2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2000
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 19, Number 19
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The House met at 2:08 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: Here in the gallery today to watch question period and other things and to have meetings is a group of people from the executive of BCGEU component 3, community social services. They are: James Cavalluzzo, Karen Wickham, Cherie Dobbie, Deb Wilson, Stephanie Seaman, Marie McNally, Joanne Dyck, Gale Engstrom, Barry Gauthier, Denise Strookow, Colleen Hutton, Gayle Flavelle, Fay Jolley and Dorothy Bartsoff, and staff person Daryl Barnett. Would the House please make them all welcome.
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Hon. C. Evans: The two invisible groups that actually run the province are, of course, the press gallery and government workers, and they're both sitting right over your head today. I'd just like to introduce, amongst that group: Sandy McLean, Lori Joaquin, Stephanie Johnson, Dorothy Barker, Catherine Scott, Elaine Brigden, Joanne Harder, Susan Wilkie, Louise Dunn, Rusty Blanes, Dolly Zawaduk, Roberta Scarrow, Russell Katzer, Laurel Niemi, Sheila Knight, Elizabeth Washburn, Leslye Nixon, Judy Hall, Janet Parkes, Dana Eklund, Shirley Giles and Robert Kary. Will the House please make these people welcome.
I. Chong: Today we have a number of guests who have come here from far away. They arrived about a week ago to participate in the Art 2000 gala on Monday evening.
Art 2000 is a project that was initiated 12 years ago, in 1988, and involves about 150 students from Australia, Canada, China and Northern Ireland. It was designed to follow these people through to the year that they would be graduating -- which is the year 2000.
So we have visiting with us His Worship Mayor James Curry and Councillors Kathleen Bribben, Alexis Totten and Martin Howell -- they're from Ballymena, the county of Antrim in Northern Ireland, which is just north of Belfast -- and Mrs. Angie Morris, who is on the Art 2000 committee.
I would ask the House to please make them very welcome.
G. Hogg: Today the Leader of the Opposition had lunch with some very special guests who have now joined us in the gallery. They are nine vibrant women who first met at normal school almost 60 years ago. They call themselves the Round Robin Group, and they have been writing a round-robin letter for some 42 years.
They are: Margaret Long from Burns Lake; Faye Eccleston from North Vancouver; Doreen Guillaume-Robinson from Trail; Percy Gray from West Vancouver; Margaret Bishop from Vancouver; Kathleen Heckman from Berkeley, California; Marion Acedo from Woodland, California; Dulcie McCallum from West Vancouver, who is the mother of the former ombudsman and of Judy McCallum, who is the administrative coordinator for the Minister for Children and Families; and their organizer, well-known community worker May Brown from Vancouver-Quilchena.
Would the House please join me in welcoming and congratulating these remarkable women.
E. Gillespie: There are two constituents of mine visiting from the Comox Valley that I would like to welcome today. Bill and Rhona Muir are making their first visit to this House. Would everyone please join me in welcoming them.
G. Plant: It would be difficult for me to identify very many people in this world who have been a better influence on me than May Brown, but luckily two of them are in the gallery. My mother Frances Plant and my son Graham are both here to watch all of us at work. I hope that members will make them welcome.
A. Sanders: In the gallery is Mr. Plaxton and his class of grade 7 students from St. James School in Vernon. I hope everyone will make them welcome. As well, this is a grade 7 class whose members are one of the best basketball teams in Vernon, so I congratulate them on how well they did this year.
I. Chong: I was remiss in not acknowledging another visitor to this gallery. I just found out that accompanying the group that I introduced moments ago is Councillor Carol Pickup from the municipality of Saanich, who is also part of the Art 2000 project. I'm hoping that they do enjoy question period. Perhaps after question period, the Minister of Forests, who I know comes from that area, will greet and meet with these visitors from Northern Ireland. Would the House please make Councillor Pickup welcome.
T. Stevenson: Today in the gallery is a friend of mine, Drake Smith; he's accompanied by Bob Trimbee. They are with VoicePrint B.C., a non-profit charitable organization which is based in my riding. VoicePrint B.C. provides reading services for the blind and low-vision people in over a hundred communities throughout British Columbia. Over the past few years I've been privileged to get to know this organization somewhat and see firsthand the very good work they do throughout B.C. I hope all members will make them welcome.
Also in the gallery today are 60 grade 6 visitors with five adults from Bothell, Washington. They're accompanied by Ms. Richardson from the Canyon Creek Elementary School in Bothell, Washington. I hope all members will make them welcome also.
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Oral Questions
SAFETY CONCERNS ABOUT
DAY CARE CENTRE BALLOONS AND PINS
K. Whittred: A few days ago the Ministry of Social Development declared May as Child Care Month and printed up bags of balloons and pins to celebrate the occasion. The problem is that the ministry then sent these balloons and pins to day care centres throughout B.C., even though safety regulations warn that balloons can break and lodge in children's throats and that pins should be kept out of children's reach. Will the Minister of Social Development tell us why her ministry sent materials to day cares that are specifically banned from day care centres because they are a danger to children?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Last time I checked, balloons were meant for kids. But out of respect for the kind of concerns that the member raised, we sent them to the adults, not to the children.
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Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
The member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale has a supplemental question.
K. Whittred: This is a safety issue surrounding children, and I think it is a not a matter to be treated with any levity. If ignoring the choking hazard on balloons wasn't enough for the ministry, they've also ignored the Workers Compensation Board, which warns of latex allergies, saying they can cause severe health problems that are life-threatening. Will the Social Development minister tell us how her ministry could send items to day care centres that not only are a choking hazard
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
K. Whittred:
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand that the opposition wants to ban balloons and buttons, but we sent them to the adults, because obviously balloons should be used under adult supervision to make sure there are no problems. Having said that, if the opposition is very concerned about this, I will certainly consider sending something else or not sending something another year -- on the advice of the Liberal opposition.
The Speaker: The member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale with a further supplemental question.
K. Whittred: Will the minister tell us how much money she wasted sending balloons that are a choking and allergy hazard to day care centres?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm actually amazed at the concern that the opposition has just discovered about child care, given that they've made it very clear that child care is not a priority for the Liberal opposition at this time. Instead, a tax cut for their corporate friends is.
FAST FERRIES MECHANICAL PROBLEMS
C. Clark: No discussion of government waste would be complete without discussion about the most colossal government waste of all: the fast ferry project. I have here the end-of-month machinery reports for the Pacificat Explorer. It says that in January and February alone, the oil cooler failed, the starter had to be replaced, the elevator broke down twice, the sewage system continues to have problems and divers still have to remove debris from the water jet intakes on a regular basis. Will the minister explain to us how she expects she's going to be able to sell the third fast ferry when the two that we've got operating have been in operation for a year and are still a mechanic's dream -- but a taxpayer's nightmare?
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Hon. J. MacPhail: There's always ongoing maintenance with all vessels, whether they be Spirit-class or C-class or fast ferries. The corporation and the workers who maintain the vessels are doing a good job of doing so as we put the ferries on the market.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain has a supplemental question.
C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, these ferries have been in operation for over a year, and they are still a nightmare mechanically. Let's go to the other ferry. Let's talk about the Pacificat Discovery for February of this year alone. There is a two-foot long crack in the outer hull. The deck was perforated in three places. Water jets are still being contaminated. And guess what: even the dishwasher doesn't work properly. Will the minister admit today, finally, that the maintenance problems in these fast ferries are so big, so serious that it is going to impair this government's ability to ever be able to sell even one?
Hon. J. MacPhail: These ferries are acknowledged as being well built. Too expensive? Yes. Do they service the routes properly? No. That's true -- all of those. What doesn't help is for the Liberal opposition to take what are regular problems that exist on all vessels and use those as examples of why these ferries can't be sold. We have confidence on this side that we will be able to sell the vessels. We've made the decision to do so, in order to restore the corporation to good standing, and we will continue to do so.
However, at the same time, we have a workforce that's recognized as being a well-managed workforce. Recent reports have said that the corporation is better managed than ever before, that the workforce is a skilled one. We will take care of every operational difficulty, whether it be on any vessel in the Ferry Corporation, and we will keep these vessels in service.
PASSENGER INJURIES ON FAST FERRIES
G. Plant: I want to return to the February monthly machinery report and bring another issue to the minister's attention. Quoting from the report -- the last page: "Another injury occurred on the forward stairwell tripping hazards." I want to continue the quote: "As is the norm, an elderly lady during the rush
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I'll take that question on notice. But I would note that the B.C. Ferry Corporation has an excellent safety record.
FUTURE OF THIRD FAST FERRY
The Speaker: The member for Richmond-Steveston has a new question.
G. Plant: When I look at this month-end report and I look at the issues raised in it, and I listen to the questions being asked and the lack of answers, I wonder about the fact that the government claims that the reason the third fast ferry is not being put into service is because they want to sell it as a new vessel rather than as a used vessel. Will the minister admit that the real reason the third fast ferry is not being put into service is because she's holding on to it to sell it and use it for parts and to keep the B.C. Ferries exposure to litigation down below reasonable levels?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We understand the lack of success with the fast ferries, hon. Speaker. There's been an exceeding
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amount of candour in the last couple of months around the lack of success of fast ferries. And yes, we are selling them. However, there is also a recognition that the fast ferries are well built. That is not under question by any expert in the field. Yes, it is true that they are not suitable for this market and that they shouldn't have been built for these routes.
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However, for this opposition party to somehow stand up and intimate that the corporation isn't meeting the safety standards -- the federally regulated safety standards -- that the Coast Guard is not managing the safety standards, that people are at greater risk because it's a fast ferry is simply irresponsible. I would suggest that they should limit it to criticisms that are legitimate and not do all of this fearmongering.
SUSTAINABILITY OF
B.C. FERRY CORPORATION
M. de Jong: In spite of all these problems that B.C. Ferries is obviously having, life seems to be a bit of a party over there. I don't know how else to explain the fact that they spent thousands of dollars last year purchasing in excess of 25,000 balloons. The government seems to have a fixation with balloons. I've heard nothing to indicate that the Ferry Corporation, under this government's tutelage, has had anything to celebrate. I don't know if the balloons were bought to celebrate the launch of a fast ferry -- maybe the potential sale of a fast ferry. Or maybe the government just needs 25,000 balloons to keep them floating.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I won't take that question on notice.
The Speaker: The member for Matsqui has a supplemental question.
M. de Jong: Well, a new question, actually. Having taken the question on notice, maybe I can assist the member. Maybe with this new question, Mr. Speaker
Maybe the balloons were for another special occasion that we've heard about. Apparently, one night this summer, after the last ferry has been put to bed and the last pigeon has been put to sleep, B.C. Ferries is going to turn the Swartz Bay terminal into a drive-in theatre. So now passengers who are going to face longer lineups at the terminal during the day will have an excuse to hang out there at night.
To the minister: instead of spending time deciding whether or not to show The Poseidon Adventure or Ship of Fools, maybe the minister will explain to the public how long it is going to take them to pay off this titanic debt that they have inherited, thanks to this government's incompetence.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Earlier this week the member for Comox Valley asked a very serious question about whether our government was truly committed to the sustainability of the B.C. Ferry Corporation. The answer is yes, we are.
I worry about what would happen if the New Democrats are not in government. I have very serious worries about the B.C. Ferry Corporation. I worry about those communities that rely on the Ferry Corporation. I worry about those communities that have had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in their transportation system. Over the last ten years our government has invested a billion dollars in the maintenance and refurbishment and building of new vessels that provide better services to the communities that are ferry-dependent.
Just the same way that we respect the highways as an economic transportation system, so do we the ferries. To somehow suggest that those investments are not on behalf of the economy is simply ridiculous, and I rue the day that they would ever be in charge.
POTENTIAL TAX INCREASES
FOR TV AND RADIO STATIONS
K. Krueger: Certainly the minister has reason to expect there will be a change in government. I think all of British Columbia is longing for that.
Not least among those longing for the change are small business people, because this government's ten-year assault on small business continues. Due to a recent reclassification of broadcast transmission sites, rural radio and TV stations throughout the interior are facing huge tax increases. For example, radio station CHNL in Kamloops received a 335 percent tax hike on its 2000 assessment. Will the Small Business minister tell us why his government is targeting broadcasters in small markets for huge tax increases?
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Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. C. McGregor: As the minister responsible for the B.C. Assessment Authority, I rise to answer the member's question. In fact, I met very recently with the same broadcasters that the member makes reference to. We are taking very seriously the concerns they've raised, and I will be continuing to meet with them and representatives of the B.C. Assessment Authority in the coming weeks.
The Speaker: The member for Kamloops-North Thompson has a supplemental question.
K. Krueger: Well, this government always takes the concern seriously, it says. But the government creates the causes for the concerns in the first place.
This year CHNL's 30-year-old brick transmission building and five aged radio towers had their assessment tripled to a whopping $250,000. If the government continues to pursue this tax grab, CHNL and other radio and TV stations throughout the province will be forced to cut back their broadcast services. Can the Finance minister explain why the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters was never consulted prior to this massive hike in taxes?
The Speaker: The time for question period is over. I'll ask the minister to make a brief answer.
Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I think it's fair to note that the B.C. Assessment Authority is a very well-run quasi-judicial organization that acts independently of government. It's given the role to assign fair assessment market values, hon. member, and in fact, it is held in high esteem not only here in British Columbia but internationally. Around the world there are
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assessment agencies that come to British Columbia to model their systems after the systems we have developed here in British Columbia. So I stand in high regard of the work that the B.C. Assessment Authority is doing.
Having said that, I gave my assurances to the member opposite and to those representatives of the broadcasting industry who I recently met with that we would meet and talk of their concerns at some length, because I share some of those very same concerns.
The Speaker: The bell ends question period.
Orders of the Day
Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Speaker, I call Committee of Supply. In Committee A, we will be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Advanced Education; in Committee B, we will continue our debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Health.
The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.
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ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)
On vote 36: ministry operations, $8,125,203,000 (continued).
C. Hansen: I just want to give the minister an overview as to where I see us in this process of estimates and also where we'll be going today and tomorrow as we continue on this process.
Last Thursday when we started, we had the opportunity to deal with mental health issues. We then got into some of the capital issues. There is a document that I am still anxious to see, and that is the appendix to the performance plan that was circulated. It was the appendix on the capital plan, which was not appended. Is that the word -- appended? I would certainly be interested in seeing that, if possible, before we get into the remainder of some of the capital plan issues, which will be tomorrow.
While I'm on that subject, the other documents that I was hoping to be able to see before we got to those sections were the information management plan that was also one of the appendices to the performance plan, which would also be helpful for me to be able to review tonight, before we get into that section tomorrow. There's also an outstanding memorandum of agreement on BCBC that the minister had offered to me. If those could be made available at some point this afternoon, that would be helpful to me.
This afternoon what I would like to do is proceed through the various divisions within the ministry. Over the last two days, as we have canvassed some of the constituency issues that my colleagues have had, we've had the opportunity to deal with a lot of those subjects that I would have dealt with otherwise at this time. But I think it's much more effective that we deal with them in the context of constituencies and real people. Certainly I know that the feedback and answers that have come from the minister have been appreciated.
This afternoon I want to start by talking first of all about regionalization under the general subject area of regional programs. From there I want to go on to talk about some of the funding issues in terms of regional programs and funding for health authorities. I want to talk about acute care issues. From there I want to move into the performance plan itself. On page 6, where we start out with the "Key Program Objective" and the performance measures against each one, in looking at that I thought that was a logical sequence for us to follow through, starting with regional operations and basically working our way through the regional plan. I'll try to organize my files according to those subject areas as they come up.
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The first area that I want to embark on today is regionalization. There has been a lot of discussion about the model that we have before us today. I know the minister chaired a committee a few years back that looked at the regionalization model in place as of the spring of 1996. It was the recommendations of that committee that led to the distinction between the CHC-CHSS and the regional health board model. I'm wondering if we can perhaps start with the minister giving us some reflection of where we're at in terms of the process of implementing regionalization in British Columbia.
Hon. M. Farnworth: In the sense of the report as it was presented three or four years ago and the recommendations of the report, the view is that basically the report has been implemented and regionalization has taken place in a way that was envisaged in that report.
C. Hansen: Do I take it from the minister's answer, then, that he sees this process of regionalization as being a completed process and that what we have before in terms of a model in terms of relationship between the regions and the provincial government, is the model that we should expect as a finished product?
Hon. M. Farnworth: In terms of the implementation and in terms of what was envisaged in the report, I would say that, yes, that is complete. But having said that, it's like any process or change that takes place. It's implemented, and it brings some stability. But I think there's also a recognition that things constantly evolve and change in response to changes -- all kinds of pressures or changes that happen over the long term.
C. Hansen: I want to make reference to a section in the environmental scan that was made available to me yesterday. Before I do that, I just wanted to compliment the ministry on the environmental scan. I thought it was a very helpful document. I managed to burn a little midnight oil last night digesting it in advance of today and figuring the areas that we would want to work into our discussion.
On page 30 of the environmental scan, under "Health Service Delivery Issues," it notes that regionalization and the establishment of health authorities funded on a global budget basis has established the administrative framework for the development of integrated systems of care. I gather that essentially is saying -- in other words, from what the minister just said -- that the restructuring phase is finished. It goes on to say: "The next challenge will be to achieve integration at the service delivery level." I wonder if the minister could explain what is meant by that particular reference.
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's a question of ensuring that you have a continuum of care so that patients, when they access
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the system, don't have to go in and out to get the services that they require. In terms of a global budget, you are able to access mental health; you are able to access acute care services; you are able to access long term care services over the continuum. So there is better integration of the existing services. I think it's fair to say that that will be the next step. It's also the ability to take advantage of advances in technology -- for example, around information technology. That will allow better communication not only between institutions but also between physicians and institutions and facilities.
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C. Hansen: I wonder if the minister could tell us whether it's his opinion that the CHC-CHSS model that we have in half the province is in fact working.
Hon. M. Farnworth: One of the challenges in regionalization was the issue of what happens in rural areas, where in many cases you are dealing with a number of geographically defined areas and the ability to work together. I would say that, by and large, I think the process has worked. Having said that, I also recognize that in terms of trying to get different CHCs and CHSSs to work together, in some areas there have been some questions. I have said that if there are issues or concerns in those areas and ways that they can see to improve the situation, to improve communication or to improve the ability to work together, I'm quite happy to look at measures to do that.
C. Hansen: There is a study that was prepared for the Health Association of B.C. last November. It was presented at their annual general meeting that took place on November 7. What they did in this was that they surveyed or contacted and sought feedback from the chairs and CEOs of the various CHCs and CHSSs around the province. Just to remind the minister, these are all individuals who have been appointed by the Minister of Health. In many cases, whether they are or aren't, they are at least not being perceived as independent of the interests of the minister's office. Yet they were very critical of the structure.
Just to give you some of the numbers that came back from this survey; 86 percent of the CEOs and chairs indicated that the present structure was not the correct structure for rural B.C.; 96 percent felt that it should not be the structure for the future; 56 percent felt that regional boards were the preferred authority, while 40 percent felt that the CHSSs should be divested to the CHCs.
In terms of the size of the councils, 96 percent of the respondents felt that the council size of 15 was too large for these small communities. The average size preference was between seven and nine. Many expressed frustration about the appointment process, which they feel is cumbersome and takes far too long. Several communities complained about the questionnaires being too detailed and personal and in fact turning off potential volunteers that may wish to put their names forward for these committees.
I just wonder if the minister has met with the chairs of the CHCs and CHSSs to discuss the results of this particular report.
Hon. M. Farnworth: A couple of points. I have met with the CEOs of the CHCs and CHSSs not specifically on that particular report but to discuss issues of interest to them. This issue was raised by, I think, one CEO -- that was it. I have said that I'm quite happy to look at making the relationship work more efficiently. That's not a problem. I've said that my door is open in that regard.
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I think what's important to note, too, is that in terms of the CHCs and how they were structured, that came very much out of what people in rural communities have to say. It was very much an attempt to recognize the geographic, community and distance issues that exist in rural British Columbia. It was very much a reflection of what we heard. It did not take place in a predetermined fashion, but rather it was an effort to recognize the concerns of rural B.C.
The member raises some concerns in a report, and I'm quite happy to look at that and to look at some of those issues. Some of them seem to me a matter of either refining processes or making changes to make things more flexible. If there's a problem with 15, I wouldn't see moving to nine or seven being a particularly problematic issue to solve.
C. Hansen: It is my understanding that there was to be a formalized review of Better Teamwork, Better Care at a three-year juncture -- I believe was the date -- which has now come and gone. I'm wondering if the minister could tell us if there is in fact a formalized review of regionalization that has taken place or will be taking place.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'd draw the member's attention to the strategic directions plan, which is on 723. It is part of the plan that in the year 2000, there should be a comprehensive third-party evaluation of the structure, governance, management and operation and results of regionalization.
C. Hansen: Could the minister advise the House what stage we are at in that process now?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We are in the preliminary stages in terms of the planning approach of the direction that we will be taking on this.
C. Hansen: I also appreciate that we've crossed from what is really a discussion on regional operations into one of planning. If the minister would sooner do this discussion in that context of planning, I'd be prepared to do that. My question would be: when could we expect that report to be completed?
As I say, if the minister would like me to stop going down this road and defer it to a planning section
Interjections.
C. Hansen: That's fine. We will carry on, then.
I would like to ask the minister: when we can expect that completed review?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We're probably looking at about the fall to be able to get the actual physical ground work underway.
C. Hansen: To pull us back into questions that are more related to regional operations, I would like to ask the minister specifically about the relationship between the Ministry of Health and the regional health authorities.
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One of the subjects mentioned in the environmental scan is a reference to a criticism that there are no established best practices for health authorities to learn from. If we also look at another reference to this report on the CHC-CHSS model that was done by the Health Association, it talks about the planning process that health authorities have been asked to follow and that this progress varies greatly from one region to the other. While there was some general direction in terms of planning process, it did not flow from a planning process of the Ministry of Health.
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The other concern that I hear time and time again
The message I get from reading through some of these resolutions is that on one hand, they feel there is a lack of direction in some critical areas such as planning and the structure in which they have to structure best practices. On the other hand, when it comes to the administrative decisions that it is felt could best be made locally, then the word that comes up time and time again in both this document's resolutions and the discussions I've had with various health authorities is the word micromanagement. I'm wondering if the minister sees a change in the relationship between the Ministry of Health and the health authorities now that we are at this stage in the evolution of the regionalization process.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think the member raises some interesting and good questions. Certainly in terms of best practices and planning for health authorities, we want to encourage that and work with them to ensure that it's taking place. We recognize that there is a different level in some of those things around the province in terms of what planning is taking place, but we are working in terms of assisting. I'll give you an example. We are trying to ensure that there are best practices around the delivery of mental health services. That's why the implementation framework that's coming out in a month is part of that -- so that health authorities will be able to see exactly what is expected. Part of the innovation forum that is coming up is the ability to see what is happening in terms of best practices in some of the health authorities around the province, so that we can start to get that information out there.
Around the issue of micromanagement, I guess my response to that would be that I don't want to see us micromanaging individual budgets. I don't think that is a particularly positive thing. But having said that, there are also funds from the ministry that are targeted to specific areas within the health authority's purview, which is set up to be at arm's length from government. So there is the accountability question in terms of ensuring that those funds are going to where they are targeted. Sometimes that can be perceived as meddling on the part of the ministry, but that accountability is important.
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C. Hansen: One of the concerns is that the health authority should be held accountable for the results achieved by those funds, as opposed to micromanagement or being dictated from the central provincial government, in terms of every aspect of how they manage the affairs within the region. One of the questions may be, if I can restate it: is this the model that the health authority should get used to? Or at some point will the apron strings be cut, and they will be allowed to manage the affairs of their area? The expression that comes up is: "Let the managers manage, but hold them accountable for their results."
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think one of the ways we have to look at this particular issue and the question the member raises is in the scope of contact between the ministry and the different health authorities in the province. In terms of the large RHB authorities, there is far less contact in terms of what you could perceive or say, in that micromanagement sense, than there is in the smaller areas around the province with the CHCs and CHSSs. Many of them are still in the three-year planning development stage, where there is a lot of contact between the ministry and the authority. We often have the services, the ability or the staff, in terms of technical expertise, that they may in fact need to access. So there is a fair bit of that contact taking place, and I would expect that as those plans are done and as those plans are completed, then the everyday contact
C. Hansen: Just in response to the minister's previous answers, one of the problems that a lot of the regional health authorities are facing is that they are now redoing their planning process. If you go back a couple of years
Now that the strategic directions document has been finalized and circulated, many of those health authorities find
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themselves revisiting that whole planning cycle they had to go through -- at a lot of time, in particular volunteer time, of individuals that are serving on the CHCs, regional health boards and CHSSs around the province, not to mention the staff time and the cost of facilitators and others who get involved in that planning process.
I want to ask the minister a fairly specific question about what happens in the case of institutions that get pulled into the authority of the regional health authorities. If you have an institution such as a hospital that is brought under the auspices of the health authority, is there a policy today in terms of what happens to bequests or other long-term fundraising initiatives that that particular facility may have initiated before they were brought under a health authority umbrella?
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Hon. M. Farnworth: I'll give you a specific example to answer the question. If I bequest something to Eagle Ridge Hospital, for example, it goes to Eagle Ridge Hospital.
C. Hansen: I appreciate the example. But is that in fact a policy directive of the ministry? The minister's nodding his head, so I will accept that.
I would like to turn it over to my colleague from Okanagan-Vernon. She has some specific questions about fundraising as well.
A. Sanders: The fundraising industry in the area of health care these days is in a boom. Certainly in the North Okanagan region the Vernon Jubilee Hospital has a full-time fundraising individual who has an office in the hospital and a staff and does a very excellent service for the community. How much of the capital or operating budget -- well, it would be the capital budget -- in my hospital, for example, would be contributed solely by funds that have been raised in the community and not provided by government?
Hon. M. Farnworth: No fundraising is for operating in B.C.
A. Sanders: How much is for capital purchases?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We don't have the figures on a year-to-year basis. The latest figure that we have, which is for 1997 from the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, is that about $73.6 million was donated by British Columbians to health care organizations in the province, and it was primarily for equipment.
A. Sanders: If we look at a hospital like Vernon Jubilee, what percentile of that budget would be donated dollars?
Hon. M. Farnworth: About two-tenths of 1 percent would be a typical percentage.
[1510]
A. Sanders: When we're talking about $73.6 million, we're talking about a sizeable sum of money in the province itself. What efforts has the government made to quantify the amounts of hospital dollars that have been raised by charitable organizations, and how has that been done?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Each hospital does its own fundraising through its own foundations. They do it independently of us, so we don't keep records on the fundraising that they do. To use a phrase that the member used before, we try not to micromanage it.
A. Sanders: Does the ministry have any interest in knowing what those figures are?
Hon. M. Farnworth: As I said, we have had very little specific involvement in the fundraising by hospitals that takes place, other than we like to encourage them, because we know that people in the community like to donate and that during the discussions around regionalization, there was a lot of sensitivity around fundraising. The view of the foundations and the hospitals was that they did not want government involvement in that. They wanted to ensure that their ability -- or the foundations' -- to raise funds for a particular institution would not be hindered in any way. Basically it has been the view of government to leave that to hospitals and not to be involved, other than to encourage them, and to recognize that people like to donate. They have been donating over the years and, we expect, will continue to.
A. Sanders: I was quite thrilled to see Jimmy Pattison donate $20 million to the Vancouver General Hospital and encourage research on prostate cancer, a subject that is very important to me personally. I would like to propose a hypothetical situation and understand what the machinations of that situation would be within the ministry. If a philanthropist left $20 million to the Vernon Jubilee Hospital, what kind of things would happen in the ministry as a fallout from that? Would our operating or capital budgets be cut? Would that money be in any way seconded by the ministry?
Several years ago, there was a very vigorous attempt to expropriate land and property from hospital societies. Along that same line, my interests, although they be hypothetical in this case
Hon. M. Farnworth: I can tell the hon. member that, for example, in the hypothetical situation that someone left Vernon Jubilee $20 million, they would not be penalized in any way on their operating budget, nor would they be penalized in their capital budget, nor would they penalized in terms of any of the services and activities they're doing that are currently funded by government. That bequest would not be taken into account in terms of the funding that the hospital normally receives.
A. Sanders: What I hear the minister saying is that there's no active or aggressive component within government to start micromanaging the funds of foundations. In our hospital this year, for example, we raised $435,000, I think it was, for routine cardiac monitoring equipment -- nothing fancy, not buying something exotic or esoteric -- trying to replace outdated equipment in the ICU that was costing more to maintain than it was to buy new equipment.
[1515]
The medical society this year had a calendar that won a national award in the health care area for communication skills, which raised $30,000 for the hospital foundation as well. There are a number of incentives in our communities, and we
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have had a very active community with respect to raising dollars for health care. People have been relentless in their ability to support health care causes in the Vernon and North Okanagan region in general.
I would like to hear from the minister a commitment that the ministry has no interest in the coming years in delving into the funds raised by hospital foundations and to assure those who live in fear that the ministry will cut back funding proportional to the success of the fundraising, that those people can hear from the minister that that is not an area that he feels is top on his priority list.
Hon. M. Farnworth: We have no intention -- none whatsoever.
C. Hansen: I want to continue on this issue of the relationship between the ministry and the regional health authorities. I wanted to read for the minister a copy of an article from the Northern Sentinel in Kitimat dated December 15, 1999. It's titled: "NDP Leadership Hopefuls Outline Their Health Care Positions." I gather it is an article that flowed from a debate that was held in Terrace the previous Monday night.
It refers to, at that point, the then Attorney General -- currently the Premier -- and it says that he "blames the region's current health care problems on the growing bureaucracy that's seen a quadrupling of management positions. 'People are upset because the bureaucrats won't let them build two operating theatres, and I think people should be allowed to do what they want to do in places like Kitimat,' he said. 'People on the ground make the best decisions.' " I'm wondering if the minister can comment on that.
S. Hawkins: I request leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
S. Hawkins: It gives great pleasure to introduce 70 grade 7 students from the Kelowna Christian School. They're accompanied by 14 parents and three of their teachers: Bruno Rossi, Laura Cassidy and Brent MacArthur.
It gives me extra pleasure to recognize the Friesens, who are neighbours of mine and who are here, and their children. Actually, I look forward to the summer, because they sell lemonade for those of us working away in our gardens. They're showing entrepreneurship at a very early age, and I encourage that; I think that's great. So would the House please make them all welcome.
Hon. M. Farnworth: One of the roles that the ministry has
I recognize the need to ensure that when we make decisions at the local level, they're implemented as quickly as possible, with a minimum of red tape and hassle. But at the same time there are also legitimate interests of the ministry which have to be recognized. There are processes which have to be followed in order to ensure that the funds that the ministry is expensing are, in fact, being spent the way they're supposed to be, and that the project fits in with the overall sense of priorities in government.
[1520]
C. Hansen: I want to also quote from another article from the Northern Sentinel on a related but different subject. It makes reference to a study. It says: "No decisions on regional health care services will be made until a study on regionalization undertaken by consultants from Alberta is complete in June of 2000." I'm wondering if the minister could explain. Is this part of the study he referred to earlier that was going to be completed in the fall, or is this a purely regional study that's being done for that particular CHC?
[S. Hawkins in the chair.]
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's certainly not provincial in nature, so I'd have to look into that particular article and try and find out where it's coming from. It's certainly not coming from within the ministry.
C. Hansen: I want to move over to the Queen Charlotte Islands, where there has been some real instability in terms of health care governance. In the last two years, they have gone through seven CEOs for the community health council. There is certainly a great anxiety on the Queen Charlotte Islands about how health care is being delivered and how it is being governed. It seems that there are some real regional differences between different parts of the Queen Charlotte Islands. I'm wondering if the minister can give any reassurance to people living on the Queen Charlotte Islands that they are going to see some stability come to health care governance in that region.
Hon. M. Farnworth: The hon. member does raise a valid issue. We are aware of the situation up there, and we are trying to ensure that there is stability. We are working on that particular issue.
C. Hansen: The minister will undoubtedly be aware that many residents have called for the CHC to be dissolved. I'm wondering if the minister has given any consideration to that?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm aware of the question, in terms of the calls in from some quarters to replace the board or to dissolve it. What I'd like to say at this particular point in time is that we are aware of the issue and we're trying to resolve some of the problems that they are facing. Ideally, we would like to make the board stronger and bring stability, as opposed to having to take very draconian measures. However, that having been said, we want to make sure at the end that the decisions or the actions that the ministry can take will bring stability to the region and will ensure that it functions as it should. That is our primary goal, and we are working to accomplish that.
C. Hansen: A couple of years ago, the auditor general did a review of the appointment process to the regional health authorities. He was very critical of how that appointment process manifests itself in some parts of the province. It strikes me that in the case of the Queen Charlotte Islands, at face value at least, some of the recommendations that were made by the auditor general at that time have not been implemented
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when it comes to the appointment process. As I say, that is at face value. I'm not going to try to claim that the appointment process was inappropriate, but there's certainly speculation on the Queen Charlotte Islands that that process was not properly followed. I'm wondering if the minister has looked at this issue from that perspective and whether he is comfortable that the appointment process on the Queen Charlotte Islands is in fact in keeping with the recommendations of the auditor general?
[1525]
Hon. M. Farnworth: I am aware that whenever there are issues or community concerns around the way that a board or agency such as this is functioning, there is a desire to look and say: "Okay, that's the problem" or "This is the reason why something has happened."
Rather than say that that particular process was at fault, I think what we're trying to do is to find out how we bring stability into it. How do we stabilize the situation at this particular time? Make that our first job. Then we can look at, you know, if we need to change the way things are approached in a particular region. Maybe it's not working there, but it is working in other parts of the process. Generally we try and find people to fill these positions who are interested in making the board work. In fact, in 98 percent of the cases, that is what happens. As I said earlier, right now our first goal is to try and bring stability to this particular region.
C. Hansen: I want to move on to some of the funding issues. Maybe as an introduction to this particular section, I can share a quote with the minister. Then perhaps, as I read the quote, he can take a guess as to whom I am quoting here. It says: "Government shouldn't be spending money until it has figured out precisely what needs to be done. I am not convinced that we as government have got a handle on it yet." This is from January 7 of this year, and that's a quote from the minister's own House Leader, the member for Nanaimo. Yet what we see, of course, is additional funding going in. There's still not a sense that the minister and the government have a handle on how those increased dollars into health care are going to start producing better patient care.
I want to talk about the funding that is made available to each of the health authorities and how that funding is made available. But in opening, perhaps the minister could explain to us what is referred to by the expression "their 1999-2000 restated base." I just want clarification on that. I am assuming that it means not the budget that was applied to each health region, but what they wound up being allocated in terms of funds for the fiscal year that ended April 30.
[B. Barisoff in the chair.]
Hon. M. Farnworth: Just in terms of your question, I want to clarify: are you talking about the portion, or are you talking about special warrants?
C. Hansen: What I'm referring to and what I want to quote from as we go on is a letter from the deputy minister that was sent out to health authorities dated April 10. The opening paragraph says: "As you are aware, the Minister of Health provided all health authorities with information concerning their 1999-2000 restated base via letter on March 17, 2000." Before I start into some of the other points I want to make in this letter, I want to understand better what we're talking about when we use the expression "restated base."
Hon. M. Farnworth: At the beginning of the year you start out with your allocation. But then during the course of the year there may be additional moneys allocated to you, and that becomes part of your base. So that becomes the restated base.
[1530]
C. Hansen: One of the concerns that I have is the process that we go through in advising health authorities what their budgets are for the year. I know that the minister was asked about this on a TV program called "Voice of the Province" a few weeks back -- the fact that health authorities, at the start of the fiscal year, still don't know what their funding is. His comment was, "Well, this is traditional" -- that it's tradition for health authorities not to be advised for several weeks and indeed months into the fiscal year. I just want to start by pointing out that the tradition that he refers to only goes back three years, and in fact it has been the case every single year.
I understand why it's happening, in terms of the directives not coming from the Ministry of Finance early enough to start this process earlier on. But I would like to ask the minister why that is the case. Why is it that the Ministry of Health does not get its funding information in time to start a realistic process with the health authorities in a timely fashion so that they actually know what their budgets are before the start of their fiscal year on April 1?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Part of the issue is in terms of the planning that needs to be done going into the budget process and in terms of if we're providing levels of service comparable year to year. Then part of that required information is to know what the run rates were -- what procedures were done over the course of the year. We can get a lot of that information at the end of the fiscal year. So there's planning work being done. Then we want to -- we've met with the health authority -- sit down with them and go over that information. Once that's been done, then we can release the budget letter. That takes some time.
C. Hansen: This letter says that the restated base represents the starting point for the development of a detailed funding allocation for the fiscal year 2000-01. In essence, what we have is a letter that went out to the health authorities on March 17 -- 14 days before the start of the fiscal year -- stating that this is the starting point for the development of detailed funding allocations. I must say that it's, I think, putting a totally unrealistic expectation on health authorities to be able to manage their expenditures in a reasonable way when their whole budgeting process doesn't even effectively begin until they're already into the fiscal year.
This letter goes on to say: "Although it is too early" -- like, here we are, ten days into the fiscal year, April 10 -- "to provide details concerning the incremental resources to be provided to each health authority, the ministry can confirm that certain items, particularly the negotiated wage settlements, will be funded." In other words, what we're saying here is that you can take your restated base as a starting point and add into it the collective agreement requirements, the wage settlements, that will be funded. This commitment is made in this letter.
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It also goes on to say: "Life-support programs, defined as cardiac, cancer and renal services, will also receive additional funding." But then it goes on to say: "Inasmuch as these items collectively represent significant spending pressures and have relatively immediate impacts in terms of resource demands, the ministry will amend its payments to health authorities immediately." We've started with the restated base, and now we have added to it.
[1535]
The next is the point that I think is quite critical to where we're going on this thing. In the next paragraph, it says: "The ministry expects you to maintain current volumes pending receipt of your detailed funding allocation." So we're taking the restated base, we're adding to it, and we're also saying: "Maintain your current programs."
My concern is the deficits that are being run up by health authorities all over this province. I have tried to piece this puzzle together from a couple of different directions. I am aware, for example, from a document from the Okanagan-Similkameen health region
Here's just one health region that's saying that if they do what is set out in this instruction letter of April 10, they're going to be incurring a deficit of $24 million, unless there is a significant increase in their budget. To go to another example from a CHC, just to look at the other perspective, a small community health council in Cranbrook says that in order for them to maintain their current level of programs, they're going to be running a $1.78 million deficit.
If you start extrapolating some of those numbers across the province
I wonder if the minister can tell us: if the health regions fund their negotiated wage settlements, increase funding for life-support programs and continue to maintain current volumes, what kind of deficits are we expecting from the 52 health authorities, collectively?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think it's important to recognize that those issues and services the member's raised are fully funded and that that commitment has already been made. What we're also doing is recognizing the different challenges that exist and occur in each health authority. That's why we're meeting with them on an individual basis, so we can sit down and work with them on exactly where the pressures are in their particular regions -- what their run rates are, what services they're providing -- so that we can ensure that when we're doing the allocation, we're doing it with those issues very much in mind. That's what we're trying to manage for.
There's a significant recognition already of the pressures that they're facing -- okay? And what we're doing is confirming that we are going to be funding those pressures, such as the member raised, around the wage increase, life-support services and cancer and suchlike.
C. Hansen: I guess what I'm asking is
[1540]
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think there's a number of things that need to be taken into account. First off, it doesn't mean what you are providing at the end of the particular fiscal year. It's a question of looking at the utilization patterns as they occurred throughout the year and taking them into account. It's also ensuring that the utilization management practices that are in place are carried through into this coming year. I repeat: that's why we are sitting down and working with each health authority to ensure that those things are taking place and that we can nail down exactly what the financial pressures are, so we can have as concrete an understanding as possible of what the fiscal challenges facing each individual health authority and region are.
C. Hansen: In addition to this letter from the deputy minister which asked health authorities to maintain volumes, it's my understanding that the minister has verbally told CEOs and chairs of regional health boards that they should not cut programs, because he is expecting additional funding to come from Ottawa. That strikes me as: "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink; carry on as we were. Don't cut any services. Don't worry about running your deficits in your regions, because the minister thinks he's going to get more money from the federal government." I wonder if the minister could advise the house what instructions he has given health authorities with regard to maintaining services.
Hon. M. Farnworth: We know that during any given year there are a lot of pressures placed on a system, which are in part related to the ability to provide particular services, for example, such as overtime costs or equipment or the ability in terms of resources targeted -- some key areas which impact on institutions.
It's been no secret, as I've said, that we have been working with the federal government to look at ways financial resources could be applied to the health system that can have an impact. So that's what we're trying to do, in terms of developing the framework with Ottawa in terms of where money could go; it can be targeted and targeted very quickly. That in turn has an impact on institutions of a wide range, including hospitals, and has an impact on their utilization of their particular services.
C. Hansen: How confident is the minister that we're going to see increased dollars flow from Ottawa in this current fiscal year, in addition to the $8.3 billion that he has in his budget?
[ Page 15741 ]
[1545]
Hon. M. Farnworth: That's what the province and the other provinces are working towards -- an agreement that will see Ottawa come back into the health care funding field closer to the 50-50 partnership that we used to have, as opposed to the 85-15 right now. The indication we've had from discussions that have taken place is that they're going very well, and there's considerable interest in a number of areas that can provide relief to British Columbia around equipment, for example, and around facilities. So we are making good progress, and as I have said earlier in the House, B.C. is taking a leadership role in terms of cost drivers on the system -- in terms of three of those areas. We have had two meetings so far, and my anticipation is that we will be meeting again in the near future. This is something there is a great deal of effort on in terms of trying to get to an agreement.
C. Hansen: It strikes me, though, that if the minister is giving instructions to health authorities that it's "okay" to run deficits in their health regions over and above the funding that would be provided for out of an $8.3 billion health budget that we have before us
I'm wondering if that is in fact what the minister is doing -- that he's banking on money to flow from Ottawa in this fiscal year in order to fund the maintenance of services by health authorities over and above what's covered in this current budget of $8.3 billion.
Hon. M. Farnworth: That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that it's no secret that everybody knows that the province is negotiating with Ottawa for more money and more money that I expect can be targeted to key areas of health care that we need to look at.
I am also saying, and have said, that in terms of this year's budget, we expect sound management and sound management decisions to be taking place. That's why we have said we want to work with health authorities to identify where the pressures are. We want to ensure that, in terms of the formulation of the allocation, we have a good understanding of what each of the pressures are in each of the individual health authorities. That's why we're working closely with them in terms of looking at their run rates, and the services that they're providing to ensure that all those decisions are taken into account and that the allocation can be made on the basis of that best information.
C. Hansen: I have had conversations with a variety of individuals who have given me estimates as to what they think the magnitude of the deficit problem would be. I guess in these discussions there was a sense that the ministry had compiled the magnitude of this problem of what the health authority deficits would be if there is not additional money flow from Ottawa that would flow into the health regions and if we simply had to rely on the existing budget that's before us. I am told that in the four regional health districts comprising the capital health district -- South Fraser, Simon Fraser, and Vancouver Richmond, which I think it's probably fair to say are the four largest ones -- the magnitude of the projected deficit to maintain services would be $140 million. The other specific example I mentioned earlier was Okanagan-Similkameen, which is projecting $24 million.
I am also told -- and again it is a projection or an extrapolation -- that provincewide, we are looking at $225 million of collective deficits by the health authorities if we're to maintain existing services and if they have to fund their operations based on what would flow from the existing budget that's before us.
My question to the minister is: what happens if additional dollars do not flow from Ottawa in the current fiscal year or if, in fact, they flow in a targeted way -- such as equipment -- which does not help the health authorities with their operating budgets?
[1550]
Hon. M. Farnworth: That's why -- and I follow up on the member's comments, because there is speculation
C. Hansen: The minister's right; this is speculation. But there are a lot of people who take their responsibilities as health care administrators very seriously and are quite fearful as to what the ramifications might be if the ministry suddenly, halfway through the year, discovers that, first of all, they've given instruction that there should be no service cuts in the region and secondly, they've been told that there may be some federal dollars flow and suddenly they realize that those dollars are not going to flow in this year or in a way that helps the operating budgets of the health regions. These administrators are going to be told, as they have been told in years gone by, that halfway through a fiscal year they have to start making serious cuts that could have been spread out over a year, but they suddenly have to make up those cuts in the remaining few months of a fiscal year.
I think the minister is very aware of the ramifications in terms of collective agreements, where you have 80 percent of the Health budget going into wages. Administrators today do not have the flexibility to start laying people off immediately; they can't save money from that, because they can't realize the benefits because of the notice that would have to be given. There is a great concern that given the minister's indication that there should be no service cuts in the region, they should in fact be running deficits at this time. There could be some very serious ramifications on their ability to deliver patient care halfway through this fiscal year.
I would like to ask the minister: if we get to that position, is he in fact going to authorize significant deficits being run by health authorities?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I understand that the member's comments are on speculation. I want to assure him that we are concerned about patient care. That's our primary objective. At the same time, we expect to see sound fiscal management.
[ Page 15742 ]
That's why we are meeting with the health authorities individually -- to ensure that we know exactly what the pressures are, how those pressures impact on them, the impact on their budgets and their requirements in terms of the allocation. That's why we're working closely with the ministry to ensure that the utilization management measures that they have in place are continuing to be in place and that there is recognition of the facts around what the services were last year, run rates and how we deal with those things. It's so we can ensure that we have a concrete allocation when it comes out. I recognize the issues the member is raising, and that's how we're dealing
[1555]
C. Hansen: What we have in the province today are 52 health authorities that are essentially flying blind. They have a baseline budget from the previous year; they have a couple of indicators, in terms of the collective agreements that are going to get covered. But aside from that, they're flying blind in terms of how they have to manage a budget for a fiscal year that actually started on April 1. Here we are -- let's see, what would it be? -- seven weeks into the fiscal year, and so far the health authorities don't even know when they're going to get their budgets finalized for this particular year. In the meantime, if there are adjustments that have to be made, they're going to be left with only a fraction of a year in which to make those adjustments.
Can the minister tell the health authorities, in response to questions here today, when the funding allocations for this year will in fact be finalized so that they know with certainty what they're dealing with in terms of their budgets?
Hon. M. Farnworth: The allocations won't be done until
C. Hansen: So do I gather from the minister's comments, then, that it would be, say, within three weeks that the health authorities will in fact know what their budgets are?
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think it's important to make a couple of points. First, we are in fact meeting with the health authorities, as I said. That has got to take about another two and a half weeks. After that, we can take the information and deal with it and move forward. So I don't have a specific date for the hon. member.
I also think it's important to note that it's not a question of health authorities flying blind. They have been given significant information to date around last year's budget, for example, in terms of the restated base being confirmed. Issues around wage increases have been confirmed, and again, issues around the provision of some services have also been confirmed. So they have significant information already. The question now is building on that, and that work is taking place.
C. Hansen: But I think the concern is that everybody saw the budget that came down. Everybody had a chance to start pulling those numbers apart as of the end of March, when the budget was tabled. And what they saw in there was that yes, there was an increase in funding for health care in British Columbia, the majority of which is consumed by the collective agreements, wage settlements and the other issues surrounding wage costs within the budget. So then when they start looking at the increased utilization within their regions -- they start looking at population changes, demographic changes generally -- they start suddenly realizing that there just is not enough money collectively in that $8.3 billion budget for them to maintain services.
Has the minister given a directive to the health authorities that until such time as they see their budgets, they are not allowed to be cutting services?
[1600]
Hon. M. Farnworth: What they've been told is to deliver their current volumes of service and to also continue in terms of current utilization management practices to ensure that we can manage the system in a way that meets the requirements that have to be met.
C. Hansen: I know that two years ago the health authorities were not advised of their budgets until into June. I've forgotten the date exactly. But I noticed last year -- in fact, I had a copy of the cover of the letter that went out
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think what the member's two examples indicate is that there's a general indication. It's around the May 20 to mid-June period that in fact the letters go out. In many cases there are circumstances each year that allow things to go out earlier; sometimes they go out a little later. But this is generally the time -- around this time over the next several weeks -- that the letters go out. In terms of looking at building budgets and things like that and taking into account the pressures on a system -- whether it's nursing shortages or staffing shortages -- all those types of things have to be looked at. This year is a little later than last year, but it's certainly not out of line if we look at when the allocation went out two years ago.
[P. Nettleton in the chair.]
C. Hansen: I was told by a senior health administrator in the province that he estimated they could save 3 percent from their operating budget if they were to go to a three-year budgeting cycle. I found that a rather astounding number, especially when you think of an $8 billion budget. We're talking about a quarter of a
It's when you start realizing that the system we are operating under today -- that suddenly, the only time they really have in which to manage a budget is within such a short time frame
[ Page 15743 ]
months in which they have certainty with which to manage their budget. That kind of uncertainty leads to decisions that are much more expensive -- whether it's decisions to make staff permanent, whether it's decisions in terms of the term of contracts or whether it's decisions in terms of procurement. I know that all of that goes on regardless of the budget being finalized. Certainly the more I start to understand the cycle we go through every year on this, the more I start to realize that the 3 percent number certainly wasn't far-fetched. I'm wondering if the ministry has done any kind of evaluation like that to determine the costs that are incurred because of the short-term budgeting cycles we work on.
[1605]
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think the issue the member raises is an important one, and we've touched on it briefly in some of the other discussions over the last couple of days. It's that, one, we are governed by the Financial Administration Act, so the ability to change that rests with Finance. But certainly in terms of how budgeting takes place and in particular areas, longer-term planning may in fact be the way to go; it may in fact enable savings to take place. I also recognize, too, that part of that is a question of how you
I think one of the key things -- and it comes back to what we discussed earlier -- is around ways to be innovative, and certainly changing the Financial Administration Act is one possibility. But it also reflects on other areas of the system where we're at, where we're trying to be innovative, to make changes. Information technology is one that allows us to get a better handle in terms of managing information and all those kinds of activities that go with that, where we could make strategic investments that could also pay dividends. Work in that area has been ongoing, but of course, you can always do more, and it's certainly the intention of the ministry to do more.
C. Hansen: On the issue of funding generally, I've got a couple of more things that I want to deal with. One is WCB; the other is population-based funding, which I know has been covered extensively. But there's a few wrap-up questions that I want to ask on that. I then indicated we would go to acute care.
In terms of available staff, at this point a few questions on acute care would not be disruptive, I trust. My colleague from Saanich North and the Islands is anxious
M. Coell: Just a couple of issues for the minister. The first one is that on Saltspring Island, at Lady Minto Hospital, which is a small rural hospital, the physicians have been requesting funding for on-call services. There are approximately ten physicians and as the minister knows, many of the rural hospitals have had on-call funds made available since the last year -- the northern doctors and the Dobbin report. I wonder if the minister could update me as to the status of on-call funding for physicians at Lady Minto Hospital.
Hon. M. Farnworth: The Ministry of Health and the BCMA have agreed on discussions on this particular issue to look at ways about resolving it. I know the hospital is anxious to get going, but these discussions will be taking place a little later in the year. We have in fact agreed to do that and to work to try and find resolution to the issue.
[1610]
M. Coell: I would encourage the ministry to act swiftly on this, in that it's very difficult to attract doctors to rural hospitals, as you know, and to keep them. Right now there are a number of physicians whose practices are up for sale. If we're going to keep attracting
The other issue that I wish to share with the minister was an issue that
Eventually, the Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security paid the bill -- a matter of a few hundred dollars. There was an assurance given that that problem would be worked out for people and they wouldn't put someone through, literally, months of going back and forth to ministries and applying for funds, appealing decisions, working with hospital social workers and resources of the law centre -- all to get the wheels of a wheelchair paid for through one of the ministries. I just wonder whether that situation has solved itself and there's an agreement between the ministries to cover allowances for capital costs such as replacement of wheelchair wheels.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'll be happy to look into that specific case for the hon. member and see if we can get a resolution to it.
M. Coell: It isn't that specific case; it's more the policy that would solve other problems, so that we're not tying people up with bureaucracy; we're actually solving their problems.
The other issue is that of extended care beds for youth and young people. Right now in the region, when someone is like this person was at the Gorge Road -- and still is -- they're in with people who are very old and people who are dying. Yet they're in their youth. It seems to be that they would be
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spending a great deal of time, or maybe years, in that facility. Because there has been a reduction in the beds and because of the problems at Gorge Road Hospital, I wonder if there is an opportunity to put together a facility or beds for the 30 to 50 youth we have with extended health care needs?
Hon. M. Farnworth: On this specific issue, we do recognize the problem, and we're working with CHR and in Gorge, in terms of preliminary-stage work and of how we address that problem there. So we are in fact involved in it. In terms of the broader picture, the continuing care review and then the implementation framework around that is intended to also address the general issue around the province.
M. Coell: I think that's an important issue for youth, with younger disabled youth in the Gorge Road facility.
Just to follow up on that, there have been a number of suggestions made for the Gorge facility, with its problem with mould and its aging infrastructure. I know that a former chancellor of UVic, Bill Gibson, has put the proposal forward to the capital health board -- I've spoken to their CEO, as well -- of actually rezoning and demolishing the Gorge, selling the property once it's rezoned and taking the money to the University of Victoria, where you would have free land. You would also have a nursing school, a centre for aging and in the future probably a medical school. Whether that would be a more appropriate place for a facility like Gorge Road, whether the ministry is even thinking or considering that option as put forward
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Hon. M. Farnworth: We are aware of the proposal and certainly prepared to consider it. Any solution like this for a facility, in relocating it or dealing with particular issues in it
M. Coell: Finally, there are two issues that I want to emphasize. The one that our critic has
The other issue that I just wanted to put my support behind is the Vancouver Island Head Injury Society and the work that they do. I know that a number of people in the Legislature have met with them and other societies throughout the province who deal with people with head injuries, and I know the need for community services and community backups. I don't need an answer from the minister. I would just like to let him know that I personally think they're doing a great job, and I think the community services provided to people with head injuries is very important.
I thank you for your time.
C. Hansen: I want to pick up our discussion with regard to funding and some of the implications of it. One particular issue that came up just around the start of the fiscal year was the pediatric intensive care unit at Victoria General Hospital. I think the minister at that time made a commitment that that pediatric care unit would stay open and operational. The speculation that it may have to close was something that flowed from the projections of what budget dollars might flow to the capital health region. I'm wondering if the minister could advise us whether or not that pediatric care unit is in fact still open and fully operational to the same level that it had been in the month prior.
Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, it is. I would also add that it is continuing its work with the Women's Hospital and Children's Hospital in terms of developing a children's health network here on Vancouver Island, so that the primary focus remains the health and well-being of children and patient services for them.
C. Hansen: In the case of the capital health region, is that funded, in terms of the funding commitments that have been made to the capital health region in advance of receiving their full year budget?
Hon. M. Farnworth: The funding for it is in their base, so it is funded. I think what's important is that they are working with Children's Hospital to ensure that we have a good network of patient services for children. That's what I think needs to take place, and that's the message that we've been trying to communicate.
C. Hansen: In terms of the budget concerns that led to the proposal being put forward that the pediatric care unit was going to be closed, if I'm hearing the minister right, what he's saying is that the care unit's going to stay open and they have to cut services somewhere else in order to provide for those dollars.
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Hon. M. Farnworth: This was not a specific budget issue. This was a question of whether this unit is operating as efficiently as it could. There was miscommunication that took place, and I think that's how the controversy erupted -- in part. When you asked your question, I was at that point able to answer it and say: "No, this is not. This is a priority in this area for this region, and we don't want to see it closed."
C. Hansen: There has been a concern raised among health authorities with regard to the significant increase in WCB premiums that health authorities are facing this year -- in fact, the entire health sector in British Columbia, whether or not it's employees directly or people who work for the health authorities or whether it's private care facilities. It's basically across the board. I was debating at this point whether or not to raise this under the issue of compensation issues. I'm going to raise it now; we can defer it to that later section if the minister would prefer. It's my understanding that instructions have gone out from the ministry to the various health authorities that they should not be paying the increased WCB premiums that are being assessed. Is that correct?
Hon. M. Farnworth: That, in fact, is correct, in that we wanted to have a meeting first with the WCB to discuss this issue with them to ensure that worker safety is our paramount concern and discuss how we can address some of the injury rate by bringing it down.
C. Hansen: It's my understanding that any employer in the province that doesn't pay the premiums that are being
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assessed by WCB is in fact breaking the law. I'm wondering if the minister has any special dispensation from the WCB that in fact employers will not be penalized with some fairly high penalty rates for not remitting the WCB premiums that are being charged.
Hon. M. Farnworth: No, we fully understand that. It's not an intention of not paying; it's a question of
C. Hansen: That almost leads us into another whole area about the lack of operating dollars with which to buy lifting equipment in a lot of these facilities. But I have another file we'll get to eventually, under equipment.
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To deal specifically with this, my understanding is that if the WCB were to make an exception in this case, for the health industry, to say that programs to reduce rates will result in lower premiums today, that would be pretty precedent setting -- that in fact the WCB, when they set their rates, are reflecting a track record of injury. I agree with the minister that injury rates in the health care sector have been unacceptably high. Certainly the costs that the WCB have been incurring are enormous.
My concern, though, is that when the minister is giving instructions to health authorities not to remit these increased premiums, they are in fact setting themselves up for some very severe penalties. My understanding is the penalties are 8 percent per quarter for premiums that have not been remitted, which works out to 32 percent per annum in penalties. There is no indication, first of all, that the ministry is going to fund those increased WCB rates and, secondly, that the ministry is going to fund the penalties if they were imposed.
Hon. M. Farnworth: First off, it's not our intention to put anybody in that position.
Second, what we have said is we want a meeting with the WCB. They have agreed to that meeting. What we are trying to do is look at ways that we can implement measures to bring the accident rates down. That's not saying that at the end of the day you're not going to be paying premiums. What we want to do is to ensure that we're working with the WCB to put in place initiatives that can bring those accidents down. Nor is it the intention to put anybody in any position of being in violation of the law.
C. Hansen: I'm not clear whether the ministry is trying to pursue a reduction in the premiums for this year or whether in fact they're trying to bring in new programs in order to reduce injury rates. I know for a fact that there are a lot of programs already in place to bring accident rates down, and a lot of people, through health and safety committees, are working on that very issue and have been for some time. But is the ministry's objective to actually get the WCB to roll back premium rates?
Hon. M. Farnworth: No. Our objective is to get the injury rate down; our objective is to get the accident rate down. Our objective is to get the WCB to assist us in getting that injury rate down. That's what we want to accomplish. That's our goal. That's why we're having a meeting.
C. Hansen: But that's not something new. That's been going on for some years, and I know there's been a lot of people working very hard to achieve those objectives that the minister just outlined. I'm surprised if there are suddenly new initiatives that are flying in the face of the ones that have been ongoing all along.
My question is: why is it, then, that the ministry has instructed the health authorities and, through the health authorities, the various health employers that are funded through health authorities
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think one of the things it's time to recognize and realize is that the WCB and the employers have constantly been
So what we want to say is: "We need to meet with you so that we are working together to reduce the injury rate. That's our primary goal. That's what we want to accomplish, and that's why we want you to assist us in doing that."
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There have been a number of issues that have been identified that contribute to that injury rate; for example, staff shortages and the issues around nursing and the aging of the nursing workforce is part of it. There are measures that we as a ministry and a government are taking. Those need to be communicated, and we want to sit down with the WCB -- in part because we're the funder -- and recognize that this problem needs to be solved with the cooperation of the WCB, the employers and also government.
C. Hansen: But that's not going to affect a premium rate in the current year. I think those efforts are honourable. Certainly it's not just from the point of view of saving scarce health dollars, but it's also from the point of view of ensuring that workers are protected, that injury rates are brought down and that people aren't being put through the kind of suffering and injury that they are today in the health sector, which is clearly unacceptable. But if all of the initiatives that the minister just explained are 100 percent successful in starting to bring down injury rates, we're not going to see a reduction in the WCB premiums until at least a year from now. I'm wondering if the minister can explain why it is, then, that health authorities have been instructed not to fund the increased WCB premiums -- not to pay the increased premiums for this fiscal year.
Hon. M. Farnworth: We've been trying to get this meeting for quite some time, because we recognize that the key to
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bringing the injury rate down and the worker-injury rate down in British Columbia in the health care field requires all three to be actively involved. So it's not a recognition of saying that premiums aren't going to be paid, because I expect that at the end of the day they will. Actions by government can have a significant impact on those premiums in coming years. There are important initiatives that government can take in conjunction with the WCB and in conjunction with employers to make sure that those practices or changes that need to take place
We have got our meeting set up. It is going to allow us to discuss some of the things that we need to do and why we want their help in doing them. It's out of that that I think will flow the benefits which will accrue in future years.
C. Hansen: I just want to read an excerpt from an e-mail which went out from the executive director, regional operations. It says:
That is an e-mail that went out on April 3."Good afternoon. I am writing on a matter related to the increased WCB premium levy in this coming fiscal year, 2000-2001. There have been significant concerns raised about the amount of the sector-wide increase. There are discussions underway on this matter, and until further notice, I would suggest that you refrain from paying that portion of your WCB cost related to the above-referenced increase. I expect to be able to give you further information in the very near future."
What I'm wondering is: is that instruction not to pay the increased premiums? What has that got to do with what the minister just said about very good, noble programs that will reduce injury rates and hopefully, affect premiums in coming fiscal years?
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Hon. M. Farnworth: It comes back to why I mentioned that it takes all three in terms of reducing workplace injuries -- the WCB, the employers and the ministry. When you look at the magnitude in terms of dollars -- they're traditionally funded not by government but by the employer -- that's a significant impact on patient care. If we're to do that and provide the type of practices
C. Hansen: I don't disagree with anything the minister has just said. It's just that we're talking about two different things. I support those initiatives, those discussions that are going to bring down injury rates and hopefully bring down premiums in the future. But why is it that health authorities are currently under instruction not to remit that increase? From everything the minister has just told us, there's really not much prospect of, or the discussions aren't centred around, bringing the premium rates down for this current fiscal year. The minister used the words that the amount of dollars we're talking about has a significant impact on patient care, and that's why I'm belabouring this point. It is because it will have a significant impact on patient care if all of the various health employers in this province have to pay these fairly significant increases in premiums and then have to find those dollars out of their existing budgets.
If we're holding this off -- you know, it's now six weeks since they've been given that instruction -- and they go through a good chunk of the fiscal year holding off those payments, then all it means is that when you've got to start writing the cheques to the WCB, it's going to have an even greater impact, because it's going to be spread over a shorter number of months. I'm just wondering if the minister could explain why the health authorities are currently under these instructions.
Hon. M. Farnworth: What it comes back to is the point I made before about it being the impact that that would have in terms of making the changes that are required. The WCB needs to realize that we as a funder have to work with them and the employer. I was very concerned about the impact of taking those funds out of the system and then the ability to make
What we have said is: "Look, we need a meeting with the WCB; we need that to take place." That is now taking place. Out of that, I expect we will then be able to sit down and say: "Look, here's where our problem is. If we're making investments in here, this is what our goal is -- to bring down worker injuries in the health care field." If that takes place, then that should have an impact, and we can expect to see benefits from that. I'm confident that we can work with the WCB to achieve that and also that there won't be levies or fines for late payment. I think that that's what we're trying to do -- to bring home the message of: "Yes, we need to make changes. But look, there's going to be an impact on what you're asking, and we need to see how we can manage through this, and then we think there may be ways of doing that."
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C. Hansen: It's analogous to
I don't get the sense that we're going anywhere with this particular discussion, because I'm not sure that
Will the minister give us the assurance that the health authorities and the other health employers that are funded by the health authorities will in fact be fully funded for increased WCB rates that they will face in the current fiscal year, so that they will not have to cut patient care in order to find those resources?
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Hon. M. Farnworth: I cannot give that assurance, and I won't give that assurance in terms of the funding of the premium increases. One of the things that needs to change is workplace practices. We can't just keep going on funding 100-percent-a-year increases. So we have to put in place, on a tripartite basis, between the fact that there's the WCB, the employers and the funder
It also comes back to
One of the things that I think we need to start to look at is working with government in terms of identifying what the key problems areas are and dealing with them in terms of bringing down worker accidents. At the end of the day it is about workplace safety.
C. Hansen: I hadn't planned to spend as much time on this issue, but it is an issue of concern. Quite frankly, I thought we were going to be able to deal with it much more expeditiously. The point is that I agree with the minister that those initiatives are important. We have to bring down workplace injuries. We have to make sure that workers aren't off because of back injuries and all of the other injuries that we see happening in the health sector in British Columbia today.
The point is that regardless of what is done today in terms of implementing new programs, and regardless of what is done in terms of bringing new equipment into health facilities -- in terms of lifts and other things to bring down those workplace injuries -- those will not result in lower WCB premiums for the current fiscal year. Therefore, the various health employers will have no alternative but to cut patient care in order to pay for the increased WCB premiums that they're going to have to start paying sooner or later, sometime in this fiscal year.
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Hon. M. Farnworth: I think one of the important things to remember is that this is not a single-year problem. It's a multi-year problem, because they're coming up
C. Hansen: That is exactly my point. What do we do about this year? The minister himself said that the increased dollars that are involved would have a significant impact on patient care. How are the health authorities and the various health employers to fund their increased costs of WCB during the current fiscal year, when everything the minister is talking about isn't going to produce lower, or the prospect of lower, premiums until at least the next fiscal year?
Hon. M. Farnworth: This is a new policy. It's not based on the same practices as the old policy. What we want to do is ensure that in terms of the new policy and how it's implemented, there's an understanding by the WCB of its impacts on us and that we are also aware of potential options to address some of our concerns by sitting down with the WCB. We are meeting with them tomorrow, and I expect that after that meeting, we will then be able to move forward and move on from there.
C. Hansen: I guess there's a stubborn streak in me that tells me that I shouldn't quit just because I'm not getting an answer. In fact I'm getting the runaround from the minister on this thing. But I also appreciate that we're not making any progress on this subject, so I will move on. Let me just say that the minister has not given any health employer in the province any comfort that this issue is being dealt with in a way that's going to result in anything other than cuts in patient care. With that, I will move on, but I hope the minister will find a way of dealing with this as soon as possible.
I mentioned earlier that I want to touch on the issue of population needs-based funding. I know this has been well canvassed by my colleagues in terms of how it was going to affect their particular region. I am also familiar with the minister's answer to that point, which he repeated several times over the last two days.
My understanding is that there is in fact a model that has been developed, that the only thing that is preventing the implementation of a population-based funding model is a political decision and that the minister is concerned that some regions may in fact lose, and that may not be politically popular. Yet there are other areas that are significantly underfunded when you look at the population. If you look at the allocation in British Columbia and the increases that have been applied to some very rapidly growing areas, the areas of the province that we see the biggest health care challenges come from -- whether it's central Vancouver Island, South Fraser, Okanagan -- are all areas that have had very, very significant population increases in the last few years. The health funding that has flowed into those regions simply has not kept pace.
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Going back to the Health Association's meeting last year, there is a resolution that was put forward in this area. If I can just quote from it briefly: "The association has written to the Minister of Health requesting an indication of when the government will implement the population needs-based funding model." It refers to the previous Premier, the previous Minister of Health and the previous deputy minister, as well as the then associate deputy minister: "
So my question to the minister is: I know the reasons that he's given in terms of answers to other colleagues, but is there a time line in terms of when decisions will be made either to go ahead and implement the model that has been developed by his staff or to give an indication to the health authorities around the province that the population-based funding model will not be implemented?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, we've been working on a model, as we were talking about yesterday. I guess the issue is: if we are going to implement a new model, then we have to know exactly what all the ramifications from it are. We're trying to work with the health authorities and are looking at
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how a model would impact upon them. What would be the specific impacts, whether positive or negative? We have been doing some fine-tuning in terms of moving to a population-based model, in terms of funding around margins and in terms of some new initiatives. But we have to remember that whenever you make a significant change, that can have dramatic impacts. And we need to know exactly:
1. Is there agreement on the foundation upon which the funding model has been developed in terms of the different factors and the waiting that's attached to those factors in terms of how it's done?
2. Do we have a full understanding of what the ramifications are if a particular model was to be accepted, to be able to say to the health authorities: "Here's how it's going to impact in certain areas negatively, and here are the actions that we are going to take to address those particular impacts"?
C. Hansen: I guess what I'm looking for is a time line in terms of when that decision might be made.
Hon. M. Farnworth: In terms of implementation there's some key things that need to be taken into account. Clearly one is the issue around getting the consensus, and we're not there yet. Second, if you're going to implement it, it's not the type of thing that you can implement in a single year. In fact it is going to take some time; it is going to take some transition. So you're probably looking at a multi-year process in order to do it.
C. Hansen: Is it still the policy of this government to implement a population-based funding model?
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Hon. M. Farnworth: It's the policy to see that we have a funding formula that's based on principles of equity, transparency, simplicity and meeting needs -- and that it's consistent. That's no small challenge when you're trying to work with regional health authorities and CHCs in different communities around the province and trying to get agreements around what that should be. But we are working towards it. We are doing the work necessary to ensure that, when it does move to implementation, it can be as painless as possible, and that the steps have been taken to ensure it's understandable and can be implemented in a way that deals with any negative impacts that certain areas or regions of the province may experience.
C. Hansen: Before I leave this general area of funding and funding models, I just want to draw the minister's attention to page 29 of the environmental scan. There's a reference here to health care expenditures by province, 1998. It says that British Columbia's provincial government spent more per capita on health care than any other province. It references CIHI, the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
I'm just wondering if the minister is aware that this is no longer an accurate statement. Information that comes out shows that for the last two years British Columbia has slipped. I believe that the forecast for the fiscal year ending this last March 30 is that in fact British Columbia, on a per-capita basis, is probably going to rank about four or five among provinces.
Hon. M. Farnworth: No. I'm familiar that we are actually number two as opposed to number one. But I would say that, in terms of regular standard increases, we are alone amongst the provinces in having made them year over year for the last nine years whereas other provinces have cut and then added in and cut and added in. We haven't gone that route. Those are statistics from 1998.
The other thing about the report that I would also put into account: it doesn't take into account the money that's added during the year or during the special warrants. That's not factored into their calculations either.
C. Hansen: I want to move on to some areas of acute care, if I may. One of the things that was brought to my attention is that British Columbia is the only province that is not on-line in national procurement, in terms of procurement for hospitals and other health care facilities around the province. I'm wondering if the minister could explain to us why that's the case.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think the member's talking about the MASH sector, in terms of internal trade. The policy around that is under E&I . My recollection, just to answer the question, is that during the discussions we are not in fact the only problem. There now has been an agreement around some of the issues revolving around MASH; that has actually been resolved. There was an agreement that was signed off. But the specific details are in Employment and Investment.
I can tell you that one of the leading things around that concern were, for example, UBCM and Vancouver city council.
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C. Hansen: Other provinces have certainly been able to realize some savings in terms of procurement for health care. I'm wondering if the ministry has done any projections or at least had conversations with other provinces in terms of how much they've been able to realize in terms of cost savings by going to a national procurement policy.
Hon. M. Farnworth: Frankly, hon. member, I would just like to say that I think we should be going in the direction of national procurement policies. Those are the types of issues that I've talked about in the last couple of days, of greater cooperation between provinces in a number of areas. I think that's one of those areas that we could be looking at. You could look at that on a whole host of remedies. In terms of my discussions with other provinces and with Ottawa, that's certainly a direction that I intend us to be heading in.
C. Hansen: I wouldn't want the minister to get too hung up on the need for consultations with other provinces, though, because it's not sort of group buying. It's a case of allowing contractors that can offer the best price to a health care facility to meet or supply those needs. Certainly I have a great deal of confidence in the workers of British Columbia in terms of their abilities to compete on a national and in fact global basis to get contracts to supply goods and services to the health care sector. I have no reason to believe that if we went to a more open system of procurement, in fact those costs would come down. I think we can learn from the experience of other provinces, but we certainly don't need to collaborate with other provinces in order to make this happen. I am just wondering if the minister has any comment on that.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think the issue around the MASH sector, as I said, is best dealt with in E&I, because there they
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have the policies on internal trade and exactly what has been agreed to between the provinces. But in terms of the provinces, what we should be doing, the member
But clearly I also think there is significant room with the provinces in terms of looking at things such as bulk purchases. There may well be opportunities in terms of pharmaceuticals, for example, in doing that. What I'm saying is that I certainly agree with the principle that there is a lot to be gained from the provinces working cooperatively together, particularly in the areas where there are common costs -- things that we use on a regular basis -- that may in fact give us some leverage. I think we should be looking at those types of measures.
C. Hansen: I want to move to a nursing issue. At a later stage, when we get into discussions on planning, I will be talking about human resource needs -- the nursing shortage -- and talking about nurse recruitment. But this is a slightly different subject, so I think it probably best fits into this particular area. It's the role that nurses play, in our acute care sector in particular, and a concern that I hear expressed by nurses throughout British Columbia of the elimination of nursing positions from middle management. There are not many people, I think, that argue that there is a need in health care for more management or more layers of management. But in the area of nursing, some real concerns have been expressed regarding the elimination of the role of a head nurse or a supervising nurse. I'm wondering if the ministry as a whole has a policy or a directive that goes out to acute care facilities in terms of how they structure those various managerial positions.
Hon. M. Farnworth: No, we don't. It's up to the local health authorities to determine what structure works best in their own particular area.
C. Hansen: Is there an opportunity, at least, to look at best practices? I know that different facilities have been using different models with varying success, and I would be surprised if there isn't at least a sense as to what model is working best. What I hear from anecdotal stories, at least, from around the province is that the model of eliminating the nurse supervisor or head nurse position clearly was not working in the best interest of nurses. They felt they had lost an advocate at the managerial table, which in turn led to a lot of the frustrations that we see today in terms of the role of nursing in acute care facilities.
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Hon. M. Farnworth: Certainly in terms of best practices I think that's something we encourage all health authorities to do. I can tell you that my understanding is that the issue that the member raises is a valid one and is in fact in many health authorities being rethought.
C. Hansen: Another concern that was expressed to me in one of the health regions as they went to multi-site administration, where they were basically trying to consolidate services from different facilities that weren't all under one roof but in fact were coming under one administration
Hon. M. Farnworth: We will look into the information from the hon. member and get back to him with a more thorough explanation than we can give at this particular time.
C. Hansen: I want to raise some examples from Terrace in terms of Mills Memorial Hospital. It's not that Terrace is unique in some of these issues, but I think it gives us somewhat of a picture as to what's happening in other hospitals around British Columbia. I'm wondering if the minister is aware of how many pediatricians we have practising in the Terrace hospital today as opposed to three years ago.
Hon. M. Farnworth: Not off the top of my head, no. But I'm sure the hon. member will tell us.
C. Hansen: I certainly wasn't trying to trick the minister on this. But if you go back a couple of years, I am told that Terrace had three pediatricians. Lately they're on the verge of -- or at least there is a prospect that they may be -- losing their last pediatrician.
The Mills Memorial Hospital has had a policy that has been described to me as a no-transfer-back policy. If children are transferred out of Terrace to Children's Hospital in Vancouver, then the hospital has a policy of not accepting the patient back, basically they're under the financial constraints, and they don't have the resources with which to open their nursery or to provide that kind of care. I'm wondering if the minister is aware that this kind of a policy exists and whether he supports it and what action might be taken on those kinds of initiatives.
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Hon. M. Farnworth: I'd be surprised and concerned if this was in fact happening or was happening on a regular basis because quite frankly, I expect to see a better degree of cooperation or a high degree of cooperation between health authorities throughout the province around issues like this.
C. Hansen: I wanted to outline for the minister a very real case that involves a family that lives in Terrace. I was initially going to raise this under the whole issue of northern health issues and the cost that's imposed on families; that is another issue. But I'll raise it in this context at this point because of this particular issue, and perhaps I'll come back to it when we get into northern issues.
This is a family that lives in Terrace, and this letter was written to me by the father, Earl Houlden. I'll just quote from sections of his letter that he wrote on April 25 of this year. He says: "My first son was born at 28 weeks gestation at B.C.'s Women's Hospital. He was 2 pounds 14 ounces."
At that point they were very pleased with the care they got. This is six years ago when that child, their first son, was born. What happened is that his wife was pregnant again last year, and they wound up with a very different story that transpired. In September 1999, at 26 weeks, his wife was admitted to Mills Memorial Hospital for bed rest, because
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things were not going well with the pregnancy, and she needed to be lying down. They were medevacked to Vancouver to Children's Hospital, and their daughter was born on September 27, 1999, weighing in at 2 pounds 12 ounces.
They found a very different level of care; they found that nurses were stressed compared to six years earlier. They found that the whole environment was quite different. What they did in this case was the same as they had done six years earlier. They anticipated that there would be a stay, that they would have to be in Vancouver for a while until the baby was big enough to be able to travel back to Terrace. So they rented the same room that they had rented six years before, and they paid a month's rent, because they knew that they would be there for some time. I'll quote from the letter:
He notes:"Then one day we walked into the hospital to hear from our nurse that we were being moved to Prince George Hospital that night. She said it would be nice to be so close to home for us."
What it tells me in this letter is that there's a fundamental problem with the way we fund hospitals in this province. We block-fund hospitals, we fund procedures, but we don't fund patient care. So for hospitals all over this province, when they don't admit a patient, they in fact save money on their budget. My read of the accountability to which health administrators around the province have been held in recent years is that this becomes the be-all and end-all. It's not the patient outcomes that we're measuring. It's not the care that's being measured, but in fact whether or not they can balance a budget. As we know from our earlier discussion today, we're not sure what that means for this coming fiscal year."Prince George is not close. It's a seven-hour drive in summer conditions, and this was the winter. If we could have stayed at B.C.'s Children's Hospital two more weeks, our baby would have been well enough to go to Mills Memorial Hospital in Terrace. Except for one problem, they would not open the nursery for a baby to be transferred into it, even though you are a resident. If the baby was born at Mills Memorial Hospital, they would have opened the nursery for us. But since we were under another hospital's budget, they did not want to spend any of their money on us, even though we were locals."
I wonder if the minister could comment on the type of health care service that this family encountered last fall.
Hon. M. Farnworth: That is unacceptable care that they received. Quite frankly, I think there needs to be recognition that, yes, we're managing and, yes, there's fiscal
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We also have to recognize that we have to use some common sense. To say that somehow, "Yes, you were born here, so we will open it up for you" or "No, you weren't born here; you were born across the street, so we won't open it up for you" -- that does not show any common sense at all. That's the type of shortsightedness that I think frustrates everybody in terms of trying to deliver patient care. The standard that we're trying to encourage and to see is that there is a cooperative approach between health authorities, a cooperative approach between regions, and that it's the way that decisions are being made. I think the decision around this one was particularly shortsighted.
C. Hansen: I want to come back to that family story when I get onto the subject of northern issues, because certainly there is a need for us to address the two-tiered health care system that we have in British Columbia. That two-tiered system is the care and access to care that we have in lower Vancouver Island and the lower mainland as opposed to the access to care that we have in the rest of the province. As I say, I will save that for when we get into that discussion.
I also want to use a couple of examples again that emanate from the financial squeeze that's put on a hospital, which results in patient care being jeopardized. There are a series of memos that were sent to me. The first one is dated July 19, 1999, from the then chief executive officer of Mills Memorial Hospital. It says: "Further to my memo of 13 July, 1999, although our nursing staff shortage is somewhat eased, Mills Memorial Hospital remains closed for further admissions until further notice."
If you go on to the next memo, it's dated August 18, 1999. We now have a different CEO, an acting CEO, in place. The quote from this is: "Mills Memorial Hospital is in the midst of a severe nursing staff shortage caused by an unavailability of casual, sick time and the resignation of some full-time staff. As a result, Mills Memorial Hospital is closed to further admissions until Thursday, August 19."
We then have another memo that comes out, and it's dated March 3 of this year. We have yet a third chief executive officer now, in an acting capacity. "Subject: Admissions to the main ward and ICU, Mills Memorial Hospital. Mills Memorial Hospital is closed to further admissions to the main ward and ICU for the weekend of March 4 and 5, 2000, due to an unavailability of nursing staff."
I would just like to ask the minister whether or not, in British Columbia in the year 2000, we should be accepting the fact that hospitals are actually closing to admissions -- rural hospitals that are a considerable distance from the next available facility. It's bad enough in the lower mainland when you wind up with a hospital going on diversion or closing to admissions. People may have the inconvenience of another couple of miles that they have to drive. But in this case we're talking about some considerable distances to available hospitals. I'm wondering if the minister would be prepared to comment on whether or not that's acceptable patient care.
Hon. M. Farnworth: No, it's not acceptable. I guess it raises or comes back to the issue around staffing levels and the ability, because
C. Hansen: I want to continue through with some of the material that's been provided to me by the Terrace and Area Health Watch Group. They talk about some of the moneys that have been transferred to the CHC for what were reputed to be regional programs. They say that during the past year the CHC has transferred moneys from two regionally funded programs -- and that's the CT scan and nuclear medicine -- and they've used those funds for other expenditures.
I'm wondering if the minister could explain to us, in terms of transfer of dollars and the standard of care and instructions that go along with those dollars, what is expected of the health authorities in terms of meeting regional needs.
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[ Page 15751 ]
Hon. M. Farnworth: If they are targeted funds, they are supposed to be going to the area to which they are targeted. Any change in that is supposed to take place in discussion with the ministry.
C. Hansen: I'm also advised that this hospital is expected to do all the pacemaker replacements for the northwest region, that of the various hospitals in that vicinity, they are in fact the pacemaker specialists. I'm now told that, because of budget constraints they have in trying to meet the needs of that particular hospital and that community, they have again scaled back on doing pacemaker replacements for surrounding communities as in the past. So now what we're seeing is that patients, instead of being dealt with in Terrace, are being flown to Vancouver at a considerably higher cost to the taxpayer. Yet in doing so, it relieves pressure on that particular regional budget. I'm wondering if the minister could comment on that.
Hon. M. Farnworth: This is a program they have chosen to do themselves, it's not a formally approved program. They do about 20 a year. They have asked for some help, and we are reviewing that request.
C. Hansen: I want to give one more example of how some of these problems which may not be the most effective use of tax dollars, start to manifest themselves. I'll just read several sections from this particular article, which was in the Terrace Standard, November 1999.
One of the doctors added:"Critics of the current system in which health councils each have their own budgets point to the intensive care units here and in Prince Rupert as an example. Each unit gets money for its normal coverage area. But because Prince Rupert Regional Hospital has been unable to recruit an internist, it sends patients to Terrace's ICU when its specialists and nurses need to take time off. 'But when Rupert doesn't function as an ICU, those dollars still stay in Rupert
. . . . They get to keep their money.' "
I guess what I'm trying to point out from these various examples is that what seem to be decisions for inappropriate patient care are driven by the fact that the block funding goes to hospitals. We don't fund the patient; we fund the hospital. So when hospitals get into a financial crunch, they start finding ways of keeping patients out of their doors, even though that may be the most cost-effective way and the best patient care for the patients involved. I'm wondering if the ministry has looked at a model that is used in other jurisdictions, whereby we actually fund patient care. With patients that come into hospitals requiring medical treatment, the hospitals will in fact see the dollars that are necessary to provide them with the best and most optimal patient care that can be provided with the dollars available."
. . . . hospitals in Prince Rupert and Kitimat routinely shut down their surgical wards over Christmas, relying on Terrace doctors to pick up the slack."
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Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess these are the types of issues where the ministry can play a role -- and we do try and monitor, because we don't want to see the issues around a hospital trying to off-load onto another area
So on the broad picture, certainly I think there are ways of dealing with that, but all the impacts have to be taken into account. On a more local or specific nature, we try and monitor these types of situations as they arise, and then work with the authorities to ensure that there is a minimum of this type of activity taking place.
C. Hansen: Basically, in terms of the various subject areas that we've discussed today, these do all link together, because this comes back to the issue of micromanagement. Sure, there are ways that you can address each of these individual problems as they manifest themselves. If you want to develop a model that is basically driven by a centralized planning management model with dictates going out and targeted funding going out
All of these issues tie together. If you're going to micromanage them centrally, then you're going to wind up with a very cumbersome system, which winds up with not the best patient-care decisions being made, because the budgets aren't there for it. That's why I asked whether or not the minister is prepared to look at a different funding model that would actually allow for some of the decisions to be made locally. When decisions are made locally, the individuals can count on the dollars to flow to treat a patient rather than simply sending a patient in need of care off to fit into somebody else's budget in another community.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'd definitely like to see the system evolve on a funding formula that allows a greater degree of local control in terms of the decision-making process. I think, ultimately, that leads to a more desirable outcome. In terms of moving the funding model formula forward, I think that's one of the objectives we want to try and move towards and get some consensus around.
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C. Hansen: I've got one last issue to raise under this subject of acute care, and again, it's just to tie the
Just to complete this picture in Terrace, when I was there in January I had the opportunity to tour through a facility called the Sleeping Beauty Lodge. The Sleeping Beauty Lodge was formerly a nurses residence. The Elks of the Royal Purple had taken over this facility to run as an outpatient care facility for patients who were not staying overnight in the hospital.
[ Page 15752 ]
They were from outlying communities and could not travel back to their communities. And they also made it available, at a very nominal rate, for family members who were coming into Terrace when members of their family were in the hospital.
Mills Memorial Hospital is actually approved for 52 beds by the ministry. What we have seen in the last couple of years in fact is that it's been scaled back to some 27 beds that are now open. In addition to that, we see more and more patients being sent out of the community for care in spite of the notion of closer to home, for what are perceived to be budgetary decisions. That local hospital doesn't have the budget to care for them, whether it's the pediatric cases that I mentioned earlier or other patients.
So what we have seen as a direct result of this is that this very beneficial community facility run by a not-for-profit organization in fact had to close the doors, because they no longer had the patients coming into Terrace who were in need of this kind of facility. When we start to see the ripple effect of so many of these decisions, the net result is just a deterioration of the services that people used to expect and expected to be provided locally. Now they no longer have that confidence level. I'm not sure if the minister wants to comment on that particular issue. I'll give him that opportunity before I move on to a whole new subject area.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think one of the issues that we face is the utilization of beds that are available and the ability now, with technology, to get better utilization out of existing beds. That has an impact on the number that are required, and that has an impact in terms of critical mass and utilization. Quite often something that was designed for something that was required, let's say, in a small community back in the fifties, is not necessarily what's required today. That poses challenges, and that's one of the things we have to realize in terms of an adapting system. Changes take place, and the question is: how do we absorb this?
C. Hansen: Just to give the minister an indication as to where this discussion will go from here, I want to now turn to the performance plan and go through some of the specific areas under the subject of regional operations. We've got about 20 or 25 minutes before we go to private members' statements, and then we reconvene at 7 p.m., at which time we will do Pharmacare issues and planning issues. I'm assuming that under the issue of planning, we can include some of the human resource planning issues and also some health research issues, although I'm prepared to take guidance on that. So in terms of the period from 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock adjournment tonight, I see us just covering Pharmacare and planning issues.
I see the minister asking for a very short recess here, so if the Chair is prepared to indulge that, I am certainly willing to do that.
The committee recessed from 5:35 p.m. to 5:40 p.m.
[P. Nettleton in the chair.]
C. Hansen: I want to move on to the subject of accountability. In the key program objectives, it says "Continue to develop accountability and monitoring mechanisms for health authorities in the areas of acute care, continuing care, mental health and public and preventive health." I'm wondering if the minister could tell us: what's our starting point on this? In particular, up till now, how have health authorities and their CEOs been held accountable? What are the measures that have been used up till now?
Hon. M. Farnworth: There are a number of accountability measures, starting with, of course, a very basic one such as the board itself, to which they report. But it's also the monitoring that takes place by the ministry in terms of utilization measures, in terms of procedural measures, where you can compare one particular area in terms of the number of procedures that it's performing and how that relates to other areas of the province. There are, of course, budgetary measures as well. All those things are areas in which performance can be measured and which the ministry uses as standards to hold to accountability, as well as the boards themselves, which they are directly accountable to.
C. Hansen: Certainly there's a perception that the only measure that's been used to date is whether or not they could balance the budget and that there have not really been measures, in a substantive way, coming from the ministry. Sure, the various regional health authorities will probably do a performance review of their CEO, who in turn would probably do performance reviews with the various staff. But from the ministry's perspective, how is performance measured other than the ability to meet budget targets?
Hon. M. Farnworth: One of the things we're doing in terms of the strategic plan is moving towards an accountability framework that has a greater number of factors in it than previously. I mentioned the ones about budgetary; I mentioned the ones about the board. I mentioned ones about, for example, the provincial health officer and monitoring certain types of outcomes that exist around the province. We are looking at expanding it -- for example, including using patient satisfaction scoring as a key indicator in terms of accountability. That is being developed as part of the strategic plan and is something that we want to work with health authorities in.
As well, one of the areas that we can assist and we can use is
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C. Hansen: The minister made a comment yesterday or the day before that this certainly is an area of interest of his. I applaud him for that, because I think it's an area that's very important.
I would also like to compliment the ministry on the new format for the annual report of the ministry, which includes a significant section on outcomes. I think the thing that's going to be very interesting is not so much to compare
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other thing that I think is going to be vitally important is to see how these measures develop from year to year, so that we can see some constant improvement in each region in each of these measures. I'm wondering if that's envisioned as part of the reporting format, that we will in fact see these being measured from year to year as opposed to just on a region-to-region basis.
The other question that I have for the minister along the same vein is whether or not there is historical data available today in terms of these various measures that are outlined in the annual report.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm answering the second part of your question first. In some measures there are, and in some measures there is less detailed information available.
In answer to your first question, certainly we want to see the measuring and the ability to measure over reasonable periods of time. It could be on an annual basis; it could be on a biannual basis -- every two years, for example. But clearly there needs to be a definite move to ensuring that there's the ability to do that, measuring on a recognized time scale and one that makes sense.
C. Hansen: I would certainly be interested in any historical data that may be available for the various sets of information outlined in the annual report. If at some point the ministry could send that on to me, if it's easily accessible, I would certainly find it interesting reading.
In terms of the performance objectives that are better set out for accountability, as the minister outlined earlier, I'm wondering if you can give us a time line as to when it will be that health authorities clearly understand how they are being measured in terms of their performance and, in particular, the work of the CEOs around the province. Will they clearly understand how their performance is being evaluated? Is there a particular time line in terms of when the work set out in this document will be accomplished?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We have an industry-ministry committee -- a measurement-monitoring committee -- that is developing the standards by which measurements can be made.
C. Hansen: I'm wondering if there is a time line, though, associated with that work of that committee.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I think how the implementation is being approached is to do it in a series of sections. It's a multi-year process that is required. So you'll start to see some areas being able to be implemented and standards and measurements starting to take place within a year and then, consequently, in subsequent years following that.
C. Hansen: The performance measure outlined specifically states: "Performance measures determined jointly by ministry and health authority and regular reporting to monitor financial, service utilization and outcome data." I gather from what the minister has said that the outcome data is something that may be periodic; it could be biannual. In terms of the financial and service utilization, I'm wondering if that will be on a periodic basis and whether or not that will be made public when those reports come out.
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Hon. M. Farnworth: My expectation is that certainly the year-end information would be public on an annual basis. In terms of measurement and the periods that you could take, my expectation is that it would be done on a monthly basis, and there would be close monitoring. That would be done on a much shorter time frame than some other things which may be able to be done on a biannual basis.
C. Hansen: I guess the other part is: will it be made public?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, with the exception of cases where services or procedures on an individual could be identified. Let's say you were doing one procedure. That may cause some problems. Other than that, the information would be public.
Noting the hour, hon. Chair, I ask that the committee rise, 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. M. Farnworth: I call private members' statements.
The Speaker: We'll just take a short break, members, until the members giving private members' statements arrive in the chambers.
The House recessed from 5:54 p.m. to 5:56 p.m.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Private Members' Statements
SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGE B.C.
L. Reid: It's my pleasure this afternoon to speak on behalf of the SOS Children's Village in British Columbia. I'd like to begin my remarks this evening by paying tribute to Lois Bouchard. Lois currently sits as a member of the development committee of SOS Children's Village, and for her the creation of the first SOS Children's Village home in British Columbia is the culmination of many years of devotion to this project and definitely a labour of love. In fact, she and her husband initiated the SOS B.C. as an organization in the early 1980s.
Mr. Gmeiner, the founder of SOS Children's Villages, believed that nothing in the world is more important than attending to a child. SOS Children's Village British Columbia is affiliated with SOS Kinderdorf International, a non-profit society dedicated to providing homes and care for children in need around the world for over 50 years.
The question has often come to us: "Why do children in British Columbia need an SOS Children's Village?" At any given time in British Columbia, many children and youth are in care in foster homes, group homes and other arrangements.
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These children have lost their parents or have been separated from them. Many of these children eventually find themselves in a good home with loving parents. Some, however, do not. These children can become hurt and lost. In desperation, some of them may turn to suicide, crime or violence.
SOS Children's Villages are safe havens where children in need can rebuild their lives. They are places where children belong to a stable, secure and loving family and receive love, attention and protection. Imagine the difference these places can make in the lives of children.
These villages are built in neighbourhoods made up of several homes and families. Each home provides a secure family life for children who are raised as brothers and sisters. Natural siblings live together, preventing the trauma which occurs when brothers and sisters are separated, as is often the case.
The elements for success for an SOS Children's Village
The children in each home become brothers and sisters. This strengthens the feeling of family and gives them a sense of belonging. As the critic for the Ministry for Children and Families, I think that what most children in today's age are looking for is a sense of belonging. We have generations of children who, frankly, feel disconnected. They don't have a place to call home. They don't have possessions that are their own. They don't have a bedroom that's theirs for a number of years in a row.
As one avenue to provide that kind of continuity for children, I'm applauding the efforts of the SOS Children's Village. I think it can do some remarkable things in terms of providing continuity -- in terms of taking children from a very young age and seeing them through to adulthood with a stable set of SOS parents. I think it's a wonderful thing.
Each SOS home reflects the individual needs and interests of the family. This is the safe nest where meals are shared, homework is done, and birthdays and holidays are celebrated. Imagine, as a child in care, the opportunity to celebrate your birthday with the same family year after year. That is not an opportunity that many children in care have before them today.
Individual family homes are designed to blend in with the surrounding community. The SOS families become an integrated part of the community in which they live, attending local schools and social activities with other children and families in the neighbourhood.
The mission of the SOS in Canada is to focus on the needs of children in Canada while actively supporting the international operations of the organization. Canada's first SOS Children's Village was established in Nova Scotia in 1983. The actual implementation of the vision has been operational in Canada for not quite 20 years yet, but the impact it has made on the lives of children has been absolutely incredible.
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A parcel of land in Surrey has been purchased as the site of the SOS Children's Village of British Columbia. Certainly after many years of hard work and dedication, we will very, very soon see this home open to young people in this province. In fact, the ribbon-cutting on that facility will be on June 10 of this year, so it's coming up in a matter of weeks.
I want to put on the record some comments made by members of the communities around this province. "In public meetings and in private discussions throughout British Columbia, there was universal acceptance that the welfare of every child is everyone's concern." Those are the remarks taken from hon. Judge Thomas Gove when he concluded his report to his inquiry into child protection.
Canada is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, yet today one in five children in British Columbia lives in poverty. As our social safety net grows smaller, the needs of many of these children go unmet. Many, lacking the love and security of a permanent home, grow up feeling insecure, frustrated and without much hope for the future. Long-term risks for these children are well documented: poor health, inadequate housing, emotional or behavioural problems, family breakdown, school failure and unemployment. We know that if the foundation of a building is weak, then the whole structure is vulnerable. In the same way, the future health of communities and society are directly linked to the well-being of our community.
The documents from the SOS Children's Village talk about community-based solutions. They suggest that they are needed and will invest in the well-being of our children and contribute to the future of our communities. I support that contention. I think it is an opportunity for us to work in partnership and to continue to do some very fine things for children.
SOS Children's Village in British Columbia is affiliated with SOS Kinderdorf International, a non-profit society dedicated to providing homes and care for children in need around the world, for over 50 years. So they've done some truly amazing things over the years and will continue to do so.
I want to reference an excerpt from one of the documents that they have sent. Many children "were robbed of their right to a decent education, adequate health care, stable family lives and sometimes of their entire childhood
"We must renew our commitment to improving health, welfare and future hopes of children around the world. We shall pursue this promise country by country, village by village, home by home and child by child until the goal of an equitable, merciful and joyful life for all God's children is within our sights." That was Queen Noor Al-Hussein, honorary president of the Jordanian SOS Children's Village Association.
So there are a number of individuals on the record who believe in this concept, who believe in the vision of the SOS Children's Village. And I for one am absolutely delighted that this village will open in this province in a number of weeks time, on June 10. I look forward to my colleague opposite's comments.
The Speaker: Thank you, member. To respond, the hon. member for Comox Valley.
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E. Gillespie: I'd like to thank the member for Richmond East for bringing all of our attention to SOS Children's Village British Columbia. I have noted in this chamber that we often use private members' statements as an opportunity to talk about the plight of children in British Columbia and, in particular, the needs of children in care. So once again, I thank the member for raising this tonight.
We can all agree that the purpose of SOS Children's Village British Columbia is extremely worthy. It's also truly remarkable to note the scope of its parent organization, SOS Kinderdorf International to provide stable homes for children throughout the world and in our own backyard. I understand that the society has bought land and is currently building two homes in the Surrey area. SOS Children's Village British Columbia has a model of care which consists of a cluster -- or a village -- of single-parent homes in one geographic location. It's something new to British Columbia, and I think it's something very worthwhile. It's a new model to British Columbia, but one that we can put into the mix of models that we have available for children in care for providing the best possible range of care to children in this province.
The Ministry for Children and Families has outlined to this society that their program must be consistent with the ministry's family care model and be based upon regional needs. There has already been significant correspondence between the ministry and the SOS Children's Village, and that communication has outlined the basic tenets that need to be followed in order for this to be funded by the Ministry for Children and Families. Indeed, they are looking forward to final discussions in June.
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The Ministry for Children and Families has reviewed the Village's system of care proposed and has determined that it is consistent with ministry standards and guidelines for family foster care. Then the next steps, which are currently in progress, are ensuring that the program is based on the regional needs and considering the proposed budget of SOS Children's Village B.C. in detail.
So, hon. Speaker, there are meetings with senior ministry officials and representatives from the Surrey region to discuss the use of the Village's services. I understand that the society is almost ready to present its budget to the board in June, and ministry officials will be working closely with them on that. The organization has requested operational funding, but no final decision has been made at this point.
One of our commitments as a government is to improve the conditions of children in care by improving the entire system. We stated that we would provide a children's bill of rights to give children under the province's care a right to services they need and a say over their future. We have done this. The Child, Family and Community Service Act provides not only for the rights of children in care but also for the circumstances under which they are taken into care.
We also promised to appoint an independent children's advocate, and our current child, youth and family advocate, Joyce Preston, was appointed in May of 1995.
We said that we would invest in the well-being of British Columbia's children by strengthening British Columbia families. We continue to improve support for B.C. families by taxation and housing policies aimed at increasing economic fairness and strengthening the independence of families; by improving the level of physical and mental health through the availability of counselling services; by providing more effective drug and alcohol abuse treatment for young people; and by expanding the availability of affordable, non-profit child care and after-school programs.
We will continue to invest in B.C. families, and we will continue to work with SOS Children's Village British Columbia on the goals of improving conditions for children in care and meeting the society's future financial needs.
L. Reid: I thank my hon. colleague opposite for her remarks.
To continue on the SOS Children's Village and my support for this concept
The SOS Children's Village concept is built on four cornerstones. Children are given an extensively trained parent to love and guide them into becoming healthy, contributing members of society. Natural brothers and sisters are not separated; together with their parents, these children form a family. Each family is provided with a house which is part of a supportive community that we call an SOS Children's Village. The strong, clear educational and psychological principles underlying the operating concept encourage the development of each child's potential by providing love, security and continuity; sound schooling and training in local schools and workshops; and a wide variety of facilities for recreational and hobby-related activities.
This is my challenge to the members of this chamber and certainly to British Columbians at large in terms of a request to support the SOS Children's Village in British Columbia by becoming a friend of SOS B.C. Hopefully, the resources can be in place to continue the creation of this village and to expand this village to the ten homes that are currently in the planning stages. In return for your hopeful participation, you will join a group of caring, committed people who receive correspondence in terms of the growth of the village not just in Canada but in the 130 countries around the world that operate this type of child care support system. They're acknowledging that it does take a village to educate a child, to nurture a child and to bring a child to adulthood with some kind of independence in their lives and some kind of ability to make informed choices to be the educated member of the society that we all hope that we have been a part of.
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So, if I might, I invite members of this chamber to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. It will be at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, June 10, at the first village house. The address is 14851 66A Avenue in Surrey, B.C. If anyone is interested in contacting the SOS Children's Village, the e-mail address is: sos_village@telus.net.
In terms of the individuals who can benefit, I trust that members of this chamber will continue to support this initiative. I trust that the partnership that hopefully will conclude successfully with the Minister for Children and Families does so in an expedient fashion, because this discussion has been
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going on in British Columbia since the early eighties. It's a 20-year discussion that could be one aspect of a very fine delivery system for children in this province. It will not meet the needs of all children. But as an avenue for filling in the continuum, if you will, this is one that I trust every member of this chamber will come to their feet at some point and support. It is something that will make a difference to the lives of children.
I speak particularly of the continuity aspect. It makes great sense that children taken into care early in their lives can expect to live in the same home until they reach adulthood. That is the goal of this operation, this exercise, and I thank you for the opportunity.
TAX CUTS AND B.C.'S
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
M. Sihota: It's certainly a pleasure to rise this evening. I'll start off a little slowly this evening and talk a little bit about tax cuts, their impact on the economy and the role that they play in seeing our province through its current economic turbulence. We're now into a phase of economic recovery, as we move to diversify this province and achieve our potential economically as a province.
It is important to go back over the last three years, as we've seen the situation in the economy in British Columbia and both the political and philosophical debate evolve over that time. Largely because of what transpired in the Asian markets, and the downturn in those markets
In response to the challenges that were faced by the province at that time, our government decided to embark upon a course. I think it's important to reflect back on that course and to see what effect the determinations that we made have had. One of the things that government decided to do -- despite commentary that suggests we ought to proceed with broad-based, across-the-board tax cuts -- was make a very conscious decision to proceed with a series of targeted tax cuts. That shored up those industries which were at risk, helped diversify the economy and laid the foundation for an economic recovery. That was the hope of this administration about two, two and a half to three years ago. It's interesting to see what we've been able to do and what the effect has been.
One of the sectors in particular that felt the impact of what was transpiring in Asia was the forest sector. In that regard the industry -- correctly, in my view -- made the argument that they needed some fiscal relief in order to assist them through a difficult period. It's interesting to note, I think it was about two years ago, that we provided about $600 million in financial relief to the forest sector through reductions in stumpage rates, changes in the Forest Practices Code and streamlining initiatives as well. Those were designed to try to see the industry through that turbulent period.
I think standing as we are now with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, we can look back, and we can see that indeed those measures worked. The forest industry is now in good shape; profits are moving in an upward direction. There is indeed diversification in the industry, recovery in markets, recovery in commodity prices -- the prices in lumber or in commodities like pulp. I note, for example, that pulp is now at about the $800 level. That's important, because of course government was criticized some time ago for making investments in Skeena Cellulose. I don't hear those criticisms much anymore. I suspect that's because those increases in prices, as were predicted, have occurred. As a result, the situation with that operation is moving to the positive.
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In order to sort of help diversify the economy, we made a very conscious decision to compete against other jurisdictions in attracting film production to this province. We brought forward a film tax credit. That tax credit was designed to make sure that provinces like Ontario were not able to take away the competitive advantage we have here in British Columbia as Hollywood North, and also to make sure that California was not able to reverse the flow of activity from north back to south. The film tax credit was brought into place. Again, with the benefit of hindsight now, we can see that those initiatives worked well for the economy in British Columbia in the sense that the film sector now is one of the more buoyant attributes of our economy. Indeed, I think most recognize that without the benefits of that tax credit and the decision the government made in that regard, we would have lost our competitive position and lost market share in terms of film.
It's interesting to note, again, that we recognize that from a competitive point of view, we were not particularly competitive -- or adequately competitive, I should say -- with the province to the east of us, Alberta, with regards to our structure as it related to royalties in oil and gas. We started to make some changes to reduce the royalty structure by about 40 percent, and as a consequence, now we're seeing record-low unemployment levels, not only across the province but particularly in the northeast of the province, and record exploration in terms of oil and gas.
Certainly two years ago the high-tech opportunities were there for any of the provinces and the country to seize. Recognizing, again, that because of the environmental attributes the province has and the desire of people to locate here, given the investments the government has made in education, we had the infrastructure that was necessary to attract the high-tech sector here. However, in order to be able to do that, we had to be more competitive on the fiscal parameters that would get the industry to move here. Through provisions such as the knowledge development fund, we were able to do that.
Again, with the benefit of hindsight now, we can ask ourselves whether or not those initiatives worked. Clearly those initiatives worked. We have now, just for example, international companies like EDS, IBM, ISM-BC and others locating here to British Columbia, and particularly here to the Victoria market. We're seeing here in Victoria the fastest-growing sector of our economy, and funnily enough, it's not tourism; it is the knowledge industries.
Hon. Speaker, because of these decisions that we've made, we're starting to see the development of strong growth both in tourism and film, recovery in forestry and oil and gas. Of course, to top it off, we've brought forward the lowest tax rate for small business in the country now, as a way to ensure that the small business sector thrives. Of course, we have the fastest small business sector growth rate right now.
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In my concluding comments, I want to talk about where we need to go in light of those decisions that we made to date.
The Speaker: Thank you, member.
To respond, the hon. member for Vancouver-Little Mountain.
G. Farrell-Collins: I want to make a few comments in response to the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin. I think perhaps the rendition we heard was a little selective, and I want to broaden it a little bit and discuss some of the background that led to the downturn in the economic activity in British Columbia in the last number of years.
The member spoke -- quite correctly -- about the forest sector, saying that commodity prices have improved in the forest sector. But I think that what he failed to mention was the fact that the costs that the member mentioned the government relieving or reducing from the forest sector were costs that have been put on them by the current administration.
In fact, I think it was the Minister of Forests who stated some time ago that in calculating what the added costs to the forest sector were as a result of one government initiative, the Forest Practices Code, in fact $1 billion of the $3 billion in added costs that had been allocated or charged to the forest sector had virtually no positive impact on the environment whatsoever. They were merely administrative costs that were added with no measurable environmental benefit.
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That's a huge burden, because that's $1 billion worth of capital investment that could have gone back into the forest sector in new equipment, in new technologies, in more environmentally friendly technologies in pulp mills and saw mills, etc. But that was money that went instead into government coffers and went into other types of expenditures.
That was a difficult time for the forest sector -- having to deal with increased administrative burden and increased tax burden at a time when commodity prices were also dropping. While I'm sure the industry heaved a big sigh of relief when those costs were reduced, I expect that they would have been more than happy had they not been allocated in the first place. I'm sure that people working in those communities would have felt the same way.
I think one has to look broader than just that. I think the member mentioned a couple of other sectors of the economy where he feels that the government has had success, one being the high-tech sector and the other being tourism -- and film. Sorry -- I guess he mentioned three.
It's true that the film sector in British Columbia has done relatively well. I think that we have a huge and very skilled workforce that leads to that. We also have a very low dollar, which helps, and certainly the tax structure that's in place in British Columbia and Ontario and other jurisdictions contributes to that success as well.
The two areas where I think we've seen the largest growth in the economy deal primarily in the high-tech sector, which is one of the ones that the minister mentioned. He said that the high-tech sector has grown in British Columbia, and indeed it has. But it's grown at about half the rate that it has in our nearby competing jurisdictions, half the rate that it has in Ontario, in Washington State and in Oregon. It still has a long way to go. So while there is some good news here that one can attribute to those sectors, one can see that when compared with other jurisdictions, they're not nearly where they should be.
The issue the member just briefly touched on was taxes. I just want to correct him a little bit. British Columbia has the second-lowest small business income tax rate, not the lowest. But really, the numbers we have to look at are the personal income tax rates and what individual people in British Columbia are paying relative to other jurisdictions. I know that government members like to talk about the burden or
I just want to share some numbers with the members of the House, if I can. In Ontario in this year's tax year, personal income tax rate on income up to $30,000 -- the lowest bracket of income tax -- is 6.37 percent. In British Columbia it's 8.4 percent. In Ontario next year they're going to reduce it to 6.2 percent, and British Columbia's will still be at 8.4 percent. So people here in British Columbia, low-income people
I want to look at Alberta's figures too. Alberta also has a very significantly lower personal income tax rate at the low end than people at the low tax rate do here in British Columbia. In fact, low-income working families in Alberta and Ontario do far better on personal income taxes than they do here in British Columbia. It's a bit of a myth to say that tax cuts have gone primarily to the wealthy and to the large businesses. In fact, I think it's working families who've benefited from that policy. I hope that we'll be able to mirror some of those taxation policies in the future and bring British Columbia's economy back to where it was once before: number one in Canada.
M. Sihota: We are headed toward restoring our position as number one in Canada. Clearly we've gone through a difficult time in the province. It's interesting that the member agrees that in all the sectors I just mentioned -- oil and gas, film, tourism -- we're not only recovering but we're doing very well and we're seeing our way through. At times this government doesn't get credit for bringing forward the targeted tax cuts that we did, to try to restore the economic viability of the province -- and that's occurring. In fact, the greatest myth -- to use the hon. member's words -- is that on this side of the House we don't believe that tax cuts work. We believe they work; we believe they should be targeted towards innovation and diversity.
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However, having said that, the one remaining problem in our economy today is one of consumer confidence. People, particularly working people and working families in the province, do not feel as if they're getting ahead. They are just going from paycheque to paycheque. Inasmuch as in industrial sectors the numbers are turning around and we're starting to do better, I think that the psychology that's required to take the economy to the next level isn't there yet. That is the remaining challenge for government over the next few months. There are a number of things the government can do to turn it around psychologically and make sure that the people stop feeling as if they're going from paycheque to
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paycheque, but indeed feel that they have more disposable capacity in their jeans in order to achieve their dreams and ambitions for their children.
I would suggest, given my time, three things in particular that government needs to do over the next couple of months. First, we have to provide more relief for working families. I would suggest that one of the ways in which government can take a look at doing that is by going to a system of mortgage interest tax deductibility -- allowing families to deduct a percentage of their mortgage interest costs for their homes against income -- and a similar program with regards to rental income. Both psychologically and substantively -- probably more so psychologically, because you can't do it across the board for 100 percent
Second, the province needs to move to increase the minimum wage. Working people and working families need more income in terms of the minimum wage. It would seem to me appropriate that the government take a look at seven and a half dollars to eight dollars as a minimum wage. It is an appropriate amount, and I know it is also a point of distinction between members on this side of the House and members opposite.
Third, the government has to deal with the reality of child care for working families. Expenses as they relate to child care and the burden of child care are enormous, and they drain the pocketbooks of working families, both psychologically and substantively. In my view it is time that government move toward a universal publicly funded child care system -- again, to provide relief for working families.
If working families know -- and I'll wrap up on this point -- that they can deduct a percentage of their mortgage or rent costs, if they know that they can save money through a child care system that's universal, and if they know that the minimum wage is going up, I think that provides the mechanism that's required to augment what we've done in the industrial sector to provide the kind of spirit and psychological changes that we need around consumer confidence.
The Speaker: For the third private member's statement, the hon. member for Parksville-Qualicum.
HORSES -- THE CANADIAN BREED
J. Reid: I'm pleased tonight to speak about a good-news story and to share information with the House and with all British Columbians. This story is about the history of Canada, about the fibre of our country and an opportunity to promote a part of living history.
The living history is that Canada has its very own breed of horse, which a lot of people don't recognize. That horse is called the Canadian Horse, and it is a recognized breed. This horse has been part of our history, and it is genuinely Canadian. It is living culture, although at one time it came very close to extinction. We wouldn't have the country as it is today without this horse. Its history is very rich and fascinating.
There is a book on the Canadian Horse, written by Gladys Beattie. I'm going to quote from it. It talks about
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These horses endured rough living conditions and tough working conditions, and they proved themselves over and over. Through these harsh conditions and natural selection, Canadian Horses developed into an extremely hardy and dependable breed.
Another quote from this book about the Canadian Horse: another historian, Failon, described the horses as "small but robust, hocks of steel, thick mane floating in the wind, bright and lively eyes, pricking sensitive ears at the least noise, going along day or night with the same courage, wide awake beneath its harness, spirited, good, gentle, affectionate, following his road with finest instinct to come surely to his own stable."
These horses were well recognized as being a very important part of Canada. In fact, in the 1800s, when the British settlers arrived they initially scoffed at what they called the Quebec ponies. Their mockery was soon turned to admiration as the little iron horses proved that they could eat less and do a lot more work than other horses almost twice their weight. Their strength and endurance almost became a legend.
There was a quotation from the Breeders' Gazette of Chicago in 1914 that read as follows:
It is a very proud animal that is part of our heritage. As people moved west into Manitoba and south into the United States, they took their horses with them and greatly influenced the American breeds."A wood merchant, owner of a Canadian Horse weighing approximately 1,050 pounds, harnessed it on the same pole beside another horse, 200 pounds heavier. The Canadian Horse has always kept his harness traces well stretched and never showed as much fatigue as his heavier mate. After two years of common work, the heavy horse died. Questioned on the cause of death, the driver answered: 'It is the Canadian Horse that made him die of overwork.' Another heavy horse teamed with the same Canadian Horse died after a year, and the Canadian was still in perfect condition."
In the 1800s our horses became an object of export, exported for the American Civil War and to wars in Africa because of their very nature, their versatility and their hardiness.
During the late 1800s, because of the crossbreeding and the exports, the breed was close to disappearing. Other breeds had registries and were being promoted as prestigious, and the Canadian Horse, our standard workhorse, was being overlooked. In 1895 a registry was developed for the Canadian Horse in Quebec. The federal government became involved in 1912 by establishing a breeding farm for the Canadian Horse that existed right up until the beginning of the Second World War.
But due to farm mechanization, the numbers of Canadian Horses continued to dwindle. As the horses became less needed for their endurance and work capability, and many
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large breeds were favoured for showing in racing, the horses that had been bred for the special purposes started to carry more popularity than our breed of Canadian Horse. In modern times the Canadian Horse has come near to extinction.
So the efforts that have been put in on the part of many people to try and maintain the breed of Canadian Horse, to try to make sure that it was known and that its breed lines would go on, have worked very hard all across Canada to establish this breed and to make sure that it was known -- the part that it played in Canadian history and, from coast to coast, how integral it was to the very development of Canada as the nation that we see today, the worth of this horse and the reflection that it is upon the pioneer spirit and upon the general conditions of Canada that result in requiring a breed that would be so versatile, that would be so hardworking, so dependable and certainly the breed that we need to recognize as being distinctly Canadian and worthy of our support and of our protection.
[1835]
The Speaker: To respond, the hon. member for Cariboo South.
D. Zirnhelt: Apparently there was no question on this side as to who had the privilege to respond to this. I was eagerly enticed into doing so. I really thought it was a wonderful opportunity, because I have been aware of the Canadian Horse for probably 30 years. I've watched the breed bounce back to numbers where they can probably sustain themselves.
I think there's some great work going on. I think in that member's constituency there are some breeders, certainly the biggest ones in B.C. -- if it's not in your constituency, very close. I think it is part of the diversification of agriculture on the Island and in British Columbia.
It's interesting that there is an anecdote that the very horse you spoke of was a gift to the governor in New France and may have met the fate of being mistaken for a moose by some of the earlier inhabitants of this part of the country and met an untimely fate.
But that didn't stop the breed from getting established. In fact, I think the very qualities that you spoke of
I think it's no accident that it became one of the favoured breeds of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In fact, one interesting story I don't think you told was that at one point a gift of one member of this breed was made to the Queen. There was some controversy around its pedigree, but it nevertheless was a spirited horse. Apparently, at one time Ronald Reagan, who you all know was President of the United States, when visiting the Queen -- she had this horse in her stable -- very nervously got an opportunity to ride this horse, probably because it was a Canadian Horse, but also probably because it was spirited yet looked like a gentle horse, looked like the kind of horse that even a President of the United States could ride.
This horse breed is going to have challenges. They want to respond to the market, to the people in recreation, people who want to ride in the various events, the people who want to drive on light buggies and the people who want to do slightly heavier work.
But the fact is that you have the gene pool there. With modern AI breeding techniques, with such a small number you can actually speed up the process of evolution without tampering and running the risk of inbreeding, which is always a danger. You take good qualities in our animals, and then we fix some of the better qualities but also blend some of the recessive genes, which have less desirable traits. Of course, the problem today is that many of our animals don't get the steady test day after day to prove the qualities of whether their bone or their muscle will stand up under trying circumstances.
I think the breeders who are enthusiastically embracing this breed are on to something. In fact, the article in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago ended up in my files, because while I've quit breeding horses, someday I would like to get back into them, and I would seriously consider the Canadian breed. In getting ready for today, I talked to one of the breeders and actually found that they're quite excited and very happy that B.C. is even considering this part of our Canadian heritage and that we as a government have helped them out, through our heritage branch, to do some research into developing the breed.
The interesting story is that Quebec beat us first. Quebec has established this as their "national horse," and of course that stopped the federal government in their tracks. A private member's bill is before the federal Parliament in turning this horse into a truly national, federal breed. I think anybody can claim this as their national horse, and it's open for B.C. to do that. I hope British Columbia does do that at some time.
I think it would be a testament to the effectiveness of these breeders if they can get the population established and find that British Columbians, who don't import very many horses
I'm one of those people that get to ride a quarter horse every weekend when I'm home and have to do some work; I know they're bred for certain things. But I respect what the Canadian Horse is bred for. I would be honoured to own one, because it is true what they say: a good horse of any breed is a good horse indeed.
[1840]
The Speaker: To reply, the hon. member for Parksville-Qualicum.
J. Reid: As the member stated, attention is coming back to the Canadian Horse, and the Canadian Horse does combine an elegant style with stamina and a gentle disposition. They're intelligent and willing, which makes them easy to train. Their strength, stamina and endurance, combined with their calm disposition, make them suitable for many purposes, as was stated, whether it be driving or riding or jumping.
Now, as we're looking at other forms of tourism, these are also ideal horses for trail riding and even as pack animals. So a horse that was developed to work might have the opportunity
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to actually be put back to work in a very functional way in British Columbia. These are horses that have a wonderful appearance, with their elegant arched necks, and they have very large eyes and a beautiful gait. They are a pleasure to look at. I had an opportunity down in the Yellow Point-Cedar area to meet my first Canadian Horse, a horse named Forest. I can attest to the beauty of this breed.
If people would like to see a picture of a Canadian horse, they could look at paintings by Cornelius Krieghoff, who is a painter who is very famous for the paintings he has done in Canada, particularly in Quebec. He portrayed many scenes of Canadian life. Many of those scenes do include pictures of horses, and those are the Canadian Horses that he portrayed. So the Canadian Horse is truly an example of living heritage and an example to be proud of, to identify with and to preserve.
Here in B.C. we can do that. Right now there are about 60 Canadian Horses in B.C., and about 40 of those are on Vancouver Island. The numbers continue to increase as information about the breed continues to be spread. If we want to preserve and encourage this valuable breed of horse and appreciate its special qualities, we certainly are all responsible to be able to communicate this information and let other people know that such a breed as a Canadian Horse exists.
As we look at our national identity, we would do well to remember the Canadian Horse and the important role that it's played, not only in the history of North America. But I think the history of the Canadian Horse is a history of Canada itself. There is a Canadian Horsebreeders Association of Canada and a Canadian Horse Association of British Columbia. The Canadian Horse is truly an example of our living heritage, an example to be proud of, to identify with and to preserve.
The Speaker: For the fourth private member's statement, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard.
OUR SUNSET YEARS
T. Stevenson: Unfortunately, I can't comment very much on horses at all. The only horses I see in Vancouver-Burrard are with the Vancouver city police around Stanley Park.
But I would like to speak about social housing. I'm very pleased to take this opportunity, in fact, to speak about social housing, not only in this province but particularly in my riding of Vancouver-Burrard.
British Columbia is one of only two provinces to provide a comprehensive housing strategy that maintains and enhances social housing in the effort to reduce homelessness and to ease economic hardship for many people. This is despite the very severe cuts to federal funding. The availability of adequate, affordable housing is, I believe, fundamental to health and productive lives. Social housing can provide stable and inclusive communities so residents may easily integrate back into the workforce and open doors to new communities.
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B.C. Housing was created in 1967 and represents B.C.'s commitment to facilitate the delivery of secure, well-managed, affordable housing for people who cannot otherwise access suitable housing. As a government agency responsible for the delivery of the provincial social housing programs, B.C. Housing's mandate is founded upon the key principles of access, affordability, diversity and sustainability. B.C. Housing provides subsidies for more than 50,000 families, seniors and individuals with disabilities.
Homes B.C. is a comprehensive housing program, funded by the provincial government to provide low- and moderate-income British Columbians with secure, affordable housing. Since 1994 the provincial government has approved funding for more than 6,500 housing units.
The program was recently expanded to include supported housing for seniors, who would like to continue to live independently as they age, and also emergency shelters with second-stage housing for people who are indeed homeless. Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters, a program known as SAFER, also provides direct cash assistance to eligible people over 60 years of age who are paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent.
As well, hon. Speaker, housing for people with special needs has become a priority of the government, and since 1991 we have provided capital funding and subsidies for over 630 new homes for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We have developed and implemented a program to give priority in social housing to families fleeing from domestic violence, and we know there's far too much of that nowadays.
In my riding of Vancouver-Burrard we have a very important social housing development, one that I'm very proud of. It's known as Sunset Towers, and it's located in the heart of the West End on Haro and Barclay streets. Since 1975, Sunset Towers has been a vital part of the West End, housing many seniors who make up such a viable and valuable part of the West End community.
Unfortunately, though, since the Towers are 25 years old, there have been a number of problems that have developed. Sunset Towers contains 490 units for seniors housing and housing for younger adults with disabilities. The development was completed in 1975, and it consists of 376 bachelor suites and 96 one-bedroom suites. There are also 18 wheelchair-accessible bachelor units.
In May of 1999, on behalf of the government I announced the first phase of a multimillion-dollar revitalization plan for Sunset Towers. This is a pilot project for B.C. Housing, which promotes a directly managed supportive seniors housing strategy. This initiative is in response to many requests that I received from tenants, staff, local service providers and the community for the creation of a safer, more comfortable place at Sunset Towers.
Sunset Towers is now being transformed into a model dwelling where seniors are able to live in comfort and dignity. New, safer measures will be installed. We also intend to expand tenant services to include a greater range of in-home physical and mental health care options. The first phase, which I opened, made immediate improvements, including controlled access in the main entrances; separate, secure and refurbished common areas; wheelchair-accessible washrooms; space available for physical and mental health care services for tenants on site. The total cost of these renovations is almost half a million dollars from B.C. Housing's modernization and improvement budget.
B.C. Housing partnered with a number of groups in order to successfully complete these renovations, and they include the tenants of Sunset Towers, service providers working at Sunset Towers, West End Seniors Network, West End neigh-
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bours and St. Paul's Hospital. The revitalization of Sunset Towers responds to the growing number of seniors who require secure, affordable housing and quality in-home care services. The project is an important step not only for the people in my riding but actually throughout the entire province.
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In September 1999 a report called "Supportive Housing in Supportive Communities" was released. The report contains recommendations on a year-long review to identify barriers to supportive housing and to clarify government's role in encouraging its development.
I want to briefly mention that there is also social housing for people living with AIDS. Decent, affordable housing is obviously key for them as well as the seniors, and this includes the Dr. Peter Centre and a new residence near St. Paul's.
I want to end by saying that, not only in the province and in my own riding, this issue of social housing is paramount to seniors.
The Speaker: To respond, the hon. member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale.
K. Whittred: I wish to thank the member for Vancouver-Burrard for raising this most important issue. I do in fact agree with him that housing is one of our most fundamental needs; it is the very basis of keeping a family safe, stable and warm. I think that no family can prosper without adequate housing.
It is also by far the most common issue that is raised in my constituency office. I am reminded that just last week a member of my constituency, a fairly young woman who was fairly recent to this community
The other part of that story is that when she registered with B.C. Housing, she was told that on the North Shore, the waiting list is six years. So although there is some housing available through B.C. Housing, it is clearly not enough, and I think that all of us have dealt with the frustrations of trying to serve clients through the somewhat frightening bureaucracy at that particular institution.
I am rather proud of some of what I consider to be innovative and affordable market housing that exists in my own community of North Vancouver. I mentioned the Legion Towers, which is a new development where the bottom several floors are subsidized housing and the top several floors are market housing. There's also a lot of development in the lower Lonsdale area that follows a similar pattern.
But that too is clearly not enough when we're talking about housing. The member for Vancouver-Burrard mentioned the need for special needs housing. Again, I would agree with him. Seniors' housing is one of the greatest needs in our communities. All kinds of seniors' housing is needed. We need subsidized housing; we need supported housing. We need ideas about how we can adapt a variety of models to allow our seniors to age in place and to live comfortably. I would like to see a much greater dialogue in our communities about innovative solutions, such as house sharing. Many of these are talked about but often don't go beyond the discussion phase.
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Also, there's special housing -- which we know is drastically in need -- for the mentally ill, for example, and the homeless, as the member for Vancouver-Burrard mentioned. I can't help but note that this has been an issue in my community recently, which perhaps indicates to us that the economy is not what it might be. The North Shore is not an area that we would normally associate with homeless people, and yet it has been an issue before council recently -- about the need to perhaps have a shelter for the homeless in the lower Lonsdale area. I also hear from time to time about the need for housing for the disabled.
I think I would like to conclude my remarks -- I believe my time is quickly running out -- by saying that I also believe that we need these kinds of housing spread around the community. One of the concerns that I have is that too often it seems as though particular targeted housing seems to be focused only in certain geographic areas, which sometimes has the tendency to complicate the problem rather than make it better.
The Speaker: To reply, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard.
T. Stevenson: I would like to thank the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale for her remarks. Indeed it is an issue that is throughout the province, and there aren't too many ridings in the province that aren't affected by the homelessness situation that we find today.
One of the most important organizations in the West End is known as the West End Seniors Network. The executive director is a woman by the name of Jenny Shaw. This organization does tremendous work on behalf of seniors in the West End. She is quoted on the issue of Sunset Towers as saying: "The numbers of seniors are growing fast, and they require secure, affordable housing and quality in-home care services. Traditional housing and health care facilities are no longer adequate. The revitalisation of Sunset Towers is a major step forward not only for the people directly affected by this project but for all seniors across the province."
I would just like to say amen to that. That's precisely what is happening with this development.
In October of 1999 the provincial government made the largest-ever announcement of family housing units, as well, for Vancouver-Burrard. B.C. Housing and the city of Vancouver are facilitating four developments worth $68 million by agreeing to provide operating subsidies for 317 Homes B.C. units -- once they are occupied -- and providing mortgage insurance for an additional 170 market rental units. B.C. Housing is also providing construction financing for these projects.
There is also another whole project known as Mole Hill, and it's also located in Vancouver's West End. It's made up of 30 historic homes. It also has provincial funding through Homes B.C.
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So there is much, much more to do, even though a great deal has been done. I would like to call upon the support of the members opposite to have the federal government recommit federal funds to build new housing. Together, the provinces and the communities throughout B.C., which we are all concerned about -- including Vancouver-Burrard -- can develop a range of viable and long-term solutions that the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale was suggesting.
In closing, I'd like to commend B.C. Housing for their dedicated work, not only throughout the province but of course particularly for me in Vancouver-Burrard.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak on this issue.
Hon. J. Kwan: I call Committee of Supply. In this chamber, for the information of the members, we're debating the estimates of the Ministry of Health and the Minister Responsible for Seniors. In Committee A, also known as the small House, we're debating the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology and the Minister Responsible for Youth.
[1900]
The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Nebbeling in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)
On vote 36: ministry operations, $8,125,203,000 (continued).
Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Chair, I want to congratulate you. I think this is your first occasion in the chair.
A. Sanders: Hon. Chair, how nice to see you there. If I might take a moment, as I sometimes do when it's 7 o'clock at night and my children are home from school, to say hello. There's a certain amount of pathos involved in your mother greeting you from Victoria. Nevertheless, for some of us this is the reality of life, and I'm looking forward to seeing my children tomorrow.
There's a number of issues I'd like to touch on. The first one is hospice. What I'd like to do to start off our discussion of hospice is to ask the minister if he is aware of where hospice was ranked in population-orientated studies like the Oregon health plan, if he is aware of where consumers ranked hospice services.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I don't know specifically, but if I were to use my instinct -- if you were to ask me, "Where would you rank hospice services?" -- I would have to say that I would rank them very high.
[1905]
A. Sanders: The question is not to provide a test or to quiz the minister in a derogatory way. It's to define for the public that serves -- and this is without even looking at the shift that we're now having with the boomers in their fifty-third year
Hospice is interesting in that context, because in British Columbia -- and in Canada as well -- hospice services are covered in some areas by completely privately run facilities, and other areas have no hospice. Other areas have people trained in hospice who work in the regular hospital acute care beds and provide a hospice-like service. We have lots of volunteers who work in palliative care and many nursing staff who are excellently trained in palliative care -- and some of those who work in private nursing to provide hospice services for family members who wish to die at home, at a cost to their families.
In the North Okanagan we again have a slightly atypical circumstance. I've lived in many areas in B.C., and North Okanagan is one of the areas where I've found people to be the most generous with respect to charitable donations. In the North Okanagan -- in Vernon specifically -- a number of people felt very strongly about hospice and provided in-hospital hospice services. They then felt that that wasn't enough, and they had a vision that they wanted to create Hospice House. So what they did was to set about fundraising.
They had a very significant target to meet, and that was $1.3 million. From that amount of money they would have construction and first-year operation of a hospice facility entitled Hospice House. The society is presently less than $200,000 away from their goal of $1.3 million to provide
This would be open to all members of the public, whether they were dying of terminal cancer or whether they were dying of HIV/AIDS. What we had was a group of people who wondered whether the North Okanagan health region would cover their hospice house. They decided to use the W.P. Kinsella approach to life, that "if you build it, then they will come," and in fact raised the money, built the hospice house and then went to the North Okanagan health region to seek a $400,000 a year annual commitment for operation costs, beginning in the year 2001.
Well, I think that, not unsurprising to the foundation, knowing that the funding would cover two-thirds of the operational budget, and with the house being almost completed, they were turned down. They were turned down on the proviso that closing beds at Vernon Jubilee Hospital was not seen as feasible and that the funds in the health region were needed for other services and certainly could not be diverted to the hospice house.
[1910]
The argument given to the board was that Hospice House could provide services to terminally ill people for $185 a day,
[ Page 15763 ]
compared to the $200 a day that the health board is spending for the care of terminally ill patients at home. In their view, having proper services, coordinated services, centralized services, people who have a passion and a commitment to this area and doing it cheaper than we could by providing it in the home with the services that we have to provide in an ancillary way for people dying at home
As a result of that, basically what's happened is that the society is still going ahead. They do have their funding for the first year, and they are certainly hoping that things may change. I look at this as a consumer who has watched many people die and who understands the incredible difficulty of that for families, but also from the point of view of watching people die in hospital and knowing the incredible lack of services we provide for them and how that can sometimes be the most inappropriate place on earth for them to be. When it's a four-bed ward and someone is recovering from drug withdrawal and somebody else is post-operative and somebody else is up all night with dementia and you are in the process of having your family there while you die
What I wanted to start with, in that kind of painting of the scenario, was some philosophical questions and then some very specific questions. The first would be: recognizing the importance of hospice to populations -- when they are surveyed -- and recognizing that we have a facility already in our community that could provide nine additional beds, built on a private-public partnership model, what is the minister's vision of hospice for British Columbia?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the member's question. I understand the importance of hospice care, palliative care and the issues around dying with dignity, so to speak. I come at this from some personal experience in that when I was much younger, my mother passed away. She died at home. I think that was a very
There was the ability to be surrounded by things familiar to you. I think that is what most people would like. They would like to know that when they are dying, there's a sense of familiarity; that there's an ability to be surrounded by things that are close to you, people that are close to you. There's a comfort there. It's happening in a way that makes it easier -- not that these things are -- on everybody. I'm going to approach it from that perspective.
I think the situation today is that we have people who recognize very dearly the importance of hospice care in terms of
[1915]
I think this is one of those issues that, as we age -- as the demographic is aging -- comes more and more to the forefront. Not only are people living longer and looking after, in many cases, aging parents -- or starting to think about what is going to happen to their parents in terms of what services are available -- but they're also looking at their own mortality. What services do we need? You are seeing a greater debate around issues such as home care and the ability in that level of service, and also around hospice and palliative care.
So it's getting, I think, a greater discussion and much more public awareness than it did, let's say, ten years ago or 15 years ago. Having said that, I also think that this is one of those examples of where the health care debate in this country needs to go. I know the member talked about the issues not only in B.C. but right across the country. This is one of those issues that I think we need to put on the table in debating what health care is. What should medicare be covering? What are the types of services that we need to be recognizing that we're going to require in the coming decades?
I think this is one of them. I think this is one of those areas where we can start to look at saying: "Okay. If we're having the national debate around health care, if we're looking at what are considered core services
In terms of the reform and the changes and recognizing the pressures on the system and the debate that needs to take place around where we're going over the next decade in health care, in terms of a national discussion, I think that part of that debate is to recognize the needs of the dying as part of the health care debate. And that includes hospice. So I think that it is a topic that definitely needs to be explored and is one of those ones that I think we need to be looking at in terms of we need to be supporting it. It needs to be encouraged. We need, I think, a comprehensive plan to it, as opposed to a sporadic approach. That, I would say, would probably be my philosophical view of hospice care, palliative care, in British Columbia right now.
A. Sanders: Moving on from what appears to be a consensus between the minister and I that hospice care is an important service and will grow in importance as the population ages, I want to look at a decision that's been made in my riding that makes no sense. In the fall we spent quite a bit of time demonstrating to the Ministry of Health that the North Okanagan was desperately short of long term care beds -- somewhere between 100 and 150 beds short. That was causing the demise of all other parts of the acute system, with people blocking beds that should be used for people requiring surgery and medical therapy.
So now we have a circumstance where, because the community made enough noise and the minister at the time was having to respond to that noise, we were given $1 million and four beds. I don't claim to be a rocket scientist, but I can tell you that if Hospice House could give us nine beds at the cost of $400,000 a year
[1920]
[ Page 15764 ]
We talked last night about private-public partnerships. We have a group who have put in $1.3 million, in addition to sweat and toil and love for the issue, and we could have done the right thing. I'd like to ask the minister, hon. Chair, who on earth makes these kinds of decisions? Quite frankly, if you look at them from what it could have provided for the community, the decision made to give four beds in long-term care versus funding Hospice House for three years and providing nine beds per year
Hon. M. Farnworth: I understand the question; I understand the member's concern, and I don't have any problem with that. I'm at a bit of a disadvantage, in the sense that I was not part of the decision-making process that the health authority undertook. Right now, in terms of whether or not a health authority decides to fund a hospice, it's done on the basis of reallocation from within.
But what I have said, and I think one of the things that we are doing in terms of how to take this issue forward, how to move it into the general debate, into a general policy framework of not dealing with things on an ad hoc basis but coming up with a provincewide policy basis that recognizes the importance of hospice care
1. There's the continuing care review, which gives us the opportunity to deal with issues around freestanding hospice as part of that review. That can take place, and we can move to a provincial policy that may in fact recognize that they need to be funded within health authorities and, in terms of allocations, over and above what they're currently receiving so that they don't necessarily have to fund them from within.
2. We can make it part of the overall debate within health care as to the type of moneys that could be made available to provinces in this general area -- again around continuing care, again in the context of home support and home care. Add hospice to that list, and it can either be on the basis that the province makes a decision, or it can be done on the basis of targeted funds.
So I think that's how I see things moving forward. Health authorities made a decision; that has already been made. Whether or not we disagree with how or why they've made the decision, to me what's important is how we move forward and deal with the issue on a provincewide basis.
A. Sanders: If we look at a theoretical circumstance where the regional health board funded those nine beds in hospice for $400,000, would it not be true that the ministry would anticipate and expect that they would close, commensurate with that, an equivalent number of beds in the hospital in order to fund the hospice?
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's not a question of opening, let's say, five beds in one place and then closing five beds at another. I think it's a recognition. Part of the issue is that the health authority's job is to make decisions on the interests of the local area and to attach priorities to those decisions. That is one of the roles, and that's one of the bases for having decision-making at that level. Part of our job is not to second-guess that.
[1925]
I think what's crucial -- and I think the issue that the member raises -- on the overall issue is that this is a symptom of a problem that is emerging in terms of what we are going to do with hospice care, because it is going to grow. The demand for it is going to get greater, and we need to recognize that. We need to deal with how we are going to approach this over the long term. I've outlined two ways in which that can happen. One clearly is through the continuing-care review and the opportunities that affords us. Second is to make this part of the national debate, the broader debate amongst the public, in terms of: what are the core services required over the coming decades, and how are we going to implement them?
A. Sanders: I think this case is a very good example of the paralysis within health care and within governance of health care. I in no way blame the regional health board for not funding hospice. These are a group of volunteer individuals who are trying to figure out how they're going to fund the region and the activities we have in the region, when they're facing what they predicted to be a 12 percent lift based on WCB and a number of the other expenses that were coming to them at a time when they hadn't even heard what their budget was. And yet they were supposed to have already planned it.
Here we have a group that provides nine beds, and the system is so paralyzed that even when there are nine beds there that we could use to ameliorate a very unhealthy situation in the acute-care circumstances in the North Okanagan health region, no one is able to act. They're not able to act because, quite frankly, as far as the regional health board would be concerned, it's not like someone is going to give them extra money. If they were going to fund the money to hospice, then they would have to take it out of the pharmacy or take it out of the OR or take it out of some other budget.
So in fact, even when we have the nine beds given to us on a plate -- as a gift, so to speak -- knowing that we're 100 beds short, the system is so paralyzed that we can't even access those beds in a way that would have some meaningful results in an area that has the second- or third-largest wait-list in the province for elective surgery. I use that as an example of, to me, the incredible frustration level of anybody who even ventures into the health care sector these days, trying and hoping to do something useful in the province with respect to how health care is going.
The second issue I want to discuss has to do with what has come to be known in our area as blended nursing roles. Upon returning after the budget speech this year in March, I read an article in the newspaper: "Health Region Shifting Focus." What I discovered in that article was something that I found even more concerning when we're talking about the paucity of services in many areas. What was described was the amalgamation of three different individuals. This is not particularly different in some ways from those jokes where you talk about: "What do you get when you cross a banana and an orange?" These are three distinct roles. What was going to happen was the amalgamation of long term care nursing, home care nursing and home support supervisors into one individual health care practitioner.
A long term care nurse is someone who is trained in palliative care, and quite frankly, the personality of a long term care nurse is vastly different from the personality of someone who does work in the emergency department. These are people who have skills in empathy; lots of training in medication, in narcotic dosing; and understanding of the terminally ill patient.
[ Page 15765 ]
Home care nursing, on the other hand, is what you get if you're so unlucky to require burn-dressing changes or you have a post-operative wound that's infected. Someone who is getting an intravenous at home -- intravenous therapy
The third person, the home support supervisor, is someone who I believe has a six- or ten-month course to learn how to interface someone who is coming home from hospital with the community and to access all of those services.
The thrust of the article was that what we were going to do to save money in Vernon -- because we're stretched -- is roll all those people together into a ball, and we're going to throw that ball at the doorstep of the patient being looked after at home. When you roll the dice, that person may actually have training in long term care or home care, or they may be one of the supervisors. Then that person would assess the patient, and if they didn't have the skills to deal with it, then they would phone someone.
I don't know if people can understand the concept of what it would be like to be dying at home and have a nurse on the phone asking someone what to do, because this wasn't their area of expertise. There was to be a training session to bring everybody up to par. But realistically, getting in an hour of wound care is not going to do it, compared to working in an area for 15 or 20 years.
[1930]
So what has happened -- and what has got a very large amount of the nursing population in Vernon very unhappy -- is the decision to go forward with this model, on the proviso that this is better for patients. I am certain that it is better for saving dollars, which is something that has become the absolute focus and obsession of every health region in the province because of limited dollars. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that this is what is best for patient care.
My question to the minister: is this blended model that is happening in my constituency something that is being practised and implemented across the province, or is this a creature that is idiosyncratic for the North Okanagan?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'll make the following points. We've had some discussion this afternoon about micromanagement, and this, to me, would be an example of that. If we were to go in and question or try and interfere in what has been very much a decision that has been taken locally
The response we have received in terms of feedback from patients is that they like what's happened so far. It's been quite positive; families have liked it. We've managed to see an extension of service on the weekend hours, in terms of the regular Monday to Friday approach. This is an effort by a health authority to look at something different.
I understand that when change comes, it sometimes causes challenges. But in this case it has been taking place with extensive consultation between the management, the union and the staff in an attempt to improve service. We may have opinions on whether it's working or not, from our respective positions on how we're viewing it. But one thing I think we need to recognize is that this was a local decision taken by a local health authority, and that's one of the things we're trying to encourage.
This is where it comes back to that debate around what is micromanagement and what isn't micromanagement. Do we let local authorities make those decisions, or do we not?
[1935]
A. Sanders: We micromanage health every day of the week. The Ministry of Health does that in many, many different areas. I certainly will concur with the minister that micromanagement is not exactly the way to provide leadership. I'd like to see leadership providing vision and management providing management. However, in health care we micromanage our acute care hospitals and many other areas every single day of the week.
What I want to know is whether this was a provincial vision or something that was local. Having discovered that it is something local, then I will deal with it on a local basis and am pleased to do so.
For many people in health care, we see our administrators having to do things that are completely for a monetary purpose -- cloaking them in "this is better for patients, and therefore that's why we're doing it." I think people have had their bellyful of that particular argument. We look at many areas that are having a dilution of services under the proviso of "this is better for patients," when in fact it's really better for budgets. I think we need to start being honest with people, and that would go a long way towards helping people cope with the things they see in their community.
I'd like to turn to Pharmacare. We've had a briefing from the ministry staff, and I appreciate that. Thank you very much. It cleared up many of the questions that I think members of the opposition had with respect to Pharmacare. What I'd like to do is look at the cracks in the system and have the minister address some of those.
One of the things that we've done in acute care hospitals is try and find ways of providing services without people being in hospital beds, and home IV therapy is one of the areas where I think we've been exceedingly successful. I can remember, within this decade, having people in hospital for ten days for intravenous therapy because they required a medication that could only be given intravenously, thereby occupying a bed for between $500 and $800 a day -- completely fine other than they needed intravenous therapy, and that was all there was to it. Not only was that terrible for the patient, but it was an occupancy of a bed that didn't need to be occupied.
Many hospitals now have home IV services with trained home IV nurses who follow protocols and do, in my estimation, a very good job of freeing up hospital beds. I'd like to look at the home IV circumstance with respect to Pharmacare.
The Ministry of Health funding appears not to allow for care or new therapies to move from hospitals to clinics, doctors' offices and home care. For example, in the April 11 edition of the Pharmacare newsletter, it states: "Currently, home IV therapy falls under the jurisdiction of the regional health boards and not under the mandate of Pharmacare." My question to the minister, looking specifically at that issue, is:
[ Page 15766 ]
how does a senior, whose only drug insurance program is through Pharmacare, receive medically necessary IV therapy in a clinic or in their home?
[1940]
Hon. M. Farnworth: The member raises an important issue. Currently a patient, an individual, a senior, for example
A. Sanders: Does that answer mean that the minister understands that if you go home and require home IV therapy, which could include analgesia or antibiotics or chemotherapy, the patient pays?
Hon. M. Farnworth: All those things are provided through the home support program.
A. Sanders: But is it not true that if I require home IV therapy, it is up to me or my insurer to pay for that therapy in my home, whereas if I was in hospital, I would receive that therapy under the services offered to me in the hospital?
Hon. M. Farnworth: This is one of those services that is not an insured service under medicare. It was in fact developed outside of the insurance services, often as a community service. One of the reasons -- that is one of the challenges, and that's why I said that it's one of those things that has to be worked on in terms of where we're going and in terms of future changes to the system
So the question is: how do we deal with that in terms of the overall continuum? I said a moment ago that that means recognizing better levels of home care, better levels of home support and better integration of those systems with the existing levels of support and care that are available throughout different parts of the province.
A. Sanders: That's a lot of words to basically say that we keep people in hospital to pay for their drugs; but if we send them home, they have to pay themselves. It doesn't take too much logic or cognition to recognize that most people are going to occupy a hospital bed. Otherwise, they've got a bill for hundreds of dollars that, especially if they're a senior, they just can't pay. That's their problem. But our problem is that they're occupying that acute care bed that, in my region, can't afford to be occupied by someone who doesn't need it.
What immediate solutions does the minister see -- to fill in a gap in our health care system -- which could free up a very significant number of acute care beds so that people could actually, maybe, get surgery in the province of British Columbia?
Hon. M. Farnworth: This is one of those issues that has grown up over the years outside of the originally envisaged roles of, for example, the Canada Health Act. It's part of the reason why we have to have that debate and where there is a role for the federal government in terms of defining what services are covered, how they have changed over the last couple of decades and what we need in the coming decades. That's part of the issue that needs to be addressed.
[1945]
The second point I'd like to make is that most health authorities recognize the importance of being able to provide services, and most of them in fact do. There are some issues around some of the smaller community health councils in different parts of the province. By and large, a lot of these services are addressed through home care and home support now.
I think the issue is recognizing that, okay, if we're going to get back to
A. Sanders: In the health care area we should almost devote an assistant deputy minister to the area of stupid rules, because there are areas in health care -- and this is a very good example of it -- where we have a policy, and we follow those policies, but in fact if we're looking after people, they make no sense.
Another example I would bring forward is a young boy with Schwachman-Diamond syndrome who requires cardiac surgery. His family is living in what would be classified as the working poor category. He goes down to have surgery and finds he needs $1,500 worth of dental work in order to have cardiac surgery. Quite frankly, if you have bad teeth and you have cardiac surgery, you end up with bad heart valves. So what happens? We've got a family who can't afford to have the dentist visit and now can't have cardiac surgery. We cover one, but we don't cover another.
My colleague from Saanich North and the Islands pointed out the issue of integration, with a patient with whom he's been in contact in the MLA office who needed new wheels for a wheelchair.
I had a constituent who was 42 and had cancer of the cervix. She had radiation therapy for that and was fine for a year and then had a repeat of the cancer, which required removal of part of her bowel, part of her bladder, her uterus and ovaries. Six months later she developed a sarcoma in her hip, which is a very rare side effect of a secondary cancer from the radiotherapy. That required removal of her pelvis and her leg. So now we have a 40-something-year-old woman with children who has no leg and is missing part of her vital structures. But we won't pay for a wheelchair, and we won't pay for a bed. She has to sit in a tribunal for three hours and is refused those services. Meanwhile, she's crawling around her kitchen to try and service her family. Only after the MLA office intervenes does this woman get a wheelchair.
[ Page 15767 ]
These things shouldn't happen, and the gaps in looking at this home IV thing
Now that I've had my little rant -- which always makes you feel better, I suppose -- I'd like to talk about one specific drug, and that is the drug Fosamax. I'd like to ask the minister about the status of Fosamax under Pharmacare at this time.
[1950]
Hon. M. Farnworth: There are approximately 2,600 patients on Fosamax under the Pharmacare program in British Columbia, at a cost of about $1.2 million, and it is done on terms of a physician's recommendation.
A. Sanders: Is Fosamax openly available under Pharmacare, or is it on special authority?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Special authority.
A. Sanders: Does the minister know what the practice is in the other provinces of Canada with respect to this drug?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We don't have the exact results in other provinces, but we can get that information for the member.
A. Sanders: There are a number of provinces that cover Fosamax without restriction. One of them is that big, bad province of Alberta, which has covered Fosamax with open access for two years now.
Fosamax is a medication used in the treatment of osteoporosis. It is a medication that, again, with our aging population, is very important to women. In the future, what is the time line for further review of Fosamax from an evidence-based perspective?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We are currently in the process of reviewing the criteria, and it has been two years since the last review of this particular drug.
A. Sanders: My understanding is that one of the therapeutics initiative's members, Dr. McCormack, stated that there has been no discussion about this drug by the therapeutics initiative group since 1997. Could the minister confirm or refute that?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I can confirm that it has been two years since the review has taken place, but I can't confirm that particular statement for the hon. member. I will endeavour to find out the facts of that particular matter. What I can tell you is that the criteria for reviewing are currently being look at.
A. Sanders: I would be led to believe a member of the therapeutics initiative panel, if that is in fact what they have stated publicly. That means that we've got '97, '98, '99 -- and now we're in the year 2000 -- since this drug has been reviewed. It is on special authority -- meaning that if you try the other medications and they fail for some reason, you can try this medication on special authority. However, you could be refused when that special authority comes to the Ministry of Health.
Since 1997, updated files on this particular drug have been provided to the ministry, Pharmacare and the therapeutics initiative. The role of the medication with respect to the management of osteoporosis and the actual prevention of fractures is that it is the only medication available that not only can stop mineral loss in bone but can actually increase the mineral content in bone, when taken.
[1955]
Since that 1997 review, 700 physicians signed letters of endorsement in 1998 calling for improved access to the medication. Then a revised formulary guideline for access was proposed to the Minister of Health in 1999. The minister promised a response within three weeks, but none was received. The Osteoporosis Society of B.C., along with a coalition of B.C. osteoporosis physicians, the Federation of Canadian Medical Women and the Federation of Medical Women in British Columbia all support this medication. They do so because, according to the New England Journal of Medicine and other sources, this is probably the one medication best linked in terms of use-to-response when we're talking about efficacy. So if we are funding drugs that work based on evidence, this is one that in appropriate clinical trials is ranked up there, based on the criteria that would make it coverable, and yet we do not cover it in B.C.
We have 190,000 British Columbians who have osteoporosis; 130,000 of them are women. These are often elderly women, and they are often single, elderly and poor. These are the ones who, again, will be the most likely to have hip and vertebral fractures which in British Columbia right now cost us $150 million a year and again come into that categorization of taking up hospital beds -- perhaps unnecessarily.
My question to the minister is: what is the time line for review of this particular medication, as he has been instructed by his staff?
Hon. M. Farnworth: We will be completing our review of the criteria within two months, and at that point we will be able to make a decision on the further reviewing of the drug Fosamax.
A. Sanders: Does the minister recognize that since March 1999, when the minister was first notified that this was an urgent situation, we have had 4,000 hip fractures in British Columbia?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I understand that hip fractures are a serious problem amongst our elderly population, particularly amongst senior women. The issue of osteoporosis is a very important one. The point I'd like to make is that we manage Pharmacare and the approval of new drugs on the basis of evidence. We have a panel in place that does that. The criteria are being reviewed, which should be complete in two months. At that point a decision will be made on this particular drug.
I also think it's important to note that the drug is available on the recommendation of a physician. There are other drugs
[ Page 15768 ]
as well. But if a physician feels that this is the medication that you have, then they sign and recommend -- request a special authority -- for that to take place. It will be approved on that basis.
[2000]
A. Sanders: Well, I would have to say that the minister is believing his own press releases if he believes that's how well things work.
We do have a therapeutics initiative committee. They do provide diagnosis of scientific evidence, but so do other provinces. We are in a situation with many drugs that are important right now, where British Columbia is the only place that's not providing those medications and access to those medications for the public.
My statement to the minister is that our therapeutics initiative committee is certainly coming up with some very different decisions than other provinces are. I would also point out that there are two committees that these medications go through: the therapeutics initiative committee and also the pharmacoeconomics committee.
My understanding would be
Hon. M. Farnworth: Both these committees make recommendations. They don't do the approval; the final approval is done by the director of Pharmacare. If there is controversy around a particular issue, it will come to the minister for final decision.
A. Sanders: Well, that really makes sense. We have committees of great expertise who look at these things, and then it comes to the minister who doesn't even know what the drug is. That is British Columbia in a nutshell, to me.
I would encourage the minister to re-evaluate alendronate or Fosamax. I would also let him know that I have many examples that I would be happy to share with him where this drug has been refused on special authority. In some cases, it has been that the recommendation was to go to the drug company and get free samples, so that the patient could be on the medication. That was the answer from the ministry. It's not as straightforward a circumstance as the minister may have been led to believe.
I'd like to look at another medication; I just have to find my notes for it. Last night we finished up the discussions on mental health. We finished the discussions with looking at what is called early intervention and schizophrenia. Early intervention is just that. It is when people first are diagnosed with schizophrenia and there is some attempt made to treat them appropriately, effectively and efficiently, with as few side effects as possible, in order to hopefully prevent their deterioration and to get them to agree to therapy.
One of the things that is especially important in early intervention in schizophrenia is having a potpourri of medications to choose from, because many of the medications have side effects -- and they're terrible side effects -- and in some people one medication does work better than the others. With that idea -- and with the minister and I agreeing that early intervention is the cornerstone of treatment for schizophrenia -- I would like to have the minister tell me what the position of olanzapine is at this time in the Pharmacare program. Is it on special authority, or does it have unfettered access by those who have schizophrenia?
[2005]
Hon. M. Farnworth: It is currently a second-line, special authority drug, hon. member.
A. Sanders: Is the minister aware of the status of this medication in other provinces?
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's also second-line in Nova Scotia.
A. Sanders: Well, congratulations to Nova Scotia. Instead of the glass being half empty, let's look at the glass as being half full.
All provinces, other than Nova Scotia and B.C., cover olanzapine as a first-line drug. If you are in New Brunswick or P.E.I., it can be prescribed by a psychiatrist as first-line, but in all other provinces -- Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland -- it is covered by their Pharmacare formula.
We're the only province that does not cover olanzapine as a first-line drug, meaning that you have to get it on special authority. You have to have the side effects that you would have on, for example, Haldol, where you become very, very fat. Your skin turns blue, you can't urinate or defecate, you have difficulty standing up, your mouth is dry, and you're on a whole bunch of other medications to try and control the side effects of the first medication. You can end up with terminal movement disorders called tardive dyskinesia that you never, ever get rid of, despite the fact that you're not on any medication.
These are the people in our society who not only harm themselves but will harm other people or commit crimes because they are sick and are not being treated appropriately -- or they are being treated on medications that have such terrible side effect profiles that they discontinue the medication once out of hospital or out of direct physician care. It's not a very good picture to paint for a province that has always been enviously looked at by other people in this country as the place to be. If you're schizophrenic, this is the place not to be. This is a place where you can almost guarantee having the least support from a medication point of view. Please remember that the whole purpose of the new medications was to keep people out of hospital. We're looking at having people pay $120 for medication rather than $500 a day in hospital. We're not doing that, because we're not covering these medications.
Last year I talked about olanzapine, and I asked the minister to consider covering it as first-line. This year I'm asking the minister the same. I consider this blister on the health care system to be the most pugnacious of all of the things we do to people. To look at the people who are the most disadvantaged in our society and not offer them unfettered access to whatever medication might make them okay is absolutely indescribable to me. My question to the minister is: has he had personal experience with anyone with schizophrenia?
Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes.
A. Sanders: Could the minister tell us a bit about that experience?
[ Page 15769 ]
Hon. M. Farnworth: I would say that that's quite personal. In this case, I don't think the person would appreciate me talking about them.
A. Sanders: That's fine. Schizophrenia is an interesting diagnosis, in that it's personal if it belongs to you or your family member. But all of us have had interactions with the schizophrenic. They're the people living on our streets; they're the people in our jails; they're the people in our flop houses. They're the people that all of us have seen when we run in Stanley Park in the morning at 6 o'clock, and they have been sleeping in the park.
[2010]
Is the minister aware of any of the histories of Brenda Barrass or Jeffrey Arenburg or Andrew Goldstein? Is he aware of any of those individuals?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I am familiar with the names. I'm familiar with some of the individuals, but I'm not familiar with the individual cases.
A. Sanders: Let's look at some of those individuals, because I need to paint the picture of what kind of people we're talking about in order to recognize the seriousness of not providing free access to these medications.
Last night I mentioned Aaron Millar, who in 1997 in Victoria, in a state of paranoid schizophrenia absent of medication, mortally stabbed his mother with a ceremonial sword. There was an inquest after Aaron Millar was apprehended. During that inquest, a number of recommendations were made by the judicial panel. Of the 75 recommendations made, recommendation 31 reads as follows: "The Ministry of Health should ensure that anti-psychotic drugs are included in their drug plan primarily because they are clinically effective and not because they are cost-effective." The rationale for that decision was that the emphasis should be placed on funding drugs that are clinically effective, in order to ensure the safety of the community and the best possible outcome for the patient.
Brenda Barrass. Brenda was a young woman who was schizophrenic and had significant problems with medication compliance. She was treated a number of times in the emergency department and admitted to Riverview. In 1996 she slit her throat with a bread knife at home. The inquiry into Brenda's demise again brought forward a number of recommendations. Recommendation 28 was: "Restrictions on new clinically proven medications for treating schizophrenia must be removed to allow physicians to prescribe the most appropriate medication available at that time." I'm going to repeat that one: "Restrictions on new clinically proven medications for treating schizophrenia must be removed to allow physicians to prescribe the most appropriate medication available at the time."
Jeffrey Arenburg, 1995. Jeffrey Arenburg, a schizophrenic who had problems with compliance on his medications due to side effects, fatally shot Brian Smith, CJOH TV sportscaster, outside of the television station. He believed that was the only way to stop the voices that were spinning conspiracies in the media and broadcasting them to him over the airwaves. He judged, based on his best ability, that Mr. Smith was the individual who needed to be removed, and then he would be cured of the voice problem.
Andrew Goldstein. Andrew Goldstein was an intelligent young man who was a physicist and mathematician. In his teen years he developed schizophrenia. In '97 he was standing in the subway in New York and was overcome by a compulsion to push a woman he had never met and did not know into the path of the oncoming subway. She was killed. She was an innocent bystander, completely unknown to this individual.
In an article in the New York Times it was stated
[2015]
These are all individuals who suffer conditions that are chronic. People with schizophrenia can live a reasonably normal life. There are in our society
We owe it to the individual; we owe it to ourselves; more importantly, we owe it to society. We have had inquiry after inquiry that said: "Treat these individuals with every medication that you possibly can, if it works. Don't start messing around with not providing access."
Hon. Chair, I want to know what the minister is going to do about this problem. I consider this to be something that is not insoluble. It is something that needs to be dealt with, and I want to know -- here tonight -- what he's going to do about it, to ameliorate the situation.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'd like to take a couple of moments to talk about treatments, what we're doing and where I think we need to go.
Certainly I want to ensure that people who are mentally ill -- schizophrenic -- have the access to the medications they require, that we have the plans in place to fund them, and that we have the latest treatments that are available. I want it to be done in as comprehensive a manner as is possible. If that means looking at what we currently cover, I'm quite willing to do that. As I've said, I want to move the mental health plan in this province forward. I want to move services to people with mental illness forward in this province. I want it to be part of the overall health care debate. I'm quite open to the directions that we need to go in. I'm quite open to hearing what people have to say, and I'm quite open to looking at issues around the approval of drugs related to mental illness. So I don't rule anything out. But I also think it's important to note what we do currently and the great range and variety of medications that we do currently approve -- in many cases at levels far greater than what one gets in other provinces.
We have, for example, set up plan G under the Pharmacare plan, which pays for 100 percent of the cost of drugs
[ Page 15770 ]
for people on premium assistance. Yes, olanzapine is currently a special authority drug. But it's already the No. 6 cost drug on Pharmacare, which tells you that it's already being prescribed a considerable amount in this province. There are approximately 4,988 patients on it already in British Columbia. The total cost to the province of olanzapine that's being prescribed is almost $10 million. So there's a considerable amount of the drug that's being provided already. I think that approximately 90 percent of the special authority requests for olanzapine are approved.
Next door in Alberta, $1 million is spent on olanzapine. What that tells you is there is far greater access to the drug here, even though it's on special authority, than there is next door in Alberta, where it is a first-line drug.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Farnworth: They don't have ten times less people, hon. member -- nowhere near ten times fewer people. The cost of drugs across this country does not fluctuate that much, where it would make a tenfold difference in the expenditures. So there is access to olanzapine.
[2020]
Other drugs that have been approved and are available include one of the latest ones, which is risperidone. There are advances being made all the time in new drugs coming onto the market. We have a process for dealing with them.
But I also recognize the importance around the issue that for medications, particularly as they relate to people with mental illness, quite often there are side effects that are very unpleasant. There are ways, through drugs that can be administered, that can be available without those side effects to make life much easier for people. I recognize that.
I said that I am prepared to look at where we need to go. If we need to approve olanzapine, then let's move in that direction. But I also think it's important to recognize what we have right now. There is considerable access to the medication, considerable access in terms of the ability of people to access it, even though it is a second-line drug required under special authority.
I want to further say that part of what we want to do, and this is the commitment I will give to the member in terms of looking at
A. Sanders: The minister said a number of things, and I need to separate them out to discuss each one. First of all, in terms of the side effects, there are drugs to help with the side effects that are created by the cheap drugs we use for schizophrenia. But when you start looking at the cost of multiple-side-effects drugs taken with that original cheap drug, sometimes you spend even more on the combination than you do on the original drug. Of course, all of the other drugs have side effects that they inherently have within their composition. So we have a little bit of a circus, chasing our tail in terms of controlling side effects with yet more and more medication.
Every time you have more medication, you have less compliance; there are good studies to show that. Someone taking three and four and five pills is going to be a whole lot less likely to take them than someone who has to take one a day. That's one issue.
The second issue is philosophical. We have 60,000 seriously ill, mentally ill people in B.C. Regardless of comparing them to other provinces, which is effective with respect to
The third thing that we do know for sure is that we have a significant body of evidence in British Columbia right now that there is a problem. We've got a mental health advocate report that says there's a problem. We've got a coalition of mental health lobby groups who say there's a serious problem. We have a mental health plan that was to be implemented, but no money was ever provided for it. We have drugs you can only get on special authority, without unfettered access. We have inquiries from people who have committed suicide, homicide, have killed their family members and have killed strangers. We have the case last week of Mr. Trott, who is another fugitive of the mental health system. We have all of this body of evidence.
[2025]
So, hon. Chair, from an ethical point of view it doesn't work to say what we're doing well with this group of people. We have to do well for all of them. We have to provide whatever access is necessary so that we don't have to read another inquiry recommendation 28 -- provide unfettered access -- and so we don't have to see the newspaper headlines of another mentally ill person who has killed someone they didn't even know, or killed themselves.
We don't need to read about the 53 percent of people in Riverview who have criminal charges. We don't need to read about the schizophrenics who have -- 50 percent of them -- a drug addiction or alcohol addiction in addition to their problem. We need to read good news stories about people in medical school with schizophrenia, people working in the ministry with schizophrenia controlled by medications because they're available. We need to read the success stories for this group of people, and we don't find them. Whatever we do in this province, we have to make available the opportunity for those success stories to occur. Quite frankly, hon. Chair, there ain't nothin' this minister can tell me that's going to change my opinion on this, because I know that I'm right, and he's wrong.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'll just repeat for the hon. member: look, I understand your concern around this particular issue, and I happen to share your concerns. The question is: how do we address issues around access to medication for people with mental illness, and what are the options that are available to them in British Columbia? How do we ensure that we are being as effective as we can in terms of delivery of service and ensuring that those medications that are available -- that have been tested, that their efficacy is beyond question -- are there for all people with mental illness to use? I think we both share the same goal, and I don't think that's up for debate.
But I also think it's important to recognize what we are currently doing. A lot of what we are doing, we are doing well. Is it the entire answer? No. Do we probably need to
[ Page 15771 ]
make changes? Yes, we do. But they should be done as part of the overall plan and in a thorough manner. I've said that I'm quite open to reviewing the situation and quite willing to move forward. I'm quite happy to work with the member to look at ways that we can improve the Pharmacare system, particularly as it relates to people with mental illness.
That decision will not be made this evening. But rest assured this is an issue in which I take a great interest in, and it's one which I intend to pursue.
A. Sanders: Well, for the last two years I've stood in this chamber and asked the minister du jour to pursue this issue. Last year the minister said there wasn't enough evidence. This year the minister says: "Well, we have to figure out how we're going to do it."
I guess my advice, hon. Chair, is just do it. Just do it. Leave here; go out there and just do it. On this side of the House, my leader says that we'll do it when we're in government. I'd like to see this group of individuals in government, who purport to be the socially conscious government of British Columbia, do what's right. The only thing that's right in this decision is to do it -- to cover the medications, to not have any more inquiries that tell you to do that, to not have any more deaths, suicides, homicides, people on the street, people failing on Haldol because their lives are terrible.
We need to have the medications available, and we need to do it now. If you only do that one thing in this whole ministry, in your revolving-door one-year time in the chair, then you will be remembered as the best Health minister we've had. So here's your chance to make history. Here's the minister's chance to be remembered, instead of for the fast ferries or janitorial service, as the person who did the right thing for all of those people who are sick in this province. How many opportunities do you get to go down in history in this province in an NDP government for doing something right?
[2030]
I want to ask the minister, in response to last year when the minister said that we didn't have enough studies: is the minister aware of the American study done by
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm not familiar with that particular study, but I can tell you that the TI has recently looked at the literature around the issue.
A. Sanders: If the TI has looked at the information around the literature, allow me to tell the minister what that information is, because I know too that the TI has the information, and we haven't heard a word from them. Just so there isn't any loss in communication and, this minister doesn't find out that somebody didn't give him all the information, this is a study that shows olanzapine and compares it to risperidone and Haldol. These are the two other drugs that
Last year the minister said: "Well, there are no studies to show that there's comparison of olanzapine to the other drugs." Well, we do have those now. This is an American study that shows that olanzapine is more cost-effective for treating schizophrenia than risperidone, and risperidone is a drug that we cover in British Columbia. So here we have it; here it is, hot off the press.
Also, we have an individual, Dr. Jacques Le Lorier, a Québecois, who is studying the antipsychotic -- the atypical antipsychotics. He in his work has shown that there are significant savings when you use olanzapine, with respect to decreased hospitalization. So yes, the drug is more than Haldol. But here are two good studies that show the proof in the pudding. Here it is; there it is.
Is the minister aware of the study, "Neuropsychological Change in Early Phase Schizophrenia During 12 Months of Treatment with Olanzapine, Risperidone or Haloperidol"?
Hon. M. Farnworth: There are all kinds of studies. It doesn't matter whether you are deciding on whether to take a particular course of action
What's important is the fact that we have a committee in place composed of experts who understand the issues raised in medical studies, who have the expertise to evaluate the information it's giving to them and to make recommendations and advice accordingly. That's their job. They've got the information, and I expect them to do that.
In terms of where we are, I'll just repeat: if there are issues around the approval of particular drugs, I'm more than happy to work on those issues and will continue to do so. You know, one of the things I've said I want to do is to move issues around mental health forward. When I say that, that also includes pharmaceutical issues for people with mental illness. I am committed to doing that. But it has to be done on the basis of good information. It has to be done in concert with the committees and the experts that we have in place to evaluate not only the medications but the information around the medications.
[2035]
A. Sanders: Well, I guess I would make the following comments to the minister. Look at your therapeutic initiative committee and figure out why medications that are covered in every province are not covered here. Figure out why one of the best drugs from an evidence-based point of view, Fosamax, has not been reviewed since 1997 and thereby has not, for the last four years, been upgraded or updated in terms of the information. Maybe some of these people on the therapeutic initiative committee are too busy to be doing this job.
Four years is a long time for people who are sick, and four years is a long time for a situation where health care is in crisis and requires every single dollar it can get to administer appropriate effective care that might keep people out of hospital.
The neuropsychological change study done by the Canadian Collaborative Group for Research in Schizophrenia clearly points out that traditional medications do not treat cognitive impairment. In other words, people who have schizophrenia lose IQ points as they age or as the chronicity of their disease advances. As a result of that -- if you're looking at people who are being supported by the system all the time and unable to work -- if you are now losing cognition, you've got another reason to be supported and another reason that you're more likely to be hospitalized.
This study shows clearly that by using olanzapine, you can actually improve cognitive ability. What that means for
[ Page 15772 ]
the laymen in the world is that people's attention spans, their ability to do motor activities like drive a truck, work a Bobcat, do something physical in terms of physical labour, their verbal fluency and reasoning, their ability to make the right decision, like "Should I push that person, yes or no?" and their immediate recall or, in other words, short-term memory, and their skills in executing tasks -- all improve on olanzapine. They do not improve on any of the other medications tested -- i.e., risperidone, which we cover, and Haldol, which we cover.
So here we have another piece of evidence, hon. Chair, that suggests we might keep people functioning in society at the cost of the drug, instead of providing social housing, hospitalization, jail, Riverview and whatever other things or part of society the schizophrenia individual has to access. Believe me, they access every single one of them at some point in their disease.
So I want to know from the minister his time line for looking at this information when he leaves this chamber. I'd like him to outline, for all of those 60,000 people in B.C. with schizophrenia and all of their families, everyone who's touched by this condition, what he's going to do, to make sure that we don't have to have this discussion again this time next year and that I don't have to face a different minister and start all over again with the education process of something that is, to me, unquestionably the most important thing that he can do to make his mark in the area of health care.
Hon. M. Farnworth: On the first point, I'd love to get through estimates. That'll give me some free time to actually read other things besides our estimates debate material.
But I want to tell the member: look, I take the issue very seriously. I take the issue around the mental health plan very seriously; I take the issues associated with treatments and therapies for people with mental illness very seriously. I've said that we're having a plan of implementation around the framework that is coming up; it will be ready in about a month to six weeks.
At the same time I also want to review the information that you have provided, and I intend to look at what we are doing and look at what's happening in other provinces. Any decision that I make will be done thoroughly, not on the basis of it being quarter to nine in the evening but rather on what I think -- and what we think and what the information says -- is in the best interests of the patient. That's my commitment: to take this issue seriously, to discuss it within the ministry, to look at the work that's been done and to move forward on that basis. That's the commitment that I am willing to give to the hon. member.
[2040]
I do take this very seriously. I do recognize the importance, for people with mental illness, of being able to receive appropriate medication and therapies. As I've said earlier, there's a lot that we do in this province already, and a lot
I think we must never lose sight of that, because sometimes we get lost in looking at the cracks that we forget just how good a system we have and how great a system we have. Having said that, I recognize the concern around this, and I recognize, as I said a moment ago, the inherent good side of looking at the cracks -- which is to make the system better, and to make sure that we're doing everything we can to ensure that we're able to help those people who fall through the cracks.
Part of the issue that you've raised is around the issue of therapies and treatments and things that are covered by Pharmacare. I am giving you my commitment that we will look at that and that I take it very seriously.
A. Sanders: I just want to close on the explanation that there are many of who realize the good things we do in this system. Anytime you look at our system and then look at what's going on in Sierra Leone or any of those other places, you can always say how lucky we are, and I don't disagree.
But please remember that we are talking about the most disadvantaged group in society -- a group that will never enter this chamber to lobby for themselves; a group that will never come to the minister, in acute psychosis, and say: "I want to explain articulately what it is that I need in order to function and to be well." That must never be forgotten, because no matter what we do that's right for other people, these are the people who need it the most. Quite frankly, anything we do for people with schizophrenia, to keep them on medication, we are doing for ourselves in terms of preventing the thousands and millions of dollars that we spend on looking after them because we didn't look after them in the first place.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
C. Hansen: I want to refer to a letter that my colleague from Okanagan-Vernon quoted from earlier. It's the letter from Dr. David Kendler regarding Fosamax. But I want to approach it from a different perspective. I don't want to revisit Fosamax, because I know that my colleague did a very adequate job of that earlier tonight.
[2045]
In this letter he writes -- and I'll just read you the first sentence here: "On behalf of my patients and as a reputable expert in osteoporosis, I'm writing to request the opportunity to present to and observe the deliberations of the therapeutics initiative when it considers the clinical evidence surrounding the issue of Pharmacare coverage for alendronate." My question to the minister is: how would a request of that nature be responded to?
Hon. M. Farnworth: The TI -- the therapeutics initiative, for people who are watching at home, because we sometimes fall into the jargon around initials -- doesn't make the decision; they render the advice. That having been said, in order to meet that request, I think what they would have to do is write to the head of the TI, because it is a body that is at arm's length from the government. That would be the avenue that the physician would have to take.
C. Hansen: In fact, this letter is addressed to the therapeutics initiative in making this request.
The reason I raise this subject is because there is some perception that the therapeutics initiative is somewhat of a
[ Page 15773 ]
secret society, that it is the most secretive of all the comparable organizations across Canada. There is a sense that they make decisions behind closed doors, that there is no opportunity to impact on the deliberations and that there is no opportunity for interaction with the therapeutics initiative as they are making a decision. All that happens is that the applications go in, the inputs go in, and then the advice comes out the other end to the ministry.
But that advice is pretty powerful. In a case where the therapeutics initiative turns down a new medication, there are not reasons given as to why. There is no opportunity for additional input to be made, short of a whole new formalized appeal process. But the proponents of an application aren't sure why the first application was turned down. Therefore there's no indication in terms of the areas that they should address if they want to reapply for approval of a particular medication. I'm wondering if the minister could explain to us why the therapeutics initiative operates in such a secretive manner compared to other provinces.
The other question I have is -- I appreciate the intention to have them operate at arm's length -- given that this is such a vital role, whether or not there should be a more direct connection to the ministry.
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's our understanding that on the question around the issues of openness, the TI committee in British Columbia is not unusual compared to other provinces. You know, it is an arm's-length body, and I think it's appropriate that it should remain an arm's-length body. It is made up of professionals who are highly qualified, highly specialized and have excellent credentials in the field of their expertise and in terms of pharmaceuticals and the science associated with that. They do newsletters which evaluate all kinds of information and take that from outside. That is distributed to physicians right across the province. They work with pharmaceutical associations to send out information in their newsletters.
[2050]
If the member has concerns about how our model compares to other provinces, I'm more than happy to look at the structure of TI committees in other provinces and to see how they do in fact work and to compare the different models that exist across the country. I am more than happy to share that information with the hon. member.
C. Hansen: I will take the minister up on that offer, because I would appreciate the opportunity to look at that comparison. I have looked at some models in other provinces.
The mandate of the therapeutics initiative of evaluating the scientific efficacy of a new medication to determine whether it is just new packaging of an existing product
My question to the minister is: given that the decisions that should flow from the TI are a review of information, a review of the evidence that is available, and then subsequently making a recommendation on a purely scientific basis, how does that process in British Columbia differ from a process that might take place in any other province, given that we are looking at the same science -- that we practise the same science in New Brunswick as we do in British Columbia? Why is it that British Columbia evaluation -- on an empirical basis, in theory -- of a science should be any different from any other province?
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's a fascinating question and issue that the member asks, because there isn't an easy answer. I think it's important to note that it's not a question of nine provinces approving a drug and British Columbia not. That's not the way it works. It's important to note that you can get medications that come onto the market, and the TI can look at them. There's almost unanimous agreement, and it's approved. It can be approved as it goes onto different provincial plans or in fact it can be rejected, and it doesn't go onto provincial plans. But the nature of clinical trials -- and the information that comes out of clinical trials, which TI committees evaluate -- I think, reflects the ambiguity that often comes out of initial clinical trials and the stages of the information that is available when a new drug comes on the market.
So it's often a question of the interpretation. You may find two or three provinces saying: "Yeah, we should go with this." You may find three or four provinces saying: "Well, it's not quite conclusive enough."
You're dealing with individuals who respect and train, and who are looking at the information that's available to them and evaluating it on a clinical and scientific basis. And that science isn't always cut and dried. I mean, we had the member for Okanagan-Vernon talking about some reports and asking whether I was familiar with particular reports.
I can't get into a debate with her; she's a physician, and I'm not. She understands the medical terms, and I don't understand the medical terms -- and I don't even claim to. At the same time, I also get
That's the type of material that experts on these committees have to deal with. I don't think it's as simple as saying that we must be doing something different from other provinces. I think it's a question of recognizing there is new science, and you have experts interpreting what are quite often new drugs coming on the market. There are different studies. They raise different issues and different questions, and they're evaluated by people with expertise in that field. That leads to decisions on what they feel comfortable with in making a decision.
[2055]
There's also a second issue that I think can be raised. Is it different? Provinces also have different plans that cover different drugs and different treatments. Again, that's also part of it. If the member's concerned around how our committee is structured and how that structure compares to other provinces and the approach that they take, I'm more than happy to look at those structures and to sit down with the member and look at how in fact it does take place. I think that question, which is a good one, also in my mind cements the reason why we should have an arm's-length distance between a therapeutics initiative committee and the ministry and/or government. These decision should largely be based on science and scientific evidence. They're the people that have to
[ Page 15774 ]
make that decision or provide the advice to government on their assessment of the science around a particular medication that may go onto the Pharmacare plan.
C. Hansen: We often hear the fact that the TI has not finished a review of a product as an excuse why it's not being approved. We often hear the reason why a particular medication isn't made first-line is because of recommendations of the TI. Yet there is no accountability. It's one thing to have a body that's at arm's length, but where is the accountability? I think, as my colleague from Okanagan-Vernon very eloquently set out earlier tonight, the process, the decisions that are made by the TI have enormous ramifications on people's lives today. People are suffering longer than they need to suffer because medications aren't being made available, are not being made first-line in this province, as they are in other provinces. Yet there is no accountability for the work that goes on before the TI.
I agree with the minister; there's some very good, very well qualified people who serve on there. But if there isn't an openness and there isn't accountability, then how are we as the public to know that we are being well served?
The Chair: Minister, noting the time.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess in terms of a brief answer, I understand where the member is coming from. I understand his issues and concerns. In a very short answer, they base their decision on the scientific evidence. They don't take price into account; they provide the advice. The final decision is with the minister, and that individual -- he or she, whoever it is -- is ultimately the one who is accountable and has to answer the questions for the TI committee. That's what we, in part, have been doing this evening.
With that, noting the hour, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
[2100]
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 9:01 p.m.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.
The committee met at 2:43 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ADVANCED
EDUCATION, TRAINING AND TECHNOLOGY
AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUTH
(continued)
On vote 11: ministry operations, $1,682,440,000 (continued).
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Before we get into further questions, I would just like to take a moment to correct the record on an answer that I gave last night which I am now advised was incorrect.
The member for Okanagan East was asking about representation from the B.C. Career Colleges Association, and I was informed at that time that the chair of that association was on one of the trade advisory committees. I am now informed that that was incorrect; the chair of that association is not on one of the trade advisory committees. However, I can inform the House that there are representatives of private institutions on a number of the other trade advisory committees, including the Metro Training Institute, the Pacific Rim Institute of Tourism and the Graphic Arts Training Institute of B.C. I could list about 14 or 15. I just wanted to set the record straight.
J. Weisbeck: I want to clear up one statement that was made last night. It was talking about the low student debt in British Columbia. I was wondering what the source of information was to come up with that statement.
[1445]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: That figure is calculated by my own ministry. It is a figure that applies to or takes into account students in the fourth year of a four-year program or the fourth year of a five-year program. It takes into account the effect of remission. In 1997-98, for a standard bachelor's degree, after remission we were looking at the average debt being $15,784.
J. Wilson: I have a question regarding the building in Williams Lake that has been sitting on a piece of ground that has been sliding, and the building is now unsafe for occupancy. The council in Williams Lake and other groups and myself have been pushing to get some funding for the college there so that they can either relocate or restore this building. It would appear at this time that restoration is the option that we should take. What has the minister got planned in this year's budget to address this problem?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As I indicated last night, I did meet with representatives of UCC in the past two weeks; it might have been about two weeks ago. This was certainly one of the issues that was raised. I can also say that the member for Cariboo South seems to raise this every other day with me, so I am well aware of the issue.
I am quite supportive of us trying to do something there, but I'm informed that we need some more detailed technical information from UCC. I think there was an understanding at that meeting that UCC would do what they could to provide that information. I note that what we have to do is find a commonsense solution.
Right now, we are paying $800,000 per year to rent a number of facilities around Williams Lake. That is an amount of money which in my view could go a long way towards
[ Page 15775 ]
servicing and paying down the debt that it might be necessary to incur in order to do what's necessary for that facility. I'm very open to resolution of that issue. I've had a discussion with UCC on it already, and we're awaiting more work at the staff level to see what we can do.
J. Wilson: I understood that the technical work had been done, or that what has been done was satisfactory. I may be wrong there, and if I am I would ask the minister to correct me. If additional work is required, is the funding for that coming out of the ministry? Or is it coming out of the budget of UCC?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As my understanding goes, my staff inform me that they did need more information. So there does seem to be a bit of a communication issue. But I think we resolved it at the meeting that I had with representatives from UCC, including the president.
I should point out that there is a broader issue here. We will look at a number of options. I gather there are a number of options that have been presented by UCC: repairing the existing pre-cast concrete building to current building code plus some upgrades; replacing approximately 90 percent of the pre-cast concrete building with a steel frame structure similar to the 1993 edition. The third option is to replace the entire campus building, possibly on a different site.
[1450]
If there's going to be funding forthcoming for this, it will come out of my ministry. But there is a broader issue, which is the stabilization of the bank in general -- which I gather is something that the broader community has to deal with, because there are broader community concerns around the stabilization of the bank.
J. Wilson: Has there been any money budgeted for this year to deal with this issue? Or is this just going to be something that we study for another year and take no action on? Will there be money put into this this year? And if so, how much?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm not prepared to get into specifics at this point, but I will say that it's my view that there is money within my ministry's budget to try to deal with this problem this year. If we can resolve some of the outstanding issues around technical information and what have you -- if we can clear all that up and have agreement on exactly what should be done -- I believe there is the opportunity to do something in this year's budget.
R. Thorpe: I just have a few very brief questions. I'd ask, through the Chair, the minister's indulgence, because some other members from my part of the interior have asked similar questions. So I'll try to be as brief as possible.
With respect to library funding for university colleges, is there a long-term funding plan in place for university colleges?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I guess it depends on what the member would define as a long-term funding plan. Our commitment is to ongoing funding, and certainly that's what we've done this year. We've continued last year's level of funding this year. But what we are looking at right now is that we're doing a review of the entire funding formula that applies to university colleges, colleges and institutes. A key part of that will be the need for library funding for university colleges in particular.
R. Thorpe: I don't want to read things into the minister's answer, so I'll just ask him for clarification. My sense is we're continuing the financing that we had in place last year -- the commitment -- which, just by that very answer, would suggest to me that there has not been a long-term plan. If we go back three years or so, was there a commitment for long-term funding? Is that plan -- if in fact it existed -- unfolding, or has it unfolded as it should? And how is that going to unfold this year and into the next couple of years -- into the future?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: In fact, the plan that was in place three years ago was to phase out the library grants altogether. We revisited that decision, and now we're committed to providing ongoing grants. We had a bit of a discussion around long-term funding last night, and I indicated that it might be an interesting topic of discussion with the Minister of Finance. It would ultimately require, probably, an amendment to the Financial Administration Act, and of course there would be the issue of whether current governments can bind future governments. The commitment of any one government is only as good as the result of the next election, potentially. I am saying right now that it's my intention in this portfolio not only to continue the grant at its current level but to see if we can in fact increase it. For that we'll have to await the result of the review of the funding formula for university colleges.
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R. Thorpe: I guess there'd be one way to embark upon multi-year commitments. That would be to call an election and get on with it, and whoever wins can start to have their ongoing commitments. But we won't go there for now.
I guess the fact that you were going to phase it out and have put it back in would indicate that there has not been a long-term plan. When will the university colleges and other educational institutions in the province have this formula? When can they expect to receive something on paper, written out, as to what you would propose it to be, going forward? When will we have that?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: First of all, I'm interested in the member's comments about commitments to ongoing funding. It suggests that the member is confident that perhaps his party could not only win one election but could win every election into perpetuity. The people might have something to say about that.
As far as the funding formula goes, right now there is a report on the formula coming to the ministry for review. It's the result of a process that involved interested parties around the system, including, I'm informed, representatives from Okanagan University College. It's proposing a model for funding that will be known publicly within about six weeks, and it should be in place by the next fiscal year.
R. Thorpe: The member and I do have a little bit of a history of going back and forth on some of these issues, not only at this committee but on other committees. I realize right now that long-term planning for the current government is a day at a time.
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So we will see something from this government within six weeks with respect to a formalized funding formula for university colleges and other advanced education institutions. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: No. The report will be presented to us within six weeks, and then it will be a public document. Then what has to happen is that we have to work with the various parties that were involved in preparing that report to see what was right about it and, maybe, what was wrong about it. The plan is to have the formula in place for the next fiscal year.
R. Thorpe: So the way that it's proposed that the budgeting process would work, I believe that formula should be probably available to the public towards mid-September or the end of September of this year. Is that the minister's intention?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: What will happen is that the formula will be refined and discussed for months through the budgeting process, right through to probably around January or so. That'll involve discussions with the various interested institutions and other parties, as the ministry attempts to fine-tune the formula, and then the formula will be in place by the next fiscal year.
R. Thorpe: I don't want to spend too much time on this, hon. Chair, but I just get a sense that they want to hold it back as long as they possibly can. I don't think they want to have
I know we're not here to talk about legislation that's going to come before the House for debate. But in Bill 2, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, one of the things that I think they're talking about is sharing information, so that we can all build better budgets and have accountability to all of our stakeholders. I'm not getting that sense that in January that's what's going to provide it. I just wonder why the minister wouldn't want to get that out into the public domain, say, in September, so that we can have truly public discussions about this and build better budgets, so that Advanced Education has a stronger base.
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: In fact, institutions want ongoing input into this process. Once the report has been given to government, it will be in the public domain. They'll be free to discuss it publicly along with anyone else; it's in the public domain. The institutions have asked that they be consulted on an ongoing basis as to what the final formula should look like. So if we don't know, and if we're not going to determine arbitrarily and unilaterally what the formula is, then we're not in a position to hide it from anybody.
R. Thorpe: But at some point in time, if you're going to build a meaningful budget, you've got to make a decision on when you're going to move. Perhaps the minister would be well advised to look at what the budgetary process is going to be in the province, if in fact they're going to live up to that commitment for the next fiscal year.
With respect to another one of your objectives here -- health care and providing educated people: "The ministry will be expanding the number of seats available for nursing education." It's on page 15 of your performance plan. Can the minister advise what spaces they have allocated for this fiscal year for Okanagan University College with respect to this goal?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: It's 20.5.
A Voice: Twenty-point-five what?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I believe the question was spaces, so the answer is spaces.
R. Thorpe: Could the minister explain to me: 20.5 spaces of what? What course?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: They're full-time-equivalents: ten in the diploma program and 10.5 in the baccalaureate program.
R. Thorpe: Those numbers are substantially different than the numbers I received today from the Okanagan University College. We can deal with that separately.
Could the minister advise: do they track the number of applications for the various programs? If in fact they do at Okanagan University College, did all of the students that wanted to get into these programs get in, or is there in fact a wait-list?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The institutions track that information, but for some programs there are wait-lists.
R. Thorpe: Just for the record: in talking with officials at the Okanagan University College today, knowing that we have a significant shortage of people to work in the health care system -- caregivers throughout the system -- I was advised that 360 applications are on the wait-list at Okanagan University College alone. I'm just wondering: what strategies, what action plans, does the ministry have in place -- not only to deal with the shortage in the workplace today but the predictable shortage in the future? What concrete plans do we have to deal with that? At the same time, dealing with the apparent significant number of people that want to get in and be caregivers in British Columbia, what action plan do you have to deal with that?
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think it's worth noting, first of all, that we funded an increase of 20.5 spaces this year in the nursing program at OUC. That brings the total number of spaces to 247 in the nursing program. It's always regrettable when there are wait-lists, but there are a substantial number of spaces. I'm not sure if the member noted this before, but that's 20.5 spaces out of 400 new nursing spaces provincewide. That was the result of a report that was presented to the Minister of Health at the end of April and a recommendation that was in that report. It came from, I think, the registered nurses. There were a number of stakeholders on that committee, including the nurses and the nurses' union. The recommendation was 400 new spaces; we've met that request.
As far as future action, the Ministry of Health has a Health Human Resources Advisory Committee that is chaired by somebody from the Ministry of Health. They look at labour market demand when it comes to the health care professions
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and occupations. There is an education subcommittee of that that is chaired by an ADM from my ministry. In general, we take advice from the Ministry of Health when it comes to the expansion of seats in the system for health care occupations.
L. Stephens: I have a few questions on library funding to follow up on. Kwantlen University College did a student-and-employee library user survey in 1999. It pointed out a number of areas that the libraries appear to be deficient in. Both the students and the employees cited the same issues. Number one was a better, more up-to-date collection of materials; 50 percent of the students and the employees cited the same concern. It needed longer operating hours; that's a function of the college.
The problem with Kwantlen is the inequity of the funding for the libraries. In '99-2000 the five university colleges were awarded a total of almost $1.5 million for the library-targeted grant: Kwantlen received $52,004; the University College of the Cariboo received $298,000; the University College of the Fraser Valley, $496,000; the Okanagan University College, $396,000; and Malaspina University College, $253,996. So in that particular year, Kwantlen received substantially less money for library funding than did the other colleges.
I know the minister knows that Kwantlen is the largest university college in Canada -- not just in British Columbia but in Canada, something like 11,000 students. This issue of library funding is extremely important to those campus sites in British Columbia. If the minister could just comment on how he plans to address that.
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I know he talked a little bit earlier about the funding formula. My questions are: who is doing the review that he referred to; and what is the mandate of the group or organization, or whoever they are? What kind of direction has the minister given them to go about their consultation process?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm advised that Kwantlen didn't even request library funding until about two years ago. Kwantlen became a university college in 1995-96, so it's the newest and by far the most recent. It does have a somewhat different mandate, because the focus until now has been primarily on applied degrees such as, I was told, fashion design. We will be looking at increased funding for Kwantlen based upon a formula -- as I referenced earlier -- that we're working on right now. I'm just getting some information now about the nature of that committee.
Kwantlen is also just now increasing other non-applied, I guess we could call them, degree programs that will need support through the library grant. That would clearly have to be a part of looking at increasing the grant for Kwantlen. While it is a small amount, it is worth noting that Kwantlen -- unlike the other university colleges, where they received static funding for the library grant this year -- has received an increase from $52,000 to $75,000. It's behind the others for the reasons that I've outlined. But we've started to try to recognize their need by giving them an increase, whereas all the other ones remained flat.
The committee I've referred to that's reviewing the funding formula has a fairly structured consultation process that includes the senior financial officers from all the institutions, including Kwantlen. We'd be happy to provide the exact terms of reference to the member.
L. Stephens: The information that I have for Kwantlen's grant for this 2000-2001 year is $23,094, a reduction of $28,000, almost $30,000. That's the information I have from the college. Perhaps the minister could talk about how that extra funding that he's talking about came about and when it was communicated.
The other area is the degree-granting programs of Kwantlen. Yes, they do have a different funding formula based on the kinds of degree-granting programs they deliver. But if the minister is looking at making some changes to the funding formula, I don't think separating out what is a degree, what is an applied degree and what some of the other degrees are should make that much difference in a grant for library funding. I think the minister is probably aware that many of the textbooks and library books required for applied degrees are extremely expensive. Those technical manuals are very expensive, some of them up to $10,000 per book. Perhaps the minister could take that into consideration when he's making his decisions for library grants to the colleges that provide applied degrees.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I guess, first of all, I should say that I think the major issue with Kwantlen, as I understand it, is that its designation as a university college is new. They're beginning to expand their degree programs; that requires that there be recognition. I think it's fair to say that this ministry is committed to that recognition and to the fact that it should manifest itself to some extent in their library grant.
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The member, I think, read out a figure that she had from Kwantlen; it was substantially lower than the figure that I offered. All I can say is that in the funding letter we sent out in April, the library grant for Kwantlen University College was $75,098. I don't know why they offered a lower figure, but that's the number in the funding letter that we sent out.
L. Stephens: Accepting that amount, that $75,000, it's a still a far cry from the almost $300,000 that goes to the other university colleges. I don't accept, nor do the students or the faculty of Kwantlen, that this great a disparity should exist between an applied degree institution and other institutions. Again I would just like to reiterate to the minister that Kwantlen University College, even though it does give applied degrees, certainly deserves to have a far greater increase in their library funding than that amount of money, which is probably around $20,000.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I should say that I don't accept the degree of disparity either. That's why the degree of disparity has lessened this year rather than increased or remained the same. The question is: how much more can we close the gap? That would be part of the ongoing deliberations around the funding formula. Generally, as I indicated to some other members last night, we do have some unallocated funding within the ministry's budget. One of the things we will look at with that funding is library funding.
I think it's fair to say that the disparity that exists probably has more to do with the fact that Kwantlen is a much newer degree-granting institution than the others. So now we try to close and eliminate the disparity as much as we can. This year we've made a move in that direction. Hopefully, we can do some more this year with some of the unallocated
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funding that we have. But ultimately it has to be in a context of agreement from all institutions and stakeholders around what the broad funding formula should look like.
L. Stephens: One final question: could the minister explain why it would make a difference to an institution whether they're newer or older? They're still delivering X number of programs. Like I said, Kwantlen has by far the largest enrolment of all of the university colleges. Why would the fact that they are not as old as the other colleges make a difference in library funding? It could only be because of the funding formula. Perhaps the minister can tell me if there is some other reason that it makes such a tremendous difference -- the fact that Kwantlen isn't as old and hasn't been around as long as the others have.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: It's not about whether an institution is new or old; it's about how long it's had degree-granting status. There are more funds attached to libraries if an institution has degree-granting status. Even then, the funds take into account the number of degrees that are offered. Kwantlen offers a relatively low number of degrees at this point. We know that Kwantlen is increasing that number, and we will take that into account as we work out a funding formula that includes library grants. It has nothing to do with the age of the institution or the size of the institution. It has everything to do with degree-granting status and the number of degree programs offered.
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J. Wilson: I just had a couple of quick questions to the minister, and then I'll get out of his hair. Yesterday, I believe, the member for Kamloops-North Thompson canvassed the new facility for the HT complex at the Cariboo College in Kamloops. The minister implied that the funding was in place and would go ahead. Can the minister give me the dollar figure on the construction of that new facility?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The estimated total project cost is $1.8 million; that is an estimate. What has to happen now -- first of all, the money is there, the money is committed -- is that it has to go to tender. It would be foolish for us to state an exact construction cost when the institution is going to be going to a public competitive process to let a contract, presumably for construction, of that facility.
J. Wilson: I take it, then, that the architectural design and blueprints have already been put in place, so that we know what this building will look like?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: My information is that the University College is in the architectural selection process now; they are looking for an architect now. I don't know whether they've made a final decision about who they want, but that's the process they're in right now.
J. Wilson: So, then, we have the money sitting here. The government has said: "This is your cap." Now an architect has to design a building to come in somewhere roughly within that price range. Am I correct in that understanding?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The $1.8 million figure is the college's figure. Presumably they feel that the facility they need can be built within that budget.
J. Wilson: I thank the minister for his answers. I just have one more question. We've heard an awful lot about the shortage of nursing staff in this province. We've heard a lot about how many new positions the minister is creating for training nurses. It is something that everyone is concerned about. Can the minister give me what he thinks will be the required number of nurses that we're going to have to find in the health care system in this province in the next ten years?
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: No. I believe the Ministry of Health is in estimates in the other House right now, and he might be able to provide that answer. We don't predict labour force demand for nursing in the Ministry of Advanced Education.
J. Wilson: I understood the minister to say earlier that there was a rather good dialogue between the Minister of Health and the Minister of Advanced Education in regard to nursing requirements and positions that they're going to make available. Now the minister tells me that they have no idea what the labour requirements will be in the future. Can he go two years, three years down the road and give me an estimate? Ten might be stretching it.
The Chair: I'll offer this guidance to the committee. Speculative questions like that are generally out of order by standing orders. The minister has responded, member, that this would be best canvassed under the Ministry of Health estimates. I would offer that advice as well. This committee is dealing with the estimates of Advanced Education; the other House is dealing with the estimates of Health. Perhaps the questions put there would receive an answer. Here they are outside this minister's jurisdiction.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I might clarify, then, that I think I've offered this information to two -- if not three members now. We have a committee in the Ministry of Health that looks at labour force demand. It's called the Health Human Resources Advisory Committee. They look at the need for training spaces, among other things, and they offer advice to this ministry. There is a difference between knowing how many nurses are going to be needed and how many nurses we can afford to train; those are two different issues. Of course, we would love to be able to have spaces in place to meet the need in terms of how many nurses we need overall. The bottom line is that the Ministry of Health offers advice to this ministry, and then we do whatever we can to meet that demand.
J. Wilson: The Ministry of Advanced Education has recommended that we train or open up 400 new positions for nursing staff this year; that's my understanding. How many positions were recommended by the board to the ministry that they should
J. Weisbeck: It's all been answered before.
Getting back to the performance plan, on page 11 it says that technology is having a major impact on government. "Job roles and skill sets are changing as organizations adjust to take advantage of new technologies." I see a couple of situations here: how do we train people, and how do we keep people?
I want to quote from an article I read on the looming crisis, it's called, in the public service.
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"The people crunch will be seriousHow do we protect our people? We've got a situation here obviously. . . . 'There is a demographic vacuum approaching in a five-year time horizon. The baby boom retirement factor coupled with the ensuing baby bust has major implications for entrance into the labour markets, particularly out of the universities. All major employers with similar employee age profiles will be fishing in the same shrinking labour pool for a decreasing supply of people and skills.' The private sector perceives government as a solid training ground and a lucrative skill pool."
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I take it the member is referring to our government employees who have high-tech skills. That is an ongoing challenge, and this is something which we might want to deal with more under ISTA, but I'd be happy to touch upon it now. The challenge is to make sure, first and foremost
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But there's no question there's also an issue around compensation. The private sector will pay more than government, quite often, and they do see government as a great recruiting ground, because we have highly skilled, highly competent people working for government. The private sector is out looking for high-tech workers, and so they will come and poach from government. There's no question about it. Often they are able to do that by offering higher wage and benefits packages.
J. Weisbeck: The performance plan also talks about the diversification, specialization and commercialization of education resulting in an increasing number of post-secondary stakeholders. I guess I'm just interested in what the minister's views are on private universities.
For example, in Kelowna
It would appear to me that students are willing to pay this extra amount of tuition, etc., to get the programs they want. I just would like to have the minister's views on how he feels about the growth of the private university in British Columbia and what impact that might have on our public institutions.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I pride myself on being a fairly pragmatic politician; I don't approach this issue particularly ideologically. First of all, the fact is that there are many, many private post-secondary institutions in this province, and thousands of students attend those institutions. So it's a fact of life already in our post-secondary education system in British Columbia. I think the key distinction here is this: the private post-secondary institutions that exist right now do not offer British Columbia degrees, and they aren't allowed to offer British Columbia degrees without my approval as Minister of Advanced Education.
What Dr. Strangway is proposing I won't comment on, because he has made no formal proposal to government. It would be a matter of future policy, which would go beyond me and would certainly merit cabinet discussion and caucus discussion as well.
As far as the existence of our current private post-secondary institutions, I think the number one concern for me is to make sure that students are protected, so we approach the matter as one of consumer protection. That's very important. Students need to have confidence that when they attend these institutions, they're not going to shut down suddenly and have them thrown out of school and be out of pocket for their tuition fees and what have you. So what we've done in the last couple of years -- it will be culminating this August -- is that we will be requiring that all private post-secondary institutions be accredited through the Private Post-Secondary Education Commission, I believe, in order that students attending those institutions can qualify for British Columbia student financial assistance.
J. Weisbeck: I wasn't aware that the private universities fell under that category. Is that correct? Like Phoenix University, for example -- does it fall under PPSEC? Or the new university in Squamish -- would it fall under PPSEC?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, it would fall under PPSEC. But as far as accreditation goes, that's up to them. There's a great incentive to be accredited, because if they're not accredited, then they won't be able to draw upon students who depend upon British Columbia's student financial assistance.
J. Weisbeck: Yeah, we've heard a lot about the various shortages in the province. We've talked about the shortage of nurses, doctors and almost any profession you might think of.
A Voice: Except politicians.
J. Weisbeck: Except politicians, yeah.
Is there any thought of target funding? I know that the universities don't like that word; they want to have more autonomy. But I would think it might be not a bad idea to direct funds for a specific program to be assured that down the road we're going to have the proper number of professionals in place. Can I have your opinion on target funding, please?
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: We currently do that with high-tech spaces, 800 of them this year -- an 800 increase in this year's budget. There are 400 nursing spaces, as well as a child welfare specialization. We have to be careful. Our post-secondary sector has to be fairly arm's length from government, and their independence has to be honoured. But certainly government does have the ability to target some funding to areas where we know there's significant demand. Certainly the door would be open to us doing that in the future in other areas. We do it now in some areas, so we clearly have the authority to do it, it would seem. We may choose to do that in the future, but that would be entirely speculative.
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J. Weisbeck: We had spoken the other day about how, as we progress through the first, second, third and fourth year, there may be some increased costs associated with particular programs. Is there a limitation to the number of FTEs in a particular program that the ministry would fund? -- i.e., all of a sudden we realize that in the third and fourth year we have a huge demand for some science programs, which obviously are more expensive than an arts program. Is there some limitation per institution about how many of those more expensive programs they fund?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Those are largely the decisions of the institutions themselves. In the case of universities, they're block-funded, so they make their own decisions, with the exception of these targeted spaces, which are a clear minority of the increased spaces. They make decisions themselves around how they allocate the money between a more expensive program or a less expensive program, between science and arts or what have you. They make those decisions as an institution.
At the college level we fund not on a block basis but on an FTE basis. We have an ongoing dialogue with them. They come to us and tell us what they think they need in various program areas, and then we provide funding for them.
J. Weisbeck: Part of the strategic plan, part of the objectives, is to provide the ministry with the staff, resources, training, tools and supports needed to perform the duties effectively and efficiently. The auditor general did a report on maintaining human capital in the British Columbia public service. Probably our greatest resource in government is our people. I was interested in some of the comments that the auditor general made, and I don't see them reflected in this strategic plan. So I'm wondering whether or not
For example: "We recommend that the British Columbia government develop and implement a strategy for managing its human capital
So there's a number of issues, about ten recommendations that the auditor general has recommended. I'm wondering if the ministry took some of these recommendations into account when they developed the strategic objective. And if they didn't, why not?
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: The answer is yes. We have tried to take those issues into account. We try to address those issues through training, through our recruitment policies and through ensuring that our employees get broad exposure to a number of responsibilities.
When we get to ISTA, we can talk about the InfoSmart program. I know there's some specific work going on there as well. One of the most difficult areas to retain employees is in high-tech, because they are easily lured to the private sector, as I mentioned a few moments ago. We can certainly discuss that more when we discuss ISTA.
J. Weisbeck: As I mentioned previously, the performance plan doesn't talk a lot about some of the funds we have for research. There was an interesting report done by Dr. Munroe-Blum. What it was basically doing was looking at Ontario's innovation system. Rather than reinventing the wheel, they looked at ten jurisdictions and obviously tried to come up with a some sort of strategic plan for Ontario. B.C. was one of those. It wasn't very flattering for our research and development in the province. It talks about B.C.'s gross expenditure in R and D being almost $998 million in 1997, accounting for 7 percent of the national total and placing B.C. sixth among the provinces. British Columbia's higher education sector accounted for $276 million, placing it eighth among the rest of the provinces.
What they basically talked about was that we've been erratic in our policies, investing strategically in flagship research at times, to the benefit of the province, and then freezing or retracting significant support, such that our research performance has been uneven and is presently lagging behind.
I know we've got a number of programs in place to date, and I certainly know about the British Columbia knowledge development fund. I also know that it basically supports capital rather than operational costs. There are a number of other ones -- like the British Columbia Health Research Foundation. I was just wondering if the minister would give me an update of where these particular research programs are at this point. I'll start off with the British Columbia Health Research Foundation.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: First of all, when it comes to the Health Research Foundation, those questions would be better directed to the Minister of Health.
Beyond that, I note that one of the figures the member used was from 1997, when he said we ranked sixth. It's been since 1997 -- in fact, just in the last two years, I believe, or three years -- that we put in place the B.C. knowledge development fund with an initial commitment of $100 million and an additional commitment this year of $117 million. So we have recognized the need for excellence in research in this ministry by committing a total of $217 million to the B.C. knowledge development fund.
As far as grants and a lot of the other research that goes on, on the operating side, it might be best to defer those questions until we're dealing with the Information, Science and Technology Agency later in these estimates, because then we can get into some of the specific grant programs and operating funds for research.
J. Weisbeck: I was going to speak about libraries, but I think we've beaten that up enough.
[1545]
I want to talk a little bit about the brain drain. As the minister knows, there's been so much information on the brain drain in the last while. There have been numerous articles written in the paper in the last few years for sure. I just want to mention a couple of these articles, because they definitely follow the same theme. At the end of it I would like to have the minister's response to how we resolve this.
[L. Stephens in the chair.]
There was an article in the Vancouver Sun on May 28. Fazil Mihlar wrote:
There's another article written by Brian Lewis in the Province in June 14, 1998: "Taxes Will Worsen B.C.'s Brain Drain." Basically it talks about the same thing. There's a Michael Campbell article: "Brain Drain Will Continue Until Politicians Get Tax Picture.""In a globalized economy with increasing transportation and communication costs, capital is mobile. To a lesser degree, labour is mobile too.
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"Firms and individuals will locate or relocate to jurisdictions that impose a lighter tax burden, among other factors. The imposition of high tax rates, which penalizes entrepreneurship, risk-taking and hard work, will reduce productive economic activity or even bring it to a halt."
I think we have to find some sort of solution to end this onslaught of our brain capital in this province. I wonder if the minister has any thoughts on how this might occur.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think one of the ways to approach it is, first of all, to talk to the young people who might be tempted to go south. One of the things I did within about a month of becoming minister was that I decided that in terms of the high-tech area of my responsibilities, while it's important to talk to the CEOs in that sector, it's also important to talk to the workers.
I think the figure is 90 percent of workers in the high-tech sector -- and this is where we are most vulnerable in the brain drain -- are between the ages of 25 and 34. I sat down with a number of them that we pulled together from a number of high-tech firms in Vancouver, to hear how they felt about these issues and what they felt needed to be done. First of all, what they said to me was consistent
What they were telling me was that, yes, of course they want to live comfortably, but they know that they will work for less here. I should state this as well: there is a tax issue here. There's no question about that, especially for higher-income earners. That's something we have to try to do more to address. The fact is that there's also a problem with compensation from the private sector. Private sector employers in Canada in general pay significantly lower wages than American employers do, in high-tech in particular. There's a problem there in terms of tax structure to some extent. There's also a problem in terms of the level of compensation being offered by the private sector in this country. But it was interesting.
When I asked, "What do we do to keep you here at home?" their response was, first and foremost: "Create more spaces in our post-secondary institutions." I asked: "Why? How does that do it?" Their response was: "If you're from here, you want to stay here. This is home." Many of them said that even if they left, they might only leave for a few years and come back, especially when they start thinking about having kids, for example. They think that we have a better society in which to raise a family than a lot of what exists south of the border.
We can have a great long discussion about this, but it seems that part of what we need to do is continue the work we have been doing on the post-secondary side to make sure that more and more of the workers we need in the key sectors where the brain drain is happening
Having said that, in terms of a skill shortage we are seeing a growing inflow of talented workers in high-tech, for example, from other countries to here. Now, that's important in terms of the demands of the private sector, in particular, for a skilled workforce. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we can keep our young people here. Part of that is going to have something to do with making sure that they're educated here. Then there are all these quality of life issues that will tend to keep them here as well.
[1550]
J. Weisbeck: It's interesting; we do have so much to offer in British Columbia as far as lifestyle. I was interested to note that the 21-to-25-year-old techie wants extreme sports; B.C. obviously has that advantage. But also, you know, we lose a lot of people as corporate members too. We've seen quite a number -- especially the high-tech firms; I think they're probably the most notable -- where you get them taking their offices out of British Columbia and moving it down to a friendlier business climate. There's obviously not only personal taxes but corporate taxes that are involved here as well too. I 'm encouraged to hear the minister recognize the fact that personal taxes are definitely a problem in this province.
I mean, you hear stories of
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think the first thing we have to do is make sure that we understand the distinction between the issue of personal taxes versus business costs; they're two separate issues. On the personal tax side, I'll say, speaking for myself as just one member of this government, that I believe it's important to have reasonably competitive personal tax regimes. I know the opposition likes to talk about British Columbia having high taxes. The fact is that if you look at our total tax burden, we're among the lowest in Canada. Alberta's is lower; in Ontario and B.C. it's fairly borderline.
But in most provinces, if you look at all taxes, they're higher, including local property taxes. At the end of the day that's what the average person cares about: how much is actually coming out of their pocket. So we have to recognize that.
But we also have to recognize that we're competing with other jurisdictions to the south of us that have lower personal tax rates. As I say, I think we won't ever be able to completely compete with them on the personal tax side. What we have to do is emphasize some of the natural advantages we have. Frankly, some of those natural advantages -- in terms of quality of life -- have something to do with the approach to government we have here, which is slightly different. And I mean that in a non-partisan way; it's slightly different in Canada than it is in most U.S. states.
So that's on the personal side. But on the business side, KPMG recently did a study, which was released just a few weeks ago, where they compared the costs of starting up and running a business in high-tech. They compared Vancouver with I think about 13 or 14 U.S. cities, including Seattle and San Jose. They took everything into account, including taxes -- corporate taxes, business taxes and property taxes. What they found was that in fact Vancouver was the lowest-cost of
[ Page 15782 ]
all of those cities. Now, it's true that as a percentage of the business costs out of all those cities, Vancouver had a higher percentage when it came to taxes. But other costs were lower; real estate costs were lower and labour costs were lower.
At the end of the day, if you're a business person trying to make a decision about where to locate, to start up or to maintain a business, you're going to look again at the bottom line -- what comes out of your pocket. What the KPMG report showed was that with everything in, including taxes on the corporate side, Vancouver was a lower-cost city than the 13 or 14 American cities that we were compared to.
J. Weisbeck: We compare ourselves often with Alberta. It's interesting that Alberta has an initiative in place right now where they're trying to get their people home -- people that have left the province. They've created a very large fund -- I don't remember exactly the number; it's something like $500 million -- to try to attract the people that have left the province and bring them home. Do you see something like that happening for British Columbia, and do you have any thoughts on it?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Maybe I might, just as an administrative point here
J. Weisbeck: This will be the last question on that. I'll go back into private and post-secondary.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Okay.
Creating a fund to lure people back. This is so speculative. No, I can't see that. I think what gets people home is their connection to home -- the fact that they have family and friends here and the fact that there is a quality of life or a lifestyle here that they often find they miss when they move south, particularly when they get to an age when they start thinking about having a family and where they would like to raise a family.
We do see stories
[1555]
J. Weisbeck: I just want to make a comment as well. It just shows you how technology has crept into every sector of government -- right?
I want to move on to private post-secondary -- just a couple of comments about how private institutions contribute significantly to education in British Columbia. I think it's estimated that about 190,000 students are currently trained through private institutions and private trainers. There's some concern on the part of the private trainers and private institutions that they're really not particularly well recognized. The fact is that they feel the government hasn't really appreciated their services. I wonder if the minister would comment. Here's a group of people that are, I think, supplying a great service, and they feel -- the people that I've talked to -- that government has sort of got them on the outside. Maybe they consider them to be in conflict with some of the things that the public institutions are doing.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I have to say that I haven't received any particular representation from that sector, since becoming minister, stating that they feel they're on the outside. I think I acknowledged earlier that the fact is that we live in a society where people value choice. And while I think it's fundamentally important to maintain a top priority commitment to our public post-secondary institutions, certainly our private post-secondary institutions have a role to play, and people have a right to make the choices about where they wish to be educated.
As for our level of recognition or support, well, the fact is that we've tried to work with private post-secondary institutions in the last couple of years, because there were problems. As with anywhere else, there have been, at least historically, bad actors amongst private post-secondary institutions -- people who close their doors, throw students out and rip them off, frankly. And then there are the vast majority, who are good actors.
I think it's probably fair to say that we've been fairly helpful in coming in and setting up a structure which has allowed for accreditation. So students can go to private post-secondary institutions that are accredited now. They'll qualify for B.C. student financial assistance, and they'll be confident that they're not dealing with a bad actor. That's a level of government support, in terms of bringing in the good actors and saying: "Come on board and you'll qualify to have students who get British Columbia student financial assistance."
J. Weisbeck: Probably the one reason why some of them feel this way is the policy accord. I'm just going to read a couple of comments here.
They're asking that this training accord be rescinded. I'd like to know what the current status is of the accord."The accord discriminates against private training providers by giving the right of first refusal of any government-based training contract to the public training sector. This accord was passed despite vigorous protest from private trainers and those who support their contribution to the field of education. By diverting funding to the public sector, instead of allocating funds based on criteria such as cost-effectiveness, industry-relevance and community support of a program, the accord inhibits stakeholders from making the best decisions on training options.
"We ask for a climate in which the criteria for determining the best training options are equitable and transparent, and all stakeholders, most important of which are the students themselves, are free to make the best decision regarding the training provider."
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The status of the accord is that it is in place and in effect and has been since April 1 of this year. I know that there was concern when the accord was first discussed publicly, and that was probably a year ago -- or 18 months ago, anyhow. The B.C. Career Colleges Association was consulted, as well as the association of community private trainers, which had concerns. They were consulted in developing the guidelines around how the accord would be applied.
[1600]
I just want to clarify a couple of points in terms of the perception. There is no right of first refusal for public institutions. That is not true. I think the member was, perhaps, just mistaken. So there is no right of first refusal. What there is, for contracts between $5,000 and $25,000, is a right of first consid-
[ Page 15783 ]
eration. It's not a right of the potential contractor. Those who are looking to contract must give first consideration to a public provider.
My information is that that would be a small minority of the contracts. The vast majority of contracts for training are over $25,000. There's the line. For contracts that are over $25,000, there is a competitive selection process. It is an open, competitive, bidding process. So the public sector trainers and private sector trainers can both bid. It's an open process; it's a competitive process. If the private sector trainer wins in that process -- if they come in with the lower bid -- then they are selected. Obviously, if they are beaten, then they're not selected. In the case of an absolute tie -- and I don't know how often that would be -- then the first opportunity is offered to the public trainer.
This has been in place since April 1. I have not been hearing concerns to date about it, and I think that may be because there was a great deal of consultation that went into the guidelines for this accord, and it included the private trainers. It looks to me like an eminently fair system.
J. Weisbeck: Obviously it's very, very early to tell. Have any contracts been tendered at this point in time?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We would assume that there have been contracts put out, but we're not aware of specifics. Certainly one of the things that we've done under the accord is that there will be a database developed that will monitor all of this, and we'll have information after the first year of operation to see how it's all worked. That was a key part of making all of the players, public and private sector, feel more comfortable with the accord.
J. Weisbeck: I guess my concern is: how do you keep the playing field level? Here you've got a public institution, which is obviously subsidized, bidding on a contract against a private institution which has to supply a lot of things -- obviously everything. I can't see how there's a level of fairness here. As I say, you've got the public sector subsidized, where the private sector is not. How do we get to some fair tendering on contracts?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Well, I think it's worth noting, first of all, that before this accord, there were restrictions on the public trainers or public providers of the service being able to bid at all. That's important to note. What we've done is that we've opened it up to, one could say, a more open process and a more competitive process. I think that's the major point to be made. I had another one that now escapes my mind.
[1605]
Interjection.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yeah. I guess the other point I would make is this. Government doesn't have any interest in contracting in inefficient ways -- right? If we're contracting with public providers, it's all tax dollars, so we want to make sure that they're being efficient as well. I don't think it's a matter of subsidy. Otherwise, you're not getting an efficient provision of the service.
J. Weisbeck: I have a vision that some day we'll have virtual universities. In some of the literature you read, they say that over the next ten or 15 years -- or maybe more than that -- we won't see a traditional campus or we'll see very, very few of them. We'll see most of our education on line. So I see a problem with articulation, and this is obviously a concern of the private post-secondaries as well -- the articulation between private and public institutions. What is the government's plan to create a policy environment in which the demand for transferability and portability of training and education is acknowledged and met by all education providers?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm happy to say -- and I first heard about this a couple of years ago now -- that British Columbia is the leading province. I think many in the post-secondary system across Canada would acknowledge that we are the leading province in this field. We have the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfers that has already done work and is doing work around articulation between private institutions and public institutions. So that's ongoing work. That's as long as the private institutions are accredited.
J. Weisbeck: There was a concern about social assistance and student loans.
"Currently, prospective students on social assistance must give up their status and take out student loans to cover the full costs of tuition plus all living expenses. The current situation places an unreasonable burden of debt on an individual traditionally disadvantaged in a number of ways.
"On completing their training, this individual must cope not only with the transition to employment but with a considerable debt load. Also, this individual is used to a structured disbursement in which they have access to small amounts of money at one time, and the essentials such as food and rent are provided for.
"Student loans are disbursed directly to the student in a lump sum, creating a strong temptation for many loan holders. Many cases of the abuse of student loan funds under these conditions are reported. These students are also very likely to default, inflating the default rates for the institutions that trained these disadvantaged individuals.
"The B.C. Career College Association asks that prospective students on social assistance continue to be supported by this type of funding and that they be required to take out student loans only for the direct costs of study, such as tuition and supplies. This will reduce the number of student loan clients who abuse the system by spending the money without completing the designated training and those who do not repay their loans."
[1610]
And they also recommend that student loans and grants be disbursed monthly rather than in one or two lump sums. I wonder if the minister would respond to the statement by the people.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There's some overlap here. Really, fundamentally, I think that this is about income assistance policy. I'm not sure if the member is advocating that people who attend post-secondary institutions in this province should be able to be on income assistance while they attend those institutions. That's what it sounds like. Maybe I could clarify that.
J. Weisbeck: No, this is not my statement. This is a statement by the B.C. Career Colleges Association, and some of the things that they have concerns with. I'd just like to know, basically, what the minister's response is to this question by the BCCCA.
[ Page 15784 ]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Well, I'm not going to venture into the territory of income assistance policy. I'll leave that for the Minister of Social Development and Economic Security in her estimates. What I will say is that starting in August of this year -- I think the member made a reference to monthly disbursements instead of lump sums -- grant cheques from British Columbia will be disbursed on a monthly basis. We certainly do offer higher awards under our student financial assistance program for students with dependents. So we do what we can through our system to help lower-income students.
At the end of the day, these students -- the ones in greatest need -- will find that 40 percent of their need will be met by grant instead of loans. So at the end of the day it will reduce their financial burden that they face in terms of debt. But as far as income assistance policy goes -- whether students can be on income assistance while they attend school -- that's something best left for the minister responsible in that area.
I. Chong: I have been following the debates. I've heard some issues raised earlier, and I hope the minister will indulge me in raising this particular issue, which has to do with accreditation. I received a rather disturbing phone call from a school, the B.M. Chan International School for Design and Esthetics in Vancouver. They are having a problem with accreditation at the moment. What they have been requesting
Clearly what I heard the minister stating earlier was that it's important that schools become accredited. Students who are able to get financial assistance qualify for the student loans necessary to go to these schools; however, with the schools not getting the accreditation, the students are blocked out of potential opportunities. As well, these private post-secondary schools will also suffer some financial difficulties and possibly shut down, thereby leaving another void in another field where employment opportunities should be existing.
I am wondering if the minister is aware of this looming problem? It appears that this is not the only private post-secondary school that is experiencing problems in becoming accredited. To what extent is this a problem throughout the province, and what measures are going to be put in place to move up the accreditation if it is going to, as I say, choke out these people from being able to attend these schools?
[1615]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'd like to say, first of all, that I think the member referred to the potential for students to be locked out of opportunities as a result of this policy. I want to make it very clear that the point of the policy is to protect students. This policy is a direct response to a situation we saw happening a number of years ago, when students weren't being properly protected when it came to private post-secondary institutions. As I say, I think most of them are very good actors -- and some aren't, unfortunately.
As far as the August 1 deadline, private post-secondary institutions have known about this deadline for three years. The particular institution the member refers to has submitted something called the self-study stage, and there are currently outstanding issues of compliance. My information is that they have refused to respond at this point to the Private Post-Secondary Education Commission. When they respond and work out those compliance issues, they can then move forward in the accreditation process. But I think that three years is sufficient time for these institutions to comply in a matter which, at the end of the day, is about protecting students.
I. Chong: I think it's fair to state that members on this side of the House do believe that we need to protect the students as well. The last thing anyone would want to see is that students borrow moneys and attend schools and find that they're locked out and that the doors are closed -- totally unacceptable. I would agree with that.
I'm not as familiar with the case, except that I got this rather panicky, urgent phone call. I know this particular school has contacted the Ministry of Advanced Education asking for help. As to those outstanding issues, I guess all I would state is that perhaps whatever can be done to impress upon the schools, as well as the ministry staff, to ensure that we move forward on those -- to tell them that those are the barriers for allowing them to move forward on accreditation -- I think needs to be conveyed. That's not what I heard as the outstanding issues or as problems for accreditation.
I understand they had applied in September 1999 through this process. In their particular case, there hasn't been enough time to deal with accreditation. They've also indicated that only 69 schools have received accreditation and that 1,050 schools are not yet accredited -- or are not in the process of part A. It would imply to me that there is a huge backlog, perhaps not just in this particular school but throughout the province.
That was the other part of the question I want to ask the minister. To what scale is this problem of accreditation? Are we in a situation where there are hundreds of schools waiting who will fall outside of this deadline come August 1 of this year? If that happens, what measures is this minister going to put in place, and will that involve extending a deadline? Or are we going to have hundreds of schools that will not have received this accreditation and therefore thousands of students not being able to pursue a particular field? If the minister can provide some clarification on that, I'd be appreciative.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: My information is that as of May 19, 1999, 129 institutions were already accredited.
Interjection.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: May 19, 1999; remember, this is a three-year process.
[1620]
Interjection.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Sorry. Well, it can't be May 19 of this year.
Interjection.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Right now 129 institutions have been accredited to this point; 210 institutions are in various stages of the process. Of these 210 in process, 95 are now designated and would have to complete the process by August 1 to maintain their designation and their students' eligibility for B.C. student financial assistance. There are 37 designated schools which have closed or are not pursuing accreditation.
[ Page 15785 ]
I think it's important to note, just in terms of the scope of the issue
I. Chong: I appreciate the minister's response. Perhaps he could provide us with a list of all those 129 institutions which are accredited and the 210 which are in process, etc., amounting to 339 in total, which he doesn't anticipate are going to face a deadline crunch. The indication I have is that only 69 schools out of 1,121 have been accredited in the last five years. If those facts are wrong, fair enough. This is why it's important that the minister, if he has that information, supply it. For those calling us as MLAs, we'll have the opportunity to provide updated information for them as well. If that is not correct, then that begs the question: are there 800 other schools out there that have not been dealt with and cannot be dealt with by the deadline date?
The other question I'd like to put on the floor is
If we're not going to do a broad-based extension to all those waiting for accreditation, perhaps there is a mechanism for those who are very close to it that can be supported through an appeal process. Can the minister advise about that process?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There are over 1,100 private post-secondary institutions registered through PPSEC. I think that's where the member is getting some of the numbers. I'm informed that there are only about 230 that will even want to go through this process because of needing the accreditation for student financial assistance purposes.
There is the opportunity for extension. But I want to make this very clear: there is the opportunity for extension on a case-by-case basis only if we're advised in the ministry by PPSEC that the delay is through no fault of that institution. So there's some room for flexibility, but I expect these institutions who have known -- specifically, they've been in existence for three years -- of this deadline for three years to work to that deadline. I would contemplate extensions only if PPSEC is advising that it's through no fault of those institutions that they are unable to meet that deadline.
[1625]
I. Chong: Again, I appreciate the fact that that is a possibility. Perhaps those who review the Hansard at a later date will see that if they fall under that category, where it's through no fault of their own, they can in fact look at these extensions. But having said that, is the minister aware of the calls that have come in through his office? Just how many people have called concerned about the fact that they might not make the deadline? Has it been five private post-secondary schools? Has it been ten? Has it been 100? Has it been 50? Can he just give me a ballpark idea as to how many institutions have in fact called his office?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The number who have contacted my office -- that's the minister's office -- is zero, as far as I know. I'm informed that two schools have contacted the ministry at the civil service level, but not my office directly. That's my information.
Oh, sorry. Now I see that on May 15 -- two days ago -- one did send something to my office. Let me see who it is. The hair design school faxed something to my office two days ago.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise
[B. Goodacre in the chair.]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think there's a question of fairness and of meeting already stated expectations. There are obviously many private post-secondary institutions that have worked very hard to meet this deadline. I don't think it's unfair to expect others who are in the same position to meet the same deadline. I think it's worth emphasizing, as well, that the B.C. Career Colleges Association, which is the major representative association of private post-secondary institutions in this province, does not support an extension of the deadline.
So we'll stick to the deadline. And as I say, there's the opportunity for review on a case-by-case basis. I want to make it clear: this is not a self-determining process. It's not as if some of these institutions think that it's out of their control. That's a determination to be made by PPSEC as to whether they did everything possible, and then PPSEC will advise this ministry. If they feel they're in that position right now, I guess they'd better get on the phone with PPSEC and start making that case.
I. Chong: I thank the minister for his response. Those were all the questions that I had there. I would be grateful to staff for providing that list, as requested earlier, to the critic, who I think has additional questions on accreditation.
J. Weisbeck: Is it logistically possible for PPSEC to complete all these? Do they have the time frame here to complete the number of applications? I heard some numbers -- like, they had to do six a day between now and the deadline. It seemed like it would be almost impossible to complete.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, PPSEC say they can do it by the deadline.
[1630]
J. Weisbeck: I'd just like to have an update, please, on the tuition assurance fund. I've had some calls -- and I've talked to the ministry about it -- where a particular individual was having trouble with interim insurance between the time
[ Page 15786 ]
when
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The tuition assurance fund will be in place by July. It should be fully implemented by the end of August, so everyone should be able to depend upon it then. Of course this is in response to a concern to protect students, but we are also hearing from institutions that they were having trouble getting bonds in some cases. So now we have a common fund in place that doesn't necessitate private bonds to be obtained, and it protects students at the same time.
I. Chong: I'd like to ask a question about the millennium scholarship program, which is funded by the federal government but administered by the provincial government. From what I understand, it is only available to those students who receive the maximum student loans available, rather than for students in general who receive student loans. This fact has made the situation such that some students were ineligible for the scholarship because they only requested and received a portion of the maximum loan available.
Can the minister advise the rationale for that? Why would a student, regardless of their personal reasons why they didn't avail themselves of the maximum student loan, not be able to take advantage of the millennium scholarship program? It seems to be an unfairness on that level, on that playing field.
[1635]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The millennium grant is not available only to those who have maximum financial need, but the Millennium Foundation has determined that there has to be at least $2,000 in demonstrated need before they'll be eligible for the grant. If they have less than $2,000 in need, then they will still get the B.C. grant. But they don't have to have maximum financial need in order to qualify for the millennium grant. I think that was the main part of your question.
I. Chong: That answers it partially. But I am a little bit confused, so maybe the minister can further clarify it. As I understand it, and what I have been told by a student, is that this scholarship program -- funded by the federal government and administered through the provincial government -- was only available to students who received the maximum student loans available, rather than to all students or any student who received a student loan.
If the minister is saying that there had to be someone who demonstrated a need for at least $2,000, I guess my question then would be: again, if it's supposed to provide access for all students, why would we not do a pro-rata basis? What is the rationale, I suppose, for determining it to be at that level? All students are in whatever needs. They may not take a full course complement, or certain things can happen, or they are able to get other assistance elsewhere. It doesn't seem to provide fairness for any student who is looking to access the scholarship program.
I know of a student who was declared ineligible for the scholarship only because they had requested and received a portion of the maximum student loan that was available. I guess, from what I hear, it's either all or nothing. That doesn't seem quite fair, quite honestly. So if the minister could perhaps provide further clarification, I could pass this on to the student who was not able to avail himself of the scholarship program.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: What my predecessor did when the millennium fund was announced was work out an agreement with the federal government to combine that federal money with our student financial assistance program and expand our overall grant program. This is just a general overview point.
[1640]
So we've gone from a grant system which only covered the first and second years of a degree program, for example, to third and fourth years. We've created a system where students with the greatest need get the most help. As for the issue, I'm trying to understand the issue that the member is raising, but I'm informed that it's the Millennium Foundation at the federal level that will not allow the issuance of a cheque for less than $2,000 -- okay? They consider that to be insignificant or too small or something.
If there's a student who has need but it's less than $2,000 -- a grant need of less than $2,000 -- then they won't get a millennium cheque, because of federal rules or because of the foundation rules, but they will get a grant cheque from us at the provincial level. I mean, it sounds very odd this circumstance. But the fundamental point is that we've taken that money and created a system that allows for more grants -- a more extensive grant program -- than anywhere in the country.
I. Chong: I appreciate the clarification, and I'll pass that on to the student.
I would like to move on to a different subject right now. It relates to the university in the riding that I represent, the University of Victoria. I am told that as a result of other universities recruiting top instructors, they're having some difficulty paying instructors at the University of Victoria. There's limited funding, etc., which we always know is a problem.
What has happened is that there has been extensive use of sessional teachers. I'm wondering if the minister can advise to what extent that problem exists at the university -- I don't have the details -- or whether that is something that his ministry watches or oversees to ensure that there is not massive use of sessional teachers at this or other universities. Is there a cut-off level whereby if that happens, the university contacts the ministry and advises of this being a problem?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think it's important for the member to understand that this trend is not unique to the University of Victoria; it's common to all universities in the province. As far as the exact numbers, I think she would have to contact the institution itself to get the exact numbers in terms of their staff and the composition of their staff.
What we did this year was give UVic an increase of over 5 percent in their funding, which is a large lift. As they put it, it restores core funding or helps to restore core funding. I would expect that that increase in funding would see the beginning of a reversal of this tendency towards sessional instructors.
[ Page 15787 ]
I. Chong: I have made the call into the university and haven't received a response. I thought that perhaps the minister may have firsthand knowledge, with all the universities that fall under his responsibility.
My other question is about whether or not there was a level -- an acceptable level, I suppose -- where universities are allowed to have a proportion of sessional teachers versus those who are from the core funding, and whether the ministry monitors that throughout the province to ensure that the sessional teachers don't exceed the established teachers -- if there is a mechanism in place to oversee that it doesn't become a major problem.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The answer is no. Under the University Act, that's the responsibility of universities, and we don't get involved to that extent in their internal management.
[1645]
J. Weisbeck: I would just like to have a list of the number of student spaces being created at each institution. I don't have to have it right now. If I could just get that sent to me -- the number of student spaces being created at each institution in the province -- at your convenience
This was an FOI request, actually, a number of weeks ago. We're looking at a government payment of $1.3 million to the University of Saskatchewan. It was made to the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in 1997-98. I just want to know what that payment was for.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We have an interprovincial agreement, in this case, with the University of Saskatchewan, which has a veterinary medicine program. We expend that money in order to have them provide spaces in their program for British Columbia residents.
J. Weisbeck: Has there been any consideration at all to setting up a program in British Columbia?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We haven't had any institution in the province raise this with us as an area where they'd like to establish a program. There are only two veterinary schools in the country right now, the other one being in Ontario. It seems that there's a general level of satisfaction with this current arrangement.
J. Weisbeck: I understand there's another veterinary college back east, as well, in the Maritimes -- is there not? Just Ontario as well?
Interjection.
J. Weisbeck: Guelph -- but I thought there was one more. No? Okay.
Some Voices: Through the Chair.
J. Weisbeck: Through the Chair, hon. Chair.
I guess there's a number of applications that go out to the University of Saskatchewan. I heard that a hundred went out last year, and they only accept five students. So there seems to be a fair need. I'd be curious to know whether there would be any consideration for this program.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There may be a high demand for spaces by potential students, as that would indicate -- if there were a hundred applications -- but I'm informed that we're not getting indications that there's an exceedingly high labour market demand for trained veterinarians that isn't being met. The figure I think the member raised was $1.3 million. That does buy five spaces for British Columbia residents but also is a contribution toward capital, which would be significant in that program.
J. Weisbeck: Can you give me an indication of what other moneys might be spent -- to other external institutions outside the province?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: That's the only one.
I. Chong: A question to the minister regarding the issue of foreign-trained physicians being licensed to practise in Canada. As I understand it, Canadian and B.C. residents are able to study abroad and to become physicians, and they can receive a Canada student loan for living expenses but are not able to access the B.C. student loan. The B.C. policy, as it applies to medical students, was implemented in 1994 at the request of the Ministry of Health, as I understand it. While I suppose it seems strange that we would have student loans available for people who are studying outside of the country, nonetheless it is to deal with the issue of the physician shortage that we know is being faced -- which is why, perhaps, the Ministry of Health was involved in this.
[1650]
But other provinces
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm informed that there is an agreement signed in 1994 by all Ministers of Health in Canada that agreed to this policy. It seems that we're the only province that has actually implemented the policy. The Ministry of Health at that time asked that we do this to implement that agreed-upon national policy. It seems that we're the only ones who've done it. But it was something that came out of direction from the Minister of Health at the time, and it was a strategy agreed upon by all Ministers of Health across the country.
I. Chong: I would agree. I had stated that the policy, as it applies to medical students, was implemented in 1994 at the request of the Ministry of Health. Yet this particular student claims that the access to the provincial portion of student loans is not available, whereas those who are from Alberta who study abroad can access their Alberta student loan. That was the question. I'm just wondering -- if other provinces are permitting that, then in fact we are out of step -- what the reasons are for that. If the minister can provide clarification. If he needs more time to consult with staff, I would be receptive to a written response subsequent to this evening, if that would be more helpful in looking into it.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'll look into it, but I think the problem is that this policy appears to be the result of
[ Page 15788 ]
market demand around health care professions and the fact that we take advice -- it's not binding, but we take it -- from the Ministry of Health on this. The Ministry of Health made a determination in 1994, so we've complied. For whatever reason -- and this is what I'll have to look into -- other provinces haven't, although I'm told that Ontario is doing exactly the same thing as we are. So Ontario went ahead and complied as well. We'll look into it, and we'll get back to you on it.
[1655]
I. Chong: Speaking about the medical area, I know the minister has heard from a number of members today regarding the shortage of nursing students and the nursing program. I'm not going to ask him more questions on that; I can check the Hansards. For my benefit, I just want to put on the record that I too am seeing this as a looming problem in the area that I represent. I have received calls from many students who are saying that they're having difficulty entering the nursing program. I was told that there was a three-year delay here in Victoria, but upon checking with the appropriate authorities, we found that the delay was actually only a year. That was much better news than we anticipated. This was about a year ago. I'm wondering if the minister can at least advise, at this point
The Camosun College nursing program is the one that I'm considering. I know they have been talking with the Ministry of Advanced Education about this. What is the shortage that he is aware of at this time -- or the wait-list, I suppose -- for those wanting to enter the nursing program? If the minister doesn't have that information, I'd be willing to receive it subsequent to this day as well.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We don't have wait-list information. It's collected and maintained on an institution-by-institution basis, so we don't have that information from Camosun for the member. The best way to get it would be to contact Camosun directly. What I can say is that Camosun is receiving 24 new spaces this year for the nursing program.
I. Chong: I do want to advise the minister that we did contact Camosun, and this is where we originally heard rumours of three-year wait-lists for a particular nursing student who was trying to enter the program. We in fact found out that it had been reduced to about a year.
Again, in making those calls we understood that Camosun was in contact with the ministry over the course of this past fall, and that's why I thought the minister's staff had some updated information. That's the only reason why I raise it at this point. I'm perfectly willing to contact the college, as I have done in the past, to get an update on that. I thought this was an opportune time to find out what progress was made, because I had heard they were in contact with this ministry.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: That's probably the best way for the member to approach this -- to get it from them. I suspect what has happened is that Camosun would have dealt with staff in my ministry not by talking about their wait-lists but by saying: "This is what we need. We need more spaces." What they'll do is come forward and say: "We need X number of new FTEs."
Camosun received 134 new FTEs in total this year, and it's up to them how they allocate them. They could have allocated more than 24 to the nursing program, but this is reflective of Camosun's priorities in terms of how they allocated those 134 FTEs.
[1700]
I. Chong: I also understand that part of the problem associated with students entering the nursing program is the requirement to deal with the practicum situation. Obviously those colleges or universities which cannot accommodate the practicum requirements
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As I've indicated in response to other questions, there is, in the Ministry of Health, the Health Human Resources Advisory Committee. There is a subcommittee of that which deals with education. This is one of the ongoing issues that's dealt with -- how we increase the availability of a practicum experience. In the recent reports on recruitment and retention of nurses that was presented to the Minister of Health, the issue of co-op placements or a co-op program for nursing was raised. That's also being dealt with at that committee. So there is a formal structure. The subcommittee on education is chaired by the assistant deputy minister for post-secondary education, who is to my right. There is a structure in place to ensure that the ministries are talking to each other about these needs and meeting them.
J. Weisbeck: I have a situation happening at Okanagan University College. They've basically changed their mix of ESL students. This fall they're going to take only 25 domestic students and 200 international students, for obvious reasons. I mean, there's a huge difference in dollars. It's $2,800 for a international student, and you get $700 for a domestic student. What's happened is that one of the local private post-secondary colleges, Trent College -- which has been teaching advanced levels of ESL for a number of years -- is prepared to teach the landed immigrants but can't do it for $700 a semester. Is there any way of receiving any funding for this to make up the difference they would require to teach these students? It's a dilemma.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm not sure; I may be missing the point of the question. First of all, we don't provide funding to private post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. In this case, and maybe I'm missing the point of the question, the college appears -- and I'm just speculating here; I don't know all the rationale behind it -- to be making this decision because there's more money in the international students. To that extent it would appear that there's a market demand, and I assume that there's some competition between the college and the private provider. I have no control over that. Public institutions are entitled to compete for those students, as well, if they wish.
J. Weisbeck: It's my understanding that the student pays $700. I would assume that when that course is offered at a college, it is partially subsidized by the public, whereas a private institution has the full cost of training that student and obviously cannot do it for $700. So it needs some sort of help to be able to make these programs pay for themselves. They are basically looking for some funding to cover their costs in educating these people.
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[1705]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Again, I'm trying to understand the problem here. Is it that there is a reduction, like OUC reducing the offering to domestic students?
J. Weisbeck: Yes.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: So there are domestic students who aren't able to access the spaces, because there's been a reduction in the number of spaces.
J. Weisbeck: Exactly. Hon. Chair, perhaps I could give you a copy of a newspaper article, and maybe it might clarify things a bit better. We can discuss this another time, rather than trying to deal with it now. Fair enough?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Certainly. I think that would be an appropriate way of dealing with it.
J. Weisbeck: The last set of questions I have on post-secondary education have to do with a number of questions by students or recent graduates. I'll try to avoid duplication here, because some of them are very similar. Most of them have to do with loan repayments.
Here's a question. Many students complain about not getting the courses they need to graduate in the time frame they had originally planned. Has the length of time to graduate increased over the same time period? The first part of that question I had was related to tuition freeze and debt. We've already answered that question. So this one now is: is there any information available that shows that the time to graduate has actually increased over this time period?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We don't have that information in any statistically useful way. But we are now going to have the capacity to have that information, because starting this year, students are issued what's called a personal education number. That allows for tracking through the system. Within four years, we will be able to have a better sense of how long it's taking students to get through the system before they complete their degree or what have you.
J. Weisbeck: This question is: why aren't the student loan monthly payment amounts based on a percentage of the debtor's income? Income contingency.
[1710]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm sorry. The member asked: why isn't it income-contingent? Correct? Well, the response is: because we've put more emphasis on trying, first of all, to reduce the overall level of debt. Certainly when we do that, we apply that on an income-contingent basis. Those with the greatest need qualify for the greatest amount of help, particularly when it comes to grants. There's where income contingency comes in -- in trying to keep debt down in the first place.
Then beyond that, we treat everyone equally once they're beyond their education. Income contingency happens at the front end, not after graduation.
J. Weisbeck: But there has been some talk about combining the two. I mean, there are arguments for and against it. I guess this individual would like to know how the minister feels about relating your payments to debt rather than what you just commented on.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As I'm informed, in the jurisdictions that have income contingent repayment, it doesn't reduce the amount of debt that's paid back. What it does is extend the time frame for lower income people to repay. So if there are two people with the same amount of debt, those with a higher income are expected to repay faster than someone with a lower income.
Now, I don't exactly see that as equitable, especially if you take into account the level of interest that that lower-income person is going to pay over the longer period of time. So it doesn't appear equitable to me, because it's not about reducing or creating manageable levels of debt based on your income. It's only about the length of time that's allowed for repayment.
J. Weisbeck: I would suggest to the minister that if we had that sort of plan in place, there would be very few people in this province able to afford a mortgage. It's the same thing. The amortization period is
Second question: with regards to the interest relief package, how did the minister arrive at the maximum income level of a debtor? Why isn't the net income taken into account rather than the gross income level?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We use net income only because the federal government does as well. What we've done is harmonize the two systems. That's the reason we've done it; we've harmonized our system with the federal system.
J. Weisbeck: Why is it that students have their grant dollars reduced based on their parents' income, when their parents do not participate in funding the student?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Again, these are federal criteria. In the cause of harmonization of the two systems and making the two systems more efficient and understandable, presumably, they are harmonized. One is only considered a dependent for the first four years they are out of high school, unless they work. If they work after two years out of high school, they are considered independent, so their parents' income wouldn't be relevant, or a contribution from their parents wouldn't be considered relevant. So it's four years out of high school if they're not working, two years if they do work.
[1715]
L. Reid: If I can just respond to the minister's response. There are two individuals -- both are 21 years of age today, both have worked all their years going through university, and both are still being compromised in their ability to attract grant dollars because of their parents' income. And their parents have never participated in funding them. Is there some appeal process in place? Is there some avenue they can pursue?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I wasn't clear enough in my initial response. A student has to be out of school for four years
[ Page 15790 ]
altogether before they're considered independent. If they go directly to school after high school, then they are considered a dependent for four years. After four years have expired, then they're considered independent. So for those four years of attending a post-secondary institution, if they do it right after high school, they are considered a dependent, and their parents would be considered relevant for calculation of a loan.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's response. In both these instances, though, these young women have no ability to seek any funds from their parents. Their parents, frankly, have chosen not to participate. So what you're saying is that their parents' income will continue to compromise their education until four years have elapsed.
It seems to me that there should be some appeal process in place. Perhaps the institutions -- and this is the University of Victoria -- can be apprised of this scenario and hopefully come up with some kind of remedy. For the students to receive documents every year that say, "Your parents' income is thus, so you are entitled to thus," when their parents' income has absolutely no relevance to their ability to seek an education
One of these young women is holding down three jobs attempting to do this, because the university does not believe, frankly, that her parents are not funding her. When the information was provided directly from the parent that the child had not been funded in any way, shape or form, they were still either unable or unwilling to make any kind of considerations. Certainly I'm hoping there's some opportunity for some emergency status and an emergency grant situation. These are two young women who truly want to be involved in this educational process but are compromised, through no fault of their own.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: This is not a new requirement; this is a requirement that applies right across Canada. It is a requirement of the federal program, and we're harmonized with the federal program. I understand the difficulty that this can cause some students, because I saw it myself. In fact, I experienced it myself. But the public policy rationale, I would guess, is that we try to have a policy in place that will encourage parents to contribute to the education of their children. I know this policy causes difficulty for some students, but it is the policy nonetheless. I don't anticipate any change to that policy. It's consistent with policy right across this country. It's not new policy; it's been in place for a number of years now.
[1720]
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments in terms of the intention of the policy. We would all support that the parents should participate in funding their students. When the reality is dramatically different
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I appreciate the member's desire to look at these cases in isolation and to express her sympathy. I think that's appropriate, but I'm not going to commit here to change this policy. There's a reason the policy is in place. I'm not offering a dissertation on federal policy; I'm saying that that's the federal rationale. That's our rationale. It's a common rationale, and I think it's the basis of reasonably sound public policy. I recognize that there are going to be circumstances where that can cause some hardship for students. The answer is no, I don't contemplate changing this policy.
J. Weisbeck: I have one final question, sort of related to the same topic -- basically about a debtor being able to negotiate his payments, both in time periods and amounts. We talked about that earlier. Can you foresee something like that happening in the future? Having a little bit more flexibility in the repayment program is what I'm saying.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Okay, this is where I get to offer legal advice to all students in British Columbia who have loans. Right now the loans are held by banks, so the bank has full capability to negotiate with students. The fact is that any creditor would far rather work out an arrangement whereby they can get payments than have a debtor default on them. That certainly exists right now. I think it's often a matter of students -- and this applies to debtors generally -- not understanding that there's often a willingness to negotiate, especially if they can make the case that they simply cannot make these payments and will be in a default position. Generally, banks and creditors would rather maintain these people as ongoing customers, and there may be the opportunity to negotiate something. So the short answer is: almost anything can be negotiated as long as the bank, as the creditor, is willing.
J. Weisbeck: I'd like to thank the minister and the members of the ministry, too, for these answers we received. That concludes this part for post-secondary. We're ready to go with youth and
A Voice: Maybe one more post-secondary
J. Weisbeck: Oh, one more on post-secondary. I spoke too soon. There you go.
B. Penner: I would be remiss if I let this opportunity pass without raising again the issue of the unused engineering school sitting empty at Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack. Every year I've addressed the minister's predecessors about the fact that this $13 million public investment is going to waste. I would like to be able to stand here today and say that in the past year, something has happened to remedy the situation but, alas, that would not be correct.
[1725]
Just by way of background, the federal government announced in the spring of 1995 their intention to close Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack, which was British Columbia's only land-based military presence. We are now the only province in Canada, I believe, not to have a land-based military presence. In any event, after the government announced their intentions to close CFB Chilliwack, they went on to complete the $13 million engineering school, which is complete with fibre-optic links and computer-modem terminals in all the classrooms -- of which there are 27 -- and 40 offices.
[ Page 15791 ]
It's wheelchair-accessible, and it's got a 300-person cafeteria and/or theatre and plenty of accommodation which would be very suitable for student purposes.
Now, the city of Chilliwack has been engaged in efforts to try and attract private industry or find something else to do with the base. That might work, because the base comprises several hundred acres. There are probably a number of different options that will eventually be the ultimate answer to what we do with a closed military base.
However, one is always struck by the most obvious impression, and that is that it looks like a campus. It was designed as a campus for teaching Canadian military engineers about their trade, and here it sits, falling into disrepair. I had the opportunity on Saturday to speak with the last commander of the military base, Col. Roger St. John, who told me that in his opinion, the structural integrity of that facility is eroding. It's not being maintained due to the fact that it's not in use.
In years gone by I've asked the ministry to consider conducting a feasibility study, at least, as to whether or not that building would be a suitable cornerstone for a new technical university for the province. I understand that this government is committed to constructing a technical university in Surrey and has not ever engaged in any serious feasibility studies with respect to using CFB Chilliwack, so perhaps that argument has come and gone.
However, the building is still there, and it's not being used. I truly hope that somehow, some day, we will find a way to use that facility, which was paid for with tax dollars -- whether they're federal or provincial, it still comes from taxpayers -- and use it to educate people in British Columbia, the way that building was intended to do. I invite the minister's comments with this last editorial comment: it sure didn't take very long for something to be done with Royal Roads when it was closed by the federal government. The province of B.C. didn't wait very long at all to jump on that opportunity.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The ministry staff did review this option the year the base was shut down. It was determined that the major problem was a geographic one. Chilliwack is a bit of a commute for most students. There would be a problem with utilization in locating a campus that far away, especially for something like a technical university that would draw upon a core of students from farther afield than just Chilliwack obviously. Geography would be one of the distinguishing factors with Royal Roads, which is located close to a major urban centre -- much closer than Chilliwack.
Certainly I expect the member will be out in the next election, in anticipation, I think -- as members on the other side do anticipate -- of forming the next government. I'm sure he will promise to use that facility as a post-secondary institution, and somehow he'll deliver on that. But thus far, the professional assessment of civil servants in my ministry is that it doesn't make sense to use that facility for that purpose.
B. Penner: I guess I was hoping to hear that the ministry has found some other ideas which would be appropriate in terms of utilizing that facility at what used to be known as CFB Chilliwack. Is the minister aware of any ideas percolating in his ministry or elsewhere in government as to what uses that very excellent facility could be put to?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We're not aware of any potential use that we can think of from the post-secondary side. The fact that the facility has sat there for a number of years in its current state is unfortunate. But it does say something about the potential usefulness of the facility that nobody has stepped forward from any sector, public or private, to utilize the facility. It seems terribly unfortunate, in terms of use of taxpayers dollars that went into that facility, but we don't see it as having a potential use for post-secondary, anyhow.
[1730]
B. Penner: I think at this juncture it would be appropriate now to move towards the Youth component of the ministry.
Perhaps, while people are arranging themselves, I'll just begin with a bit of an introduction. I know that in the past year there have been some significant changes with the way the youth programs in British Columbia are operated. First and foremost, the Premier's Office is no longer responsible for taking the lead in delivering or organizing the programs. That marks a fairly significant shift. That responsibility left the Premier's Office about the same time that the member for Vancouver-Kingsway left the office, I believe. Now the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology has responsibility for being the lead agency in delivering the 12 youth programs that this government operates.
The 12 youth programs include: Student Summer Works; Youth Community Action; First Job in Science and Technology; Youth@BC; Job Start; environment youth teams, also known as E-teams; YouBET; Visions for the Future; Bladerunners; public service youth hire, Crown youth employment; and public sector youth employment.
All together the government spent something in the range of $34.5 million delivering those programs last year. At the outset I would note that it appears that this year the government is projected to spend somewhat less than what had been budgeted last year. I wonder if the minister could confirm the amount intended to be spent this year and explain where those savings are going to come from that appear to be anticipated.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I should begin by introducing staff. Some of them have been with me for the duration of the post-secondary aspect of our debate. Gerry Armstrong to my left, deputy minister. Stuart Clark, director of research, evaluation and accountability branch, policy services division. Tom Vincent is here, assistant deputy minister, management services division. Joining us is Jack MacDonald, assistant deputy minister, policy services division, which includes the youth office.
In response to the question, the budget this year for the programs is $32 million. That's a reduction of $2.55 million. E-teams have been reduced by $2 million. The YouBET program has been reduced by $350,000, and overall we expect the same number of spaces to be created as last year -- perhaps even a few more.
B. Penner: Can the minister explain the reason for those reductions in funding to the various areas?
[1735]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The $2 million reduction for the E-teams is because they were involved in the Campgrounds B.C. initiative. That was concluded, so that work -- creating new campsites -- is over.
A Voice: The 1,500 new campsites.
[ Page 15792 ]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: They were involved in that, yes. As well, in the YouBET program we found administrative efficiencies of $110,000 predicted for this year and $240,000 in the last fiscal year.
B. Penner: As the minister knows, the $32 million doesn't come
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We do four.
B. Penner: You do four. I'm sorry; I stand corrected. The minister advises me that in fact Advanced Education is responsible for four of the programs. My notes from the briefing indicated just two -- that ISTA has two programs they're responsible for. I appreciate the clarification.
Taking a look at the estimates for the Advanced Education ministry, however, I want to comment on two entries on the page I was provided with. There's an indication that the budgeted allotment for delivering youth programs through the minister's office is $674,000 for the upcoming year, down 2 percent from last year's $688,000. That's an amount that is in addition to $12.3 million that his ministry spends on the youth programs. I wonder if the minister can explain the difference to me between the entry of $12.3 million for youth programs through his ministry and the additional entry of $674,000 under the minister's office title. I presume it has something to do with administration, but perhaps we can an explanation of how that money is spent.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There are nine staff in my ministry who actually manage the two programs that are directly under Advanced Education, as opposed to ISTA. The students have a works program and a youth summer works program. There are nine staff who actually manage those programs; that's the figure the member is referring to.
B. Penner: So the $674,000 is the cost of employing the nine individuals through your office to administer the program?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: No, it's not through my office; it's through the ministry. I should correct that: Student Summer Works and Youth Community Action are the two programs that are administered. Nine staff, yes, but not through my office; it's in my ministry.
B. Penner: I was told during the briefing that there are approximately five FTEs assigned for the Youth Office, because the Youth Office is the lead agency in delivering the various programs. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes. For the actual Youth Office, which is separate from the other nine FTEs that we were discussing, there are five FTEs.
B. Penner: Applying my rudimentary mathematical skills, there are a total of 14 FTEs that can properly be ascribed to your ministry for delivering and spearheading youth initiatives.
[1740]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, there are 14. Nine of them are involved in just the two programs being delivered by my ministry. The other five are in the Youth Office, and they are involved in delivery of all of the programs, including the two in my ministry and all of the other ones as well.
B. Penner: Looking at some statistics, I've noticed a trend in years gone by that some of the highest areas of youth employment insurance claims include areas like the central coast, Columbia-Shuswap, Alberni and Kootenay-Boundary. Some of the highest areas of demand in the province for youth B.C. Benefits -- also known as social assistance -- are areas like Skeena, the Queen Charlottes, Nanaimo, Alberni and Powell River. I wonder if the government, through the Youth Office, intentionally or otherwise designs youth employment programs to take into account the regional variations in youth unemployment statistics in the province. Is there a conscious effort made to target the programs to where they're most needed?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The funds for these programs are allocated on a per-capita basis, but there is weighting to unemployment levels -- not specifically to income assistance levels or EI levels but to unemployment levels. These are taken into account in the formula that we use for allocating, which is primarily on a per-capita basis.
B. Penner: I'm left a little puzzled by that answer: weighting on a per-capita basis. Can I elicit a fuller explanation from the minister? For example, if the northwest part of the province is know to have a high level of youth unemployment, what does the ministry or the Youth Office do to make sure that there's more impetus placed in terms of youth programs and job creation?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The primary consideration is the per-capita consideration; we try to have equity amongst regions. That's the per-capita basis of the calculation. Having done that, we will take into account unemployment levels in terms of shifting that around somewhat. We don't put all the funds into an area with higher unemployment compared to an area with low unemployment; regional equity is the first consideration. That's why it's a per-capita consideration. But then we will shift funds, with a little more emphasis being given to areas that have higher unemployment.
B. Penner: Are there specific programs within the range of the 12 programs that are designed for areas of high unemployment among youth? Are there any ones that are specifically designed for pockets of high unemployment?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We don't do that on a geographic basis. Certainly a couple of the programs -- Job Start and Bladerunners -- are aimed at young people who may be at more of a disadvantage and may be unemployed already. We're targeting, but it's based more upon the need of the individual young person, rather than targeting it to a region of the province.
[ Page 15793 ]
[1745]
B. Penner: What measures are in place to determine how effective these programs are in meeting their goals?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: That's something that's being implemented now, at my direction. When I took over this portfolio, I wanted to have a better sense of the effectiveness of the programs. There are measures being implemented this year, and it's part of my agenda to make sure that we're measuring the outcomes of these programs effectively. At the end of the day, I don't want to just see a figure that can be thrown around, like 17,000. I want to see that it actually means something and that it made a difference to young people.
B. Penner: I can understand the minister's desire to have that number mean something. In the past there has been argument about what those numbers meant, particularly when that headline number of 17,000 could include people who attended as little as a four- or five-day seminar, for whatever purpose.
Does the ministry keep track of how many positions are created in each region of the province? Is there a conscious effort made to do that?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes.
B. Penner: Are reports generated that are accessible to the public, including the official opposition, that would indicate what those figures are and which regions are benefiting?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes.
B. Penner: Is the minister willing to provide that to me, and will he tell me when?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, within a couple of weeks. If the member hasn't heard back, then he should contact me, and I'll follow up on it.
B. Penner: I look forward to receiving that information. I'll take the minister up at his word to pursue that if in fact the information doesn't arrive on time.
I'm noting the hour. I still have a number of questions remaining on this issue. Perhaps it would be appropriate at this time to move that we rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee recessed from 5:49 p.m. to 7:05 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
B. Penner: I'd like to continue our discussion that we were having regarding the Youth Office, which is now housed in the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology. It's probably worth noting at this juncture that there are approximately 526,000 youth as defined by the government, the definition being people between the ages of 15 and 24 years. I was going to say it doesn't seem that long ago, but in some ways it does seem a while ago that both the minister and myself fell into that category.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: A decade ago.
B. Penner: It's just over a decade. Where did all the time go?
I also thought it would be appropriate to remark that it seems like some things haven't changed much. It wasn't that long ago -- again, at least in terms of my recollection -- that the minister and myself were seated on opposite sides of a classroom at Simon Fraser University in political science and then later at the University of Victoria law school. We continue to live our lives along a parallel track, albeit with certain notable differences.
With that out of the way, I'd like to resume questions related to the Youth Office. We touched on it briefly before, but from time to time the ministry puts out news releases stating 17,000 or 20,000 positions created. I wonder if the minister is able to provide us with a breakdown of how long the average student was employed or received training through the 12 programs that we've been discussing. Are there criteria that the ministry employs before they will count somebody as having become one of those 20,000 or 17,000 positions that are referred to?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: When the overall figure is cited, that's a figure that represents the number of young people who have been assisted in some way. For some of them it will have been three or four months of employment; others may be as short as a few weeks of employment. If we look at the Crown corporations program
We can certainly give you a breakdown of the kind of benefits that young people receive in each of the different programs. In terms of the criteria that are applied in terms of determining success, those are established program by program.
B. Penner: I anticipated that the minister would reply that the criteria is set differently for each program, and I would appreciate receiving a copy of what those various criteria are, by program.
We canvassed at some length before regarding whether there is a regional breakdown that's done by the ministry, and apparently there is. I look forward to receiving that in due course.
One of the issues that arose during the briefing which took place last week between myself and officials from the Ministry of Advanced Education had to do with whether there have been audits and/or reviews conducted of the various programs and their efficacy. I was told that there were, I believe, two reviews underway or completed but that the other ten programs had not yet been subject to such a review and/or audit. I understand that there are some differences between what would be included in a review versus what's included in an audit, an audit being more narrowly focused. Perhaps reviews are going to be more instructive.
[1910]
I have received a copy of the review that was performed, or an evaluation of the Youth Community Action program, which is one of the 12 programs that the minister administers as the Minister Responsible for Youth. I have a number of
[ Page 15794 ]
questions arising from that evaluation, and I just received it yesterday. I believe that it was conducted during April, May and June of 1999, when the program was not quite a full year old.
This program essentially gives students who are expecting to go back to school in the fall the opportunity to earn the equivalent of tuition credits by participating in volunteer community efforts. I believe the credits are accrued at a rate equivalent to $8 an hour, up to a maximum of $2,400 in value.
I want to say that I salute that basic premise. I think it's a valuable initiative in the sense that it encourages young people to get involved in community endeavours while giving them a tangible reward -- which is easier access to post-secondary education -- by earning tuition credits. That's not to say the program might not be facing its challenges, and I think a number of those challenges were identified in the evaluation. I'd like to ask, first of all with respect to program delivery: where has the focus been in terms of promotions in the province for this program?
There was an indication in the report that not all parts of the province feel well represented in terms of how the program is being promoted. Presumably people in certain regions don't feel as well informed about the availability or existence of the program. This was highlighted in the evaluation. Does the minister have any plans to remedy that situation?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm told that the member also has a copy of the management response to the recommendations in that report. Under the heading of management response, it's made clear that we're working with the Youth Office to try to ensure that the host agencies are more regionally based in the future, which should result in more regional equity in the program.
B. Penner: The evaluation noted that some of the host agencies are divided about the effectiveness of the program's reporting system with most of them feeling that improvements are needed. Does the ministry plan to include host agencies in discussions on how to improve the program, and how will this process roll out in the coming months and years?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: In April there was a meeting with host agencies that was attended by representatives of the ministry. Out of that meeting there were improvements that were recommended by the host agencies, including the need for a new reporting mechanism, which included suggested changes to the forms that are actually used for reporting. Those changes are being implemented.
B. Penner: I take it from the minister's response that he's satisfied that the concerns will be met and that a remedy will be at hand shortly. Am I correct in that assumption?
[1915]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: That's what we're working towards.
B. Penner: A fairly serious problem was identified with respect to the confusion that some students appear to have with respect to the amount of time they have to redeem the tuition credits they earn. A number of factors were cited as contributing to that confusion. Apparently a number of young people surveyed indicated a poor understanding of where they can redeem their credits and how much time they have to do so. It appears that some institutions have some difficulties, although not very many, with the credit redemption process. It seems to be a matter of making them more familiar with the proper procedures they need to follow.
I think that goes right to the very nub of the program. Obviously students need to know the parameters, the rules of the game, at the outset, so they know what responsibilities they have to take advantage of the tuition credits they're earning. I hope that the ministry will find ways to deal with that problem -- probably sooner than later would be better in terms of the process.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Again, this is in the document, which is the management response to the recommendations of the report, under section 11, management response. A number of things. First: "Program materials have been revised to provide more information on the redemption process." The materials themselves will be more indicative of the redemption process, so students should have a better idea of what that process is.
Secondly: "Host agencies are required to discuss the program details, including the redemption process, with the youth prior to entering into a placement agreement." That's one of the requirements of the program.
And then: "Youth placement agreements now include a statement that youth understand the program requirements. It is the host agencies' responsibility to ensure the young person understands the program requirements and policies prior to signing the placement agreement. This information is reinforced during on-site visits and other communications with the youth participant."
B. Penner: I wish the minister success in solving that problem.
Lastly, there was a notation in the evaluation that there was some lack of satisfaction among young people in terms of their relationship with the Youth Office -- or if it wasn't youth themselves, then perhaps it was the hosting agencies. While satisfied with the Ministry of Advanced Education and Training's role, they were less content with the relationship with the Youth Office. I wonder if the minister can tell us what the problems are and what is being done to improve the relationship.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The Youth Office no longer exists. The Youth Office is now located within my ministry, and we are making moves -- I guess as we speak; I believe they are pretty much completed -- to have staff located in ministry offices here in Victoria. In terms of any problem that existed in that regard, that may help. I'm pleased to hear that the various host agencies, in particular, were satisfied with their contact with my ministry, because now they'll have even further contact with my ministry. Instead of there being a Youth Office, those FTEs are now in my ministry, so they'll be dealing directly with my ministry.
B. Penner: Did I correctly hear the minister state that the Youth Office -- the location of the staff that play the central agency role -- is going to be moved from Vancouver to Victoria?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The office is not being physically relocated. We will simply have staff in Victoria offices that the
[ Page 15795 ]
ministry already has. While there are five FTEs allocated right now, we have only one FTE filled, and that person is in Victoria.
[1920]
B. Penner: Does this mean that there will be a transfer of staff from Vancouver to Victoria?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: No, because the remaining FTE positions aren't filled. It isn't about a transfer of staff; it's a question of if and when we determine we should fill those FTEs.
B. Penner: So am I correct in assuming, then, that the existing Youth Office in Vancouver will be wound down and no longer open for business?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes.
B. Penner: Is it not correct that the Youth Office recently moved from the cabinet offices to a different location in Vancouver?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes. Because of a reorganization of the Vancouver cabinet offices, there was no longer room for the youth office to exist there, so they did move to a location on Joyce Street in Vancouver.
B. Penner: So the Youth Office moved from the Vancouver cabinet offices, which were in Canada Place, to a location -- I think it was a storefront location -- on Joyce Street in Vancouver. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, and it was September 1999 that move took place.
B. Penner: I would expect that there were certain lease arrangements that had to be committed to in order for the Youth Office to take up residence at the Joyce Street location. Can the minister explain to us whether or not that lease has been wrapped up or if there is some ongoing commitment to continue paying the lease for that Joyce Street location?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There's a six-month notice provision in the lease. We've served six months' notice, and B.C. Buildings Corporation is now involved in trying to find an alternative tenant.
B. Penner: Before closing, I wonder if the minister can confirm that it did cost some money, I'm sure, to move from the cabinet offices to Joyce Street. I'm told that the increased rent went from something like $67,000 per annum to $92,376 per annum as a result of the new location and that there were leasehold improvements amounting to $33,903 to the new location, which is now being vacated, and that furniture, equipment and telecommunication costs of $114,589 were incurred. Can the minister confirm those figures?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yes, I can confirm those numbers. Of course, much of the equipment continues to be useful; it can still be used by government. In terms of looking for a new leaseholder, we would be looking for someone who can take over and would accept some of those leasehold improvement costs.
I should emphasize that I've made this decision. This is my decision, which was made after being appointed to this portfolio. It is about trying to save money. The member is right to point out that it was costing $67,000 per annum in the VCO -- the Vancouver cabinet offices. That increased to $92,000 when they moved last September. Now I've made a decision which will result in none of those costs.
B. Penner: I'm going to conclude, but I'll just ask the minister if he can tell us just exactly when the office in Vancouver will be vacated for Youth purposes and when he expects it to become operational here in Victoria. With that, looking forward to the answer, I thank the minister for his assistance and thank the Chair for allowing me to participate in the Youth estimates debate.
[1925]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: It will be phased out by October 31. We will go through the peak summer season when the programs are at their highest utilization -- these options programs. So by October 31 the office should be phased out completely.
I'd just like to introduce the two staff who are with me now. To my left is Stuart Culbertson, the deputy minister of ISTA and chief information officer for the province. Sitting behind me is Carol Pereira, director of financial planning and budgets for ISTA.
J. Weisbeck: Unfortunately I had the information talking about research in the wrong section, so now I'll bring it up again. I'll repeat some of the things that I had said then.
There was a report done by Munroe-Blum called "Growing Ontario's Innovation System." Basically they were trying to find some information on how they could improve their research in Ontario. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel they did ten case studies, and one of those case studies was British Columbia. She concluded that British Columbia has been erratic in its policies, investing strategically in flagship university research at times to the benefit of the province and then freezing or retracting significant support, such that its research performance has been uneven and is presently lagging behind.
We talked about a number of the expenditures in British Columbia for R and D. In 1997 the number was $998 million, which placed us sixth among the provinces. The higher education sector accounted for $276 million and placed us eighth among the provinces. I'm assuming that that has improved now with some of the latest funding we've had.
I am concerned about some of the programs we have in place. I'd like ask particularly about the British Columbia Health Research Foundation. I'd like to know what the status of that particular foundation is at this point.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The member may recall that when he asked about that earlier, I said that the Ministry of Health has responsibility for that. We don't fund it. The Minister of Health could answer those questions.
J. Weisbeck: Currently we have 13 percent of the national population, but we only see about 9 percent of federal research funds. Why is that? What can be done to turn that around? Is it a priority? If so, why does it not show up more significantly in the minister's business plan?
[ Page 15796 ]
[1930]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The member is right in the percentages that he highlights. As for what we're trying to do about it, there are a few things that we're trying to do. One is that beginning last year, as part of a high-tech strategy, we brought in a research and development tax credit -- a 10 percent tax credit -- which has an annualized cost of $28 million. That helps to draw more federal dollars, or at least federal tax credits, I believe -- to companies that engage in R and D. I should say, as well, that it's specifically structured so that even new companies that are small and just starting out can benefit in the form of a direct payment to them, even if they haven't got a taxable income great enough to simply receive a tax credit.
I think it's fair to say that the reason technology and research and all that is included with Advanced Education is because the two are inextricably intertwined. I mentioned the B.C. knowledge development fund earlier. We committed another $177 million to it this year, in addition to the $100 million we committed two years ago. That's very significant around infrastructure for research in British Columbia.
We also have various agreements. Just on Friday I was with David Anderson, the senior federal cabinet minister in British Columbia, at an announcement in Vancouver -- at SFU downtown, actually. We are offering funding, along with the federal government, that helps to leverage funds from the private sector into the New Media Innovation Centre which is being established in Vancouver and brings together the private sector as well as all of our universities and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.
There are ongoing issues. We sometimes have some problems drawing money in. I had a meeting with university and college presidents a few weeks ago, and they indicated to me that when it came to federal funding for research chairs, the way the formula was being applied excluded them because they haven't had a research capacity for long enough. I have undertaken to advocate for them at the federal level to get them treated in the same way any other research institution would be treated.
J. Weisbeck: The knowledge development fund basically focuses on capital, does it not? What are we doing for the operational costs of research?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The member is correct that the B.C. knowledge development fund is for capital for research infrastructure. That's where we've chosen to make a major contribution -- specifically to research. Most of the operating funds that are directly tagged as operating funds for research come from the federal research councils. They're federally sourced. We do have some programs, as I indicated. The new media innovation centre is an example of us applying funding directly to what we know will involve some research and development. Beyond that, of course, we have the overwhelming lead role in funding post-secondary institutions. Out of that funding, of course, comes funding for professors, research and facilities and ongoing operating funds that allow professors to do research.
J. Weisbeck: Are you satisfied that we are sufficiently competitive with some of the other provinces like Alberta, Ontario and Quebec? They are probably our three basic competitors.
[1935]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There is no question that in the last little while -- maybe in the last year or two -- some provinces
We didn't feel that we could manage that in this year's budget, because our focus -- unlike Alberta, unlike Ontario -- was on a large increase in student spaces as well as maintaining the tuition fee freeze. So we didn't feel we could do that on the operating side, which is why we made the major commitment on the capital side, at least as an indicator that we are serious about research. For next year's budget, I'll certainly be looking at doing whatever we can to meet the request of the universities, in particular, around operating dollars for research.
L. Reid: I'm pleased to enter the debate this evening. Joyous greetings to the staff who have just arrived. I think you folks do some marvellous work.
My question to the minister is regarding the high-tech commission that was referenced in the throne speech, simply to give me some guidance as to who requested the creation of such an entity.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: During the consultations that lead to the creation of the high-tech strategy under my predecessor, there was, I'm told, some agreement that we had to do a better job around marketing -- marketing any advantages we may have to attract high-tech to British Columbia. Certainly the Premier, I know, during the leadership campaign
About two weeks ago the Premier and I met with the Premier's Advisory Council on Science and Technology. I recognize that there are some in the high-tech sector who say this isn't necessary -- that they don't need a high-tech commission. I've heard that. We referred this to the Premier's Advisory Council on Science and Technology about two weeks ago and asked them to report back to us within a couple of months as to whether this was a useful concept -- if so, what it should look like, and if not, what alternatives they might propose. So we did put that to them, and we've sought their input.
L. Reid: I think the minister's comments are valid. I think the response was heard correctly that indeed marketing was an issue. What I'm wondering is if the minister and his government indeed heard the portion about reduced taxation, reduced regulation, greater opportunities for the sector to work around some of the employment standards provisions that have, frankly, compromised the industry to date. That was the marketing support I believe the industry was asking government for, not a throne speech promise.
There are no individuals more skilled at marketing their enterprise than the individuals, the young entrepreneurs, in the high-tech sector today. Certainly the discussions I've had
[ Page 15797 ]
with members of the TIA -- the Technology Industries Association; George Hunter is the executive director
That was never the discussion in all the dialogues and the consultations that have happened over the last four, five or six years that I've been monitoring this area. That has never been a request that has come to government, so it's interesting that government would make that offer. I'm pleased by the minister's comment that indeed it will be monitored and, hopefully, evaluated very carefully. I would simply like to know where in the budget I might find the provision for this high-tech commission and what the actual costs will be if it goes forward.
[1940]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: First, in response to the specific question at the end, there is no line item for the high-tech commission. It is included generally; there will be provision for that within ISTA's budget generally. Right now we have money that's available for the Premier's Advisory Council on Science and Technology for whatever resources they need to look at the issue and get back to us. Once they've made a recommendation, we can look at the specific amount. Providing it's not too extravagant a suggestion, there would be enough within ISTA's current budget.
I would like to touch on a couple of other things, though. I wouldn't ever suggest that the high-tech industry needs to be taught how to market. We know that the high-tech industry is remarkably successful. It's an industry that probably doesn't need a lot of help from government. I don't think government should ever try and suggest that it is in any way responsible for the success of high-tech. We can do a few things to help. We try to listen to the industry and to be responsive. We can't always give the industry everything they want, which is basically a constant refrain you learn in government, to almost any group: you can't give them everything they want.
The member referred to the need for some changes to employment standards. We did that; we made changes to employment standards which were requested by the industry. On the tax side, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we introduced the 10 percent R and D tax credit at an annual cost of $28 million to the province. That was something that the industry agreed with the former minister on.
Then this year the federal government made changes around stock options in the way they're taxed. That had implications for the province, but we passed out all the savings through the provincial level as well, at an annual cost of $33 million to the province. It doesn't apply only to that industry. Stock options are certainly a very important mechanism for compensation, particularly for new and growing high-tech firms. So we've recognized that.
Then there are issues around taxation generally. I've said to the industry, and I'll say it anywhere, that it's important that we look at the issue of taxation and try to make sure we have a reasonably competitive tax regime. But at the end of the day, I believe we aren't in a position to race down to the levels of some U.S. states.
However, as I referred to in the debates around the post-secondary system, where we got into a bit of discussion about this
When it comes to the cost of actually starting up a company, maintaining a company or operating a company in the high-tech sector, KPMG looked at all costs -- not just taxes but all costs, whether it's the cost of real estate, the cost of labour, utilities or what have you. You name it. They looked at Vancouver and compared it to 13 or 14 U.S. cities and found us to compare very favourably; in fact, we were lower than all of them in terms of the overall cost of doing business. Admittedly, in the Vancouver portion the higher portion percentage-wise was taken up by taxes. But when you factor in all the other costs, which is the bottom line for a business, we come out ahead.
Where we probably need to make further improvements in the future is on the personal tax side. But in terms of the business tax and the cost of doing business, we seem to be in a very good position.
[1945]
L. Reid: The minister referenced that there wasn't a particular line item for the creation of the high-tech commission. I'm making this assumption that when something is contained within the throne speech, there is some kind of cost-benefit analysis done. So perhaps the minister, rather than giving me the exact sum of money, can provide the floor and ceiling for what was discussed around funding such a creation.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We were anticipating up to $1 million.
L. Reid: My colleague the member for Okanagan East referenced the research questions ongoing in this province. Certainly the issues that I continue to bring up in this House over the last -- probably close to ten -- years has been around whether you or other aspects of your delivery system look at the solutions that are required across government. Health care is always one example, whether or not you are in fact looking at the remedies that would be required under breast cancer, under Alzheimer's research -- putting in place the infrastructure that's required so that scientists in our province can actually respond to some of those questions. As two examples, those are the diseases that have the greatest impact on people's lives and livelihoods and on their families, etc.
The cost that government would incur for caring for those individuals -- is that something that your ministry takes into account when you monitor the success, the creativity, of other ministries when they look at whether or not they support research dollars? In a nutshell, is one aspect of your ministry responsible for looking at how best to engage in science, technology and research across government, or are you looking more internally to your own ministry?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We don't do the type of analysis the member is alluding to, where we might say, "Okay, there are X number of people with this disease who cost our medicare system this amount of money; therefore we should put more research dollars into that area as a way of ultimately seeing savings." I think, sadly
[ Page 15798 ]
issue. It's the way that pretty much every government of every stripe operates. It's a little shorter-term in terms of looking at the budget cycle.
Absolutely, even since I've come into the portfolio, I've wanted to look at areas where research dollars are best applied and where we have some natural advantages, particularly if there's anything around health care. We do have the Human Genome Project, which I think it's fair to say is quite a success story, because it's really reversed brain drain. We're getting world-class people who were originally from here back to British Columbia, and that attracts more research dollars. In fact, it attracts research dollars from other governments outside of
One of the things I'm looking at right now is seeing if we can find a way within my ministry to find some assistance for
I think it's fair to say that when it comes to research, we have to focus on specialization. It's the same in high-tech. If we spread our dollars too thin and have a lot of dollars in a lot of places, then we won't be very good at any one thing. So what we have to do is focus on specific areas of research, and certainly that would be one area that's worthy of further investment. I'm trying to do that.
L. Reid: I thank the minister for his response. I think if the ministry could indeed shed some positive attention on the genome sequencing project, that would be just a fabulous delivery system for this province.
In terms of other areas, individuals operating as high-tech entrepreneurs today feel there are some barriers, certainly around interprovincial trade. Is your ministry responsible, or will they look at those issues in terms of reducing barriers that today confound the industry?
[1950]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I'm not aware of the interprovincial barriers that the member is referring to. Maybe she could bring me up to speed a little bit on that.
L. Reid: I will happily share some correspondence with you. Certainly the individuals in the sector today tell me it's easier to export product outside of the country than it is across Canada. Whether or not that is something your ministry could take a look at, I will happily share it with you.
One of the other issues I want to canvass this evening -- performance plan 2000-01, Information, Science and Technology Agency. I'm referencing page 4: "Expectations that opportunities and benefits of high-tech will be distributed regionally." That seems to be one of the stated objectives. My questions are around implementation and measurement of regional overlay.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There are a number of aspects to what we do to try and encourage high-tech development regionally. We maintain support of eight regional councils and three university college technology centres at a cost of $150,000 each. We're looking at trying to expand this regional network into the northwest, into Prince Rupert or Terrace.
We funded a regional high-tech development program at a cost of $3 million which included considerable consultation with the regions and listening. Instead of saying, "Here's what we think you should do," we listened to what they had to say. Some have said that the most useful thing to do with that money is to invest in research infrastructure, maybe at the local university college. Others have said it's more important to engage in marketing for their region. I think the Okanagan has more of an emphasis on marketing, for example. And we work with other regional high-technology organizations, such as the Okanagan High Technology Council.
As far as measuring outcomes, what we do measure is growth, and we take a look at the nature of regional high-tech development as it happens. It's very, very difficult, though, to draw an immediate causal connection between the moneys we expend in supporting these regional organizations and the success that there is in regional high-tech.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments, and I appreciate that there's probably some difficulty to it. But in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, has the ministry given some thought to how they might craft a more sophisticated tool to measure that? Certainly that's the goal; that's where we're headed in terms of benchmarking government expenditure. This is what we spent in this region -- and what did the taxpayer receive for that expenditure?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As I say, I'm not sure if it's even possible to measure the outcome that directly. I think it's more a matter of looking for correlations and then making some assumptions about causation. So we'll track the number of high-tech businesses in a given region and look how much they increase by. We'll look at the amount of employment that's created in high-tech in a given region.
[1955]
Certainly there are some assumptions made about a causal relationship, where if we have a particularly active regional science council or technology council in a given area, we trust and certainly expect that what they're doing is working with local business in order to foster that kind of development. Usually, I think it's fair to say that those councils have representation from the local business community -- and from the high-tech business community -- to make sure that the funds are being spent wisely. I'd be happy to provide the member with a copy of the statistics that we keep on this.
L. Reid: I thank the minister for that. I would be pleased to receive that information.
Page 5 of the business plan talks about one of the challenges facing the sector -- the changing workplace demographics and the loss of intellectual capital. That is a significant concern, not just in British Columbia but certainly across Canada, for the very reasons the minister mentioned earlier: the personal taxation levels and some of the regulation issues. There are individuals who believe they can earn far greater dollars by practising their scientific craft in a different part of the province or, frankly, a different part of the nation.
In terms of the ministry's commitment to retaining this intellectual capital
[ Page 15799 ]
the minister is: what kinds of plans are in place in terms of keeping them for longer periods of time? We have folks who come for six months to a year and
Hon. G. Bowbrick: In the ministry?
L. Reid: No, within the sector of scientists -- scientists, technicians, individuals who have been attracted to this province, who have been recruited to this province, but for whatever reason
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think what we're about to do is embark on a bit of discussion about brain drain, because the brain drain issue is about losing people. The flip side is trying to retain them and make sure we don't lose them -- right?
What would my ministry do? There are certainly specific programs in place around trying to assist in attracting academic talent and funding research chairs at universities. What that does is allow the universities a little more flexibility in terms of funding. They may not have enough funding to offer as high a salary as they would like, but they may be able to offer other benefits, such as money to hire a researcher before a federal Science Council grant kicks in. It often provides something of a transitional nature.
I note that an example of this was just last week. Dr. Kiczales was attracted back from California after an absence from Canada of about 20 years. It involved Advanced Systems Institute, which is funded by the province, working with PMC-Sierra to create this research position at UBC.
More broadly speaking, I think what we have to be careful about when we're examining the brain-drain issue is, first of all, that we don't overstate it. I don't think it should ever be understated, because it is a problem; it is happening. But in terms of the shortage of skilled people, it's a shortage that's being experienced all over the place. There's a real gap there in terms of the workforce.
[2000]
We have to recognize, as well, that it's not just about taxes. While I acknowledge the personal tax issue and the need to try to address that
It's worth noting, for example, that there was a May 1998 KPMG survey of 1,200 current high-tech workers in Canada and the U.S. It found that the most influential factors for those workers when selecting their current job were (1) the challenge of the job -- so a stimulating environment, I guess, or stimulating work; (2) exposure to new technology; (3) career opportunities; (4) work environment. Salary ranked at No. 6.
I know this may sound hard to believe, because it's certainly not part of the dominant discourse going on around this issue in this country right now. I did take the opportunity within about a month of being appointed to this portfolio to sit down with young high-tech workers in Vancouver. These high-tech workers are extremely mobile, and 90 percent of them are between the ages of 25 and 34. I asked them what needed to happen in order to keep them here. I asked them about salary, and they said: "Look, even our employers
What will work is if we increase the number of spaces in our post-secondary institutions for high-tech training. If we train our own young people who call this home already, they're going to be more likely to stay here, because it is home. That was one of the points they made with me. So I think the point is that it's a complex issue. It's not as simple as simply addressing personal taxes.
L. Reid: Certainly one of the other issues I want to canvass this evening is Internet use. Page 6 of your document talks about British Columbians, I believe, being
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The figure we were referring to was from a poll taken before Christmas. What it found was that 62 percent of adult British Columbians are connected to the Internet either at home or at work. That was several points above the national average. Ontario was about one percentage point behind. Alberta was also close, and then other provinces lagged behind.
L. Reid: You're basically referencing the same information from here: 56 percent of Canadians are connected. So British Columbia is basically sitting 6 percent higher than the national average. Okay. Thank you very much.
One of the other areas of concern for me is the Internet access for public schools in the province. I believe it says that all schools will be on line by July 2000. Can the minister perhaps tell me what percentage of schools are currently on line and what the cost of completing that project will be?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The member is referring to the provincial learning network. As of today's date, out of 1,801 schools, 1,539 are connected. We expect that all of them will be connected by July 1 of this year. The cost has been, and is, $123 million over five years, and that budget is housed in the Ministry of Education.
[2005]
L. Reid: I thank the minister for the information.
I'm moving to page 8 of the document, which talks about attracting and training information technology professionals. Certainly there has been some press in the last number of days
[ Page 15800 ]
regarding BCIT. Can the minister just give me a sense of what institution today would provide the greatest number of high-tech technicians, if you will?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think the member was asking about how many training positions we have for high-tech.
L. Reid: And what institutions will be providing the majority of seats?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yeah. Unfortunately
The Chair: I would require that the debate come through the Chair -- standing orders and all that, you know. I don't have a choice, members.
L. Reid: Hon. Chair, my apologies.
The Chair: Accepted, member.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Unfortunately, we've been through the post-secondary section already, and I don't have the staff here with those numbers. I'm told that BCIT will probably be the leader. We have a number of institutions that have a large number. UVic also has a large number. But certainly we could try and get that through the post-secondary staff.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's response. I'm questioning it now because it does appear in your performance plan, but I can certainly receive the information at any time. No worries at all.
One of the other issues I want to canvass is on page 8 of your document: privacy and security issues. Certainly the issue for the public has been around the protection of their personal information as government moves to e-commerce, putting more things on line, etc. It certainly is the issue I raised in the briefing which was kindly provided by your staff on May 3. One of the test cases for this new model was the PharmaNet program and the number of concerns that were raised as a result of that. But frankly, those concerns have lessened. People have become, I think, much more comfortable -- much more confident that their information truly is secure.
I'm keen to know if there have been increases in the security provisions for the new transfer of information that will inevitably come as a result of government putting more forms on line, more personal information on line -- I mean, even in your document, genealogical information on line. Are there ways that people can be confident and comfortable that their security will be protected?
[2010]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The ministry invests quite significantly in, first of all, security around viruses. So to the extent that there might be a virus that could compromise the integrity of databases which contain this personal information, that's very important. But beyond that, it's really more a matter of policy and the regulatory side.
We have, as I know the member knows
As the member also knows, we have a legislative committee struck right now to look at the issue of security of personal information as it's held by and managed by the private sector. I'll be awaiting the recommendations of that committee, and then we'll look at legislation that would complement the federal legislation.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments. The minister will know, because I'm sure the calls come in to the majority of constituency offices across the province, that people have real issues around whether or not a 12-year-old hacker can access their information. I'm taking it from the minister's comments that their information is safe and secure.
One of my final points I'll raise is on your goal 4, page 9: "Government promotes the development of an innovation economy in British Columbia." Certainly over the years we've had many discussions regarding information technology and how vitally important it was to the transfer of information. We've had some good discussions about biotech, which is just coming into its decade of achievement, if you will, in terms of providing some medical solutions, some new remedies.
Enviro-tech seems to be an area that, hopefully, will be on the horizon for many years to come in this province, because we do have some of the most beautiful landmass absolutely worth protecting. Has your ministry looked at particular dollars to individuals who want to specialize in the enviro-technology applications, in terms of
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Environmental technology has been identified as a priority area. However, we've focused a little more narrowly than that into a specific area of environmental technology in particular, and that's clean energy. Fuel-cell research -- British Columbians play a world-leading role in that regard. So what this ministry does -- what ISTA does -- is provide some funding, as I referenced earlier, to the Advanced Systems Institute, which is involved in a recruitment program and attempts to recruit academics, for example, who have expertise in the area of clean energy. That's one of the areas they focus on.
We also provided some funding this year to Ethanol B.C., which is a consortium, so to speak, that includes Forintek -- which is a national forestry research organization. It involves funding from us, the industry and the federal government for looking -- in that specific case -- at how we might better utilize wood waste that exists as a result of the forest industry right now -- in creating a cleaner energy like ethanol. Those are a few areas that we try to focus on in terms of environmental technology.
[2015]
L. Reid: I thank the minister for his comments. Certainly I do believe that the clean-energy discussion is worthy. I think there are some very good things that will happen in this province as a result.
[ Page 15801 ]
I would simply ask the ministry to perhaps take a look over the next six months or so at the environmental protection aspects of environmental cleanup, because British Columbia certainly is a world leader in that now. For us to be exporting some of that technology
One of the other areas I want to canvass with you this evening is
This is something that the community has looked at, and people have always said that the trade show perspective, in terms of inviting people to learn more about science and technology and inviting them into something very similar to what happens at the Robson Square Media Centre annually -- where individuals come in and have an opportunity to engage students, look at very significant scientists in the field, share ideas and do the trade show
Has the ministry looked at perhaps partnering with these individuals to see if something like this could happen in other regions of the province -- perhaps the eight or ten regions that the minister mentioned earlier in his remarks?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: What the member referred to earlier, in terms of the event at Robson Square, is something that we fund. It's called the ASI Exchange, and it was one of the first events that I attended as a new minister. Certainly one can see, when attending, what a worthwhile event it is -- seeing representatives of industry as well as very capable students having an opportunity to meet each other, with students showing their research and the work they're doing. So that's something that we fund.
We do fund the regional high-tech councils. We do provide some funding for conferences. The member's question, though, I think, is more about whether we would entertain a proposal to have a year-round program. I would look at and consider anything, but there's always a question of availability of funds, and wanting something year-round
It is worth noting that the program she referred to was a result of a national competition -- the smart communities program -- and it's worth noting that B.C. ranked second in terms of the number of communities that participated in the competition, which says something about how well we're doing in terms of trying to create an environment
J. Weisbeck: The minister commented that the PLN budget was housed in the Ministry of Education. I noticed that in the ISTA budget, it shows a number of $20.148 million for PLN. I wonder if you would explain that, please.
[2020]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The way it works is that we actually make the expenditure, but it's cost recovery. So we cost-recover from the Ministry of Education. I think it just makes sense that it's being led by ISTA, because it is a technology initiative.
J. Weisbeck: PLN was initiated in 1996, and I was here for the initiation after the election. I sat in estimates and asked questions about it and of course was very enthusiastic about it. It was a couple of years after that it was really, really difficult to get any information, and I guess I have now found out why. It sort of faltered.
It has now been hooked up, I understand, to Span-B.C. Is that correct? Are we using Span-B.C.?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Span-B.C. is the backbone network, if we can call it that. We're building PLNet onto it. We own Span-B.C.; it's a publicly owned network. It's built by the private sector on contract, and I should emphasize, as well, that it's a highly secure system. So the answer is yes, it's being built on Span-B.C.
J. Weisbeck: Will there be enough bandwidth on Span-B.C. to support what we're trying to do?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that we will continue to do upgrades as necessary to make sure there is sufficient bandwidth.
J. Weisbeck: For the PLN to work, we need four areas to get up to speed: computers, connectivity, software and trained teachers. As far as the computers are concerned, in its last five-year tech plan the government said its goal was to provide one computer for every three students. I think that today the ratio is closer to eight or nine students per computer, and I'm wondering how we're going to resolve that.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We're not aware of that commitment specifically. It sounds like perhaps it came out of the Ministry of Education; it might be best directed to that ministry.
J. Weisbeck: According to the last time the information was available, half of all schools were connected at a 56K speed. This means that 20 or 30 computers on a school's LAN network share one 56K link. That's sort of an outdated technology. What are we going to do to upgrade that connection?
[2025]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: As I indicated earlier, we continually review bandwidth. We will get as many upgrades to higher speeds as the budget allows, and that will come from within the PLNet budget. But the clear priority this year is to finish
[ Page 15802 ]
connecting every school; then we'll be in a position to look at more upgrades in years to come. But first we want to make sure everyone is connected, and we're very close to doing that.
J. Weisbeck: In April 1998, PLN announced its launch for the six-year $123 million budget -- of which about $30 million was a clawback from school districts. How much money was spent between 1995 and 1998 on installed PLN?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: We don't have that specific figure available. What we'll do, though, is get it for you and get it to you.
J. Weisbeck: How much money has the NDP received in private partnership donations as per the tech plan?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The NDP have received no money. There is a distinction between the NDP and government, of course.
G. Plant: I want to return just for a moment to the knowledge development fund that was discussed earlier. I apologize if I'm asking a question that was asked and answered in my absence. The budget for the current fiscal year included a significant increase in the funding for the fund, and it was a big enough jump that it caused me to have a look at the announcements made to date with respect to actual grants. My impression upon looking at those announcements was that of the original complement of funding that was announced, there had not yet been very many actual grants made. I venture to speculate that that's not all that unusual in the context of a major funding initiative, where one of the challenges the government faces is waiting for the community out there to get itself organized and to present suitable and appropriate projects that the government will then make grants to.
It does seem to me to be important that there are enough resources and an adequate process in place within government to ensure that all of the money that is now set aside -- it's a pretty large sum of money -- will in fact be made the subject of grants over the lifetime of the project, assuming of course that suitable proposals are made. Can the minister give me some assurance that what has been happening to date is perhaps properly describable as ramping up and that as we move down the next year or so, the pace of grant awards will hopefully increase?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that it was a matter of ramping up to some extent. The reason we brought that in this year was because of the federal CFI program. We wanted to make sure that we were in a position to match and, consequently, to bring more dollars into British Columbia.
Just for the member's information, the process is that the application goes first to CFI. Then, if it gets approval, they can get 40 percent of their funding from CFI. They come to us. It's not government directly; it's arm's-length. There's a committee that consists of representatives from industry, Science Council, people from the post-secondary sector. If there's approval there, that's another 40 percent. It's expected that 20 percent of funding will be from other sources -- it could be the private sector -- and in the case of the provincial portion, it ultimately does come to Treasury Board for approval.
[2030]
G. Plant: So the minister's expectation is that as something like a critical mass of interest and capacity develops in the community, we are likely to see an increase in the number of grant awards. One of the reasons I ask this is that the fund has a limited life span. There have, from time to time, been other instances where funds have been set aside by government for a purpose that it's later been determined they weren't actually all expended for. I'm sure we'd all agree, on both sides of the House, that if the government is committing to set aside significant sums for research infrastructure, we all hope the money is spent -- of course, spent wisely. Can the minister indicate whether he expects that we'll start to see more of the grant awards made in the months to come -- that the pace of awards will increase?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The member is right; it is limited time. There are three more years left in the program. Yes, things are coming along more quickly now. I can say, from a vague recollection of the things I see coming across my desk, that there are more of them and larger numbers coming forward, and they're working their way through to Treasury Board. The pace of activity is picking up; there's no question.
G. Plant: I want to ask some questions broadly under the heading of freedom of information, which is part of the minister's responsibilities as the minister responsible for ISTA. It's a subject I know the minister has some interest in, because in his former life he participated in the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which I also had the honour to participate in, as did the critic.
One of the issues that arose over the last two or three years is a question around the extent to which the government, through the use of a central agency like ISTA, has been keeping track of the requests made of public bodies for records under the FOI Act. There was a system in place at one point -- a request tracking system -- which was phased out for a time, roughly in 1997-98. I'm given to understand that a new request tracking system will have begun operation in 2000, this year, that will include all provincial ministries and some Crown corporations. Can the minister confirm that that understanding is correct?
[2035]
Hon. G. Bowbrick: There was a new system put in place at the beginning of this calendar year. At this point, all ministries, except for one or two, are on. We expect the remaining ones to be on very shortly. There are no Crowns at this point, but we are making the system available to them and hoping they will be coming on board.
G. Plant: The issue with respect to compliance with a request tracking system is one that I don't recall having come to the attention of our committee, but many, many issues came to the attention of that committee over the course of a long time. We ended up, I know, distilling those issues somewhat.
I think that from the perspective of some people outside government, there is and has been a concern that some of the potentially undesirable features of a request tracking system would include the spectre that government was in some way, in a centralized way, managing the outflow of information.
I don't mean to comment one way or the other on those risks. It seems to me, however, in terms of assessing the impact and the significance in the operation of the statute, that
[ Page 15803 ]
some kind of centralized recordkeeping system is really close to essential. The question arises: why is there no statutory obligation, for example, to supply information? Why are the ministries of the Crown and other public bodies not under an obligation to supply information to a central body for the purpose of allowing the central body to keep track of the way the act's being used? It seems, as I understand it, to be more a matter of administrative discretion, which I guess depends in part on the persuasive powers of the members of the minister's staff in ISTA and the willingness of ministries and Crown corporations to participate and comply with the requests that are made of them.
I wonder if the minister could indicate whether he does see some merit in ensuring that government is in fact able to monitor, across all of its branches, the use of the act and is prepared at least to consider whether to embark upon the policy or perhaps even legislative changes, if necessary, to try to address the situation. I leave the question for the minister.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I think it makes sense to try to move towards that type of system. It's something I really have no opposition to and would entertain. It is a matter of policy right now, and as the member has identified, policy often just isn't enough. If it would require legislation, for example, the difficulty is getting things onto the legislative agenda. There would certainly be benefits to that type of system. But we want to make sure, though, that the more sinister aspects of that didn't come to the fore -- which would be everything being monitored by the Premier's Office or something like that. Certainly in terms of efficiency and understanding how the whole system is working, it makes a great deal of sense. It is a matter of policy right now, but I can't in good faith commit to saying: "Well, this is something that I'm going to pursue legislation on at this point," because there are so many other things that would probably be ahead of it on the legislative agenda.
[2040]
The Chair: I would remind the member and remind the minister that, regardless, legislation is not a topic of debate in estimates.
G. Plant: An excellent reminder. Fortunately, however, the minister is accompanied by staff who spend tax dollars administering these issues, and that is precisely what we are debating and will, I hope, continue to debate for a few moments.
I'm grateful for the minister's comments. I certainly wouldn't expect to get a kind of commitment from him that he's a bit reluctant to give. At least he's alive to the issue, and I think that's some progress.
On the basis of the newly installed request-tracking system, which I am certain the hon. Chair will realize is a system paid for by the taxpayers of British Columbia through funds which we are currently asked to approve the expenditure of in the course of this estimates debate, would the minister be able to identify whether requests for records made by the public are rising or falling?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: The number of requests has gone down in the past year. I'm informed that in other jurisdictions with similar statutes, the trend is that after the first five or six years, requests do tend to go down.
G. Plant: My first question is: in that trend that the minister speaks of within the government of B.C., is that a trend generalized across government? My second question is: does the minister have ministry-by-ministry statistics that could be made available through his staff at some point? I don't necessarily want to impose on him to read out the numbers now, but if they're available and if they could be disclosed, that would be very useful.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: It is very much a generalized trend. It varies from ministry to ministry how much the number of requests has gone down. It hasn't gone down as much, in general, where the requests are for personal information. Certainly we can provide a ministry-by- ministry breakdown.
G. Plant: So the minister is able to distinguish among requests for personal information, as opposed to requests for general information. I take it that it's probably the latter that are experiencing the decline. Or did I get it the wrong way round?
Hon. G. Bowbrick: No, I didn't mean to give the impression that I had the ability to distinguish between general information and personal information. What I was saying was that in ministries
G. Plant: That's helpful. I look forward to getting the ministry-by-ministry breakdown.
The minister will recall that a couple of years ago there was a bit of a flurry around changes in policy in respect of the expectation for fee revenue and the staffing reductions across ministries in relation to staff that are designated to deal with FOI requests. I believe that at the time, the flurry ultimately resolved itself in a decision by government not to change its policy in respect of fees, and there were some staffing changes. But there was also, I think, some suggestion by government that there was increased expertise among FOI officers in ministries, so a higher volume of work was able to be done by perhaps fewer staff members.
[2045]
That was then. Flash forward, if we can, two years. Does the government have any policies in place, any plans, any changes, any different expectations in respect of fee revenues and staffing complements for servicing FOI demands?
The Chair: Minister, I draw your attention to the time.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: Certainly there's no planned increase in fees. I think the member will well recall that when we were sitting on the legislative committee together, it was a bipartisan view, I think, that there shouldn't be anything that increases barriers to information in this province. The committee felt very strongly about that, and I continue to have that commitment and feeling.
What we've tried to do, in terms of the cost of FOI, is to reduce costs by getting more information released through routine release. We're encouraging ministries to do that,
[ Page 15804 ]
because they'll realize that, in terms of cost, it's in their own self-interest. It's much more efficient, and it's cheaper, to release information through routine release rather than process a request for information. We've tried to make it clear to them culturally, so to speak, that a formal request should be a matter of last resort. We should be doing everything else possible to release information prior to that point.
G. Plant: One last question, if I may. The minister and I were both members of the committee that made 18 recommendations to government with respect to the administration of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which he has some responsibility for. I don't think I've seen a formal statement of acceptance or non-acceptance of those recommendations. I know one or two have in fact already been acted on, for example, by an expansion in the number of public bodies that are subject to the act. It may be that this is a question that the minister wants to get back to me on, but I do think that at some point it would be useful to know what the government's position is with respect to the recommendations for change to the act that have been made. I'd be interested in the minister's views on that subject by way of concluding this interesting and informative debate.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I have to say that when I was appointed to cabinet and was going through my masses of briefing materials, I did come across this, and I went: hey, that's where this went! There has been work done on it. ISTA has reviewed the recommendations, and there are various reactions at the civil servant level to the recommendations of the committee. I don't think I can get into specifics here around whether there will be legislation coming forward soon. Certainly it's something, at the civil service level, where potential changes to the act are being pursued. It's in the system, so to speak.
[2050]
Of course, at the end of day I think the member understands that there is only room for so much on the legislative agenda. Ultimately, those decisions about what is brought forward and what isn't are made at the political level. But he should rest assured that that information has been processed. Now it's a matter of when it comes forward legislatively.
Noting the hour, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 8:51 p.m.
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