. In general, the small business sector -- and we are talking primarily about the small business sector -- is very much part of a community, and to see that group being excluded from expressing their preference for a council doesn't make any sense to me.

It gets worse, of course, if you are in a district where there is a shopping mall, for example, and the community decides to plebiscite to impose a cost that will have to be carried by the commercial sector there. These people have no say in that plebiscite. They have no vote in the plebiscite that could ultimately force them to pay a higher assessment annually.

[1610]

If the minister can't understand that it is not fair. . . . I'm going to ask the minister if she can understand why it is important to include that sector to be allowed as commercial property owners to vote in a municipal election.

Hon. C. McGregor: I think it's important to clarify that in 1993 -- I thought it was '94, but it was 1993 -- there was significant change, and the right to have a corporate vote was removed. As I understand it, that principle is largely shared across Canada.

But you can in fact allow, and we do allow, one vote per property in a municipality even if they are non-residential.

T. Nebbeling: One simple question: does that mean commercial property?

Hon. C. McGregor: It does not include commercial.

T. Nebbeling: That's exactly the point I'm raising. I know that non-residents' properties have the opportunity to vote; the provisions for non-resident property owners are quite flexible, actually, to make it as easy as possible for them to participate. They don't have to give prior notice. When the act was introduced in 1993, it included a clause that you had to have an affidavit 14 days prior to the municipal election to identify you as the person designated to put the vote in for that property of that non-resident owner, especially if there was more than one owner on the roll.

I'm talking about commercial properties -- a store site. It is to me. . . . I don't know how long the minister will be the minister, but this issue comes back after every municipal election: the outrage of people who pay property taxes, who pay taxes that are based on plebiscites. They have no say in this whatsoever. When the minister says she believes in representation because of taxation, I do not understand why she will not apply that principle to small business sectors. These are often little mom-and-pop operations; these are not multinational businesses that we're talking about.

[1615]

To exclude these people from the democratic right that the minister says she believes in is beyond me. I bring it up, as it has been brought up before, because it is an area that is fundamentally wrong. This sector is asked in a community context to give time after time after time. Go to a community event and look who the people are who sponsor these events: they're the small business owners. Look at a sports event; who are the sponsors? The small communities. These people are so much part of it, but then when it comes to exercising their democratic right, because of the taxation element, they are told: "No, go away; you do not belong to our community."

[ Page 15398 ]

I think it is so fundamentally wrong that I really will ask the minister why she cannot see that this group should be included in the group of people as non-residents who have the voting power.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, the principle is basically one person, one vote. That is the principle on which democracy is built. In fact, all of those small business owners that the member speaks so eloquently about have the opportunity to vote as residents within their own areas. So everyone has the right to vote. We take a consistent jurisdictional approach across Canada. While I appreciate that the member shares a different view, it is not the view that is prevalent here in British Columbia or across Canada.

T. Nebbeling: I do not want to take advantage of the fact that I've been in local government and the minister has only been the minister for a short time. So I will take her last statement as a lack of time having been in the job. In municipal elections one vote per person only applies to the jurisdiction you're in. I can own six homes in six different communities, and I have the right to vote in each and every one of these communities. Furthermore, that right applies in Alberta. That right applies the same on Prince Edward Island. This is not something unique to British Columbia.

We do have the right to vote in municipal elections in those places where we own properties. That principle has been accepted in British Columbia for a long, long time, even for the business sector, for business properties.

It's only since 1993, when the government, with the new Election Act, changed the foundation of your voting rights. . . . They then eliminated the democratic right of people who own businesses in one jurisdiction and may live three streets away from it; they cannot vote for their property. Burnaby, Richmond and the city of Vancouver are good examples. These communities have grown into each other. I can have a store on 41st Street, and I can have my home on Kingsway, and I cannot vote for my store, although I live close to it. That's why it is fundamentally wrong. I still pay two taxes in that jurisdiction. I pay for my 41st Street property and my Kingsway property.

The point I'm trying to make to the minister is that in the past -- in the last six or seven years since 1993, when this Election Act was introduced -- we have seen a number of amendments. We have removed that right from a person to walk into a town and say, "I like it here. I vote here," with the risk that busloads could come in, vote and disappear again. That was 1993.

There were some mistakes made in that local election legislation. The only one that is still outstanding in my book is this particular one, where people who pay property tax are denied the right to vote and where people who are forced to pay for special upgrades and special development areas because of a local vote have to pay but can't participate in the vote. If the minister cannot see that it is wrong, then I'm really sorry, because this is common sense. This is about a democratic right, as the minister just stated. I hope that the minister will consider this and that she will change that. Is there room to incorporate a change in the last section of the municipal review?

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate that the member shares a different view on this matter, but we're not anticipating any change on this provision.

[1620]

T. Nebbeling: I'm not going to go on. The minister is clearly set to continue to discriminate against the small business owner, who through hard work has often been able to buy the building he or she operates in. I know this is one of those issues that will never go away. Whatever has to happen in the future, I am sure it will change.

Here is an opportunity for the minister, even as the Minister of Municipal Affairs, which traditionally is not a ministry that gets involved in the small business sector. . . . That is not the role of this ministry. But here's an opportunity for the minister to say: "I too believe that the small business sector is a valuable component of our economic base. I too believe that they are entitled to the democratic rights that every other British Columbian has." It's a shame that the minister has missed this opportunity. Hopefully, in the near future others will be able to deal with it. I'm pretty sure we can.

What I would like to go to now is in section 88. That is the financial agent's responsibility to record all contributions and expenses. I don't know if the minister has been getting lots of feedback since the last election. Are you ready for it?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes.

T. Nebbeling: I don't know if the minister has received a lot of feedback on this particular section and the consequences that we had to experience during the last election. I know there was a drive by the former minister -- the third minister in that office, the third Minister of Municipal Affairs, who I know has been there in the last five years. She introduced this particular section. But at the time, it was described by the UBCM as a more punitive approach to getting people involved with municipal elections, and the fear that many have expressed in the past has come to fruition.

The extreme specific description every contributor had to make and to disclose when wanting to make a contribution has led a lot of people to give money under the table -- and that's a big thing to say, but I'm pretty sure it has happened. Or what more have done is say: "Sorry, under these conditions, I am not going to give anything." Corporations, especially, had problems with this.

When I talk about corporations, again, I talk not about Victoria, and I don't talk about greater Vancouver. I talk about smaller towns, where the gas station owner traditionally would have supported his or her candidate in the municipal election. Maybe they put $200 in the kitty, or $500 -- whatever -- and that was fine; it just happened. And either the candidate won or the candidate lost. But that was a contribution that the gas station owner would make, or the flower sales girl, who would give $50 or $150 -- it doesn't matter. That's how communities are involved in local elections, and the minister is fully aware of that, I'm sure.

[B. Barisoff in the chair.]

With the changes in the act, in section 88 from Bill 88, that whole scenario changed. Suddenly people who gave $100 or more had to sign a disclosure form, and they had to be giving their name, address, phone number. What else? If it was a corporation, if it was a gas station owner and the gas station gave something, it was worse. Not only did the corporation have to give its information, it had to name directors or

[ Page 15399 ]

appointees, and it became a whole paper trail that people had to fill out. And a lot of people said: "Hey, I can't be bothered with that."

It did a couple of things. It either stopped people from getting funding for the campaign, which is always difficult, or it actually made it difficult for a candidate to use that money -- because people will say, "Well, here's $200, and I'll let you know later on who the directors are," and they never do. So now the candidate has a problem to disclose and has to spend more time chasing people than actually focusing on the campaign she or he wanted to run to get elected.

[1625]

So this particular section -- and there are some other sections related to this -- is creating more headache and havoc than any good it has done. I would like to ask the minister what kind of considerations have been given by staff. I say the staff, because it is incomprehensible to think that staff has not, from time to time, been given these messages that I'm trying to give here.

This section has not only made it very difficult, not only to find support -- financial support -- to run your campaign, but has also turned a lot of people away from getting involved. And that may -- and I'll get more specific on that one later -- even have caused some people to find ways to contravene the act. I don't think a section should ever force people to do that, especially when we're talking about small amounts of money.

So has the minister and her staff given any consideration to some changes to undo some of the harm that is done by this particular section and other sections that I will bring to your attention later on?

Hon. C. McGregor: I think it's important to acknowledge that the principle around these provisions in the act is to ensure that there is accountability, that there's full disclosure and that there's transparency and openness in terms of election contributions and so on. You know, in a place -- in this Legislature -- where we spend a great deal of time talking about transparency, openness and accountability, it's important that we make sure that those principles are adhered to in another context as well.

Having said that, I think the member is absolutely right about some of the problems that have been attributed to the new provisions in the Election Act. We're engaged. . . . In fact, I think the member received a copy of our elections review workplan. . .

Interjection.

Hon. C. McGregor: No? I'd be happy to provide the member with a copy.

T. Nebbeling: I'm always the last one to know.

Hon. C. McGregor: . . .where we are taking the opportunity to survey local governments to find out from them which provisions worked well and which ones were cumbersome. There's an opportunity to make amendments to the processes in order to achieve some of the streamlining that's necessary. As the member points out, perhaps the paperwork that's required in terms of reporting who contributes to a campaign needs to be streamlined in some way -- that it asks us for more information than is necessary. That might be one example of something that could need changes.

We've begun the work already. We began in March with a survey of the chief election officers. We're also collecting input as a result of the correspondence we've received, election day phone calls we received and the survey of local governments that we put in place. We will also be doing a feedback session with UBCM, to meet and talk with them about what they see as necessary changes.

We do have a plan in place where we will review those provisions to find those that work extremely well and are very acceptable and accepted by everyone, as well as those that don't work. We will continue to keep in place the principle of accountability, being an important one from a public interest perspective.

T. Nebbeling: I'm very pleased to hear that at least within the ministry, there's an awareness that this has really created some serious havoc. I can't argue with the minister's position on accountability and transparency. We all believe in that in this House.

What I do question, however, is that under the old legislation, prior to last year. . . . What was so untransparent about that? I mean, I worked with it for many years, and I never, in the ten years that I was in local government, had any knowledge or know-how of a case where the rules that applied to local elections were violated to the point that somebody said: "This is it; I'm going to take some action." I've never heard of that. I would really like to hear why suddenly in 1998 or 1999 the government thought there was a lot of intransparency. Is that a proper word, "intransparent"? I'm making it up, I think.

[1630]

A Voice: Non-transparency, maybe.

T. Nebbeling: Non-transparency?

The Chair: Through the Chair, please.

T. Nebbeling: For clarification, when I speak to my colleagues for consultation, do I have to do that through the Chair? I would like an answer on that, please.

The Chair: No, just when you're speaking to the minister.

T. Nebbeling: So the Chair was not noticing that I was speaking to my colleague.

The Chair: Please continue, member.

T. Nebbeling: I would really like to hear why these changes were suddenly needed. In 1993, when we did a very comprehensive review of the whole Municipal Act, these things didn't come up, and they didn't come up because there was no reason for them to come up. I do not know of any incident in 1997-98 that justified these kinds of steps. As far as I'm concerned, we should almost go back to square one. I'm asking the minister to consider that, because. . . .

Interjection.

T. Nebbeling: They're consulting, Mr. Chair.

[ Page 15400 ]

I lost my line for a moment. I would really like to hear from the minister what it was in 1997-98 that led to this very drastic change.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm certain the member opposite, in all of his time in local government, would never have violated any rules. You made mention of the fact that you had not known of anyone, and I'm certain that's the case in your experience.

But there have been some very well publicized cases, I'm told, where there were in fact some very significant concerns. As a result of that, it actually brought into question some decisions that municipal governments had taken. The maintenance of accountability and transparency measures is extremely important to the public who review and watch elections taking place, not only to have confidence in the people that they elect but also to have confidence in the decisions that are subsequently taken. In that sense, that's the impetus for the subsequent changes.

Having said that, I'll reiterate again that we are engaged in a review. We have asked municipal governments to respond to the provisions. We are prepared to consider change, and we will be reviewing that with UBCM in the fall convention.

T. Nebbeling: Could you then give me an indication of which parts of section 88(1)(a) to (e) and then (b) again are being considered for either change or complete removal from this section?

Hon. C. McGregor: I guess we're struggling with what the member is really asking. We're prepared to consider all of the election provisions under Bill 88, so we haven't taken any off the table. We're waiting to hear from local governments about those provisions which they see as problematic. The survey isn't completed yet, but we'd certainly be happy to provide the member with a copy of the survey once we've compiled the results. If you'd like to have a copy of that once we've heard back from local governments about what their concerns are, we'd be prepared to share that with you.

T. Nebbeling: That survey was not done during the last symposium, then. That is a separate survey.

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, that is correct. The last symposium was about the changes we're proposing to the Municipal Act in this session. We did not deal specifically with the elections provisions. The survey is going on separate and apart from that symposium, asking local governments to review their experience with the act and to consider what areas of concern they have.

T. Nebbeling: I don't know. Maybe the survey has already gone out, and you're just waiting for the returns. Or maybe you have the returns already.

This would have been an opportunity, then, to get more feedback from local government also on the issue we talked about earlier on. That was the non-resident business property owner -- commercial land owner. I don't know; that obviously was not brought up. It would have been interesting to have included that in the survey. I think the minister would have been quite shocked to see how much sympathy and interest there is to correct that particular section as well. But if the survey has gone out already, we just have to wait for another one.

[1635]

Coming back to section 88 and section 90, in section 90 there is of course the infamous $100 number. Anything under $100 doesn't have to be disclosed; anything over $100 has to be disclosed, but it doesn't have to have the paperwork that has to be done with donations over $100.

It is no surprise to see in the last election especially, that in B.C. some of the disclosure forms are coming back to the people who check out the information -- the Elections B.C. data that is in the disclosure forms -- that there has been an abnormally high level of $99 cheques. Some communities have more than others, but it is very telling that a lot of people used the $99 barrier to not have to disclose their name and other information. This alone should illustrate to the minister that there is a change needed to accommodate it, because it is the proof of the pudding that people were uncomfortable giving their name.

However, the question that I would like to ask now is. . . . There were a fair number of disclosures that showed they had received a large number of $99 cheques. Langley city -- I don't know; the mayor? -- had a large number of $99 cheques. What has been done with that information? Has that just been accepted as: "Well, they're $99 cheques"? Or have any questions been asked about the multitude of these many cheques for one candidate, for example?

Hon. C. McGregor: The member does point out a common occurrence related to both municipal donations and provincial party donations. I would also observe that the rules under the B.C. Election Act also encourage people to give or not give on the basis of limitations. If the member has a different number that he'd like to suggest to try and solve the problem of disclosure, I'd certainly be prepared to consider it. But in fact, the disclosure then doesn't come to us. It goes to the clerk who runs the elections at the municipal level, and then it's available for public inspection. The purpose of having it available is for the public to have the opportunity to review. They may come to the same conclusions as you did in the case of Langley, or they might come to different conclusions, in the case of Kamloops.

[1640]

T. Nebbeling: There are obvious consequences, because not only did you violate the Election Act and the municipal election act, but within the bill there are certain stipulations that made it clear that certain things do not happen with a donation over and above $100 or that, if you try to undercut the exposure of giving a donation over $100, there are consequences to that.

I would like to hear from the minister: is she aware of any follow-up -- not action, but follow-up -- done to clarify why certain individuals are getting maybe 20 or 30 of these $99 cheques towards their campaign? Has anything been done? I'm not talking out of turn when I say there have been stories in the press where accusations were made about $10,000 donations in $99 cheques. What has the follow-up been?

One of the things that I struggle with when I look at the Municipal Act. . . . It has a lot of punitive measures: "If you do this, then poof! If you do that, then that's fine." That's

[ Page 15401 ]

correct in many instances. But if it doesn't get acted on, then I have a problem. If you put acts in place, act on the act. And I would like to hear what has happened with these donations that were suspected of maybe trying to violate some rules that apply to the provincial Election Act.

Hon. C. McGregor: I think it's important to note that anyone who makes, or is reported to have made, a donation of $99 hasn't broken any laws. So there's no reason to investigate any such person for doing so. If there has been a donation of $99 made and it's reported as such, there is no need for an investigation in that regard, because no laws have been broken. So it wouldn't necessarily concern any person to see that information reported on an elections statement.

Nonetheless, if there are loopholes or technicalities that have become apparent to local governments as a result of the application of the act in its current form, I think that information will become apparent to us in the survey we do with local governments. It may be that issues will have to be addressed as a result of that.

T. Nebbeling: What I'm looking at is that there were some reports in the newspaper where certain individuals were giving more than one $99 cheque. Of course, there is a provision -- section 90(4) -- that says that if a person gives a multitude of $99 cheques, the total amount of these cheques is then the donation, while under $99 there is no disclosure given. If you add them up and the sum is well over $100, obviously -- let's say you have ten cheques -- then the disclosure has to be given. How has the ministry dealt with that?

There have been cases like that reported in the press, and what has surprised me is that I have not seen any follow-up. I've seen follow-up of council members who didn't disclose anything, most of the time because they didn't get elected and they said: "Well, the heck with it." That gets reported in the press. But what has happened with these incidents where the suspicion, clearly, was as I just illustrated? That's what I'd like to hear, because if there are rules, then we'd better live with them. I don't agree with them, but if they are there, we'd better live with them. Is there any comment the minister can give me on that one?

[1645]

[D. Streifel in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: I think, perhaps, that some of the cases that the member makes reference to have been reported by the media as a result of having viewed those statements that have been made available in local municipal government offices. Individual citizens have to go through the courts if they wish to have provisions of the act enforced or if they believe there has been a violation of the act. This ministry is not given the role of policing those provisions of the act.

However, the importance of engaging in this review and having municipal governments report to us is to ensure that the act reflects the needs of the goals of transparency in public accountability, and so on, and also to make sure that we don't put in place onerous provisions that are unnecessary. But it's also to determine if there are trends or patterns of abuse of the legislation so that those principles of accountability and transparency can't be achieved. Then at that point, my role would be to consider legislative change in order to deal with those concerns.

T. Nebbeling: That's interesting. So the act, which does include some solutions to violations of the act, does not get enacted upon until such time as a private citizen actually challenges an action by a person who is running in a local election. Is that how it works? I didn't know that.

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, that is the way it works, because it is the courts that have to impose the penalties contained within the act.

T. Nebbeling: So the government itself never initiates that kind of action. I'm just trying to think if I, from experience, can recall where government did take action. Maybe the minister can answer me if that is indeed the case -- that the government never initiates that type of action, be it through Municipal Affairs or through the AG's office.

Hon. C. McGregor: We can think of no examples where a government has pursued it.

T. Nebbeling: The minister is not aware of any councils, for example, that have been declared incapable of running the affairs of the community, and therefore a trustee was appointed by Municipal Affairs. The same applies to the school boards, actually. Where the school board violates a financial act, for example, and gets replaced by trustees, that is clearly an initiative by the government and not the courts.

[1650]

Hon. C. McGregor: With the member's indulgence, we need to get a copy of the act here, because staff are relying on memory. That's not a very accurate form of providing information to the member. Perhaps we could change this line of questioning until someone gets the act here, so we can determine specifically those provisions that the member is asking questions about.

T. Nebbeling: No problem. If you want to do it on Monday, I don't think it's going to take a lot of time. It's just that I'm trying to find out that. On the one hand, we've included in the new Municipal Act some very serious controlling elements that are translated as being the givers of the transparency. I find that the opposite is the truth, and I'm just trying to find out: have there in the past been occasions that justify these changes?

And secondly, have we seen the act enacted? There's the minister's statement that Municipal Affairs doesn't enact; it's the courts that do it. I'm not going to spend much time on it on Monday, but I would like to hear if there are some situations. When it comes to elected school boards and the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, certainly they act, and I think that Municipal Affairs should do the same.

Then we'd better change the whole subject, and I wouldn't mind going till six o'clock on the counterpetition provisions that are in the Municipal Act -- section 242 and the amendments. I have in the past expressed my concern over this particular section. The conditions under which local government has to. . . . You need a copy? I thought I was generous.

The Chair: Through the Chair.

T. Nebbeling: Through the Chair. Am I still on? I believe so.

[ Page 15402 ]

The Chair: The member has the floor.

T. Nebbeling: As I said, I have in the past expressed my concern about section 242 of Bill 31 and the amendments as represented in Bill 88. In particular, I'd like to state that I am not at all opposed to having a mechanism where a community can, in a reasonable manner, get involved with decisions made by the elected officials. I think it is always important to recognize that people who got elected to local councils have often done so with substantial vote support. This means that communities doing the elections say: "Okay, here are the five or seven or nine people that I believe represent my viewpoints and will act to the best of their ability on my behalf. I will vote for these people." That's the process of a municipal election. I think it is also important that these individuals who get elected can do the job based on what they believe, as a collective team, is best for the very community that they represent.

[1655]

Section 242, to me, fundamentally undermines these principles. It undermines them, because a small special interest community group can -- for all intents and purposes -- undermine the decisions made by these elected officials. It is the 5 percent counterpetition requirement in place today that, to me, is that undermining element. I have no problem with counterpetitions, if counterpetitions are the tool communities want to use. But it has to be based on a counterpetition that has fundamental support from the community as a whole, and 5 percent just doesn't do it.

We have seen many instances now where the counterpetition has been tried to block initiatives that were truly important for the community but were just to the dislike of either a neighbourhood or a special interest group. I'd like to discuss this whole issue with the minister one more time, because -- and I think the minister is just getting the notes there -- there was a survey done to. . . . You have the survey? You had the survey done. First of all, 179 local governments were actually surveyed with 87 responding. Does the minister feel that that is a good response? Or had she expected a higher percentage, even if the response had been: "We have never used it"?

Hon. C. McGregor: It's a 49 percent response rate, which we considered to be an excellent gauge of opinion by local government.

T. Nebbeling: Can the minister give me a kind of breakdown of the communities that participated and, as important, the populations that are represented? That is basically what I'm looking for.

Hon. C. McGregor: The responses covered a full range, including 29 cities, 23 districts.

T. Nebbeling: Twenty?

Hon. C. McGregor: There were 23 districts, seven towns, 16 villages and 12 regional districts.

T. Nebbeling: The districts you mean -- are they special area districts, special cost districts?

Hon. C. McGregor: Those would be district municipalities.

T. Nebbeling: The populations -- that is really what I was trying to get at. Do you have any of the population numbers, especially when we talk about the cities? Are they 100,000 or over, or are they 50,000 or less? Does the minister have any information like that here?

Hon. C. McGregor: We don't have that information here, but we can get it.

T. Nebbeling: The reason I'm asking this is that one of the points that I think has developed over. . . . The situation that has developed is that on one hand, in the assessment that we have been given on the surveys, the difference between small communities and big communities has really not been relevant. It worked in all these communities. The bottom line is that of all the initiatives we have seen happening, only two communities actually voted in favour of whatever the petition was. First of all, can the minister tell me which two communities these were?

Hon. C. McGregor: Actually, I'm not sure what information the member is making reference to. But in terms of our survey, in terms of the counterpetitions provided by local governments that no one signed, there were actually 38 of those -- 69 percent. In other words, despite the opportunity for a counterpetition to be offered, there was no one who signed.

In the cases where there was less than 1 percent on a counterpetition, there were five, which is a total of 9 percent. Between 2 and 5 percent, there were also five counterpetitions around the province, based on the data reported to us. There were seven that were successful that went over the 5 percent; that amounts to 13 percent.

Out of 55 counterpetition processes, seven did not succeed in terms of them being a barometer of whether or not there was significant population opposed to the measure being taken by local government.

[1700]

T. Nebbeling: Would you mind repeating that last statement? Seven out of the 55 did not succeed? That means 48 did succeed.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm sorry. My language did not reflect what I meant to say. Seven were successful, which is a total of 13 percent. I use the word "successful" to. . . . Anyway, it doesn't matter. Seven were successful, which means 13 percent achieved beyond the 5 percent that's required.

T. Nebbeling: I'm really happy that you gave that correct percentage rundown. The point that I've tried to make in the past when we have been discussing this, which I think I can now actually substantiate a bit with this data, is that the government may say: "Hey, this is a great day for democracy. Look at it. All these communities have gone through the process."

At the same time, my point has been that because of the low thresholds, we are going to see many initiatives taken by special interest groups, groups -- let's forget about the words "special interest" -- that will force the council to do a number of things. One of the things, of course, is to stop the process of the project that is actually being challenged through the counterpetition process. That means a delay in time for bringing

[ Page 15403 ]

the project to reality. It may mean that there are partners involved who say, "We don't have the time to wait for this," and they walk away. In general it's pretty negative.

It's also costing a lot of money. When you look at 55 counterpetition initiatives, there is staff time in municipal halls involved. If they are successful, a referendum is held. The cost of all that, considering that in the end only two counterpetitions worked, makes me wonder if it truly is the way to go.

I think this particular section is forcing a lot of municipalities to go through a process that at the end of the day will fail, and the survey showed that. We talk about how 55 were held, but 87 communities responded. I don't know what the difference is between the 87 and the 55 -- if they said, "No, we didn't participate in it," or "We did not have a recall." I don't know. But the fact is that 55 communities went through a process of referendum, with the ultimate result that of all that went through British Columbia, two recall petitions won the fight at the end of the day.

Is it truly justified -- all that action, all that expense, all that staff time throughout British Columbia communities -- to have a result like that? I think it is very, very meagre. I ask: if indeed all these so-called counterpetitions have failed, have not even been able to get 5 percent, why not discourage these groups from stopping projects by saying: "We will have a higher threshold, so before you even think of challenging a council decision made by council members elected with margins far above 5 percent. . . "? Why not set up a higher threshold?

[1705]

Hon. C. McGregor: The survey results are one of the tools that we've used to try to engender some statistical evidence of the concerns that are being raised around the use of the counterpetition and of assent provisions generally. This is one way in which we've begun a conversation with local governments about how it's being used and applied in communities.

It is in fact a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It doesn't have to be used as the member describes it, as a negative tool that an interest group wants to use to try to stop something. In fact, it can be just as successfully used, as is shown here with the counterpetitions where no one signed -- 69 percent, by and large the largest number of them. . . . No one signed the counterpetition because in fact the local government did its job extremely well. There was a well-informed electorate. There was broad general support for the initiative that the government was planning.

So it can be used as a tool to ensure that the public is onside with a decision that a local government wishes to take. It shouldn't be used. . . . It shouldn't be characterized as something that is done only by people who wish to fight against a project or proposal that local government is considering. We have to consider it in the broader sense of what assent tools we have for local governments to use to gain electoral support and to have the provisions of accountability that need to be in place so the public has confidence in decisions that local government is taking.

This is not the only work we are doing around the counterpetition issue. We are engaged in a longer-term look with UBCM at assent provisions generally. We have a multistage plan to look at these questions because, as the member rightly points out, there are concerns around when and how assent provisions should be applied. We've agreed to take a look at this issue in a broader sense.

We feel that the 5 percent has actually worked in terms of how it's being applied to the counterpetition process. Some small local governments have said to me: "We think 5 percent is too low." Then larger governments have said: "No, we believe that the 5 percent is too high." But our experience shows that in fact the 5 percent seems to be working as a tool through which to gauge whether or not there is significant public concern around a matter that needs to have another look.

In the context of it being one of the tools that a local government can and should use to engender conversation and to be sure that they have a wide degree of voter support, it is a much less costly tool than to go strictly straight to referendum. While I understand the member is concerned that there is a cost of business for local government, I think there is also a need to make sure that the appropriate measures are taken so that the public is well informed and involved in significant decisions that a local government might take.

T. Nebbeling: First of all, would the minister be able to give me a list of larger communities that have indicated to her that the 5 percent is too high? The reason is that I am really surprised to hear that.

Last year there was considerable talk in the Municipal Affairs ministry about a potential ward system. There were studies done by various groups to advise or, at least, to give the then minister an opportunity to see the consequences of wards and what would be the justification of ward systems. I know at that time the larger cities in British Columbia all, or many of them, wrote to the minister and said: "Don't even think of it."

The counterpetition is to me a small way of doing a type of ward system, because you allow a neighbourhood in a city to stand up unanimously and say: "No, no. This is not going to happen." And at least the initial step of blocking a project is being initiated by a smaller special interest group that could well be a neighbourhood. So I'm surprised to hear from the minister that she thinks the larger cities wanted a lower threshold, because that goes against everything that we have seen on paper. If we can get some names of cities and councils, if they have written to you with that request about it, I would even appreciate that more.

However, what the minister said about no one signing is interesting. I'm asking that because I would also like to know. . . . Can the minister maybe give me a rundown of what happens when a council decision is made on a capital project where borrowing is involved? That is one of the criteria where the counterpetition would apply. What exactly hap- pens from that evening when the project that is under discussion by council has been approved or given third reading or whatever? Can the minister explain it to me?

[1710]

Hon. C. McGregor: Once third reading has occurred, then there is a period where the counterpetition process could be launched. If there were no signatures on the counterpetition, then it can proceed to the next stage. It wouldn't require a referendum.

[ Page 15404 ]

However, having said all of that on launching the counterpetition process at third reading, this council would have done a lot of work prior to that -- in other words, in terms of public information and so on. If they hadn't, they might well generate many signatures on the counterpetition process. So while they don't have to formally launch the counterpetition until after third reading, the consultative process with the public would have begun long before that. That's how they manage to achieve their results of zero signatures on the counterpetition and are then able to proceed with the capital project.

T. Nebbeling: I hear what you say, Madam Minister. Indeed, the whole process of the project -- to channel it through the various consultative processes in the municipal infrastructure -- is comprehensive. It is public hearings, and it is public presentations. Councils go through a fair amount of public exposure of a project. That triggers the discussion in the community. I agree with you. Then it goes to a public hearing process.

Now in this public hearing process, often the people opposed to a project will stand up, speak up and pretend to speak on behalf of everybody in the community. There will be other people who may like a project and speak up, and again, most likely they'll present themselves as speaking up for the community. That is the process; it's a good, democratic process. It gives everybody an opportunity to put his or her case on the floor. It also gives the council members an opportunity to truly feel what the mood is in the community.

So then, after the public hearing is closed and no further information is given to a council, they will take a vote. Staff may make some recommendations, and then they will have a vote. And if they go ahead with the process, truly the council can say: "We did it with the knowledge that the community was part of the process, that the community was totally made aware of the reasons we are going this way." And now you are saying that it is okay if there's a small minority that are still not happy because they couldn't win the case in a public hearing. So let's see if they can get 5 percent of the municipal vote in a counterpetition, and we'll start all over again.

[1715]

Now what I would like to hear from the minister is what exactly happens once the council makes the decision in support of a project through a vote? It is not council who initiates the counterpetition. No, I'm sorry. It is the community. The community stands up and says: "We want to have. . . ." What I would like to hear is a council being asked by a petitioner to allow a counterpetition. I believe that's how the system works. Then people go out and then get signatures. I don't think council members go out and get signatures; it is the community. So for that process of collecting the signatures after a motion or notice has been given of the counterpetition request, how much time is there between that request and the actual decision to not go with the counterpetition?

Hon. C. McGregor: In fact, the member may be surprised, but it is the municipal council that can launch the counterpetition.

T. Nebbeling: No, it can't.

Hon. C. McGregor: Right, exactly. And that's what they would do in the example that I described to the member. They would launch the counterpetition process if they decided they were going to use counterpetition as a tool to determine voter assent. So it is the council that makes the decision to do that, and then they would advertise it. They have to advertise it at least twice, and there has to be a minimum of 30 days notice from the second advertisement of the counterpetition availability until such time as they declare the counterpetition process to be over. That's a minimum; the council could set a 60-day, 90-day or other period of time through which the counterpetition becomes available.

Those who wished to sign the counterpetition would have to come to the municipal clerk to get a copy of the counterpetition and register themselves as someone soliciting signatures. Then they would go about gathering the signatures for the counterpetition process. As the member rightly noted, it would not be the council members themselves out there garnering signatures on the counterpetition.

T. Nebbeling: The minister is aware that when section 242 was introduced in Bill 31, it was a tool for communities to stand up and say: "You make a decision as a council; we would like to have a second thought." It was last year, I believe, through the amendment made, where councils could actually initiate -- if they feel there was a need for it -- a counterpetition themselves. I am focused on the community initiative, and I think all my speaking to this matter has evolved around how a group in the community would take the initiative to petition council to not go ahead with a project.

However, my question to the minister is: of the communities that were interviewed or that responded to the survey, how many of the counterpetitions were responded to? How many opportunities when a counterpetition was used were initiated by council? How many were initiated by local groups to basically argue with a decision of council? That is what I have seen to be the overwhelming reason for introducing a counterpetition. The intent of "Let's have a second look at this whole thing" has, as far as I know, been the prevalent reason for a community having to go through the counterpetition process.

[1720]

Hon. C. McGregor: We began this conversation by talking about an example where there was a capital project and borrowing involved. That's why there would be a counterpetition or a referendum involved. That's an important point to note. In every single case the counterpetition has to begin by being advertised by the local council. That's what starts the process. There can't be a counterpetition until the local council takes a decision that triggers either a referendum or a counterpetition. None of the counterpetition processes are initiated in any way other than the councils themselves advertising them, and then in every case it's the community who then responds by engaging in the counterpetition process. I hope that helps clarify.

T. Nebbeling: I don't think the minister is right. I think there may be a group coming to the council saying, "We want a counterpetition," and then council will indeed initiate. . . . Or the clerk will put out an ad saying, "This is a request for a counterpetition," and that's how the problem starts. To give you an example, there's Pitt Meadows. There has been a project approved by the council, a golf course with real estate development. That project, through a counterpetition process

[ Page 15405 ]

initiated by a citizen in Maple Ridge, went to a referendum, and the referendum was defeated. The process went ahead, and I believe the development is going ahead as well. That was the Pitt Meadows Golf Club.

There's another issue right now in that same area, and that's why I'm aware of this one. A lady is very much opposed to the fact that the Pitt Meadows airport is going to have a road built from the airport in the new section to link up with Dewdney Trunk Road, or whatever it is called. This lady is opposed, because when she is sitting in her back yard, from a fair distance she can see this road that will be built, and she doesn't want it. She wants the natural look, the rural look, to be preserved. She is initiating a counterpetition. I don't know what her role is -- I think there's some financing involved, and the airport is a partner in it -- but she is initiating a counterpetition.

[1725]

I believe that the footwork that has to be done to get a counterpetition in place is that somebody has to indicate to a council: "We don't like what you did; we want a counterpetition." The clerk will then put in an application. Otherwise, how come, in all the hundreds and hundreds of decisions made by various councils on capital projects -- where borrowing is a part of it -- councils decide not to go with counterpetition? There are many occasions; there is no requirement that they have to. The counterpetition and the referendum that is a consequence of a successful counterpetition only happen if the community somehow plays a role in that decision. That is where we have the discrepancy.

It would be easier if the minister could give me the number of council decisions that were, by council decision in a public hearing, responsible for the counterpetition, like: "We have made this conclusion that it's still controversial, so let's go to referendum." I know that can already happen with 3 percent, I believe, of show for a referendum.

I also know that there are, in many other communities, initiatives taken by the citizens. The city of Rossland, for the longest time, had a counterpetition process of 25 percent. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the AG have always declared this counterpetition initiative in Rossland illegal, although it was a form of direct democracy. That's why Rossland had to change their wording from counterpetition being binding to the councils to councils taking it as a recommendation.

Once this new Bill 31 section 242 is introduced, Rossland is off the hook. They don't agree with the 5 percent, but now that mechanism for responding to community desires is in place. That's why I know this idea that only a council can be the initiator is not true. They can, under certain circumstances; I know it. So can Joe Blow walk into a municipal hall and say: "I don't agree with that decision. I want the initiative of a counterpetition." Then the process of getting it to the public truly is through the clerk and advertising and everything. I agree with you there. It is still Joe Blow Citizen who has to walk in to say: "I want a petition."

Can the minister respond to that? I think we have to really come to an agreement on this.

[1730]

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm afraid we're disagreeing, because in fact we know of no way in which a counterpetition can begin until council has taken a decision. That is what the law requires. The council has to take the decision, and then the counterpetition process can begin. The only thing I can suggest to the member is that perhaps we can offer a detailed briefing -- going through the act provision by provision so that maybe it will be clearer than the way I'm describing it -- in order to understand how the counterpetition process works.

It may be that there are situations in communities where people wish to petition a council to stop a decision that they've taken, but those are not the provisions of the counterpetition process that we've been debating here today. I really don't know how to clarify it better for the member, other than to suggest that perhaps we need to just sit down face to face and go through the provisions of the act so that the member can. . . . Maybe it's the inadequacy of my explanation, but. . . . I think I'd better leave it at that.

T. Nebbeling: I'm sorry that I disagree with the conclusions, but maybe the minister can explain the next situation to me. Council gets petitioned by a citizen to initiate a counterpetition. Council then provides the legal mechanism for that, there's a period where signatures are collected, these signatures are presented to council, and guess what -- it's 7 percent. What is council to do then? Can the minister answer that question?

Hon. C. McGregor: The council has two options. They can either reconsider their initial decision, or they can make a decision to go to referendum.

T. Nebbeling: Why would a council go through that process if, at the end of the day, they still had the option to cancel the process altogether or go to a referendum? If a council has passed a motion on third reading or fourth reading -- depending on their relationship with Municipal Affairs -- that they want a project by majority, why would it suddenly stop and say: "Okay, now let's see if we can get 5 percent of the population to support it, and then, if we get that, we may well cancel the whole project"?

It just doesn't make any sense. I've heard briefings on this in the past, and I'm convinced that the need for a public individual, Joe Citizen, to be the catalyst in the process is a fundamental part of how counterpetitions are created and the reason for their creation. This is not for council members to say: "We have gone through this whole process; let's do it all over again." This is a way for communities to have a direct say in what the council decides, and that direct say becomes reality when more than 5 percent of the population is willing to sign a petition asking for a referendum. Then, when that is done, council can say, "We're not going to go through this any longer," either for funding reasons or because it's too late in the process. They may not be able to build the building that they contemplated. They may say: "Forget it." They're not going to go to referendum, and the issue is dead. Maybe the next council will bring it back again.

I do not understand that the minister cannot recognize that there is a role by the public and that that role represents 5 percent of the opinion of the community. That, for me, undermines the right of the council -- an elected body -- to make decisions that that elected body recognizes as being for the good of the whole community. I really have difficulties with not seeing the minister recognizing that Joe Citizen has a part in that decision, counterpetition or not.

[ Page 15406 ]

[1735]

Hon. C. McGregor: Of course citizens have a right to participate in decision-making. That's why we have all kinds of processes that encourage that involvement. But if what the member is saying is that there should be no counterpetition process, then. . . .

T. Nebbeling: Who says? I'm not saying that.

Hon. C. McGregor: That's good. I'm glad the member's not saying that. The idea of the counterpetition process has been to provide an alternate mechanism when there's a requirement for borrowing and the certain limitation set out in the act has been exceeded. It's to provide some choices and opportunities to local councils to decide that they'll use a counterpetition process, which is less costly and can give a general indication of broad public support or lack thereof.

Obviously, if you think that you're going to have widespread lack of support for your decision, then you might want to reconsider the methodology you've used to arrive at that decision or have broader public meetings -- maybe provide greater background. Open public meetings to debate the questions and have presentations from a variety of pros and cons. Use whatever the tools are that the local government wants to use to make sure that there's a broad level of public knowledge and understanding about a project before the decision to engage in either a counterpetition or a referendum is taken. It can be a very successful way to gauge broad public support without having to go to the cost of a full referendum.

We see this as a tool that local governments can use, the 5 percent being a trigger of there being a significant level of concern in the broader community. Council can then take that information and make a decision on the basis of that 5 percent or 7 percent or 10 percent, whatever was achieved on the counterpetition. It's meant to be a signal for council to either go back and review that decision and perhaps engage in a broader public consultation or rethink the process -- perhaps look at how many years the financing is scheduled over. Maybe it's the financial aspect of the project that's of concern to the 7 percent that signed the counterpetition.

It gives an opportunity to review that decision, knowing what a good portion of the public believes about that decision. I think it's important for councils to consider the views of their constituents. If the counterpetition gives them a strong sense that, "Whoa, we're way off base here. Our public doesn't support this direction, so we need to go back to the drawing table and talk some more before we make the next level of decision," then that's an appropriate tool to use, rather than having to go straight to referendum in order to achieve that.

If council believes very strongly that they're acting in the public interest and they want to proceed from a counterpetition that was successful and achieved more than the 5 percent, they're certainly free to go to referendum. Our survey shows that a large number of times councils did that. In our survey, 41 percent of the time councils went on to say, "Despite there being a successful counterpetition, we're moving to referendum," and in large part that succeeded. It says: "In 29 percent, that vote failed." In other words, they were not able to achieve the 50 percent. Obviously in other cases they were able to successfully win that referendum and make the decision that they believed was broadly in the public interest.

T. Nebbeling: I think we can go on for hours on this one. I don't think we're going to see eye to eye here. The sad thing is that what you've just said has basically invalidated the whole public hearing process that has been a longstanding component of the whole municipal management strategy. It's unfortunate, because everything you brought up that should be heard, to make sure that the voice of the community is heard, is indeed through the public hearing process. You pass first and second reading; you advertise; you allow everybody to speak. You don't stop anybody from speaking up. You give much more opportunity to community members to express their view, like with public presentations and written statements -- much more. Rather than just, "Here is my signature on a petition," if it is more than 5 percent, council can make up their mind what they will try to push through. They will go ahead with it if it means referendum or council throws in the towel and says: "To hell with this; we're not going to do this."

[1740]

I really think what you've just described to me has really taken away the whole value of the public process that councils have used for years on end as the one validating tool for any project. It's protected by the courts. It is protected by rules that are imposed to ensure that the process of public hearings cannot be violated. A council member cannot, as he can do with a counterpetition, receive more information on a project after the public process is finalized. No other information is given to that council member -- not necessarily being notes that the other side on an issue should also have.

If this is what you believe, that counterpetition is a contributor to how local government is truly incorporating the voice of the community, you've really gone the other way. I am therefore still committed to the idea that you're wrong, that it is Joe Citizen who is part of making the decision to go to counterpetition. Can you imagine if it was up to the council? Can you imagine how many councils, after going through public hearings, maybe even on a controversial issue, and presentations after presentations for and against. . . ? The council decides, "Yes, it is for the common good of the whole that we're going to go ahead with this project," and they vote in favour. For that council to then say, "We do this because we know this is the right thing for our town. But you know what? Let's see if people are willing to sign petitions, and we'll start all over again" -- that's basically what you do. That whole public hearing process was for naught, totally for naught.

I don't understand any common reason for that kind of change. I think it is undermining the ability of councils to do things that they feel are necessary. I think it is discouraging to hear the minister basically belittle the whole public hearing process, because after that. . . . A lot of people come out for that, you know. It is not just putting a signature on a petition. You come out to a meeting, and you speak up. If you don't dare to speak, like many of us, you do it in writing. That's all for nothing, because council can just turn around after they say, "Yes, we're going to go ahead with the project anyhow," and then say: "No, let's start another process." I mean, it doesn't make any sense. At this point, maybe the minister still wants to give some response to that. I think next week I would like to come back to this one and get some legal opinions to strengthen my viewpoint.

My whole concern is the role of Joe Citizen in this process and that 5 percent of Joe Citizen's strength can undermine the decision made by council. That is my problem, especially when we see more and more emphasis put on the new relationships between private sector and municipalities. How can we expect the private sector to sit back and let this whole

[ Page 15407 ]

process go on and on, based on a 5 percent petition, with all the costs involved, the delay involved? I am disappointed to hear that the minister sees it the way she presents it.

But worse than that, she thereby basically makes a case against public hearings, which to me are the most democratic forums for citizens to express their views. They can speak up, express their views and nobody can tell them to sit down. If that's how you feel you want to put it out. . . .

I think Burns Bog was maybe the very best process -- days where public hearings. . . . They went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. That's democracy. In the end these people won, because their voice was loud and clear. That whole process has been belittled by what the minister just told us today.

[1745]

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm afraid I take offence at some of the remarks that the member opposite makes, because in fact no one on. . . . Certainly my remarks could not be construed in any way as belittling a public hearing process.

The member is confusing the counterpetition law that exists in the Municipal Act with another process -- public hearings -- which are attributable to other decision-making processes that municipal governments engage in all the time. The formal public hearing process that is used for zonation and bylaws and so on is not invalidated in any way by the counterpetition process. It's not invalidated in any way, and I fully support -- I don't think that I indicated in any way that I didn't support -- that kind of process being used.

I agree with the member entirely that having members of the community attend public hearings and put forward their views is a totally appropriate way to reach decisions, but that is not to say that counterpetitions should not be used. In other words, the member, I believe, was trying to suggest that a public hearing could circumvent or should override any requirement to engage in a counterpetition or a referendum process.

T. Nebbeling: No, I'm not saying that. That's not what. . . .

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm glad the member is not saying that, because I think it would be wrong for him to construe the issue in that way. In prescribed circumstances that exist in the act, the law requires councils to advertise for counterpetitions or to announce a public referendum. Those prescribed circumstances are the ones that we've been talking about as they relate to borrowing and the period of time over which the council has to finance in order to engage in a public project. In those cases, that's where the counterpetition process is used.

That is not to say you cannot use a similar process to a public hearing in conjunction with a counterpetition process. Indeed, member, if the council does its job well in terms of talking through its decision in its open meetings -- talking through these decisions in public meetings or public hearings, however you might describe them -- when they then are required by the law to advertise the counterpetition, there will not be a successful counterpetition.

Those members of the public who might be disgruntled and not wish to support that decision will have the opportunity to engage in that collection of signatures -- after the council has advertised their intention, having made the decision -- in the period of time through which a counterpetition is valid. Those individuals will come forward, and they will have the opportunity to sign that. That's not to say that those very same individuals didn't stand up in a public hearing, making the very points to the counterpetition that they also put their signatures to. One process, member, does not invalidate the other.

I would strongly encourage the member to see this as a tool in the repertoire available to local governments in decision-making. The process does not go on and on, as the member described. In fact, the counterpetition process has a clear time line. It announces, as a part of the advertising, what that time line will be and how many signatures can be collected to achieve that 5 percent. Once that period has gone through, the decision has been made. There is no revisiting the decision; there is no going back. The decision process does not go on and on.

I hope we'll take the opportunity to talk through this section of the act so that we can have a common understanding of what those provisions mean for local governments. While the member might not believe that it's a tool that local governments could use, at least we can agree on the facts of what the law says in the Municipal Act as it applies to local councils.

Hon. Chair, having given my response and noting the hour, I'd like to move that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:48 p.m.

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