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)
MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2000
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 20, Number 15
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The House met at 2:08 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: It gives me great pleasure to introduce some very special people who are in the gallery today. I want the House to join me in welcoming two groups.
There is a group of people from the Children of the Street Society that includes Diane Sowden, Rob Sowden, Rebecca Prince, Melony Ward and Megan Ward. With them are some other folks who have a similar interest: Cpl. Jim Burton from the Coquitlam RCMP; Const. Rob McGerr from the Port Moody police; Det. Bill Bunt from the Vancouver city police; Sandy Cook, executive director of Covenant House; and Howard Greenstein from the Act II Society.
There are also some folks here from the ministry who have worked very, very hard on a bill that I am about to introduce. I want to say thank you to them and I want to welcome all of them to the House. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.
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C. Clark: I have some introductions as well. I'd first like to add my welcome, in particular, to Rob McGerr and Jim Burton, who have done so much to protect kids in the Tri-Cities area and in our communities. They've been real forerunners in that, so I'll add my personal thanks and welcome to them.
In addition to that, I'd like to welcome today the University of Victoria's B.C. Young Liberals who are joining us: Lawrence Mak, Sonia Manhas, Erin Drew, Dale Flood, Andrew Gorrie, Ryan Boulter, Roger Doucet and Tara Williamson. I hope everyone will make them welcome when they see them around the precincts today.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have in the gallery Lynn Murray. This Sunday Lynn will join the Musaic Marching Kazoo Band to participate in the Victoria Gay Pride Parade. The parade is the culmination here in Victoria of various events which have been planned to celebrate the lesbian and gay community in this area. This week and throughout the summer communities all over Canada and around the world will acknowledge the contributions of lesbians and gays to our society and to our communities. As you know, our government has worked tirelessly in the last several years to bring about legislative equality for gays and lesbians in British Columbia, including the legislation that's been introduced in this sitting. That's a victory for justice and equality, as it is for lesbian and gay couples in British Columbia.
To honour the lesbian and gay community, I am proud to say that we are proclaiming this week, June 26 to July 2, as Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. Thank you, Lynn, for joining us in the gallery, and have fun during the celebrations.
R. Masi: It's my pleasure today to introduce 38 grade 5 students from South Meridian Elementary School in Surrey-White Rock. They are accompanied by their teachers Monica Parker and Val Hammell. Val, of course, is an old family friend and, I believe, the sister of the Minister of Multiculturalism. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. H. Lali: Visiting us in the precincts today is Mr. Mike Summers, who is the operator of Hooterville Taxi in Vanderhoof in the constituency of the member for Prince George-Omineca. Mr. Summers is in Victoria protesting what he perceives to be lack of enforcement by the Motor Carrier Commission and ICBC regarding operations of an alleged illegal taxi. Would the House please make Mr. Summers welcome.
Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to thank the member for Delta North for introducing my sister, but I would never be allowed to not say it myself. Would the members please welcome my sister Val Hammell, her teaching colleague Monica Parker, 33 kids and 12 parents to the gallery.
T. Stevenson: I'm pleased to welcome to the gallery today Donna Cameron. Donna works in the precinct and is pleased to be here to witness the first time the British Columbia provincial government has proclaimed Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. Donna and her partner Lynn are proud grandmothers of Katie and Travis. Donna and Lynn will be in the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday and will be at the reception in the Ned DeBeck Lounge this evening that all MLAs have been invited to, to meet some of the community from Victoria. Will all members please make Donna welcome.
Hon. G. Bowbrick: My colleague the Minister for Children and Families introduced Bill Bunt as a member of the Vancouver city police. I'd like to add my welcome, because for almost five years he was my next-door neighbour in New Westminster. He's a great neighbour. I'd ask all members to join me in making him welcome, as my former neighbour and as a constituent.
E. Walsh: On the grounds today we have visiting us the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. CUPE local 873 and Fred Muzin of HEU. These brothers and sisters of mine, hon. Speaker, deliver a very valuable service, looking after all British Columbians. I would ask the whole House to please give them a warm welcome.
The Speaker: Hon. members, strictly through inadvertence, BCTV and the Times Colonist neglected to announce the results of the annual tennis tournament between the press gallery and the Legislative Assembly team. The contest was held on Friday, June 16, and Saturday, June 17. Realizing the press gallery would be upset unless this oversight was corrected, I'd like the House to know that despite the inability of one of the Legislature's top players to participate, the Legislative Assembly team secured a precarious victory with a score of 78 to 30. While the major media outlets have been silent on this matter, I'm certain that in the fullness of time Monday Magazine will have the full details.
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Introduction of Bills
Hon. G. Mann Brewin presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Secure Care Act.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
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Motion approved.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: I am very pleased to introduce the Secure Care Act. This bill will strengthen our ability to provide assistance for high-risk children who are unwilling or unable to get help in any other way. It will benefit children and youth who have severe emotional or behavioural conditions, substance abuse or serious addictions and those who are sexually exploited.
We have listened to people from the community who've expressed concerns that we needed to provide a more intensive intervention to protect kids whose health and safety is so endangered that nothing short of secure care will do.
However, in developing these new methods, we must balance the children's rights, which must be respected to the greatest degree possible. This bill will bring us one step closer to keeping children and youth safe and to ensuring that all children and youth have access to the services and supports that they need.
I want to thank several colleagues for their early leadership: the hon. Minister of Education, the member for Prince George-Mount Robson, the member for Vancouver-Burrard and the current parliamentary secretary, the member for Comox Valley.
I now move that Bill 25 be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Bill 25 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
T. Nebbeling presented a bill intituled Interpretation Amendment Act.
T. Nebbeling: I move that a bill intituled Interpretation Amendment Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time.
Motion approved.
T. Nebbeling: I'm introducing this bill today to deal with an increasing public concern that Crown corporations are disregarding the will of local communities when they deal with development and construction in communities throughout British Columbia.
Section 14 (2) of the Interpretation Act exempts the Crown and Crown corporations from being bound by local zoning and land use bylaws. For example, this section is used in Horseshoe Bay, where the expansion plans of B.C. Ferries are strongly opposed by the local council and the members of that community. It is because of the impact on the character of the village and the quality of life of people living there that they are arguing over this particular expansion.
Over the last three years the government has made amendments to the Municipal Act promising empowerment of local government. Without this amendment, Mr. Speaker, I believe that promise is totally meaningless. Local government must have input in the decisions of provincial Crown corporations and the Crown regarding building and construction within their jurisdiction and must know that their concern will be respected. The days that Crown corporations can walk into town, declare themselves to be the government and therefore do what they want must be over. My bill offers a solution to the problem.
Therefore I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
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Bill M207 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Oral Questions
EX-PREMIER SLANDER CASE AND POLICY
ON LEGAL EXPENSES FOR GOVERNMENT MEMBERS
G. Campbell: Last week the B.C. Supreme Court awarded $150,000 to Bob Ward for being slandered by the former Premier, the current MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway. My question to this Premier is simply this: including the government's internal costs, how much money will the taxpayers of British Columbia be on the hook for to defend this unacceptable activity?
Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member opposite knows because we've discussed it in this chamber before, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway has been covered by an indemnity provided by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations. That indemnity provides for that member, as a former Premier and minister, the same indemnity provided to senior public servants. The amount of that award
Interjections.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The amount of expenses is, as we've discussed in this chamber before, a matter of privilege between the member and attorney. We've also discussed the Premier's decision that future indemnities will not be so covered. At the time when this matter is concluded -- that is the appropriate time to discuss the total bills that have been paid, including any judgment.
The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition has a supplemental question.
G. Campbell: I have a question for the Premier of the province of British Columbia. My question to the Premier is simply this: will he agree today that not one more dime of the taxpayers' money will go to support the member for Vancouver-Kingsway -- if an appeal is to be launched, it will be paid for by the member for Vancouver-Kingsway and not the taxpayers of British Columbia?
Interjection.
The Speaker: Order, member.
Hon. P. Ramsey: We have discussed this policy in some detail. It is regrettable that the opposition, in the desire to pursue a political vendetta against the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, would continue to ignore what is sound public
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policy to protect people who are serving as elected representatives and ministers of the Crown from legal costs that they simply cannot bear as individuals. That is the policy of this indemnity; it is a sound policy. And I submit, hon. Speaker, that it would be the policy if -- God forbid -- that opposition should assume government benches.
The Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition has a further supplemental question.
G. Campbell: Again my question is to the Premier of the province of British Columbia, the person who claims to lead this caucus. My question is this. We all know that that was not an execution of public policy; it was an execution of political will of one man, who happened to be the Premier of British Columbia. There was a deliberate attempt to discredit Mr. Ward. There is no question about that. It was irresponsible behaviour on behalf of the former Premier, and I want to hear from this Premier today that not one more cent of taxpayers' money is going to go in defence of this reprehensible matter.
Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member well knows, considerations about further action in this case are sub judice, and we are not going to discuss them in this chamber.
I would also submit that this member continues to ignore the real risks to an individual that they assume by becoming a minister of the Crown. I know none of them expect, should they assume ministerial responsibilities, that they would be the subject of legal action. Neither did I. I have found myself, in my time as a minister, indeed subject to legal action, including one time when I was sued for my action as Minister of Health by the pharmaceutical manufacturers of Canada -- the international drug corporations. If this chamber thinks
Interjections.
Hon. P. Ramsey: This indemnity policy says clearly that citizens of the province who assume leadership roles and serve as ministers of the Crown shall have the same indemnity as senior public servants. That is sound policy, and it must be applied in this case.
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G. Plant: The Minister of Finance refers to an indemnity policy. Well, when Bob Ward filed his lawsuit against the former Premier on March 6, 1996, the indemnity policy didn't exist. The indemnity policy was in fact signed by the former Finance minister on August 6, 1996 -- five months later. How convenient. Will the Premier admit that the real reason that the indemnity policy was created in 1996 was to ensure that the taxpayers would not be on the hook to defend the former Premier of British Columbia for his outrageous slanders?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is right in one respect. Review of indemnity provisions began early in 1995, and recommendations from that review were then enacted in 1996. It is, I submit, a sound policy. It says clearly that individuals who take on responsibilities as ministers of the Crown should have the same protection in court actions, actions that arise from their duties in office, as any senior public servant. That is sound policy, regardless of which party forms the government, regardless of what individuals sit in cabinet.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental question.
G. Plant: Well, in this case the government had a choice. The government could have -- and the former Premier could have -- apologized to Mr. Ward, for free. Instead, the government or the former Premier decided to fight this case, to drag it out year after year until the taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So the question is: who made that decision? Did the current Premier, in his former capacity as Attorney General, decide to put taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or was it just another example of arrogant bullying from the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the former Premier?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Again, the circumstances of this individual case are sub judice, and the member well knows it.
I will submit that prior to this policy being formally adopted in 1996, ministers were covered by indemnities on an ad hoc basis. I mentioned a case that I was involved in. It was a civil matter. I was issued an indemnity by the Crown when the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada chose to make me the object of
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members. Minister, could you wrap up quickly.
Hon. P. Ramsey:
The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental question.
G. Plant: The Minister of Finance keeps saying that it's good public policy. So why doesn't he defend it? Who made the decision to defend the former Premier?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think all of us enter public life to make sure that we do the best for the people of British Columbia. I think that's something that we take as given. I think all of us may make mistakes that we don't believe are mistakes and are later on judged to be mistakes.
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This matter is currently being reviewed by the Attorney General's ministry. The Attorney General has indicated to me that there are two principles at play in terms of determining whether or not there ought to be an appeal, based on the advice that he might receive from the ministry. One is whether there is any legal merit to the appeal -- and I mean real legal merit to the appeal -- and secondly, whether or not it protects the taxpayers in terms of saving money for the taxpayers at the end of the day.
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G. Farrell-Collins: Most British Columbians come into this House not hoping to engage in slander against citizens of the province of British Columbia. Those are exactly the actions of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, the former Premier of this province. I think it's incumbent upon the current Premier of this province to stand up and quit protecting his own members, but stand up and protect the taxpayers of British Columbia for once.
Mr. Speaker, will the Premier stand up today and guarantee the taxpayers of British Columbia, who require that protection, that not one penny of their money is going to go to defend the member for Vancouver-Kingsway in his attack on citizens of British Columbia?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am as troubled as anyone else with respect to the expenditure of public money. But the difference between this side and the opposition is that they have no regard for due process of law in this province.
The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader has a supplemental question.
G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Speaker, was that member asleep when they attacked Carrier Lumber? Or was he just not at that meeting? Was that hypocritical member opposite not attending the meetings
The Speaker: Member, member.
G. Farrell-Collins:
The Speaker: Order, member.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, order.
Take your seat, member; take your seat, please. The member will take his seat. I'd ask the member to withdraw his comments before asking his next question.
G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Speaker, if anything I said offended anyone in this House, I certainly withdraw them.
Well, my question is for the
Interjections.
G. Farrell-Collins: I withdrew them.
The Speaker: The member will ask his question, please.
G. Farrell-Collins: Will the Attorney General, the current minister, stand up and tell us why anyone in this province should have any trust in that minister, that Premier, when he stood by time and time again while his government attacked the citizens of British Columbia? Now, as Premier, he's standing up defending his former colleague, not the taxpayers he's supposed to be protecting.
Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, the members opposite, as is too frequently the case, put their political interests ahead of the broader interest. The members opposite should well know, because we've had this debate before, that matters that are before the courts and remain before the courts, insofar as appeal periods run, are sub judice.
Secondly, they should know, and I think they often speak of, the need to treat citizens equally before the law. I've heard the Leader of the Opposition defend the policy of providing legal expenses for members of government. How quickly he's forgotten that policy; it's very convenient. It's very convenient to turn one's political attacks on individual members, because one feels that is the politically popular thing to do. But the obligation of government and the obligation of all members should be to ensure that everyone's rights in this House, under all policies, are applied equally and fairly, that the courts are respected in terms of sub judice and that that is not sacrificed for the sake of cheap politics.
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C. Clark: The thing that is convenient is this government's indemnity policy, which they created so they could specifically protect this former Premier with respect to his comments on Mr. Ward; that's what's convenient. My question is for the man who claims to lead this province and who claims to lead his party. This government will not tell us how much it cost. This government is going to hide those costs from British Columbians. Well, I think that British Columbians have already paid entirely too much for the mistakes of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway.
So will this Premier stand up today and first tell us how much it's going to cost us to defend this former Premier? And second, will he direct his party to pay every single one of those costs, so the taxpayer doesn't end up footing the bill again?
The Speaker: I'd ask the Minister of Finance to give a brief answer, please.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Oh, okay. I will be brief, hon. Speaker. That member, should she ever find herself on government benches, will be very glad that this indemnity policy is in place.
The Speaker: The bell ends question period.
Tabling Documents
Hon. G. Bowbrick: I have the honour to present the annual report of the Information, Science and Technology Agency for the year ending March 31, 2000.
Hon. H. Lali: I'm pleased to submit the annual report of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways for the period ending March 31, 2000.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Pursuant to the Financial Administration Act, I'm pleased to present reports for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000, on amounts borrowed by government for making loans to government bodies, as well as the corresponding report on loans to government bodies, amounts borrowed in foreign currencies and amounts borrowed for authorized disbursements. These reports provide an overview of the province's borrowing activity in fiscal '99-2000.
The Speaker: It's my honour to present the annual report of the conflict-of-interest commissioner for the period of
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August 7, 1998, to December 31, 1999; also, the Auditor General of British Columbia report No. 1, 2000-01, "Fostering a Safe Learning Environment: How the British Columbia Public School System Is Doing;" and finally, the Legislative Assembly Management Committee annual report for the period July 1998 through May 2000.
Orders of the Day
Hon. D. Lovick: In this chamber, I call second reading on Bill 21, the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000. And in the Douglas Fir Committee Room, Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. We will be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Investment.
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DEFINITION OF SPOUSE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2000
(second reading)
Hon. A. Petter: I move that the bill be now read a second time.
This bill continues this government's commitment to equality for common-law and same-sex couples. I'm pleased to present an initiative that recognizes the rights and obligations of common-law and same-sex couples in numerous pieces of legislation. With this bill the government of British Columbia maintains its role as a province that eliminates discrimination between common-law and same-sex couples.
This bill is a continuation of a proud record of legislation that this government has brought forward to deal with an underlying concern regarding human rights and equality in our society. That concern relates to the fact that same-sex couples -- gays and lesbians -- who are in a stable, loving relationship should enjoy the same measure of protection and recognition, and indeed the same measure of responsibility, as loving couples who are of the opposite sex. There have been changes in the past that have been debated and passed in this Legislature to that end. The government has continued to review the legislative provisions that are before us in order to continue that process, and this bill represents a further important step in that direction.
It's important that society recognizes that the relationships between gays and lesbians -- same-sex couples -- should be treated with the same equality and dignity as the relationships between opposite-sex couples.
In this bill there are amendments that will increase the rights of same-sex couples and treat those couples the same as married and common-law couples in some instances and the same as common-law couples in other instances, depending on the legislation. Other amendments that are contained in this bill expand the application of the law and statutes that prohibit conflicts of interest that relate to spousal relationships. This bill also standardizes the definition of spouse in provincial legislation. With amendments that create a uniform definition of spouse, this government ensures that common-law and same-sex couples receive equal treatment under the law. This is affirmed in clear and unambiguous language.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
Hon. Speaker, there are many things that need to be done to move to eliminate discrimination in our society. The steps we have taken with this legislation and with previous legislation move us forward in terms of removing a very important discriminatory component of the statute book, and that is the discriminatory component that has discriminated against same-sex couples. We have also called on other governments, particularly the federal government, to do the same. It's important that governments send a very positive signal to society that this is a form of discrimination that is no longer acceptable. This bill makes structural changes by providing a stand-alone definition of spouse in each statute addressed in the bill as well.
With that, I move second reading of the bill.
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G. Plant: Bill 21, Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000, is the latest in a series of bills introduced by this government to effect a new understanding of relationships in society -- to acknowledge that in our society and in our country our constitution is founded on principles of equality, the requirement that we not discriminate and that the laws of British Columbia have to conform with those fundamental values and principles. This is another in a series of legislative exercises by the government in the pursuit of what is an important public policy purpose.
It is tempting, in a way, to take the Attorney General's remarks of a few minutes ago at face value and to leave the issue there and deal with this bill, at least from an opposition perspective, as we have dealt with similar legislation in the past. I think that at the conclusion of this debate, we on this side of the House will in fact deal with this bill as we have dealt with its predecessors. But I would be remiss if I did not stop for a minute or two or more to get below the surface of what people say is being attempted here to understand a little bit about what actually is happening.
We in this chamber can talk about equality. We can read briefing notes prepared for us by people who help us with these things, which tell us that what we are doing is something we are doing in the name of equality. We can introduce and support legislation because politically it appears that what we are doing is supporting the enhancement of equality.
But in this particular area of the law, as in many others, it's not just what we say we are intending; it's what we're actually doing that's important. When the government changes the rules, if you will, about the definition of types of relationships that will enjoy legal protection, the words it uses to change those definitions, to change those conceptions, are profoundly important. They are important for symbolic purposes, but they are also important for very real, very mundane purposes.
Citizens who believe their rights have changed, citizens who believe that their responsibilities have changed, citizens who believe that their entitlement to benefits provided by government has changed, because they hear the government talk about equality, will go to visit their legal advisers. They will go to visit their lawyers; they will seek to get an understanding of their rights, and if there are disputes, they may contest their rights in tribunals and courts.
At the end of the day, at the end of that process, the judge, who has to decide whether a person's rights are as it is said they are, will have to look at the words of the statute, will have to look at the words used by the legislators -- by the legislative draftspeople -- and ask the question whether the words
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that are used in this statute actually give effect to the public policy purposes that are being argued about in front of the judge. I think it's important, then, to spend a minute or two looking at the words that the government has used in defining same-sex relationships, in defining "spouses" -- defining the idea of spouse -- and in implementing this public policy objective that the minister spoke about in his opening remarks.
Last summer we came to this chamber and were asked to debate a bill called the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was, I think, Bill 100 of the 1999 legislative session. That bill amended the Cemetery and Funeral Services Act. It amended the Coroners Act; it amended the Estate Administration Act; it amended the Family Compensation Act; it amended the Wills Variation Act. It amended all of those statutes to incorporate within them the idea that, for the purposes of those statutes, someone who is a spouse can be someone who is in a loving same-sex relationship and that people who enjoy those relationships enjoy the same measure of protection of the law in respect of those relationships as people who are married or people who are in common-law relationships of different sex.
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I remember thinking last summer, as we debated Bill 100, that in all likelihood we were doing more than I, at least, had time to think about when the bill came for debate. It was another one of those situations where, as I recall, the bill was introduced for the first time on July 8. I believe we debated it through all three readings, including committee stage, and it was passed by July 14 -- just six days.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, I'm someone who believes strongly that we can improve the quality of legislation when we allow the legislation to sit on the order paper for a while to give the public a chance to look at it, to give the experts a chance to look at it and to allow the people who drafted it a chance to study what they've done and make sure that they've done it correctly. We didn't have that opportunity last summer when we had the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was passed in relatively short order, as often happens.
I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking, if you were a member of the public in July of 1999, that your rights or your obligations as a member of a family in respect of inheritance -- in respect of estates -- might have changed, because a bill had been passed that changed those things. You would, unfortunately, have been wrong, because the bill that the government was anxious to pass last summer -- Bill 100 of 1999 -- has never been proclaimed. It's never become the law.
So for a year it's been sitting there. People who care about real equality, as opposed to the people who just like to talk about it, have probably wondered why it was that the government introduced a bill that it was not prepared to give effect to. The answer apparently is found in the bill that we have in front of us today. The bill that we now have in front of us changes the definition of spouse in each of the five statutes where the definition was enacted last year.
The changes are, I think, probably technical in nature. But, you know, I'm not going to be the last judge of that. The person who will decide that is probably some judge who will hear a real dispute, a real case of real people fighting over things that are really important to them, things that have caused them to shed tears and perhaps lose substantial sums of money. The judge who hears that dispute will eventually determine whether there is something significant in what we're being asked to do today -- to change the definition of spouse in the five statutes where we changed it last year -- or whether there isn't. I'm sure the Attorney General will stand up and repeat what he's already said -- that these are technical amendments. And they may well be. I must admit that I can't say for certain one way or the other.
Let me give another example of the problem. The very first section of this bill, section 1, amends the Adult Guardianship Act. I know, Deputy Speaker, you have a particular interest in that act, as someone who has worked hard in your capacity as a member of this assembly to try and get that statute implemented. That was an act that this assembly passed, I think, as long ago as 1993, and it took six years for that act to be brought into effect as law. We're not here to argue about the history of adult guardianship. But we are here because the government, having finally implemented the Adult Guardianship Act, which involved some amendments to it last year -- we always seem to be amending the government's legislation -- has now decided to amend the Adult Guardianship Act one more time.
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They're amending it by repealing the definition of spouse and substituting a new definition. I want to just spend a minute looking at the old definition -- that is, the definition that was enacted in that statute in 1993, which in this assembly we certainly would have had an opportunity to change last year when we did some substantial revisions to the Adult Guardianship Act. In 1993 spouse was defined to mean a person who
Well, apparently that definition is not good enough, because we're changing it. We're being asked, at any rate, to change it in this bill. We're being asked to change it particularly in the description of the part of the definition that relates to same-sex spouses. The new words will be this: spouse will mean a person who "is living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship, including a marriage-like relationship between persons of the same gender."
Let me give you some help here by pointing out the two changes. The first is the definition used to talk about "members of the same sex"; the new definition will be "persons of the same gender." The second change is that the old definition said that you had to be living with another person in a marriage-like relationship; now you will have to be living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship.
Now, this is not an example of a statute like last summer's bill, where we're coming along now and changing it, but it was never made a law, so people never actually had to determine whether their lives were going to be changed by the law. This now is actually an example of a case where the statute has been the law for about six months or so, I think. The Adult Guardianship Act, I think, was proclaimed earlier this year. For six months or so people have been living their lives according to the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act, which did not require that you be cohabiting.
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Now we're being asked to change that definition so that in order to be a spouse for the purposes of the Adult Guardianship Act, you have to be living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship. I don't know whether it means anything to change the word "gender" to "sex" or "sex" to "gender" in this context. I do know that there are basic rules that apply to how courts read statutes which usually mean
Courts may well be confused to discern the intention behind changing the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act from a definition that applied to members of the same sex to a definition that applies to persons of the same gender. I can't give them much help on that one. I also can't give them much help -- the courts, that is, or anybody else who might actually be relying on these statutes -- when they come to ask the question: what is the difference between, on the one hand, living with a person in a marriage-like relationship and, on the other hand, living and cohabiting with another person in a marriage-like relationship? I think that many people would probably see the two words "living" and "cohabiting" as synonyms, one for the other. That is, you don't really add anything by adding the word cohabiting to the word living. But if that was so, we wouldn't need to add the word. If the definition was adequate as it was, we wouldn't need to change it. Clearly there was something inadequate, substantively wrong, with the definition because that is why we're being asked to change it.
The courts don't assume that we do things in the air. They don't assume that legislators regard the laws of British Columbia as a sort of ongoing drafting exercise. They actually assume that we mean something when we write the words that find their place in the laws of British Columbia. So courts are going to have to figure out whether it means something to add that word cohabiting to the definition of spouse in the Adult Guardianship Act. If we were talking about the Securities Act and we were talking about different ways of describing insider trading, for example, I might be inclined to move quite quickly over the issue. One of the reasons why I'm not so inclined is because we're not talking about an act that affects the lives of a few sophisticated business people who can be assumed to judge and plan their affairs according to the subtle variations of legislative language. We're now talking about a statute, the Adult Guardianship Act, which is supposed to be an important part of the ordinary lives of British Columbians, as is the case for a number of the other statutes that we're being asked to amend here in Bill 21.
[1500]
I think that there is certainly, at the very least, a legitimate question for government. It's not just: what does it mean by adding the word cohabiting? It's not just: how does it think it has changed the definition of spouse? It's not just: why was it that it took them six or seven years to figure out that they got it wrong in 1993, and they're fixing it now? Rather, it's: what is it about the process of lawmaking that allows this kind of ongoing shifting back and forth? Last summer we had the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was never proclaimed. Now we're revising it completely. We had the Adult Guardianship Act back in 1993 that was enacted, not proclaimed. When it was proclaimed, it was with a definition that, even as it was proclaimed, the government knew was wrong.
The so-called standardized definition was already in place last year. The idea of requiring that spouses meet the additional test -- that they establish that they were living and cohabiting -- was in the bill we passed last summer, the Definition of Spouse Amendment Act. It was there for the purposes of those statutes that I talked about earlier, which deal with what happens when people die. The government apparently already thought that there was something wrong with its definition, and yet it allowed the Adult Guardianship Act to be proclaimed with that apparently defective definition.
Now the government is engaged in an ongoing project, and fair enough -- we take one step at a time. It does seem to me that some of the steps that ought to be easier to take would be to make sure that, where we've already had the public policy discussion about what it means to expand the range of entitlements to include partners in relationships that are in same-sex relationships
I suppose the government could stand up and say that standardization is a good objective. We came to it a little bit later than we should have. We've recognized now that the definition we've been using in some other statutes wasn't as good as it should have been. We've changed that definition, but now we've got it right. Now the laws of British Columbia will be revised on an ongoing basis to keep up with the new definition.
I would have more sympathy for that argument if that was in fact what was happening -- if at the end of Bill 21, for example, we could say with certainty that all the laws that currently have a definition of spouse that includes same-sex partners had been updated to conform with the new amendment. That isn't going to be the case.
[1505]
The Family Relations Act is, I think, the best example of how that's not happening. The Family Relations Act -- you will recall, Mr. Speaker -- was, I guess, from a political perspective, where this all began. In 1997, I think, the government introduced changes to the Family Relations Act to ensure that partners in same-sex relationships had the full extent of rights and obligations that partners in common-law relationships had -- not quite the same as partners in marriages, because there are parts of that act which apparently the government thinks don't lend themselves to common-law relationships. But for the vast majority of that act, and particularly in respect of the issues of support and maintenance, the government wanted to use the Family Relations Act as the place where, from a political perspective, it would begin this project of drawing very strong public attention to its changing definition of spouse.
So in 1997 the definition of a spouse in the Family Relations Act was amended. Spouse is now defined in that act to mean a person who is married to another person and, except in certain contexts, someone -- a person -- who has lived with another person in a marriage-like relationship for a period of at least two years. Now I'm going to move. I'm going to put the period of at least two years issue to one side for now.
I'm just going to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that that definition does not include the additional
[ Page 16712 ]
requirement of cohabitation. That definition will survive the process that we're now engaged in, in Bill 21, because there is nothing in Bill 21 that attempts to update or standardize the definition of spouse in the Family Relations Act. So the government's public policy purpose is to update and standardize the definition of spouse that recognizes same-sex partners in the Adult Guardianship Act, in the Wills Variation Act, in the Estate Administration Act -- all bills that affect ordinary people in their lives.
But the government is apparently not ready to standardize the definition of spouse in the Family Relations Act, even though I would suggest -- and this is just their argument -- that, really, the Family Relations Act is the centrepiece of this government's legislative and policy initiatives in this front, in this area, and that the Family Relations Act amendments were where this began from a legislative perspective and the beginning of the whole debate that we've revisited every year.
So it is a matter of some interest to me that after all this is done, after we've enacted the definition of Spouse Amendment Act -- and after we've waited to see if the government actually proclaims any of it, which is another point I'll come to -- we will nonetheless be faced with a situation where, for the purposes to determining your entitlement to share in the estate of a loved one, there will be one definition of same-sex spouses. But for the purposes of determining your entitlement to share in the obligation of support and maintenance in a relationship, there will a different set of requirements. In one case you'll have to prove that you live and cohabit; in the other case you'll only have to prove that you live. I am not in a position here to figure out whether there's a difference; I only know that people will work hard to find that difference. It does seem to me that if we are going to standardize, the government should at least be consistent in the project of standardization.
I wanted to draw attention to another aspect of this ongoing and very tortuous process of law reform that the government is engaged in here. It is tortuous, because increasingly it is almost impossible to follow the trail of what the government is actually doing, let alone trying to follow the trail of making sense of what they're doing.
I want to talk for a moment or two about pensions. In 1998, the second year of this public policy initiative of the government, the government introduced and then passed Bill 38, the Pension Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2). That bill, as I recall, made changes to the five public sector pension plans. Municipal, public service, teachers and colleges pensions were amended by changing the definition of spouse in the statutes that regulate those pensions and by changing it to encompass a definition of spouse that includes persons in same-sex relationships. The definition -- this was 1998 -- of course doesn't include the requirement that the parties live and cohabit; it's only a requirement that they live in a marriage-like relationship.
[1510]
Here again we have an interesting example of the two-year requirement. Sometimes it's necessary for the government to achieve the public policy purposes of the government to ensure that there's a two-year minimum requirement that this relationship exists; other times that requirement does not exist. Mr. Speaker, I know you'll be disappointed to hear that, but you'll look in vain for any public statement from the government of the public policy rationale behind that distinction. They clearly think that it's something that matters. They clearly think that sometimes it's important to have a two-year requirement and other times it's not. But I've yet to see anyone attempt to draw a golden thread that makes any sense among all of the distinct instances that say, and say persuasively: "Well, in all of these kinds of cases you've got to have a two-year requirement for a relationship, and in all of these you don't." Maybe in the course of further debate on this bill the minister will have a chance to make that exercise.
I note that he only thought it was important to speak about this bill for three or four minutes in second reading. I'm sure his closing speech will be less, because, after all, he would have said everything that he thought was important to say during the course of his second reading speech. I'm only being facetious. I do hope the minister actually has an opportunity to respond to some of these questions. Anyway, I digress.
Bill 38, the Pension Statutes Amendment Act, was amended to include a definition of spouse in 1998. Then we came back here in 1999 -- Bill 58, the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment Act. We amended the definition of a spouse for the purpose of all pension legislation in 1999. That is, the definition of spouse that includes and recognizes same-sex relationships now applies to private sector pension plans as well as to public sector pension plans.
One would have thought that having given pretty detailed and serious thought to the definition of spouse for the purpose of pension legislation in 1998 and then again in 1999, perhaps we in the Legislature could mercifully be relieved from the burdensome obligation of having to once more go back and re-amend or revisit those definitions. After all, there are in fact a number of statutes of British Columbia which have still not been amended to give any recognition to same-sex relationships. So the real progress, the real path to equality, is in some respects hampered, or at least distracted from, every time we have to go back, as we're doing here in the bill today, and fix up the Adult Guardianship Act -- the definition we don't like from 1993 -- and not fix up the Family Relations Act definition and make changes to the Wills Variation Act.
Here we have, in section 29 of Bill 21, the Pension Benefits Standards Act. It's being amended by repealing the definition of spouse and substituting a new definition of spouse. I guess there was something wrong with the old definition of spouse. By old, I don't want you to be thinking that we're talking about something that is decades and decades old. We're not dealing with an archaic provision of the law. We're not dealing with something that's been allowed to sit and fester on the statute books for decades and that urgently requires our attention. We're actually talking about a bill that we amended, I think, once in 1998. We've amended it 1999, and now we're going to change it again to change the definition of spouse. I am probably right in this, but I can't say for absolutely certain that the definition in the bill before us -- which was proclaimed and has been in effect and has been relied upon by people who are enrolled in pensions for some period of time -- has been changed to include at least the requirement of cohabitation, whatever that requirement means.
So those are some of the historical aspects of the exercise we're engaged in that I think are, frankly, a bit troubling. Every year we come back and the government tries again. Every year the government comes back, and they change the definitions in statutes that have been recently amended and that are on the books and that are being relied upon by the citizens of British Columbia.
[ Page 16713 ]
[1515]
I guess I have some concern about when this is all going to stop. When is the Attorney General going to put his pencil down at long last and say, "We've got a definition, and we're going to have to live and work with it. We're not going to come back every year and amend a growing set of past pieces of the laws of British Columbia to accommodate someone's idea that cohabiting is better than living, or living and cohabiting together are better than living" -- or whatever it is that's intended?
There are a few other things that I wanted to say about this bill in detail. Although it wasn't referred to in the minister's remarks, the bill actually completely repeals the Homestead Act.
Deputy Speaker: Member
G. Plant: The Homestead Act is a statute of
Deputy Speaker: Member, excuse me
An Hon. Member: He's a designated speaker.
Deputy Speaker: You're designated. Thank you.
G. Plant: The Homestead Act is a statute that's been on the books for a long, long time and, I'm told, has become increasingly irrelevant to the point where it is no longer in use by anyone. So when the bill says Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, and you turn to the Homestead Act, what really happened, as I infer, is that the project of defining the term spouse got to the Homestead Act -- maybe they do it in alphabetical order; I'm not sure -- and someone looked at the Homestead Act and then the Court Order Enforcement Act, which relates to the Homestead Act. And they began to try to figure out how they would revise the definition of spouse in the context of homesteads, and they realized that that might be tough, in any event. The Homestead Act is apparently completely archaic, so let's do away with the Homestead Act altogether.
I don't think that was actually given huge pride of place in the government's press announcements around this bill. Time will tell whether the public is happy with the repeal of the Homestead Act. Looking at it myself, it does seem to me to be a bit outdated. Yet it strikes me as a bit odd that we haven't found this repeal of the Homestead Act in one of the government's many famous regulatory streamlining acts or the bills they bring in every once in a while to repeal legislation which isn't being used or relied upon anymore.
When you look at what this bill does, beyond tidying up the messes from years past, you will find that there's a list of statutes that are being amended to give effect to a new definition of spouse, most of which fall into one category. The Chiropractors Act, the Podiatrists Act, the Forest Act, I think, and some of the other acts here are being amended in order to ensure that the rules that exist that apply to limit, constrain, regulate or in some cases empower the ability of a spouse to participate in the businesses of their spouse by owning non-voting shares in a company that operates a chiropractor's clinic -- or podiatrists, I think, may be in here
The government is ensuring that these acts are going to be amended so that some of those same restrictions are as applicable to same-sex partners as they are to parties to a marriage or to common-law spouses. In a sense, I think this is what the Attorney General meant in his first reading remarks, when he talked about this bill taking some steps to recognize the role of the definition of spouse around issues of conflict of interest. I may not get it exactly right, but we're dealing here with the conduct of business affairs as much as anything, and I think we'll pursue some of those particular issues when we get to the committee stage debate.
[1520]
I note that this bill updates the definition in the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act, which I think was introduced in 1997 and has been in force since then and has had a definition of same-sex spouse that is now being changed. That's another example. Oddly enough, it occurred to me to wonder -- given that there will be a different definition for spouse in the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act than in the Family Relations Act -- whether in some circumstances people might be liable to pay maintenance and not liable to have it registered or enforced, or the other way around. Those two statutes actually work pretty closely together, and that may be another issue that the minister can deal with when we come to it.
All of that being said and really, it's as much as anything an exercise in trying to ensure that there is a context of reality placed around the rosy glow that the government often likes to paint when it talks about equality rights -- this bill, in some important respects, does advance that project of equality. It does ensure -- albeit perhaps more problematically than I might wish -- that an increasing number of the laws of British Columbia are amended in an appropriate way to ensure that partners in same-sex relationships are subject to the same rights and responsibilities, and are given the same benefits and opportunities as participants in married relationships or in common-law relationships.
In order to achieve that objective, however, the government chooses to do so by defining and redefining the term spouse. As members know, that is an issue which causes some members of the public some important concerns. They see in the idea of spouse, in the word spouse, in the idea of marriage and marriage-like and in the word marriage some things that are important to them about traditional conceptions of married relationships. They see that it ought to be possible both to give effect to the ideal of equality and to respect the traditional values that are important to them. I believe that it ought to be possible. That is, we could create all of the substantive rights, responsibilities, benefits and obligations, and make them all available to partners in same-sex relationships without amending the term spouse. We could do the same thing without using the term marriage-like to define the relationship between partners in a same-sex relationship.
There are members of the caucus of which I am a member who believe that the appropriate way to give effect to the legitimate, admirable and much-needed public policy objective of recognizing equality is to do so without changing the definition of spouse itself. One way of accomplishing that objective would be to create a new term.
The term that we proposed back in 1997, which we continue to place on the floor of the Legislature for debate each year when this issue arises, is the term "domestic partner." I'm not sure that the term domestic partner will ever achieve the status of poetic recognition. But it does, I think, achieve the objective of ensuring that the substantive rights
[ Page 16714 ]
and obligations which we're all concerned with are accommodated without changing the definitions and the traditional conceptions that many individuals in our society have when they hear the term spouse and the term marriage. So I think that for many people -- and maybe even for me too -- this bill would be a better bill if it included a recognition of the substantive equality objective but did so in the form of a term called domestic partner
[1525]
You're probably aware, hon. Speaker, that there are some jurisdictions in the world where the idea of domestic partnership or registered partnership is given much fuller effect, where parties to same-sex relationships who wish to be sure that their relationships have all of the attributes of legally enforceable relationships can go and have their relationship honoured and acknowledged in a legally binding document. I have thought about that proposal. Clearly that's not something that we in opposition are in a position to do much about, because it would require some pretty significant public policy planning.
But let me say this in support of that idea. I've talked a lot about definitions in the words and definitions. The law has always been troubled, to some extent, by the distinction between marriage and common-law relationships. Most of the time -- all the time -- it's easy to prove a marriage. All you do is pull your marriage licence out of your back pocket; and when you pull your marriage licence out of your back pocket, that's the end of the inquiry. The court says that you're married, and the rights and obligations that flow to you as married people
Common-law relationships are different. Common-law relationships are, by definition, relationships that don't have that same quality of susceptibility of proof. There isn't usually a legal document that standardizes or gives formal legal effect to a common-law relationship. The result of that is that in many cases where the real fight probably ought to be about the rights and responsibilities that people in relationships have to each other, the real fight instead becomes a fight about whether or not the two people have that relationship in the first place. There's no way you can make that fight go away by saying, "Pull out a document," because the law recognizes that the relationship can exist without a document.
So the law will then have to inquire into the circumstances of living or cohabiting, the arrangements made, the length of the arrangements made, the degree of intimacy, the degree of affection
There's a way you can deal with that problem. You can deal with that problem theoretically, although I'm not suggesting that it would deal with all the problems. You can say: "Well, if you want the incidence of that relationship, if you want the rights and the obligations, you need to go and get a piece of paper."
The idea behind a registered domestic partnership or a registered partnership is that it would give to people in same-sex relationships the same opportunity. It would allow them to say to each other: "We wish to sanctify and formalize our relationship and to do so on a document, so there won't be any argument about whether we have this relationship. And if we have an argument about who should get what from my will or whether I'm supposed to pay for child support or whether I'm supposed to file a conflict disclosure form with the Securities Act, we won't have to argue about whether or not I'm in that relationship, because the registration, the documentation, will speak for itself."
The problem, of course, is that if we in fact are engaged in the business of honouring rights and responsibilities, then, in effect, to force people to choose the route of documentation may well create another hardship. It may in fact create the hardship where people who are in a relationship of dependency lose out, because the court says: "You haven't satisfied me that you're in an enforceable relationship." It's that tension which has created the distinction between married relationships and common-law relationships in the first place. It's not an easy one to resolve, but it is, I think, noteworthy to realize that in its project of achieving equality, the government in effect has chosen to follow the route of common-law spouse. It has chosen to say: "We will define in law the terms, the conditions which constitute the basis for arguing that the relationship exists."
[1530]
You won't get to prove it by a piece of paper, although sometimes paper is relevant. But you have to prove it according to -- what? -- the circumstances of the relationship between the parties. That's why, at the end of the day, I come back to where I started. That's why the terms used in the definition are important. The laws of British Columbia, it could be said, are really interesting only when they're fought about. They become really difficult only when people disagree about what they mean. They really become the focus of our attention only when people have a fight, when they have a lawsuit, when they argue. They don't just argue about the fairness of a situation; they argue about their rights in terms of the words written in the statute books that define their relationships.
This government has chosen to define the basis of a common-law relationship and has chosen to move down this path of equality by defining and expanding the definition of common-law relationships to include parties who, in certain defined circumstances, can establish that they are in a relationship that meets the requirements of the statute. So at the end of the day, people are going to look at these definitions. Will they find that there are differences in these definitions? I hope not. Will they wonder why it is that the government keeps changing them? I'm sure they will. Will they hope that the government finally settles down and gets it into a place where the relationship definition is in fact truly standardized and standardized across all of the legislation in British Columbia? I'm sure they'll hope that that happens too.
At the end of the day, this project is imperfect. But for some of us in my caucus it is worth supporting, notwithstanding its imperfections. For others, the challenge of dealing with the issue of conscience or in some cases with the issue of conscience that has been identified to them by their constituents will preclude them from voting for this bill -- although I think in due course we'll have a chance to debate an amend-
[ Page 16715 ]
ment. The amendment does reintroduce the idea of domestic partner. It's there on the order paper. I invite members of the government to consider whether that is perhaps a way that could be found to deal with striking a better balance between the substantive equality issue and the question of competing values that I think is a real aspect of life in our society. We'll introduce that amendment, and I'm sure there'll be a discussion about it when the time comes. I believe that concludes my remarks in second reading.
Deputy Speaker: I recognize the Attorney General to close debate.
Hon. A. Petter: I appreciate the comments from the member for Richmond-Steveston. I want to congratulate him -- or perhaps it's his assistant -- for their legal research, which was considerable.
He describes the history of amendments around the elimination of discrimination on the provincial statute book with respect to same-sex couples as a tortuous history. I don't think I want to disagree with that, because it seems to me the goal of achieving social equality and of changing a fundamental set of societal assumptions and legal relations around a matter of social equality does require many twists and turns and a great deal of effort. It isn't a simple matter. It has been a tortuous history but, I think, a very worthwhile endeavour, and one that is ongoing.
[1535]
I must say that the history may have been tortuous, but that tortuous history pales in comparison to some of the contortions that the member himself seems to go through in raising concerns and objections to some extent, I think, missing -- or perhaps not focusing, at least, on -- the main point of this bill. That is clearly to take another important step down that road -- and it is a difficult road -- to changing the law to reflect changing social mores and to protect human rights and in particular to eliminate an invidious form of discrimination which has existed in society for too long and which is now being eliminated step by step through the legislation that has been introduced at least in this province.
Now, the member focused on a number of different issues. I think they were worthwhile issues, but I'm not sure they merited the extent of the diversion that the member took us on in exploring them. He talked about the question of definitions. I think we can certainly have some discussion on this when we get into the committee stage and hopefully clarify in that discussion some of the choices that were made.
But in my understanding of this process, I think the matter is quite simple. As a number of bills were brought together in this bill, a number of bills were brought together with a goal of eliminating discrimination and including within an all-embracing definition of spouse the relationships of same-sex couples. For the purpose of recognizing equality between them and common-law couples, it was disclosed that there were some different definitions used in different statutes that had accumulated over the years, some of long standing and some of shorter standing.
Then one's faced with the question: what do you do about that? The decision was: well, let us come up with a standardized definition for the purpose of this statute at least, so we don't create what the member would have given us a long speech on had we not done this -- namely, a differential definition within this statute.
The member points out that that may still leave other statutes with a definition that has not yet been brought into conformity with this one. I think that's a good point, and I think it's a point that suggests that perhaps we should review the rest of the statute books with that in mind. But whenever one makes changes, one tries to do the good; and sometimes when doing the good, one doesn't get to do the best, which is to change every definition that is required to satisfy the act before one.
Here certain statutes came into play, and certain decisions were made to try to standardize the definition with respect to those acts. If there are other acts that were not captured in that exercise and not brought into this new standardized definition, the member says there may be concerns about that in terms of interpretation. That certainly needs to be addressed. But I just think this is an incidence of moving forward in a systematic way through the statute book in trying to deal with a problem of social inequality and in correcting it. Whenever that happens, problems of definition will arise, and inconsistencies which in fact were on the statute book get exposed. It's just that the member doesn't get a chance to see them as clearly or to make speeches about them.
The member says we should be concerned about the fact that some further inconsistencies remain. I accept that fact. With respect to the two-year rule
In fact, it has ameliorated it in the sense that it has eliminated at least one more important distinction: the invidious distinction of excluding same-sex couples from the benefits of those acts.
Now, the other issue that the member
Now, the member engaged in another set of what I would call diversions. I'm sure the member won't like me calling them diversions, but there you go -- the differences between one side of the House and the other. That is this discussion about domestic partnership. I do want to spend a minute talking about that, because I think it's an important question.
[1540]
[ Page 16716 ]
There is a lot of literature and discussion around the issue of domestic partnerships, and I think some of it's very valuable and probably merits further consideration. In fact, the Law Institute in this province has done a report on it, and the federal Law Reform Commission, I believe, has done a report on it. The question of domestic partnership is a very important and worthwhile concept that deserves exploration. It can deal with issues of partners who may have relations quite different from the ones that fall within common-law relationships right now: aunts and uncles living together, brothers and sisters -- what have you. It has the further feature that the member himself discussed -- that is, it's a situation in which the partners have to, in a sense, buy into the relationship and register the relationship, at least according to many of the formulations that I've seen.
I'm not discounting that issue; I think it's important. But let us not allow it to divert attention from the issue of equality. Common-law relationships currently exist. They were brought onto the statute book because governments felt it was important that the state take action to protect parties in common-law relationships. Given that that's the case, the question for us here is: should we now deny the opportunity to extend those protections and responsibilities because the couple living together are the same sex rather than the opposite sex? This is again a classic example of the best being used as an argument against the good. If the member believes domestic partnerships are the best, fine. But let us not deny the good -- namely, the extension of civil rights and responsibilities that currently exist -- to partners simply because they are of the same sex.
I want to say one other thing about this, because I think underlying the member's position is a very problematic proposition. Underlying the member's position seems to be the proposition that not all civil relationships must reflect the principle of equality. Let me explain why I say that. The member seems to think it's quite acceptable that we would have civil relationships and responsibilities recognized in the statute book that would be denied to individuals based on their sexual orientation.
Interjection.
Hon. A. Petter: No, that's the point. The member, in defence of some of his colleagues, says that they do not like the idea that the word spouse would be attached to people of the same sex. Now, we have to make a choice here. We are on the civil side of the equation. Religious practices are one thing, but the state has decided to recognize certain civil relationships for civil reasons -- not religious reasons. If we got into the religious side, we could point out that indeed some religions recognize same-sex marriages, so even that would produce an ambivalent result.
But we don't have to do that. We have certain civil rights that are established by legislation, and those have been defined in respect of spousal relationships. What is the justification for saying that because the word spouse is used, somehow it's acceptable to deny the rights and privileges of those civil relationships to same-sex couples? I don't think you can escape the conclusion that implicit in the member's argument -- that domestic partnership is somehow an acceptable end run around providing equality for common-law couples in spite of their sexual orientation -- there's a hidden assumption on the member's part and his caucus's part that not all civil relationships must reflect a principle of equality when it comes to the elimination of discrimination for same-sex couples. It's irrefutable. That's the logic of his argument, and I think it's a very problematic point. I just need to say that. It's a very problematic point.
I agree. Let's talk about domestic partnerships. Let's talk about domestic partnerships in terms of looking to the future. Let's discuss the textual problems about definitions as we move forward. But let us not lose sight of what's really happening here. This is part of a process of facing up to a historic inequality on the statute books. There are common-law relationships on the statute books. They apply to opposite-sex couples who are in a marriage-like relationship. Do we or do we not agree that the time has at last come -- this is about the third or fourth opportunity we've had to say this -- to eliminate that form of discrimination with respect to that civil relationship? I'm not talking about definitions; I'm not talking about the future of domestic partnerships, but right here and now when we have a chance to do it.
I suggest that we can't avoid answering that question. The answer should be that we think that time has come, and for that reason we support this bill. With that, hon. Speaker, I move second reading of the bill.
[1545]
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Second reading of Bill 21 approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 57 | |||
| Evans | Doyle | McGregor | |
| Sawicki | Kwan | Lali | |
| Hammell | Pullinger | Bowbrick | |
| Mann Brewin | Boone | Orcherton | |
| Calendino | Zirnhelt | Randall | |
| Robertson | Sihota | Cashore | |
| Smallwood | Miller | MacPhail | |
| Dosanjh | Petter | Lovick | |
| Priddy | Ramsey | G. Wilson | |
| Farnworth | Waddell | Stevenson | |
| Gillespie | Streifel | Walsh | |
| Kasper | G. Clark | Whittred | |
| Hansen | C. Clark | Campbell | |
| Farrell-Collins | de Jong | Plant | |
| Abbott | L. Reid | Neufeld | |
| Coell | Chong | Sanders | |
| Weisgerber | Goodacre | Weisbeck | |
| Nebbeling | Hawkins | Stephens | |
| Symons | Roddick | McKinnon | |
| NAYS -- 11 | |||
| Coleman | J. Reid | Krueger | |
| Thorpe | Barisoff | J. Wilson | |
| van Dongen | Masi | Penner | |
| Anderson | Jarvis | ||
[1550]
J. van Dongen: I think the Clerk read my name out as voting in the affirmative. I don't think that was correct, hon. Speaker.
The Speaker: The correction will be made. Second reading passes.
[ Page 16717 ]
Bill 21, Definition of Spouse Amendment Act, 2000, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 24.
MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 2000
(second reading)
Hon. A. Petter: I move the bill be read a second time.
Bill 24 contains amendments to a variety of statutes. The amendment to the Assessment Act is needed to bring the legislation into line with administrative practice so that valuation manuals can be adopted annually by reference. Adopting the manuals by reference when they are updated was the yearly practice. However, this year it was determined that the legislation did not clearly support the practice, meaning that the manuals actually had to be included with the adopting regulation, creating an unnecessary administrative burden.
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The Criminal Records Review Act is being amended to permit the registrar to disclose information received under the act subject to the conditions set out in section 33(p) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act -- that is, where there are compelling circumstances that affect someone's health or safety. The existing provision was designed to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information under the act. It would not, however, permit the registrar to advise an employer of a person considered to present a significant danger to children.
The amendment to the Crown Counsel Act will provide statutory recognition of the British Columbia Crown Counsel Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for Crown counsel and authorizes the association and government, represented by the Public Service Employee Relations Commission, to enter into agreements governing terms of employment for Crown counsel employed by the government.
The changes to the Employment Standards Act require silvicultural contractors to be licensed by the director of employment standards in a manner similar to farm labour contractors, talent agencies and employment agencies. There is general agreement from both the employers and the employees that this will create a more level playing field for good employers and will better enable the employment standards branch to monitor and enforce the new employment standards for this industry.
The federal government has introduced legislation to extend parental benefits under the employment insurance program, effective December 31, 2000, and changes to the Canada Labour Code that will require federally regulated employers to provide unpaid leave to match the new employment insurance benefit period. Amendments to the Employment Standards Act in this bill are included with the unpaid pregnancy and parental leave provisions to reflect the new employment insurance benefit period and thereby provide working parents with the flexibility necessary to access those new benefits.
The amendments to the B.C. Fisheries Act establish a research and development fund for the finfish aquaculture industry, following on the environmental assessment office's salmon aquaculture review, which recommended creation of such an industry-sourced fund. The fund will promote development of leading-edge aquaculture technology as well as research into practices that address areas of environmental uncertainty and risk identified by the salmon aquaculture review.
The province is amending the Forest Act and the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act to enable greater flexibility in the incidental cutting of Crown timber while maintaining appropriate management of environmental values and to help promote stability and effective implementation of government-approved land use plans by ensuring that all three resource ministries have a role where business interests and resource stewardship may be affected respectively.
The amendments to the Law and Equity Act will allow us to expand the role of mediation in core processes. Mediation allows people to resolve civil disputes faster, cheaper and more collaboratively. The regulations enacted in this amendment will bring people together to resolve their differences before they go to trial through an expansion of the notice-to-mediate provisions that are currently in place in two existing instances.
The amendments to the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act allow the Speaker to approve leaves of absence to Members of the Legislative Assembly, allowing for maternity leave benefits.
The amendments to the Liquor Control and Licensing Act and the Liquor Statutes Amendment Act, 1999, are necessary to correct errors and address the needs of local governments and first nations during the implementation of the liquor policy review recommendations.
An amendment to the Local Government Act restores funeral homes, crematoriums and other commercial premises on cemetery lands to taxable status beginning in the 2001 taxation year. I must say that this is a change that is responsive to a concern that arose in a number of areas of the province, including my own constituency, following a recent court decision and is needed to restore equity to the taxation of such operations. In other words, the amendment will ensure that funeral homes, crematoriums and related commercial operations are treated the same for municipal tax purposes, whether they are located on or off cemetery land.
Hon. Speaker, in addition to the previous amendment, the Local Government Act and Vancouver Charter are amended to allow local governments to obtain warrants for the seizure, impoundment and detainment of dangerous dogs in our communities. The amendments will also reinforce local governments' authority to apply for Provincial Court orders for destruction of a dangerous dog. These amendments are again ones that are being very much welcomed in many communities around the province where there has been a problem with dangerous dogs and, in particular, a problem in detaining those dogs pending decision as to what should be best done with them under court order.
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The amendment to the Local Government Statutes Amendment Act, 2000, corrects a cross-reference. The amendment to the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act (No. 2) authorizes the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine to forgive a debt owed to it by the Shames Mountain Ski Corp. The amendment is needed because the Municipal Act generally
[ Page 16718 ]
does not allow local governments to provide assistance to business. In this case, however, the regional district requested the authority to respond to a unique situation arising from the sale of its former ski operation to the ski corporation and to perhaps assist the ski corporation in continuing a valuable recreation resource in the area.
Hon. Speaker, the two technical amendments to the Ombudsman Act will clarify the basis upon which investigations into complaints are not started or are discontinued and will reduce the amount of paperwork thereby required by the office of the ombudsman.
The amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act will provide for improved administrative processes, under three sections of that act. Two sections are being amended to correct inadvertent omissions from the consequential amendments of previous enactments, and five sections are being amended to clarify the intent of those sections.
The amendments to the Residential Tenancy Act will expand the act's application to certain types of tenancies to ensure that these tenancies are governed by a fair set of rights and responsibilities and that landlords and tenants have access to a fast and affordable process for resolving disputes. The bill also makes various minor amendments to address concerns raised by landlord and tenant groups and the residential tenancy office. While the amendments may be minor, their impact, I think, is one that will have major benefit. Again, I think of one that is very, very positive and beneficial, and that is a requirement that landlords change locks when a new tenant takes over premises and seeks the security that the locks in fact are unique to that new tenant and are not accessible by a previous tenant. I think that's a good form of consumer protection and tenant protection and one that is enabled by this amendment.
This bill contains two technical amendments to the Royal Roads University Act and Technical University of British Columbia Act that correct minor errors.
The bill also makes eight minor amendments to the Strata Property Act to correct technical and drafting errors. The amendments will clarify the intent of certain provisions and ensure their consistency with other sections of the act -- for example, by correcting references to voting thresholds and including missing section references. These amendments will reduce the potential for uncertainty when the new act is brought into force on July 1 of this year.
Final amendments in this bill correct a cross-reference error in the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company Act and correct a gender-specific reference in the Transport of Dangerous Goods Act.
With that, I again move second reading of the bill.
G. Plant: It must be near the end of the session. We've got another miscellaneous statutes amendment act. I've lost count of how many amendments the government has here. Some of them are apparently munificent enough to cause the Attorney General to deviate from his script long enough to express his serene confidence in the wonderful gifts being provided to Her Majesty's citizens through the complete and utter obscurity of a miscellaneous statutes amendment act. But nonetheless
There are actually jurisdictions in parliamentary systems that care enough about whether or not particular groups of employees should be certified as bargaining agents that they actually would introduce a bill expressly called whatever the agency is. They wouldn't put the recognition of the Crown Counsel Association as the exclusive bargaining agent for 400 employees, representing $80 million a year of public expenditure, into a miscellaneous statutes amendment act. They'd put it up front; then the public would see it. The public would have a chance to know whether it's a good thing or not. We'll have a chance to have that discussion when we get to committee stage debate.
There is one provision in this bill that strikes close to something I care about. I am going to speak about it for a minute or two because I want to persuade the Attorney General to fix a problem that he's about to create. I want to persuade him to amend section 16 of this bill by introducing one word as an amendment to the changes he wants to make to the Law and Equity Act. The Law and Equity Act is a statute that has some pretty important stuff in it about how citizens in this province get to have access to courts, about some of the basic rules around what courts do. It's a pretty important statute. It's being amended here by introducing a provision that will give the provincial cabinet the power to make regulations around alternate dispute resolution.
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I want to make a confession, and I apologize for the fact that it is hopelessly partisan. But I am way past the point with this government where I want to give those people over there, locked up in their little room as they are, any ability to do anything to affect anybody's rights anywhere, anytime at all -- forever. So with that totally partisan
The government wants to give cabinet some more power; cabinet apparently doesn't have enough power. So they want to give cabinet some more power, and they want to give cabinet that power in respect of the rules around access to courts. The area that's under consideration here is, I think, important -- alternate dispute resolution. The government won't find anyone on this side of the House who disagrees with the notion that we need to do more to encourage the parties to civil disputes and in some cases their lawyers to take advantage of a wide range of options for addressing their disputes. That wide range of options can include, and should include in many cases, mediation.
Mediation is a voluntary process by its very nature. It's a process where two or more parties to a lawsuit agree that they'll try to get together, and without any compulsion, without anyone forcing them, they'll see if they can identify common ground. They'll see if there are points on which they can compromise their differences of opinion. Then, if they have enough of a foundation to build on, they will enter into an agreement. They will compromise their rights, and they will settle the dispute. Mediation is a way of avoiding unnecessary legal expense. Mediation is a way, in appropriate cases, of avoiding the trauma and the stress and distress that's caused by litigation when parties are forced to tell their stories in court in the sometimes harsh scrutiny of cross-examination.
Mediation, I think, is recognized everywhere as an invaluable tool in the toolkit of dispute resolution techniques. But the essence of mediation is the idea of voluntariness. It is often said that compulsory mediation is an oxymoron. It's a perfect
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oxymoron because mediation does not work if the result is imposed. So the idea is: how can mediation work as a way of solving a dispute if it's compulsory?
Now, one of the challenges the legal system faces is that in addition to the fact that there is a wide and growing range of tools and techniques available for parties to solve their disputes, there is also the fact that litigation is becoming increasingly expensive. Access to the courts is increasingly frustrated by the high cost of access. That includes in many cases, of course, the high cost of fees created by government, which regards the court system of British Columbia as almost entirely a user-pay system. That is in fact the impact of the many taxes and fees that have been imposed on the court system of British Columbia. But even apart from all of that, litigation is expensive. There is a legitimate public policy interest in looking for ways to encourage the parties to litigation to find alternate methods of resolving their disputes short of a full-blown trial.
With that spirit in mind and with the recognition of a whole growing body of literature around issues like mediation, the government -- through the Attorney General and his dispute resolution office -- has been working closely with the legal profession, with the practising bar, to see whether there are specific instances in which the idea of mediation can be introduced in a way that is not purely voluntary but where the context is so suitable for mediation that it is likely to be productive of settlement in the vast majority of cases.
There are at least a couple of initiatives underway. One is a set of initiatives in the Provincial Court -- and they include motor vehicle cases, construction cases and family law cases -- where the parties to those kinds of cases don't have a choice. They have to participate in some form of mediation. Experience suggests that in those kinds of cases, if you bring the parties together to talk about what's bugging them, they have a good chance of settling it and solving the problem without a full-blown trial, which saves everybody the money and certainly saves the parties the potential for anguish.
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My understanding is that the experiment in small claims court is generally working and that the initial feedback from those experiments is generally productive, and that is all to the good. If we found the right place to require mediation to be used -- if it is in fact fair, and if it is not creating a situation where litigants are having their arms twisted unreasonably to force them to accept settlements that are not in their best interests -- then I'm in favour of that. So there's one example of a project that's underway.
The other project that's underway is the proposal to introduce rule 25A, I think, of the Rules of Court. "Notice to Mediate" is the name of the process. What that means is that any one party in civil litigation in the Supreme Court has the right to send a notice to mediate to the other parties, which would then trigger a requirement that they attempt a mediation. It's kind of a hybrid; it's a mix. It's not completely compulsory, but neither is it purely voluntary.
Purely voluntary mediation, of course, is available to any party to litigation at any time now. We don't need the government's help. If you're engaged in a lawsuit that you think can be settled by mediation, you can make the suggestion to your lawyer, or you can make the suggestion to the other side. The lawyer can make the suggestion to his or her client, and indeed that happens every day. In fact, the lawyers that I speak to about this issue believe passionately that it's their duty as counsel to suggest that and to do what they can to persuade their clients to use mediation when it's the right case.
The question of whether and when it's the right case should be left to the parties to a lawsuit. If you don't let them decide, then you're imposing something on them; and when you're imposing something on them, it loses that character of voluntariness, which is the essence in particular of mediation. If parties feel that they are being dragged kicking and screaming into the mediation room, they are not likely to settle their dispute.
One of the concerns I have, which others have expressed, around the notice-to-mediate process is that it has this additional element. Every time you introduce a new potentially compulsory element to the civil litigation process, you are giving one party to a lawsuit the right to invoke that process at everybody else's expense. If you take that example and apply it to the case of a notice to mediate, you can in fact have someone who has lots of money to spend on a lawsuit but not much interest in settling it realize that one more thing they can do to drive their opponents into a situation where they financially have no choice but to settle on the other side's terms is to send a notice to mediate.
Then they have to call up their lawyer, and it's one more process, one more meeting. The lawyer has to prepare for another meeting. The lawyer has to look like he or she is sincerely interested in attempting to mediate. They have to hire the mediator; they have to pay to hire the mediator, as I understand it. All of that has about it the potential for another element of -- extortion is too high a word -- coercion. It's another aspect of the litigation process that takes it out of the hands of the parties and leaves it in the hands of others. It's another aspect of the litigation process that gives to one party the right to send out one more notice that will impose one more set of costs on the other side of the process.
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Those are some of the arguments against mediation alternatives. If I were confident that every single lawyer in British Columbia was completely capable of, and interested in and informed about and committed to, making the decision in each and every case about whether mediation was right
I'm not confident that the culture of the practice of law has completely changed across the board towards a culture that completely acknowledges the legitimacy and importance of mediation. When I look at the whole situation
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However, I am satisfied that the pilot projects underway in Provincial Court are in fact examples of government and the members of the legal profession intervening to create something that seems to be working. I am satisfied that -- at least as an experiment, if you will, in changing how litigation works -- the notice to mediate process should be given a chance.
So where does that take me? It takes me -- I know the Attorney General doesn't like this -- to the words of the amendment. I know the Attorney General doesn't like it, because every time I talk about the words of a law, he stands up and says: "Don't worry about the words. We mean to do something good. Support us with the cause." That's what he always does whenever he's unhappy about the prospect of the words. Maybe just this once I can engage him on the issue of actually caring about the terms of the powers that are being given, to engage him long enough to consider adding the word provincial before the word court in the third line of section 68(1)(a).
Here is what that will do. It will protect the right of the government to continue with the notice to mediate process in the superior court. It will protect the right of the government to continue with the Provincial Court-level experiments in mediation that are underway. But it will not give the government the unfettered right, which the section as drafted currently does, to draft a regulation which would require all parties to all litigation in British Columbia to engage in mediation. As I understand it, it's not the government's intention to do that. As I understand it, the government -- and I hope the Attorney General is personally of this view -- would be wrong to go down that path, that far, without a pretty long discussion with the profession. One of the things that has made the projects to date succeed is that there has been that discussion with the profession. On the whole, I think the profession is onside with the things that are underway.
This is not an issue that's going to determine the outcome of second reading. It is an issue which will, I think, determine the outcome or, at least from my perspective, the way people vote when we get to section 16 of the bill. I don't know how long it'll be before we get to that debate. It may be tomorrow morning. I wanted to give the Attorney General, on the record, a bit of my sense of the issues that are at play here and to point out the particular way in which I think the section can be improved.
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If the section is not improved, then it gives the cabinet the power to make regulations that would require parties to court proceedings to engage in mediation. Without any qualification, that means cabinet would have the power to require all parties to all court proceedings to engage in mediation. If that's not the government's intention -- if the government really is mainly interested here in ensuring that it can continue the limited experiments that it has underway in the Provincial Court -- then adding the word "provincial" as a qualifier in that clause will protect what the government has been doing and wants to do and will also ensure that it can't go beyond that, at least not without coming back into this chamber for a debate.
So I leave that with the Attorney General. The rest of the issues raised by Bill 24 will be pursued as required in committee stage debate.
K. Krueger: I rise to make a few points about the changes to the Employment Standards Act encompassed in Bill 24. Several of them have to do with implementation of the government agreement in the silviculture industry for a variance to normal Employment Standards Act provisions. Indeed, the government has engaged in a lengthy consultation with the stakeholders in the silviculture industry and, as a result, has agreed to a variance which seems to make sense to most of the stakeholders involved.
Once again the opposition would like to call to the government's attention that if it makes sense to do that in the silviculture industry, if it makes sense to do it in the high-tech industry and if it makes sense to do it in the film industry, then it probably makes sense to allow greater flexibility in all the industries in British Columbia with regard to the onerous provisions of the existing employment standards legislation.
That being said, there has been very little contention about the changes encompassed by sections 6, 7 and 9 of this legislation. Once again, we would just ask the government to consider the oft-repeated appeal by industries throughout British Columbia to allow for more flexibility in the way that they and their employees conduct their working lives.
Section 7 of this legislation actually reduces the number of weeks of unpaid leave to a pregnant employee from 18 to 17. I was told in our briefing session this morning that that is because of clumsy drafting of this government's earlier legislation and that the extra week really pertains to the week of the birth. In fact, this is not a reduction of mothers' entitlement to pregnancy leave, which I don't think anyone in this House would support.
I don't think there's going to be a lot of contention about section 7. The section that does raise some concerns in the employer community throughout this province is section 8, which increases the length of time available to adoptive parents and birth mothers, as well as fathers, to coincide with the federal legislation that is going through its process but is not yet law.
It makes sense to the official opposition that we would want to have legislation in British Columbia that conforms with the provisions that the federal government is making under the employment insurance plans. Certainly we want British Columbians to be able to qualify for the benefits being made available.
It can't help but be regarded with a certain level of cynicism by employers that our government in British Columbia is in the vanguard of embracing such change, when it is something that is costly to business, and yet is so far behind in embracing other progressive measures that would stimulate the economy of British Columbia. Other than Quebec, which already has fairly lengthy parental leave provisions, no other province in Canada has yet moved to embrace these changes. Indeed, a number of provinces have lesser provisions than British Columbia presently has.
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That being said, we on this side of the House have a great concern about early childhood development, about the fact that parents feel obliged by economic constraints to return to the workforce quicker than they would otherwise have liked. We think it's healthy for children to get a good start in life with their biological or adoptive parents, and those things are good to see. We do wonder, though, why this government doesn't learn its lessons. Even when it has a good idea, it continues to follow the same failed methods of implementation. Specifically, in this case business wasn't consulted by this govern-
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ment about the changes, and business has some very legitimate concerns. A year is a very long time, particularly in the life of a small business, to get by without a valued employee.
Even though employers also share our concerns and our goals of people being able to spend that quality time with children in the early stages of their lives, they wonder how in the world they're going to cope with this, particularly with the existing provisions of the Employment Standards Act, which are not being amended by this legislation. They wonder what it's going to be like for them -- for example, if a small business with five employees has one on maternity leave, it has lost 20 percent of its workforce -- to struggle along for that year in penalty-killing mode. Obviously many of them will choose to try and find a temporary replacement for the term of the leave.
The Labour minister went so far as to speculate that it'll create employment opportunities in B.C. because of that. But the problem, of course, is finding the best person for the job who's willing to take a job and tie themselves up for a year, knowing that the job is not going to be a permanent one.
The employers also voiced the problem that many people do not return from parental leave but fail to give notice to their employers that they are not returning, so the employers are not able to properly plan for the succession or address their obvious business needs. Once again, business would have liked to have an opportunity to consult with the government about that problem, about the effect on businesses.
Again, in section 54 of the existing legislation an employer is required
Once again, industry -- business throughout British Columbia -- would really have liked an opportunity to discuss that problem with this government before new legislation was enacted in the vanguard of such legislation for Canada. Already our economy is in a crisis compared to the rest of the country. We're the only province of Canada that is having the economic problems we have. And to business people, to wealth creators, to job creators throughout this province, this is yet another indication that this government doesn't consider them worth consulting, that this government doesn't value their input, that this government doesn't really care about the effects its legislation has on business.
When I spoke to ministry personnel in a briefing meeting about this issue, I asked if consultation took place at all. The answer was: "Well, no. There was minimum consultation by us," although the ministry takes some solace in the fact that the federal government consulted fairly thoroughly before it enacted its changes.
In talking with the ministry personnel about the expenses to business and the fact that there's no consequence to employees who fail to do that appropriate thing of giving due notice and letting their employers know that they're not coming back, the answer was: "Well, business expenses must always be borne by the business." This, I thought, was a rather heartless way of looking at things, because government continually acts in such ways that business expenses are increased while it somewhat glibly takes the position that those expenses have to be borne by the businesses themselves.
Not only is that not fair, hon. Speaker; it's a really bad idea. It reinforces the message that wealth creators -- job creators -- in this province have been receiving from this government for the last nine years. That is: "Big Brother government knows best. Big Brother government will tell you how you're going to interact with your employees, how you're going to run your businesses, and Big Brother government doesn't really care about your input or the consequences."
The results are all around us, hon. Speaker, in the economic devastation which British Columbia has suffered, manifested by the fact that we share the negative distinction with Chiapas, Mexico, of being the only jurisdictions in North America that are in the economic state that we are in -- and a very negative economic state it is. So once again, this looks like an example of cavalier treatment of job creators, of disregard for potential investors and of not caring at all about the problems that are created as the government makes legislative changes.
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In committee we'll have a chance to go into some more detail on these issues, and the government can account for the move from 18 weeks to 17 weeks of pregnancy leave. Also, the government can account for its failure, once again, to duly implement the process of the business lens in identifying what the problems were going to be for businesses in making a move such as this.
Now, I'm told that the government has received its RIS. I had to ask what the acronym meant, and I was told it is a regulatory impact statement, pursuant to last year's legislation. It reminded me of the ROUS terminology from the movie The Princess Bride -- rodents of unusual size. Certainly the wealth creators of this province feel as though sometimes they're dealing with people who have that kind of regard for what they actually contribute to this province. An RIS is hardly effective in voicing the concerns of business and preparing them for the costs that these sorts of changes bring.
All of that being said, we are going to be supporting the changes, because it is certainly a valuable contribution that the federal government has agreed to make -- extending the parental leave period in the way that they have. We do wish to encourage families and take part in this initiative to provide for a longer period for newborns and for children newly adopted to get a good grounding in their family life and in their homes. But once again, we would ask the government to show greater regard and greater respect for those people who create jobs in this province and in our economy and to try to consult, even now after the fact, with business. This is in order that the costs and the problems which come with changes imposed by government are ameliorated and that we begin to demonstrate to the job creators of this province that we do care about the struggles they have and the constraints that new legislation puts them under.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I know there may be a shock that there's a debate breaking out about this piece of
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legislation, but I wanted to rise and speak to the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, specifically the sections that the member for Kamloops-North Thompson has been addressing. That is the amendments to the Employment Standards Act, which puts British Columbia at the head of all provinces and territories to amend our employment standards legislation to now match the entitlements that are available to parents under the employment insurance regulations.
Just to reiterate, the federal government has amended employment insurance regulations to allow for a greater length of time that a new mom, a birth mom, can stay at home with her child, and the birth dads and adoptive parents as well. There are different times, depending on the circumstances in which the child arrives in one's home. Nevertheless, they are amendments to the employment insurance regulations that now catch up with benefits that exist in Europe, Australia and even parts of Africa. They are certainly much ahead of the United States, for instance.
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I understand that the Liberal opposition would suggest that not enough consultation was done on these particular amendments. However, the business community may have a bone to pick with the federal government in terms of changing employment insurance regulations -- but they don't. They have not brought that to our attention. I have regular ongoing dialogue with small and medium-sized business advocacy organizations as well as with small and medium-sized business owners. Both groups of business owners know how difficult it is to recruit workers in this province and to retain well-trained workers. Both groups understand that the growing workforce in the province is amongst women. Both groups know that the trained workforce is shrinking amongst people who are younger than 45, and that just happens to coincide with childbearing women.
This is good news for employers in this province. It's good news for employers that they are now going to be able to give benefits to their workers. They share in the payment through employment insurance premiums, but they also get a return from those employment insurance premiums in allowing them to have a mechanism available to retain their trained workforce.
It makes sense from a parenting view as well. There are many studies available when we examine child rearing as it relates to healthy children in North America these days. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, under the direction of Dr. Fraser Mustard, clearly demonstrates that the more time a child can spend in the new days of his or her life
This is about improving the economy. This is good news for small and medium-sized businesses, and it's wonderful news for us as taxpayers that our government has chosen to partner with the federal government to invest in children through greater parental leave. I truly hope that it becomes de rigueur for new parents, whether they've birthed the child themselves or adopted the child -- that they see it as a right that they should access -- to stay home as long as they can afford to stay home with their children in the new days of their life.
I know that the Liberal opposition is merely nitpicking at the very, very minute edges in quite an ineffective way, because this is such wonderful news for parents, for small and medium-sized businesses. It is such wonderful news that British Columbia once again is on the cutting edge for giving rights to workers and their families that are balanced and fair but that also meet the needs of the employers. I do know that the Liberal opposition, through the member for Kamloops-North Thompson, have indicated their support. We should really celebrate these amendments as, once again, doing the right thing quickly for all British Columbians.
The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Attorney General will close debate.
Hon. A. Petter: I won't comment further on the comments made by the member for Kamloops-North Thompson. The Minister of Labour was provoked into a response. I suspect that was his motivation in any event, and I think that answers the issues more than satisfactorily.
I did want to say a word, however, about the comments from the member for Richmond-Steveston with respect to the Law and Equity Act. He started off wounding me terribly by saying that I didn't care about words, and of course that's absolutely untrue. I care deeply about words, and the member and I have in fact had very productive discussions about words in estimates. And here we even made some amendments along the way, I think, on privacy provisions. We crafted them right on the floor of this Legislature, because we both care about words.
But I kind of like words that illuminate and help point to the important issues, not words that blind us to what's good or divert our attention from what's important. Sometimes we disagree as to whether the words that he's speaking are in that category or in a different category.
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In any event, I'm just kind of concerned. I shouldn't confess this probably, but I have a certain affection for that member, and he seems to be getting awfully sour of late and very, very negative. I'm worried that his use of words -- or maybe it's his feeling that I don't care about his words -- is contributing to that. So I want to make his day. I wish he were here to hear this, but perhaps it could be passed on to him.
I listened very carefully to his comments. He's absolutely correct in what he says is the intention of the government with respect to the changes to the Law and Equity Act. Those changes are designed to provide for a notice-to-mediate provision in respect to superior courts, and other forms of mediation can be continued in Provincial Courts.
I think that the suggestion that he made of adding the word "provincial" helps to illuminate that purpose and clarify it, and I'm going to be very happy, when we get to committee stage, to support that amendment. In fact, I'll introduce it myself, because I think he's right. I want him to cheer up in this chamber and realize that words count, that his words count. When they're positive, when they illuminate, as his suggestion did here, the government will, as always, listen and will bring that amendment about. And with that, I move second reading, hon. Speaker.
Motion approved.
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Bill 24, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2000, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 18.
FINANCE AND CORPORATE RELATIONS
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2000
(second reading)
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm very pleased to kick off second reading debate on Bill 18, Finance and Corporate Relations Statutes Amendment Act, 2000, and move that it be read a second time.
This bill amends five finance statutes to implement measures that were contained in Budget 2000, to provide the recently announced additional support for the British Columbia horse-racing industry and to establish the best practices capital management framework that was recommended in Deloitte Consulting's review of capital management practices in British Columbia.
The government understands the importance of ensuring that our manufacturing sector remains competitive. Bill 18, by amending the Income Tax Act, introduces a new incentive to assist this sector in meeting the demands of a rapidly evolving economy. The British Columbia manufacturing and processing tax credit is a 3 percent income tax credit. It will apply to purchases of new manufacturing and processing machinery and equipment and buildings acquired after March 31, 2000. This credit can be used to reduce British Columbia corporate income tax in the year of acquisition, or it may be carried back three years or forward to reduce tax in any of the ten years after the assets are purchased. In total, companies will have a span of 14 years to utilize this credit. The credit will reduce the cost of manufacturing and processing assets, and will help British Columbia businesses remain competitive and adapt to the demands of the emerging global market.
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Another amendment in this act is to the Corporation Capital Tax Act. It amends that act to ensure that foreign bank branches are taxed on a consistent basis with domestic banks. Due to amendments to the federal Bank Act in 1999, foreign banks will now be able to establish operations in Canada through branches. Prior to this act by the federal government, foreign banks were able to operate in Canada only through subsidiary corporations. The amendments will provide rules for foreign bank branches to calculate their British Columbia capital tax.
Domestic banks are required under Canadian law to maintain a minimum level of capital of 10 percent of risk-weighted assets. Foreign banks are subject to the capital requirements of their home country, and branches of foreign banks operating in Canada will not have their own capital, because the foreign bank corporation would maintain its capital in some country. So in order to put foreign bank branches operating in Canada on an even footing with domestic banks, the British Columbia capital tax base for foreign bank branches will be determined by a formula based on 10 percent of risk-weighted assets. This is consistent with the formula that was recently announced by the federal government for foreign capital tax on foreign bank branches.
Hon. Speaker, on a more understandable note, Bill 18 amends the Horse Racing Tax Act. Now listen up; this one is absolutely understandable. The British Columbia horse-racing industry, as I think all members in the chamber know, has suffered a significant decline in track attendance and live wagering over the last several years. We all recognize that several thousand jobs depend on this industry, and we have been looking for ways to support and improve our support for horse racing in British Columbia. Bill 18 amends the Horse Racing Tax Act to improve the competitiveness and overall viability of the horse-racing industry.
The amendments in this act will provide over $3 million in additional horse-racing tax revenue that will be paid annually to the B.C. Racing Commission. That money will be used for strategic areas such as increasing purses, marketing, promotion and long-term strategic planning. The amendments also provide increased spending flexibility to the B.C. Racing Commission. They establish an amount of money, to be determined by regulation, that must be directed to improving the racing sector overall and, finally, the development of a strategic plan to improve the overall economic viability of the sector.
Bill 18 also amends the Horse Racing Act to ensure that the legislation is consistent with what has been the longstanding method of calculating the tax refund payable to the B.C. Racing Commission. Bill 18 also amends the Financial Administration Act.
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These amendments are the first step in our implementation of the recommendations contained in Deloitte Consulting's independent review of capital management practices in British Columbia. The amendments are the legislative foundation -- a foundation which enables Treasury Board, as the banker and guarantor of public expenditures, to make regulations and issue directives respecting the planning, management and reporting of capital expenditures. These amendments allow us to build on our existing strengths in capital project management, which were recognized by Deloitte and will be used to clarify the roles and responsibilities and accountabilities throughout the capital process.
The government has committed to implementing Deloitte's recommendations. Those recommendations include a new project classification framework, standardization of business case requirements, a strengthened reporting and monitoring regime, and greater use of post-completion evaluations.
We have already commenced consultations with ministries, Crown corporations and local agencies in the development of these key priorities. This legislation will provide the stewardship necessary to meet public expectations that capital projects are well planned and delivered on time and on budget.
Finally, Bill 18 amends the Financial Information Act. In their report Deloitte Consulting identified the need to clarify and strengthen the authority of the Minister of Finance and the minister responsible with respect to accessing capital-related information. These amendments clarify that this information can be requested and that the Minister of Finance, in addition to the minister responsible, has authority to appoint an auditor if the information requested is not forthcoming.
This amendment complements the best-practice capital framework. It ensures that the Minister of Finance, as the
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banker, has the ability to investigate if the information required for the responsible management of public funds is not provided.
I now move second reading of Bill 18.
G. Farrell-Collins: I don't have a lot to say about Bill 18, because there's not a lot there. But I do have some comments on a number of the areas that I would like to look at. I'll have more questions on the various sections when we move to committee stage of the legislation, but I have some opening comments for second reading.
The minister is correct about the corporate capital tax changes and the way that's going to be calculated on foreign banks. I have some questions about that for the committee stage, which we'll discuss at that time.
I want to speak, first of all, on the changes to the Financial Administration Act and the Financial Information Act that result from the capital management process review that was completed earlier this spring. It shows you how bad capital management has been in the province over the last decade at least, when you look at the provisions that are now being included in legislation as a result of these amendments. Some of the most basic things that you would expect to be done when governments are going about spending millions of dollars -- or in many cases hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars -- on various projects that the government's engaged in
Some of these requirements are almost shocking in their simplicity, and you would wonder why they weren't all in place in legislation previously. For example, one change to the Financial Administration Act -- the new section 4.1 that this bill proposes to be added to the legislation -- says: "
Treasury Board, under this new provision of the act, will now be able to put in place requirements for the capital management process that would include contract provisions, project management, financial controls and accounting practices. I mean, what innovative legislation. What innovative technology. What innovative leadership that the government is now putting these into place at this point in the process. One is almost shocked to think that they weren't there all along. Perhaps, I guess, that's why we ended up in the situation with a number of capital projects -- fast ferries, convention centre, etc.
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The next part is the one that I find spectacularly stunning in the fact that it's there. Subsection (d) says that Treasury Board can establish requirements for capital plans: business cases -- you actually have to make your case that this is going to be a good business venture; requests for approval; tendering and other procurement documents; progress reports -- imagine that; completion reports -- so you know when it's completed, if it ever is; and post-expenditure evaluation reports. So those kinds of provisions
When we look, at this late date, at them being included in the Financial Administration Act, one's pretty shocked that those are the kinds of things that weren't being done all along. You know, the minister may want to pat himself on the back for doing this, for doing the capital process review that was done earlier this spring, but I think everybody else in the province, certainly the taxpayers, have known for some time that the way that this government was managing its capital projects was disastrous. Clearly the public understood that a long time ago; the government has finally understood it. I guess they needed to do a big study to come up with that conclusion, but that's where we are, and this legislation is a result of that.
I know the minister is going to stand up and say that the study said that for the most part, we're doing not a bad job. Well, I just think the minister, before he says that to himself, should ask whether the public thinks the government has done a very good job of managing the capital projects over the last little while. I think the answer is a pretty clear no.
The bill does a couple of other things. One of them, which we'll be supporting as well, is the changes to the Horse Racing Tax Act. There is an industry that for many years
It's an industry that puts virtually all its profits back into its businesses and into job creation, into various other forms of economic activity. Not many people are getting rich in this sector. Certainly in British Columbia right now most of that money is coming right back into the communities where those people live -- to the small businesses that support them with feed, with services and with products. They've been an industry that, while not a huge industry, has certainly over the years introduced a certain amount of economic vibrancy to parts of the province, the Fraser Valley being one of them.
They've fallen on some pretty tough times, I'd say, over the last five or six years in particular -- maybe a little longer. It's certainly become more critical in the last number of years. The government, with this legislation, is now coming in and saying: "Okay, we're not going to take a share of the revenues, of the profits that come from horse racing. Any money that we would have received, we're going to put back to the racing commission." The racing commission, working with people in the industry, is going to determine how to use those funds to help build up the industry and make it more prosperous than it has been certainly in recent times.
And that's great. I'm glad they're doing that. But what the government fails to understand sometimes, I think, is what the government has done in the last decade to damage that industry, starting with property tax increases, the corporate capital tax, income tax increases and the various budgets they've brought in, PST increases which they brought in in their first couple of budgets and huge regulatory burdens that they've introduced on top of that industry, as they have with other industries. You put all that together and then, when
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they're just wobbling on their knees and can barely hold any more weight, the government brings in a huge expansion of gaming in the province that diverts revenues from the horse-racing industry into other sources of gaming. The horse-racing industry was hit very, very hard by that.
It's nice, what the government is doing here in this legislation. I think it will help to a certain extent, but it's really a case study of what bad government can do to an industry, particularly a small industry. All the other actions that the government has taken over the last eight and a half years have built up progressively on this industry. I don't want to say it has been the canary in the coal mine, but it has certainly been an indicator for economic health in the province of British Columbia. Here's an agricultural and sort of service industry -- an entertainment industry to a certain extent. It really crosses the spectrum and has been hit very, very hard by government policy over the last number of years.
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We'll be supporting the changes that the government is bringing in, but I think there are many things in addition to that, that government could do to reverse some of the policy decisions they've made over the last decade that have damaged a whole variety of industries, not just the horse-racing industry.
Lastly, I have a very few comments. The B.C. manufacturing and processing tax credit that was announced in the budget, which is included in this piece of legislation and actually comprises the largest majority of this bill that we're seeing today, implements what came forward in the budget.
I always find it interesting how this government believes that certain targeted tax cuts are good and will work for that industry, and in this case it's the personal income tax cut. Then there's the film industry, where they laud the success of the tax credits to the film industry in British Columbia and what that's done to help the film industry prosper.
What they've failed to do is take the principle that applies in those industries and apply it to the broad cross-section of the province and to the various industries in the province. If it makes sense to provide income tax cuts or tax credits in specific industries, and one believes -- according to the government -- that that's going to spur economic activity, that it's going to create more investment, that it's going to create incentives for people to put money into those sectors of the industry in hopes of developing and expanding and creating jobs and creating larger profits down the road
Has the government really thought about what could happen if the government were to make personal income tax reductions available for British Columbians right across the province and, rather than have the government select which industries those investments should go into, allow the public to decide what sectors of the economy they think are most eligible for growth or most likely to respond positively to that investment -- and by reducing personal income taxes for British Columbians across the board, making sure that there is capital to be reinvested in the economy in a variety of sectors? I just find it difficult to understand why the government finds it so difficult to go from believing that a manufacturing tax credit makes sense and that a film tax credit makes sense to not believing that a tax reduction across the board would make a lot of sense as well. People will choose to invest in small businesses, medium businesses -- wherever they think the best return is likely to happen -- and help to spur economic activity.
It's just, perhaps, a difference in philosophy from that side of the House to this side of the House, but certainly if one looks at history over the last little while and looks at other provinces and sees what has been done in those locations, the evidence is pretty overwhelming that that's one component of an economic strategy to revitalize an economy. Certainly British Columbia should be no different than the rest of those provinces.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I'll sit down and take my place. I look forward to committee stage of the debate, where we can explore some of those provisions in a little more detail.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I don't intend to be lengthy in closing second reading debate on Bill 18. I would say this. The opposition talks about "there not being a lot there." This is one of, I think, three different bills "not being a lot there." Well, Hon. Speaker, I'd point out to the chamber and to those who are maybe watching this on television or maybe reading Hansard that this is one of three bills that we've introduced and debated in this chamber to implement budget provisions contained in Budget 2000. Those bills contained, of course, the personal income tax reduction, the made-in-B.C. income tax system that we are now setting up, indexing of income tax deductions and brackets and the other measures that we've taken to increase personal exemptions and lower income taxes, focusing on low- and middle-income British Columbians. Those measures also contained additional relief for us in the small business community, through providing them with the second-lowest income tax rate for small business in Canada, as well as many other measures.
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So I would say this: I did hear the member speak, actually, in support of the measures that this bill does contain. Like him, I've been concerned watching the horse-racing industry and its struggles over the last decade, I would say -- maybe even more. Horse racing is not only an industry. For many people involved in it, it's a way of life. It has been very distressing to watch the industry struggle with some of its challenges over the last few years.
I would submit that this initiative, where we have said as government, "Look, the additional revenue that has been raised by this industry through taxes should now be given back to the industry to determine, itself, how it builds a stronger, more vibrant horse-racing industry," is the right direction. When that Horse Racing Act was originally brought in, probably several decades ago, the horse-racing industry was a booming sector of the entertainment and sporting economy in the province, and government used it as a source of revenue. Well, now it's struggling, and government, I think, is taking the right approach in returning those revenues to the industry itself.
On the comments on the machinery and equipment tax credit, this is something that has been sought for a long time -- reductions in the machinery and equipment tax. We have provided an income tax credit which compares well with other provinces. Actually, it is better than other provinces in the ability of industry to assign the tax credit to a fiscal year --
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four-back and seven-forward -- so that they can use it most advantageously, and it applies broadly in British Columbia. Whether it's traditional resource industries or whether it's new high-tech industries, we have provided a tool here that helps facilitate the acquisition of the machinery and equipment that is required to remain competitive in the world economy. Again, I think it's a very positive initiative and one that all members in the chamber would support.
Finally, I can't let this go without at least some comments, some response, to the member's comments on the amendments to the Financial Administration Act and Financial Information Act that relate to the Deloitte study. No, the Deloitte study did not say that management of capital in British Columbia was an unmitigated disaster, regardless of what the opposition says. What they said very clearly is: "You have some excellent things you can build on. You've had some problems with specific projects. What you need to put in place is a best-practices model that encompasses all."
This also, hon. Speaker, ties into the expanded entity and responsibilities that we debated in the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, where we said that the way we're going to present budgets and operate in B.C. is no longer to report and budget just for ministries but for all Crown corporations as well. And, with respect, the sort of measures in this act have been quite mixed in terms of how they apply to Crown corporations that, in many cases, have their own legislation, their independent boards, independent administration.
The challenge, as Deloitte recommended, is how to make sure, whether it's a ministry or a Crown corporation, that all are playing with the same set of expectations in management of capital projects. That's what these amendments address. I think they're a sound way of continuing to do what the Deloitte study said, and that's continue to improve management of capital projects and reduce risk for taxpayers as we build needed public infrastructure.
I guess what I hear the critic saying is that he supports all the initiatives in this bill, every one of them, but he doesn't like the government that has put it forward. I accept that. I look forward to debating the bill clause by clause at committee stage and will make sure that all the members will support the provisions of this bill.
Hon. Speaker, I'm pleased to close debate and move second reading of Bill 18.
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Motion approved.
Bill 18, Finance and Corporate Relations Statutes Amendment Act, 2000, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I call second reading of Bill 26.
AGRI-FOOD CHOICE AND QUALITY ACT
(second reading)
Hon. C. Evans: Mr. Speaker, I rise to move second reading of the bill. This bill enables the agrifood industry to develop quality standards and quality standards programs for their products that are intended to keep our industry competitive in today's ever-changing marketplace. It enables the food industry to develop and certify standards for any quality attribute, variety, size, composition, place of production or production practice used to grow or raise food products. It also enables the industry to apply such standards to all agricultural products, both food and non-food.
B.C. has a vibrant and thriving agrifood industry, and I take the opportunity to talk about it every chance I get. The industry now employs a quarter of a million people and provides something like $862 million annually to our economy. The main reason behind that quite wonderful record of success is our industry's ability to adapt and adjust to market changes. This bill is designed precisely to strengthen our industry's ability to increase market share both here and abroad. For example, consumers are demanding an increased variety of products, and they want more information about those products' composition and their production practices. Consumers are asking for information about what is in their food, and just as importantly, they want to know what is not in it.
The bill enables industry to adapt to changing consumer preferences and to take advantage of new opportunities. It will enhance the reputation of B.C.'s agrifood sector by letting the industry certify its high-quality products and outstanding production practices.
B.C. has good land and clean air and water, and it is known throughout the world as sort of the supernatural province of production. We produce products using the best environmental practices in the world, and that is not a rhetorical statement but actually proved out in fact.
This bill will let our agrifood industry guarantee those special traits to their consumers, traits like non-allergenic ingredients in the products or GMO-free foods -- or that foods grown using unique environmental practices can be certified. The bill is actually a win-win for consumers and for our dynamic and growing agrifood sector. My ministry looks forward to continued work with the industry stakeholders to develop the guidelines for implementing this legislation for the benefit of B.C.
B. Barisoff: I have a few comments that I'd like to make on second reading on this bill. One of the first ones I would like to comment on is the fact that the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture is working on preparing different attributes for the farming industry in British Columbia. I'm wondering why this bill would come before we gave our final report out to the Legislature.
One of the other things that has concerned me about this is just the entire part about the regulation. There's been some concern that I've got from different parts of the farming community about whether they were consulted and how they were consulted and what took place. I know that this bill doesn't look much different than the one that was placed before the House in the last session. At that point in time I think the reason it was pulled from the session was that we were going to make sure there was more consultation of the farming industry out there. I understand, from some of the comments I've been getting, that some of this either hasn't been done or
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Some of the concerns are
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current Food Choice and Disclosure Act to also include non-food items and content of the end product. The minister, however, states that the new legislation would allow for, among other things, the establishment of standards for products grown with special regard for the environment. I think that is a concern -- what the minister means and in which direction he happens to be going there.
The other thing is the proliferation of labelling. My concern is that the consumer might not know exactly what's taking place out there. Maybe the minister could explain to me and to members on this side of the House how we won't have ourselves in a situation where we have a total proliferation of different labelling of this and that. People won't know if it's actually organic or certified organic or
The biggest concern that seems to be coming from the industry is how it's going to be implemented. There's not so much about the legislation that is a problem; it's what's going to happen and how it's going to be implemented. What's the composition of the advisory board? Things like this seem to be of real concern. The other thing that's of quite a concern to me is the fact that we haven't even passed the legislation yet, and we're already in the process of placing an MOU, a memorandum of understanding, to show how these things work. I would have thought that if there were the broad range of consultation that should have taken place in the interim, some of these things would have happened. We wouldn't need a memorandum of understanding to define different parts of what's actually in the legislation, in Bill 26.
I guess I wondered sometimes, when I read this, why we were actually changing the original bill and bringing in the new Agri-Food Choice and Quality Act, when it seems so similar. When I go through some of the sections that we'll do in committee stage, I find that what we've got
Now, I understand -- and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong -- that the whole process is entirely voluntary. It's a voluntary process right from the get-go. I guess my concern is if, as in the briefing that we had today, the process is voluntary
In closing, I guess my biggest concern, though, is still the fact that this bill has supposedly been out there for some seven or eight months. The farming community should have been more abreast of what's happening in this bill. I would have thought that prior to bringing it in -- it seems to me like it's almost entirely the same as the bill that was there previously -- some of the changes from the B.C. Agriculture Council or others would have been implemented in this new bill, so that we wouldn't have to look at memorandums of understanding to make them work.
With that, I would wait and listen for the minister's response, making sure to remind him of our concerns, in particular the concerns of what I see as the excessive regulation that might come into place here. It seems to me that the regulatory impact study might not have been done as well as it should have been done. It strikes me that when you go through it, you find that it seems to be more difficult.
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It's my understanding that to get certification will be extremely expensive. In some respects that could be good; in some respects that could be bad. That would be another comment that the minister could make. The other is the assurances that the federal and provincial legislation and regulations -- specifically the Natural Products Marketing Act -- take precedence over the legislation, and that producers cannot use this process of certification to avoid any producer outside regulated marketing requirements where they apply.
I think these are a lot of the concerns that are coming forward by the B.C. Agriculture Council -- the industry itself. I'll have a lot of specific questions when we get into committee stage. There is, of course, the concern about the negative advertising, of what would take place, that somebody would say: "Well, my product's better than yours because of this." I would think that what we want to do is make sure, when we introduce a bill like this, that it is a total benefit to all the producers of British Columbia. I'm sure that we both sing from the same song sheet when it comes to this. We want less regulation, less red tape, and we want to make it easier for the farming industry in British Columbia to be more successful and more competitive, particularly in the world market. It's inevitable that we live in a world market right now, and that has to happen.
With that, I'll sit back and wait for the minister's response and then get into a little bit more detail in the committee stage.
Hon. C. Evans: I will speak more extensively on this matter after the opposition has an opportunity to ask all their questions. Maybe some of these issues will go away. I'll just respond really briefly to some of the concerns the hon. member brings forth.
The gist of the hon. member's criticisms are
I don't need to make a speech to point out to everybody that if it's totally voluntary, it's fairly difficult to comprehend how it could also be excessive regulation. My hope is that after the hon. member has an opportunity to ask the questions that he could have asked over the entire last year -- because as he says, the bill was in this House last year -- then he'll stand up and say, "This is the best thing since puffed wheat," and say: "I'm going to vote for it, and good on you minister, for bringing it up." And if he doesn't say that, I'm going to explain to him which way is up and see if I can help him understand.
With that, I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.
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The Speaker: The motion is second reading. The minister moves second reading.
Motion approved.
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Bill 26, Agri-Food Choice and Quality Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I call Committee of Supply to consider the estimates of the Ministry of Labour.
The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.
The committee met at 5:28 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF LABOUR
(continued)
On vote 38: ministry operations, $29,752,000 (continued).
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm pleased to be joined by staff from the Insurance Corporation of B.C.
K. Krueger: If the minister would indulge us, my colleague from Richmond-Steveston has one quick Labour question before we launch into our ICBC discourse.
G. Plant: If the minister wants to answer it later with the assistance of staff, that would be helpful. The minister, I am told, is now the minister responsible for the implementation of the social union framework agreement, which is a recent development in the world of intergovernmental relations and a development in which this government played a fairly active role. Does the minister have expectations about what she'd like to have happen over the next year in terms of that arrangement and its various permutations and combinations in terms of health care delivery?
I'm not sure of the full extent of the minister's responsibility, but the agreement is in place. It exists, and it's part of the relationship that B.C. has with the federal government and the other provinces. It does provide a context for improving that relationship. The minister may have some ideas about what she hopes to do in the next year. If she would give me a sense of her plans, I'd be grateful.
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Hon. J. MacPhail: The social union framework agreement arose out of a designation of a Ministerial Council on Social Policy Reform that the Premiers of the country established in 1995 at the annual Premiers' conference. I'm just filling in for members who may not be aware of the history of this.
The council came into being because of the Premiers' -- to a person -- frustration in dealing with Ottawa, with the federal government, around cuts to transfer payments, their abdication of responsibility in the area of social policy and the change from the established programs funding and Canada Assistance Plan funding over to the Canada health and social transfer payments. The Ministerial Council on Social Policy Reform was established and has been active ever since. The council of ministers agreed to have a federal contingent of ministers assigned to the council as well, and it is now co-chaired by a federal minister and a provincial minister.
In the course of the last 18 months the council has signed the social union framework agreement, which is a living, breathing document about how Ottawa and the provinces and territories can meet the needs of the citizens of Canada on delivering social policy and social programs in the ever-changing world, taking into account the needs of the taxpayer. The social union framework agreement is also supposed to provide for dispute resolution mechanisms and for a very active coordinating role amongst the sectoral tables of ministers. Ministers of health meet; ministers of social services meet; ministers of labour market mobility meet. And the Council on Social Policy Renewal plays a very activist coordinating, proactive role amongst those sectoral tables to bring all of the social programs together in a way that makes sense from a delivery model, ensuring that we're meeting the social trends that are emerging across Canada and that we do it in a fiscally responsible way that's shared. The fiscal responsibility is shared between the federal government and the provinces and territories and that there be a major role played by first nations people as well
I am pleased to be back at the ministerial council. I was actually the first designate to the council under Premier Harcourt and then Premier Clark. I have been absent from the council for a while, but I'm pleased to be back. There is slow progress. The tensions still remain between the provinces and territories, and the federal government, particularly in how tough a stand the council should take with Ottawa in cost-sharing arrangements.
It is my hope that I will be able to work with the other provinces and territories to convince my colleagues that we should move forward in looking at cost-sharing arrangements across all social programs and not just in the area of health care. Health care is paramount; there's no question about that. But we have enough energy as a province to ensure that our point of view around adequate funding from the federal government for health care is in place and, at the same time, to insist that the federal government work with us to fund programs such as early childhood development.
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Not all provinces and territories agree. Some would like to have the council stand stationary until the government restores the full funding for the CHST. We think that we should move on insisting on that restoration while at the same time moving forward on the achievement of cost-shared social programs that Canadians also need, particularly in the area of child care and early childhood development.
There is a dispute resolution that has been proposed to Ottawa by all of the provinces and territories which is a very effective, fair and balanced dispute resolution mechanism. It is my hope -- and it is my goal over the course of the 12 months -- to convince the federal government that this is a fair and balanced dispute resolution mechanism that can apply across all social programs. That will be a challenge -- to convince the federal government of this.
It is also my hope to convince the federal government that they should treat the provinces and territories with respect and that the Council on Social Policy Renewal and the social union framework agreement are the proper mechanisms through which to restore good working relations in the area of renewing our social safety net in Canada. Renewal is needed. We face some very serious challenges with emerging demographics, with emerging patterns of immigration and with the serious demographic and economic trends that first nations face in this country.
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It is a time of interesting alliances amongst the provinces and territories -- changing alliances. British Columbia's role is a changed role of how we view the social union framework agreement. Confrontation -- no. Firm and fair cooperation, but paramount is an insistence that the interests of British Columbians be recognized and treated equitably by the federal government.
K. Krueger: I thank the minister for indulging us with that opportunity when we had scheduled ICBC for this evening. I'd like to give the minister the opportunity to introduce the people that are with her this evening. Just before I do that, I'd like to mention someone who isn't with her who is a real pillar of strength to the Insurance Corporation of B.C., who's been afflicted by very serious health ailments and is attempting to soldier on. His name is Neil Weatherston, the vice-president of claims, a tremendous individual who's been a real bulwark to ICBC for a couple of decades now. We just want to really wish him well in his fight for good health and trust he'll be returning to health and strength. I know the Insurance Corporation really misses him, and all of us who have worked with him really respect and admire him.
Our MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour will be conducting the bulk of the ICBC estimates. He'll start in a moment, if the minister would introduce her support first.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We join with the member for Kamloops-North Thompson in wishing Neil Weatherston the best in the very difficult situation he is in, and all of our hearts go out to Neil and his family. Thank you very much to the member for Kamloops-North Thompson for bringing that to the audience's attention. Neil, we hope you do well.
On my right is Cindy Brown, the assistant vice-president of corporate policy; Donnie Wing is on my left, the assistant vice-president of strategic services; and Anwar Chaudhry behind me is the comptroller.
[1740]
D. Jarvis: I wanted to first of all get into some subjects in regards to the private auto insurance and go back to the original premise of ICBC, when it first came into being some 27 years ago -- around 1973. The concept was that it was going to be a single provider of a minimum level of compulsory third-party liability auto insurance, underwritten without bias with respect to age, gender, sex, marital status or area of residence of the insured.
Well, it was and still is, I guess, a vital idea whose time seems to have come. So on that point, I was rather surprised when a short while ago the CEO, during one of his famous luncheons, came up with the statement of mutualization. The general feeling out there was that ICBC had to make some drastic changes, because it seemed to have gone off the track considerably. There was no question that it was a monopoly to the people out in the streets, who were the insureds, or that it was out of control.
So on that basis, we said that we're very surprised that Mr. Thompson was one that would first hit the streets with his statement of mutualization and the concept of mutualization mentioned during his speech. It was to the Vancouver Board of Trade. So it was interesting to see that he would make the statement. And why would he make the statement? Was it survival? If it was survival, what does mutualization mean to ICBC as it stands now, on the basis of what Mr. Thompson has originally said?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is no movement toward a co-op model. But let me just say that there is much need for the Insurance Corporation of B.C. to have a strategic plan as we move into this decade. Mr. Thompson did advance several new forms of achieving a strategic plan before the Vancouver Board of Trade, one of which did include a new form of governance for the corporation. He introduced that for public discussion. It doesn't represent the government's policy, and the discussion is not continuing.
However, let me just say this, because I'm sure that you'll want to spend a lot of time on this. I have asked the Insurance Corporation of B.C. to bring forward a strategic plan to cabinet committees about the future of insurance in this province and the future plans for the Insurance Corporation of B.C.
The insurance industry is a changing industry. As you know, the financial services insurance industry is changing. Our government wants to make sure that ICBC is at the leading edge. ICBC is considering a number of options to make it better and to make it faster and more responsive to its customers, and that's good.
Mr. Thompson, the CEO, speculated that one of those models that he had thought about -- just one out of a range of eight or nine -- was a cooperative model. He also speculated on the status quo. He speculated on ensuring that ICBC presents a fair market price to its customers, that ICBC continues to be a good corporate citizen in contributing to road safety in the province and that we continue down with the mandate that, as the member opposite has suggested, was established 27 years ago.
D. Jarvis: I appreciate the minister's statement that mutualization is not considered something of any substance at the moment. It was strictly a statement thrown out by the CEO. At the same time, the CEO also mentioned the fact that the chair of ICBC, Mr. Bob Williams -- who I believe has been political at one time in his life -- is the one who originally presented it to Mr. Thompson. It was a time when there was great discussion going on.
What I wanted to know, first of all, is: could you tell me if, in your mind, there is a difference between mutualization and a co-op, and if either one of them did include, or had plans to include, something along the meaning of full competition?
[1745]
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's speculative; it's future policy. I have no idea how Mr. Williams would answer that question, but I'm here. So future policy? Maybe; maybe not.
D. Jarvis: I was going to ask how we were going to position ourselves, seeing that we're now a legislative monopoly. Our member for Vancouver-Little Mountain would like to ask a question on it as well. Just before he does, there was a point that Mr. Thompson mentioned: the fact that Mr. Williams has developed a formula or a plan under the direction of this self-rescue plan for ICBC. He had commissioned and promoted a video that he was using, and all the rest of it.
I was wondering if the minister would care to discuss what is in this video out there, which is supposedly changing
[ Page 16730 ]
the mind of the government from its corporation into a co-op or a mutualization-controlled company. Perhaps you could give us the cost of these studies, the cost of the video and the cost of the consultants who were hired to make these items.
Hon. J. MacPhail: There's no video. The video wasn't
G. Farrell-Collins: I think my colleague could ask a couple of other questions around the costs of consultants and part of the policy development for the issues that are before ICBC specifically.
But I want to come back to something the minister said earlier, because CEOs don't go to the board of trade and muse publicly about a dream they had the night before. I mean, this stuff doesn't come out of nowhere. CEOs use the venue of the board of trade as a place to either make a major announcement of a new initiative in their company or in this case -- maybe, at minimum -- raise a trial balloon. There was certainly some thought that went into Mr. Thompson's comments. They weren't just something
Mutualization for ICBC -- essentially means that the shareholders or the policyholders become the owners -- is a fairly major change in the mandate of ICBC. It would require legislative change. It would also entrench current management and probably current board members in positions of a privately held company, a mutualized insurance corporation, for a fairly long period of time. Perhaps the minister can tell us how long the concept of mutualization has been bandied about at ICBC, who's involved in the planning and how much work has been done in bringing forward that as one of the proposals that the minister said are being considered.
[1750]
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is no plan for the government to change the government's governance model at ICBC -- this government. There's speculation on the street about other political parties and what they may do, and that's probably why there's anxiety around this. But let me just say that there's a substantial amount of work now being done in-house, and I'll get you the
About the full range of strategic options. Do I expect that maybe one of those strategic options will be a couple of different models or several of the strategic options will be a couple of different models of the evolution of ICBC? Probably, because there are other models that exist around publicly owned insurance companies out there across Canada. Does the corporation have to change? I would say, "probably," to become as customer focused as possible. Is this the proper work for a corporation to do -- to develop a strategic plan for dealing with changing circumstances? Absolutely.
I'd be happy to get the specific amount of money that's being spent on consultants across the range of options, and I'll actually put forward
G. Farrell-Collins: I'm a little confused, because the minister on one hand is telling us that there is
Perhaps the minister can tell me: which is it? She said that discussion was not continuing on the co-op model -- the comments of Mr. Thompson. Then she told us just now that there continues to be this ongoing process and that several models are being considered. Can the minister tell us what other models there are? Mr. Thompson didn't mention any others. He mentioned some goals. He mentioned that one of the options was the status quo, and he said that that wasn't an option as far as he was concerned and that ICBC would have to change. Any reading of his speeches indicates that quite clearly.
Two goals which I recall were in his speech as well. Fair market pricing was something that ICBC was going to have to be cognizant of. But that's not a restructuring of the entire company.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, the minister says: "Yes, it is." One can achieve fair market pricing in lots of different ways, right from one extreme of privatization. What I want to hear from the minister, though
So perhaps the minister can tell us if mutualization is one that
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, let me just reiterate for the member, so that we're not trying to twist each other's words. When Mr. Thompson made his speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, the government was not -- and it is not -- considering a co-op model. What I did say, though
[ Page 16731 ]
make a good case that we should, as a government, review the status quo. Is the status quo
So I said: "Well, that's something that government has to decide; that's government policy. Does it require legislative change? Are there other ways of becoming more customer-focused? What are the full ranges of choices here?"
That's what the corporation is now working on, and I am not going to limit the corporation in the options that they bring forward. Frankly, the range of options does go straight from status quo to privatization. That is the range of options. And in between there are probably eight or nine different models for consideration.
[1755]
I think it's absolutely appropriate that when this comes forward to cabinet committees, to cabinet and to our caucus, we have all the information available including what the challenges are that face not only this corporation but the insurance industry generally. What challenges face governments in dealing with road safety, and what models are best at delivering that? And who should pay?
I'm not limiting the corporation on the strategic options that they bring forward, but there is no decision by government. Government hasn't even considered any of the options yet -- but we will. I will be happy to discuss that with the Liberal opposition when that occurs.
G. Farrell-Collins: I just want to be clear, because I think that there is
Hon. J. MacPhail: Not limit
G. Farrell-Collins: Not limit the options; precluding limit the options -- okay. So there is a wide range of options there.
At the time that Mr. Thompson made his speech to the board of trade, is the minister aware of any other option that ICBC was engaged in at that time? As well, can she advise us whether or not any other option than privatization has been taken to the board of ICBC, at this time?
The Chair: Minister, noting the time.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Oh, yes. Sorry. Gosh, we just started. I am not aware of the options, because of course they haven't come to cabinet yet.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, no. I mean, that's fair enough, except that you're asking
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, he did. He said it in the North Shore News. So there's a full range of options being considered by everybody. If the board has considered them, so be it. But cabinet has not considered them yet.
I'll get you the information about what has gone to the board. I'm saying that I don't have any knowledge of what has gone to the board. But I'll get that information and promise to tell you when we go to cabinet with it too.
The Chair: Noting the time
[1800]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the committee be recessed till 6:45 p.m.
Motion approved.
The committee recessed from 6 p.m. to 6:44 p.m.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
D. Jarvis: When we left, we were talking about the future of ICBC and about how all of a sudden the original reason for ICBC to be involved was suddenly changed by the CEO, who came out with a statement that he felt he should change the concept of the company to either a mutualization or a co-op or something along that vein. It was with great interest that we all saw this new statement as it flashed around. Everyone wondered
[1845]
We had asked the minister at that time if she could give us some more details with regard to mutualization: how it came about, where it came about. She more or less said no. The political end of ICBC -- i.e., the cabinet -- had not come out with any statement as to how ICBC was going to possibly be changed. She had some great theories of going from A to Z as to the direction of ICBC. She said before that she couldn't give us many answers, but then I was wondering why she can't give us specifics on this. After all, she has staff with her. If they are unable to answer these questions, perhaps we should recess or adjourn until such time as the minister can find people who can answer the questions.
I'll throw that at her now and ask her if she can give us the answer as to what they plan. Do they plan to go from A to Z with their ideas that have been suggested on ICBC? Where do we stand with regards to the government's position?
Hon. J. MacPhail: This is the situation; I'll repeat it for the member. Cabinet has not made any decisions about changing any aspect of ICBC. However, I have asked for ICBC to bring forth a range of options for consideration about how best to ensure that the corporation becomes more customer
[ Page 16732 ]
focused -- increases its customer focus. That's what will be coming before cabinet. In the meantime, there is no change -- none. But I have -- which is actually beyond the call of the responsibility of estimates -- committed to sharing with the opposition that when cabinet considers options, I'd be happy to discuss those with him.
D. Jarvis: I appreciate what the minister is trying to say. In fact, she is probably not aware of the proposals that are coming forward from Bob Williams, who is the chair of the board, or Mr. Thompson, who is the CEO of that company. On that basis, we know that they are thinking about what the future of ICBC is going to be -- the changes that are coming forth. Why aren't they here to more or less tell us what they're planning? It's all very well for them to get out and say: "Throw these out into the wind." But I think it's incumbent on them to give us at least specifics, especially when they've had consultants, made videos. You say there's only one video that has been made. But the papers, as you say -- well, as I say -- don't always tell the truth. The minister has already interjected about a statement I had made that she had read in the papers -- which I had not made.
Hon. J. MacPhail: No.
D. Jarvis: Yes. So you can never believe the papers.
Nevertheless, the management of ICBC are making statements out there and are investigating it and doing research and having consultants, and it's costing the consumer money. We want to get some specifics on it, not just generalizations as to A to Z. Surely someone in the ICBC staff can give you a specific idea as to how far you tend to go. Are you going to go to full privatization? Are you going to mutualization? Are you going to just sort of a survivalship situation, where you'll have a little bit of this and none of the rest? I'm wondering if the minister would care to comment on that.
Hon. J. MacPhail: This is a very useful time where the members of the opposition and the members of government get to question what government priorities are. I have explained to you what the government is doing in terms of strategic planning for ICBC. No decisions have been made. It is, I would insist, incumbent on a corporation the size of ICBC to have regular, ongoing strategic planning. That makes perfect sense. I've also committed -- which I think is, again, beyond the call of duty in these estimates -- that when cabinet considers if, whether or how change may occur, I'd be happy to share that with the opposition. In the meantime, it's regular strategic planning of a corporation.
[1850]
G. Farrell-Collins: I think this has gone well beyond the regular strategic planning of a Crown corporation. ICBC has made it pretty clear, internally. The leadership of the Crown internally has made it pretty clear that this is, by far, the preferred option of the Crown -- of the senior management and some of the board members in the Crown corporation. I don't believe
Hon. J. MacPhail: Or maybe I don't have to.
G. Farrell-Collins: Or maybe the minister doesn't have to.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Oh, now she's upset we're asking these questions
Interjections.
G. Farrell-Collins:
So for the minister to get a little indignant that we're asking the questions, as if somehow she doesn't have to answer these questions and it's not part of the estimates process, is not, I think, accurate. The fact of the matter is that it is part of the process. I think it's certainly within the realm of questioning for the opposition to ask the minister what the status of planning is around this type of major change for a Crown corporation.
No-fault was something that was bandied about in ICBC for some time, and all of a sudden it came up and bit the government pretty hard. That went on for about a year. It created huge controversy within the government caucus, within the province, with the people of the province, within their own political party. I mean, it was a huge, huge concern -- a major battle that was waged in a public discussion that took place around that. I think for the opposition to be asking
But at this point of a government's mandate, for a Crown corporation headed by Mr. Williams to suddenly come up with the mutualization proposal and throw it out at the board of trade isn't part of the normal planning process of a strategic plan for a Crown corporation. It's far beyond that; it's way far beyond that. That says to me that certain powerful people, if not a majority within the board -- the CEO, probably the VP for finance and others within the Crown corporation -- are pushing this model. They're pushing it very hard. It doesn't get to that stage without an awful lot of work being done.
What we need to hear from the minister, and what we're trying to find out from the minister, is what other options are being explored. She says that all options, from one extreme to the other, are being explored. Well, I didn't sense that that was what ICBC was doing when Thom Thompson stood up and made his speech. That wasn't: "Here are nine options that we're exploring." It was: "ICBC has to change; here's what we should do." That's what he said, basically, and he set some goals that would need to be achieved surrounding that. But I didn't hear him talking about partial privatization; I didn't hear him talking about other potential models that could be brought forward before ICBC.
[ Page 16733 ]
There was a pretty clear, public, deliberate presentation put out there, knowing full well that it would create discussion. I don't know if the minister was informed before the CEO went and made that speech or not. Perhaps she can tell us that -- whether she was aware that the CEO of ICBC was going to make that type of a speech to the board of trade when he did so.
[1855]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The planning process for governments is that the Crown corporations come forward, present strategic options, and government makes a decision. That's what is about to occur. I have said there is a full range of options that will be considered by government. The member is quite right that government should not in any way limit itself and perhaps get in trouble by limiting itself to certain options. I'm sure the member opposite could list a stream of forewarning that they have perhaps brought forward that if only government had considered, maybe things wouldn't have gone awry. They are always encouraging us to plan properly and consider all things before making a move. That's what's happening.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada wishes to privatize the corporation. Mr. Thompson went before the Vancouver Board of Trade and speculated on one model that he had in mind. Yeah, great. So we'll consider all the options out there that are being speculated upon. I have my own views on the future of the corporation in order to make it customer focused, and I will express those views at the cabinet table.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'll ask my question again: was the minister informed before Mr. Thompson made the speech at the board of trade that that was the kind of speech he was going to present?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes.
G. Farrell-Collins: So the minister knew, when Thom Thompson went to the board of trade and threw out mutualization as the preferred option, that that was the direction that he thought ICBC was supposed to go. The minister was aware that that was what he was going to do?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I haven't actually been in estimates for about a year, so I don't know whether the rules have changed. But I had a conversation with Mr. Thompson and made it clear to him that government had not made any decision and that as CEO of a corporation, he could offer his own views, but that in no way were these the views of government nor had government made any decision. You can judge on that basis whether he followed direction or not.
G. Farrell-Collins: It's not for me to decide whether or not he followed direction. I would think it would be the responsibility of the minister responsible to decide whether the CEO followed direction or not, and perhaps she may want to take that up with her board.
It is fascinating, I think, to see what has been happening with ICBC and this whole move towards mutualization and the dance that the chairman and the president at ICBC are doing and the dance that the minister is doing. The minister is saying: "Oh no, we haven't bought into that. We're just sort of out there. We're looking at all the options for ICBC, and we're going to see what they are." But you have the CEO of the Crown corporation out there laying out very clearly, in his mind, exactly what he thinks the preferred option is.
Can the minister tell us whether or not the board of directors at ICBC has been presented with the strategic plan that she talks about at this stage and, if so, when she anticipates it going to cabinet?
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: The last part -- whether or not the board has received or been presented with that report and when the minister expects it to go to cabinet.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes to the first question; the next couple of months to the second question.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister tell us when it went to the board at ICBC?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The spring of this year.
G. Farrell-Collins: The spring is a really big window. The speech that Mr. Thompson made took place on, I think, April 5. Had he taken that to the board before he made that speech, or did it appear before the board subsequent to that speech?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd be happy to get that information for you. The first board meeting that I attended was at the end of May.
G. Farrell-Collins: Those are the kinds of basic questions that you'd expect to be able to get an answer to. I don't know if the minister doesn't have the right staff here or not. We can certainly do this another day if she'd like. We can come back when the CEO or the chairman or somebody at that level can answer the questions. I'm not inclined to sit here tonight and ask a bunch of questions and have the minister promise to get back to us. I've done that for years in a row with various ministers and found it pretty unsuccessful.
Anyway, I would like to know whether that policy decision, that strategic plan, went to the board before or after Mr. Thompson gave that speech. I'd also like to know what the status is of the board's deliberations around that strategic plan. Can the minister tell us what the status of the board is around that strategic plan?
[1900]
Hon. J. MacPhail: Over the last months ICBC has gone through a continuous planning process. These matters go before the board regularly. As I say, the board has seen the full range of options. I'd be happy to get the date for the member; there's no secret about it. It's just that we don't have it here, but people listening can get that for him.
The options have not gone before
G. Farrell-Collins: So the minister is telling us, then, that there's been an ongoing reporting process to the board around the strategic plan. I think the minister stated that you've gone to a continuous planning process and that the board has not
[ Page 16734 ]
made a recommendation to government. Has the board made a decision itself around the strategic plan and the various components of it?
Obviously, if it's a continuous process, my understanding of that is that decisions are made on an ongoing basis. Certainly some decisions must have been made. Some policy decisions must have been ruled out or included or added or gone back for further research. What's the status of those series of recommendations in the strategic plan before the board?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The planning process is an ongoing process. I am told that the board has two strategic planning retreat meetings annually. There was a meeting this morning where the strategic plan was discussed. Let me reiterate. There are no recommendations to government; there are no recommendations at this point.
I have asked that the corporation come forward to cabinet to have the full strategic plan discussed. Cabinet will make the decisions about the changes, if any, to the corporation.
G. Farrell-Collins: Is the minister receiving any outside advice, aside from the advice she's receiving from ICBC, on the potential pluses and minuses and potential pitfalls of any one of these scenarios, mutualization being one of them?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, I am being lobbied; that's true -- not directly, I might add. But I do read all of the information that comes from the Insurance Bureau of Canada. So it would be
G. Farrell-Collins: I would just throw out a suggestion from the opposition side. The potential upside and the potential downside to a mutualization model could be obtained fairly easily, I think, with some outside advice. I would just encourage the minister to seek that outside of ICBC, because I think the potential downsides of an improperly constructed mutualization structure would be devastating for the corporation and the people of British Columbia.
You run the very high risk of ending up with entrenched senior management and board members who may not be the best people to serve the policyholders. My anticipation is that any change like that would require fairly significant rewriting of the legislation. We would certainly have that debate around that time. This seems to me to be a fairly major policy shift for a Crown corporation that's been there for some time. Whatever the model is that the government chooses, it could prove to be a fairly controversial change.
[1905]
Certainly as I said earlier, there is a limited amount of time left in this five-year mandate. The government may or may not be re-elected. I said may or may not, so it's both. Whichever government, whether it's that minister or another government that's looking at this, I think it's important not to let this policy discussion be driven by the people at the high end at ICBC who stand to benefit the most from a mutualization. I throw that out as a caution, because I worry very much that if this thing is pushed on too fast and is fast-tracked
So I think it's important that the minister and the government -- perhaps through the Crown corporations secretariat, if that's still providing any good oversight, as it was intended at one point to do -- receive in some form some outside advice above and beyond what they're about to receive from ICBC.
Hon. J. MacPhail: That's exactly what my offer to the Liberal opposition was about as well, in terms of when cabinet deals with this issue.
Let me just say a couple of things. There is no decision to make any substantive change yet, or ever, to ICBC. There's no decision whatsoever. But I have been convinced that the changing world of insurance and financial services requires our government to have a look at how that impacts on the policyholders. The whole nature of our examination, our review, with all the resources of government
It's incumbent upon a government to look at the full range of options. It's not driven by a symbol by any stretch of the imagination. I would suggest that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia has made major strides in improving their customer focus. It's interesting that people elsewhere in the world are looking at the road safety initiatives and the impact that they've had on insurance rates. It is interesting to note that even the Consumers Association of Canada makes some comments about the range of services offered for competitive prices and makes comment on why change should be considered carefully, just as the member opposite suggests.
So I accept his advice. I also want to caution those that would read into anything that I reiterate that there is no decision made on any model. There isn't any decision for change; there isn't any decision yet for maintaining the status quo. But I do hope that cabinet will consider this in the next couple of months. Although I must say that popular support for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is on the increase because of the good work they've done in the last three or four years.
G. Farrell-Collins: The caution that I raise is
[1910]
This is the kind of issue that I worry about, and I hear from government -- it's been out there and talked about in various places within government itself -- that the government's looking for a signal. They're looking for a sign around a potential privatization of a Crown corporation or an agency
[ Page 16735 ]
or something as a symbol, and we've certainly heard that. It's designed to be put out there to sort of lance that boil of concern about the way the government has managed Crown corporations. It would be put out as: "Look it. We've changed our ways. We're businesslike. We're managing the economy, and here's an example: ICBC. We're going to turn it into a co-op."
I thought it interesting to turn from what it's normally called in the industry, mutualization, to the NDP word of calling it a co-op. It's just a difference in the words. To me that shows internal marketing -- that somehow there's a discussion going on, and everybody's being told: "Don't worry; it's just a co-op. It's a co-op model. It's great. The members are going to own it. It's going to be wonderful. And we're all in favour of co-ops, aren't we?" I worry very much that the government, in a rush to try and send that signal that they've been talking about, will use this as the model. We know that the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith is a big proponent of co-ops. We know that the government and members on this side, as well, are in favour of the co-op movement as an alternative choice for people.
For the government to make this major a policy decision on this large a Crown corporation this late in a mandate is irresponsible, I would argue. The decision -- whether pro or con, or some modification of it -- will end up being made for all the wrong reasons. I'm very nervous about this kind of a decision being made this late in a mandate.
ICBC is a very large insurance company. People should understand that it's one of the largest in North America. Well, not one of the largest in North America, but I think it's probably in the top ten in North America as far as insurance companies go -- maybe even the top six or seven. But it's large. And there is probably no end of people who would love to be the owner of ICBC if it were to be privatized. There is no end of people, probably, at ICBC itself who would love to be at the senior echelon of the management team should it become a mutualized insurance company, because the salaries would sure go up. The board members would sure make a lot more money. It would be a huge insurance company.
This is a very risky venture. If it's not done right, if the decision isn't made in the right environment, the wrong decision could be made. The decision to not mutualize could be made, and that might be for the wrong reasons, or the decision to mutualize might be made for the wrong reasons, or some other variance in between. I think this is not the kind of Crown corporation where that kind of a decision should be made willy-nilly. It's not like B.C. Systems Corporation, where the minister can stand up one day and announce that it's privatized like what happened prior to the last election, and sort of shuffle it off into other entities. It's not that kind of a corporation. It's too big, it touches too many people in too many ways, and it has huge assets in the billions and billions of dollars in reserves. For it to be subject to political manoeuvrings and personal agendas this late in a mandate I think is very scary.
As I said, I encourage the minister to seek some outside independent disinterested advice from some people who know this industry, because the risks are huge for the people who rely upon its services.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I appreciate the advice, and I take it to heart. Just for the information of the member, the corporate planning session just before the CEO's speech at the board of trade occurred -- it's an ongoing planning session -- April 3 and 4, and the Vancouver Board of Trade speech was April 5 or 6.
D. Jarvis: I don't intend to belabour this any further, but I just would want to say that it wasn't too long ago that we were standing here discussing that the way to make ICBC viable was to go to no-fault. In any event, there has always been a feeling that the ones in competition out there can never really compete with ICBC, because ICBC, for example, doesn't pay any taxes and all the rest of it. Yet I noted last week that ICBC has decided that they're going to pay municipal taxes for all their buildings. Could you tell me the reason behind that and what the cost is going to be for ICBC -- or an estimated cost?
[P. Nettleton in the chair.]
Hon. J. MacPhail: ICBC pays rents-in-lieu, which are the equivalent of municipal taxes. It's about $5 million. Plus the corporation pays 4 percent premium tax, which is valued at about $100 million.
[1915]
D. Jarvis: Going back again just to this question of mutualization, did ICBC ever do any polling on that? If so, how much did that cost?
Hon. J. MacPhail: No.
D. Jarvis: The other question was
Hon. J. MacPhail: Fifteen.
D. Jarvis: Fifteen hundred?
G. Farrell-Collins: Fifteen thousand dollars.
D. Jarvis: Fifteen thousand. Do you have the figures as to what the consultants cost or the studies cost? Or is that all inclusive in that $15,000?
Hon. J. MacPhail: No. I said I'd get that information for the member in very short order.
D. Jarvis: Then I wanted to go over into another topic of conversation, and that's with regard to the decentralization of ICBC they have done in the past few years. I want to know if the minister could give us an idea of what the reason was behind the decentralization effort undertaken by ICBC over these last two years.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The process started in 1998 to make the corporation regionally based, which is all about customer focus, so that the fully integrated services can be available to the policyholder much closer to home.
D. Jarvis: What has the net effect been in terms of staff increases?
[ Page 16736 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I assume that the question is: what's the overall effect of regionalization on staff increases? I can't isolate that out, because at the same time there have been staff increases. It's been based on the increased services offered to the client. For instance, the model is now -- which is in the jargon of the day -- 24-seven. You'll see that there are ads out there that say that no matter when you're in an accident, you have access to a claims agent. The corporation cannot isolate out the factor of regionalization leading directly to staff increases. Then, of course, there's the incorporation of the motor vehicle branch as well.
D. Jarvis: I find that quite unusual in the sense that surely ICBC would have some course or control as to the full-time employees they have, when at one point before decentralization or now
Hon. J. MacPhail: I can get the answer for the FTEs in '98 versus 2000. But to leap to the conclusion that the change is as a result of regionalization is a bit
[1920]
D. Jarvis: In most companies when they have decentralization, it means an expansion of staff at the regional level and a decrease in staff at the head office level. Could she tell us what corresponding cuts in staff have been made at the head office level to compensate for the decentralization?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just so you know, and I'm sure the member has the
D. Jarvis: Those figures you gave -- there's probably a 25 to 35 percent increase in staff. Given the atmosphere of restraint that is supposed to take place during a decentralization, how can you justify the fact that the corporation revenues themselves were flatlined at around a 0.6 percent increase, and then we have about a 30 percent increase in staff? Can the minister justify that?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Sorry, when you go from 5,144 to 5,798, that's about a 10 percent increase in staff, where there's been an expansion of services as well. Part of that expansion of services is the full integration of the motor vehicle branch, licensing and compliance operations. There were also additional employees hired in order to provide support for the road safety programs, which have been constantly expanding. Then there's additional staff resources that I just told you about -- the expansion of telephone claims access to 24 hours, seven days a week. Not only was there the full integration of the motor vehicle branch but there was an expansion of staff to improve service delivery.
I might just note that the administration costs for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia compared to other jurisdictions
D. Jarvis: Mr. Chair, I wouldn't want to argue with the minister at all, but since 1998, if you compare your net FTEs to what they are today, there's been close to a 25 to 30 percent increase in staff. But I'll go on to a
I wondered if the minister could tell me the new decision-making responsibilities of the new regional assistant vice-presidents, I guess you would call them, and the marketing managers and public relations officers. Can you tell me what decision-making responsibilities they have versus the old system, where it was all done through the executives in the head office?
[1925]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The regional VPs have authority over the operational side of the corporation. The executive of the corporation deal with the strategic initiatives.
I might, if I could for the member, expand a little bit, because I have been very interested in this as well -- what effect the corporation's activities post-no-fault have had on the corporation, particularly as it relates to the customer. You might recall, and I think the period of time that the member's referring to, that we had about a 30 percent expansion of staff. I think you're probably noting that from '95 through to '99 there's probably about a 30 percent expansion of staff. What has changed at the corporation that benefits the customer? I think that's key. Is it costing the customer in order to have those benefits? Well, let's just review it.
First of all, the administration costs remain a third to a half of the private sector insurance cost -- great news there, still, absolutely great news there. What is the customer getting for this expansion of service delivery in the corporation? The rates have been frozen for everybody for five years. In some cases, announced as recently as a couple of weeks ago, rates are going down substantially.
What's happening to the carnage on our roads? There's a six-point plan in place to deal with road safety. There has been a crackdown on impaired drivers. There's action to reduce speeding and get tough on dangerous drivers. There's the crash responsibility charge program. There are new measures to improve driving, such as graduated licensing for new drivers. There's remediation for impaired drivers. There's strengthened anti-fraud and auto crime measures. There are significant measures to improve efficiency, cut costs and reduce legal delays. Some of those are dispute resolution, injury management, structured settlement and net wage loss compensation.
What's better for the customer out there? This is, I think, what everybody in this Legislature would care about, not just a straight numbers game. Here we have all of these improvements. Carnage on the roads is being reduced. The safety programs are working. Insurance premiums are, at worst, steady for five full years -- in lots of cases, being reduced. And the corporation is on sound financial footing.
[ Page 16737 ]
D. Jarvis: Thank you to the minister. That was a wonderful little speech she gave, but in essence we know that ICBC is not in good financial standing in the sense that they're not making a profit. They're losing money, or else you wouldn't have to take from reserves to show that you've got a profit. You've done that for the last few years, to the point where I think it's up around about $375 million -- or it is $775 million; I haven't got my book with me right at the moment -- that you've hauled out of reserves.
In any event, I wanted to go back to the decentralization aspect, rather than give a sales pitch for ICBC. I want to know, in the status of the decentralization program, how many staff have been, or are there any, relocated from the lower mainland? Where are they going, and have they gone now out into the interior or the north or whatever area they're being put into?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I think the member -- I could just ask if he could nod -- is asking about whether people have been relocated to the regions from the lower mainland. There has been some relocation, but the majority
So let me just reiterate, because I
[1930]
D. Jarvis: Do I understand, then, that all the people who have left the lower mainland and gone out into the decentralization areas have gone into the marketing and service end of it? Have they? What departments have increased in size? Is it the claims departments or is the management level, executive level, outside there? Where is your growth in decentralization outside of the lower mainland?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The increase has been virtually on the operations side. The increase in staff in the regions is on the operations side.
D. Jarvis: On the operational side of it, then. I assume that it's assistant vice-presidents who have gone out there who are operating these new areas you've created. I want to know what responsibilities these regional vice-presidents and marketing managers and the public relations managers have in the decision-making of the operation of ICBC. What I'm trying to ascertain is: are they given full responsibility now for the full operations of ICBC outside the lower mainland? Or do they still have to get decisions from the head office in Vancouver?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The regional vice-presidents have expanded authority under the regionalized model. The strategic direction behind creating regional hubs is so it's customer-focused, local-focused -- putting the corporation into communities. In some communities the Insurance Corporation is the major employer in the region. Regional vice-presidents have control over their operations when it comes to direct service to the client, to the policyholder. But if there are decisions that affect, for instance, pricing, etc., those are strategic decisions made by the executive and with the approval of cabinet.
D. Jarvis: Would the minister be able to tell us how much these new departments being created outside of Vancouver have they increased as far as staff goes? At the same time, could she tell us if the expenditures have increased over and above what they were when they were being handled in Vancouver?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll try this once again. We do not have a breakdown in the increase in regional staff on the basis of just regionalization. It's been an expansion of services to the client. The member may wish to, in quite an old-fashioned way, focus on inputs; I'm actually focusing on outputs. Let me just say, as I said earlier, that the growth in staff over the course of the last four years has been as a result of expansion of services on a regionalized model.
[1935]
Let's talk about: what does that mean? Is that expansion of services with expansion of staff? Is that just added to the cost for the policyholder? Do they absorb those costs without any benefit? Well, the answer to that is no, of course.
But I can give the member an explanation of what the increased administrative cost is attributable to, because it did go up this year. The '99 annual report will show that the administrative costs have gone up. Let's just see what those reasons for it are. There's been additional infrastructure based on the regionalization of the corporation. This year, the '99 report, is really the first full year of those costs. As I've already gone through -- I think now twice, maybe three times -- there's been an expansion of services offered through the regionalized model. I'd be happy to go through that another time if the member would so wish.
D. Jarvis: I'm surprised, in view of the fact that a corporation this size isn't really accountable for its dollars and cents, that the minister doesn't have that information available as to how much this regionalization has cost her at this time.
But I want to go into the corporate reorganization at that time, back in December. It provided a number of senior managers with new job titles and has the net effect of swelling the executive ranks from nine to 15. There's a slight increase there, about 60 percent, I guess. In particular, the new position of the executive VP was created along with two more senior vice-presidents and four additional vice-presidents. All of these individuals received a pay increase in the range of about $125,000 to $175,000 a year, up from the old range of $110,000 to $140,000.
I'm going to ask you two questions on this, and I was wondering if you could possibly give me an answer to these ones. During the time when most corporations are trimming their numbers of highly paid senior executives, why did you increase the number of senior executives by at least 60 percent?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The announcement was made on December 30. Why don't I just tell you all of this? Because somehow it's important that the public actually get the link between the changed structure and the value for the policyholder. I know that the member opposite wouldn't try to
[ Page 16738 ]
intimate that it's just a massive administrative increase without any benefit to the policyholder, so I'm actually going to go through that to link the two in a constructive way, a responsible way.
The restructured executive positions and the associated new executive compensation structure were announced on December 30 of the year past. That was the first change in the executive structure since 1979. So I say, thank goodness the corporation finally reviewed their executive structure and brought it into the twenty-first century.
It was a result of a reorganization process to bring ICBC closer to its customers. Key to this process was establishing six regions now under the leadership of regional vice-presidents -- a move that better reflects the corporation's move to a regionally based organization. The new structure also changes executive responsibilities to more accurately reflect the scope of their corporate responsibilities following the reorganization and also ICBC's need to address the renewed competitive challenges that we've already talked about.
The structure is: one president and CEO, one executive vice-president, four senior vice-presidents, three vice-presidents -- for instance, of government corporate relations, investment information services -- and six regional vice-presidents. I want to make sure that I give you all of the information.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yeah, well, of course you know
[1940]
D. Jarvis: There has been a very large pay scale increase, so now we have more senior executives shouldering the onerous duties of ICBC and the workload. I wonder why there was any need to dramatically jump their pay scale when there were more to do less work, because you had ostensibly decentralized and put another 25 percent of your people out into the interior to look after the problems out there. Now the executives have less work to do, theoretically, under decentralization. Yet you hire more executives and give them more money. So there's a question I wanted to ask you.
The other one was: why did ICBC not consult the Public Sector Employers Council before granting these excessive increases?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Let me just correct the record as well, if I may. There are now four vice-presidents -- there's a vice-president of marketing as well -- and seven regional vice-presidents. There has been one more region added.
Again, it is really important
The corporation offers a much greater range of services now and faces a much different market than it did in 1979, the last time that the executive was reorganized. The world of services is different out there, and there's much more demand from the customer to be competitive and reasonable in price and to be service based. The corporation is dealing with all of those issues of greater customer focus, and I think it's working. More needs to be done; there's no question about it.
But, again, rates have been frozen for five years. I don't think there's another insurance corporation in North America that can claim that, and they certainly can't claim that there has been an across-the-board freezing. If you have an accident, of course, things change. If you make a claim, things change. But with a safe driving record, not only are your rates frozen, but in lots and lots of cases -- for hundreds of thousands of policyholders -- the rates have actually gone down. So the restructuring is to enhance that better service to the customer.
In terms of the executive compensation, I'm of mixed views about the corporation's increase in salaries. Let me be clear about this. The corporation certainly, in a very competitive world, has to attract the best and the brightest. This is the largest insurance corporation in Canada. It has one of the best records in Canada. But there's huge competition out there for people of quality and expertise, so there are issues of making sure that the salaries are attractive for attraction and retention of staff. But this corporation is a Crown corporation. It's a corporation the public feels ownership of, so the corporation must be accountable to policyholders.
[1945]
I'm glad that the salary increases are now part of the review ordered by the Premier. Earlier this month the Premier ordered a review of executive compensation. He has given the Minister of Finance the mandate not to roll back compensation -- and I think that's appropriate -- but to say: "Let's hold on; let's figure out what, if any, compensation makes sense from a broad perspective." The Premier's review, which will be done by the Minister of Finance, will look at how salary increases for executives across government have occurred, whether the guidelines were followed and what, if any, recommendations need to be changed about following guidelines. The corporation will be able to make its case and argue that it did follow the PSEC guidelines and that it followed proper procedure. But regardless of that, we're going to have a review of all of that.
What I would hope is that the corporation can see its way clear to negotiating a fair collective agreement for the front-line staff as well. The front-line staff are incredibly invaluable and are incredibly dedicated as well. It's an interesting corporation to meet with the staff, which I have done over the course of the last months. They place a high value and feel great honour to work for the Insurance Corporation of B.C., and they want to be fairly compensated as well. That will take place through the collective bargaining process, and I have urged both the union and the employer to get on with concluding a collective agreement.
D. Jarvis: I thank the minister for her long spiel there. First of all, without getting into too much specific or rhetoric at
[ Page 16739 ]
the moment, because we'll be going into that subject later, the rates have been dropping across Canada and across other jurisdictions in the U.S.A. for several years now. What ICBC has done in the past by freezing the rates for five years is that ostensibly they froze the rates up. But we'll discuss it as we get into the rating end of it later on tonight, I guess, or possibly tomorrow morning.
I just felt that the fact that ICBC actually made a mockery of the zero-zero-and-2 by just giving them increases like that and then having forced the government or the Finance Minister or the Premier -- I'm not sure which -- to have a review, which has cost more of the taxpayers' money down the line
In 1997, when ICBC first absorbed the motor vehicle branch, there were approximately 4,200 employees on ICBC's payroll and about 800 with the motor vehicle branch, for a total of 5,000 employees. Today ICBC is now with about 6,000 people on the payroll. This is at least a 20 percent increase; I'd said 25 percent earlier. I think I'm boring the minister quite a bit, because she's putting her head down on the table. We're trying to find some information here as to the future of where this Crown corporation is going. That's about a 20 percent increase in less than three years. How can the company actually justify this increase in staff when your revenues have only minimally increased over the past three years?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I hear from the member some misleading information that's perhaps being promoted through his reading of the Insurance Bureau of Canada's information that this corporation isn't on sound financial footings and that it has had to dip into its reserves. Well, none of that is true. The corporation is on sound financial footing. The actuarials have been conservative, because they have not booked the benefits of the road safety programs. But they are becoming more and more convinced of the positive impact of the road safety programs on claims costs. The corporation is also putting a great deal of effort into controlling prior claims adjustments, and that's what some of the investments are about.
[1950]
Let me reiterate what those programs are and what those services are that the corporation is offering. A lot of this is to control prior claims adjustments and crack down on impaired drivers. These are new since 1997, most of them coming into full-year effective late '98-99 in exactly the period of time that the member is talking about: action to reduce speeding and get tough on dangerous drivers; enforcing programs like the crash responsibility charges; escalating speeding fines; graduated licensing for new drivers; graduated licensing for new commercial vehicle drivers; remediation for impaired drivers; strengthened anti-fraud and auto crime measures, such as auto crime enforcement and education; bodily injury claims investigation teams; enhanced claims handling for material damage claims; material damage specialized fraud unit; fraud penalties; reduced benefits to joyriders; specialized head injury unit; dispute resolution; injury management; structured settlements; net wage loss compensation; assault limitations; customer account management; and insurance efficiencies.
Those are just some of the new initiatives that have taken place through 1998 and 1999. Those require people to administer those programs. But it's all to the benefit of the policyholder. More work needs to be done, and the corporation is increasingly becoming even more greatly customer focused.
D. Jarvis: The new road safety programs did come in, in 1997. Now it's the year 2000, and last year claims were up 4 percent. So we have all these people running around trying to organize and do all these things, these safety programs, and in actual essence, it's not doing much good. It's helping a bit, but your accidents are up.
From 1996 to 1999, road deaths across Canada were down an average of 12 percent. Road deaths in B.C., however, dropped by only 4 percent. So we are lagging behind the other provinces with regards to that aspect, even with an expensive road safety program and multiplying numbers of staff to administer it. Sometimes you question whether the operation is as wonderful as you say it is.
I was wondering if the minister can tell us
Hon. J. MacPhail: Let me just try to take these in the order in which the member offered them. Worry about the 4 percent claims rise
But where the big costs of claims are, like in bodily injury, etc
[1955]
Now, just in terms of comparison of rates, the member opposite and I can stand here and quote statistics across Canada. We can compare apples and oranges. We can compare donkeys to zebras. But it is important to note the differences. Even though our premium costs are almost exactly the same as Ontario, the services offered are much greater. We also have a non-discriminatory pricing policy. So when you're a young person with a good driving record in Ontario, you're paying thousands of dollars more for insurance than you would here.
The other factor is that to compare Alberta to British Columbia is comparing a donkey to an orange, because the benefits that one gets for those premiums in Alberta are far less than what one gets here. For instance, in the area of Alberta the accident benefits are a maximum of $10,000. In British Columbia it's $150,000.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The member for Peace River North can say "hogwash" all he wants, but that's a substantial dif-
[ Page 16740 ]
ference. Ontario has a threshold no-fault system. They can only sue for severe injuries. That's not the case in British Columbia.
So we can actually sit here and once again go over what the member does every year and move towards his agenda of wanting to privatize the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. That's what the Liberal agenda is: to give it away to large corporations at the expense of the broad benefit of British Columbians.
You can haul out your Insurance Bureau of Canada statistics, where they want to just do away with ICBC, do away with road safety and do away with rewarding good drivers. Or we can actually go to a report by the Consumers Association of Canada that actually makes a fair assessment that isn't influenced by anybody with a vested interest. And they've got some very good things to say about the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.
You know, we do have the statistics. We do have the comparison for Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto based on real-life examples, real-life policyholders across the full range of clients, of customers. I'd be happy to share that with the member opposite. The corporation is very competitive across the country. But you know what? More needs to be done, and we're doing it.
D. Jarvis: First of all, I want to say to the minister that we have never said that we want to privatize ICBC. If she's reading it in the newspaper, she's reading between the lines the wrong way.
We have always said that we sometimes question the validity of the way ICBC is run. We feel that it is a monopoly organization. But it's being run through government directions, specifically in the latter years, with the NDP government that is in control of the province at this time and runs this Crown corporation. They have put in all their policy hacks and their political hacks, including the chairman of the board, Williams. We have said that we're going to look at ICBC for the best benefit of the people in British Columbia. We have never said that we are going to privatize it. You have heard me quoted as saying that perhaps it may be ICBC's best value to have some competition in this province. And that's the way it is.
On that point, I'm going to ask my friend, my associate from Kamloops, who has another couple of questions on this same subject
[2000]
K. Krueger: The minister is correct, of course, that we don't want to compare apples to oranges. But we do have ICBC's own records going back almost three decades now. In the table the minister referred to a few moments ago, which is on page 3 of the annual report, an interesting number every year is the expense ratio, a percentage of the corporation's business. The corporation prided itself for many years on running the whole operation on its investment income and on having a really low expense ratio. Even in this table, which only runs from '95 to '99, we see a fairly remarkable increase in the expense ratio percentage from 15 percent in '95 and '96 to 18 percent in '97, 19 percent in '98 and 22 percent in 1999.
The minister has said repeatedly that there has been an expansion of services. She even went so far as to say a few moments ago that the number of claims might be up, as I understood it, because there were more hours of the day that people could report claims, which doesn't make sense to me. The claims were reported in the numbers in which they arose, regardless of shorter hours for reporting.
We don't argue with enhancing the service to the public -- not at all. The service improvement, if there has been one at ICBC between 1995 and 1999, surely doesn't account for an increase in the expense ratio from 15 percent to 22 percent. I wonder if the minister could give us some more reasons why she believes that ratio has increased that dramatically.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The vast majority of the increases are because of the integration of the motor vehicle branch. The increases beyond that are for upgrading of computer systems, etc., post-retirement pay-outs and year 2000 costs -- Y2K costs.
K. Krueger: The corporation remits the proceeds from drivers' fines under the Motor Vehicle Act to the government as general revenue, as we understand it. Yet the minister has just said that one of the reasons for this dramatic rise in the expense ratio of the corporation is the absorption of the motor vehicle branch and the staff that came along with it. Is it true, then, that the funds which used to pay for those people's wages and benefits and the cost of employing them are now being remitted to general revenue, although collected by ICBC? Yet the expense remains an ICBC expense of employing those people?
[2005]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I don't disagree with the point that the member for Kamloops-North Thompson is making about the integration and that the costs now are part of the costs of the Insurance Corporation of B.C., whereas the motor vehicle branch costs used to be part of government operations. It's not just that the costs are now absorbed by the ICBC policyholder without any benefit. In fact, I'd be happy to make the claim, but it's a technical claim that would require a substantial amount of information. I'd be happy to offer that to the member, although I expect that with his background in the corporation, he already knows this -- that the integration of licensing in the motor vehicle branch comes as an asset to the policyholder. It actually holds the price of policies, at worst, even, and perhaps they've been reduced in terms of the road safety, the integration of the licensing. That has greatly benefited the policyholder in terms of the lack of increase in premium costs and in some cases the reduction of premium payments.
But your original point is accurate. What needs to be done, then, is to examine whether there are any benefits to the transference of those costs. And yes, there are.
K. Krueger: Actually, my original point, though, was that the Insurance Corporation of B.C. has had to take on the administrative cost of collecting fines and administering driver licensing in this province. According to its annual report, in the past year it remitted $423 million in fines and licence fees to the provincial government. My point is that in the past, when the motor vehicle branch out of the proper ministry, paid for the expense of employing those people, arguably the government used that revenue source, which is now $423 million a year, to defray those costs. So the cost has
[ Page 16741 ]
been imposed on the premium payers of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. But the fines, which used to defray those costs, are flowing to general revenue.
In addition, the minister has talked about the advantages to ICBC. But ICBC has also incurred significant costs for funding the safety programs such as the corridors project and the enhanced CounterAttack projects around the province. Yet all of the fine proceeds which flow from this are, as we understand it, going to general revenue for this government rather than defraying the costs of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. So I'd ask the minister to specifically answer whether or not that's true and whether or not she thinks that it's fair to ICBC premium holders.
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's a good discussion we're having, but I think my answer that I just gave holds for a response to that question as well -- that the integration makes sense from holding the claims costs even or even reducing them. That's a benefit to the policyholder and us being able to pass on those reductions in costs to the policyholder. That's what gives rise to the corporation being able to do that -- the integration of the motor vehicle branch and licensing operations.
K. Krueger: Well, the record obviously will show that the minister is declining to answer that question.
The fact is, for the record, that $423 million is being siphoned into the province's general revenue pot from ICBC premium payers. That's $423 million designed to make the government's deficit look a little less terrible than it actually is, and it's terrible either way.
My colleague from North Vancouver-Seymour has alluded several times to the concern about whether there is a secret deficit building with respect to the corporation's reserves. The corporation reports this matter as "prior years' claims development." Again on page 3 it's at the bottom of the section on claims incurred and so on. In 1995, when this government began to twig to this particular revenue source, we think, $30 million was shown as a recovery. Allegedly, as I understand it, the report is saying that it was deemed that there was $30 million too much in claims for previous years, so the government or the corporation took it back. In '96 that went up to $104 million; in '97 to $163 million; in '98 to $219 million -- it just keeps rising -- and in 1999 to $238 million, almost a quarter-billion dollars.
[2010]
That's a real concern, because ICBC's philosophy was always reserving to what was known as ultimate probable cost -- what ICBC expected the claim to cost by the time it was fully settled, including litigation expenses if those were expected, court-ordered interest and so on. My colleague's concern is very well founded, and I'd like the minister to account for the fact that a quarter-billion dollars was taken out of reserves last year and those other amounts in the previous years, and whether she can say with confidence that ICBC is reserving its aging claims portfolio to ultimate probable cost.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Certainly; yes. Absolutely -- to the last question. In fact, there's a case to be made that ICBC is conservative in reserving on aging claims.
You know, I'm not going to stand up here and pretend that I'm an expert in this area. The member opposite, who's an employee of the corporation, asks some questions that are important because of his background knowledge. I'm going to rely on my staff to give me this information. I will read it into the record.
Very competitive."In 1999 a total of $238 million relating to prior years, mainly for the years '95 through '98, was removed from claims incurred. The primary reason for this reduction is the marked improvement in the settling of bodily injury claims, particularly in claims over $100,000. In fact, of the $238 million reduction, $210 million was from bodily injury claims and the improvements result in large part from the soft tissue injuries claims initiatives and from the safety and cost-savings programs included in the six-point road safety plan. Over the past five years for which private sector financial information is available, positive adjustments to prior year claims for private insurers have averaged 4.4 percent of unpaid claims liabilities. For '95 to '99 ICBC's positive adjustments to prior years' claims have averaged 3.9 percent of unpaid claims liabilities."
K. Krueger: We hope that it's true and a lot truer than the assurances we got about the costs of the construction of the fast ferries. I only draw that comparison because sometimes we have to rely on this government's accounting abilities and integrity. People were -- I can't say bitterly disappointed, because our critic predicted those costs all along
We're concerned and want the minister to be concerned that that had better not be a secret deficit that's building, that when things come out in the wash a few years down the road, we don't have to be adding back that quarter of a billion a year and more to the ICBC reserves for its older files.
We notice that in 1999 over 1998, the value of investments shrank -- not a huge number perhaps, but it went down to $5.606 billion from $5.623 billion. At the same time, the claims costs actually dropped, and the revenue actually rose. So we're wondering: why did assets and investments drop in value when the corporation had the positive financial experience that it was reporting last year?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I apologize if the member opposite didn't have the advantage of a briefing prior to these estimates. In future years I'd be happy to ensure that all of his rather technical but very important questions are answered in a briefing so that we can actually engage in some
The drop in the unpaid claims is reflected in the book by moving that down to the rate stabilization reserve. That's where that shows up. I know that the corporation would be happy if, in the future, the member opposite would actually take up the offer for briefing. I think that would be useful.
[2015]
K. Krueger: Well, in a briefing with the Labour ministry many weeks ago now, one number that I asked for was the percentage of unplanned absenteeism which the corporation is currently experiencing. Does the ministry have that number with her?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually -- and I apologize for this, if there's a lack of communication in the Liberal caucus -- this
[ Page 16742 ]
information was provided to the critic, Daniel Jarvis, on May 10, 2000. If there's a problem with communication there, I'd be happy to offer a copy of the letter to the member for Kamloops-North Thompson.
Here's what it is. It says here in this letter of May 10 that the 1999 short-term sick leave was 3.45 as a percentage of hours worked. In 1998 that was 3.46 percent, and in 1997, 3.78 percent. So the corporation is making some progress in reducing the unplanned absences.
Maybe I'll just go on to read what was sent to the ICBC critic, the member for North Vancouver-Seymour. There are several programs in place to mitigate absenteeism: flu immunization program, return to work program, pre-placement health assessments for new staff, hepatitis B immunization for at-risk staff, stress reduction initiatives, employee assistance program, WCB Worksafe program, and critical-incident debriefing.
K. Krueger: If we're close to 4 percent of short-term absenteeism -- and that obviously didn't include the employees on long-term disability -- and we've got 5,800 employees, then my quick calculation, which may be wrong, indicates that's the same as 232 FTEs -- 232 people missing for the whole year. I can tell the minister that the corporation's goal years ago was 2 percent unplanned absenteeism. And there were many areas of the corporation that actually did considerably better than that.
I suggest that if there is stress at the corporation, in spite of the fact that the numbers are so vastly increased from what they ever were before -- almost 6,000 employees -- and if she believes that stress is giving rise to this level of absenteeism, double what the corporate goal was a decade and more ago, she ought to have a serious look at the way the corporation is being managed at the top. And with that suggestion, I'll return the debate to my colleague.
Hon. J. MacPhail: That's absolutely ridiculous for that member to stand up and leap to the conclusion that it's stress that's leading to the unplanned
An Hon. Member: You said stress. You gave that as one of the reasons.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I said stress management. Then for this member to stand up in a silly way and leap to the conclusion that it's the entire reason for it is just simply ridiculous. Less than 3 percent of the unplanned absences is due to illness. Yes, there has been a long-term strategic goal of reducing unplanned absences to 2 percent. It's absolutely insulting to the workers at ICBC to somehow indicate that there's a level of stress or that it's related to management at all. And it's not helpful in the discussions for a person, as a former employee or a current employee on leave from ICBC, to suggest that I or anyone else on this side is saying it's because of stress.
[2020]
K. Krueger: I'll ask the minister to read the record tomorrow when she calms down. She's the person who said that stress management programs are one of the strategies that the corporation's employing to deal with this exorbitant absenteeism record. There are 232 people missing every day, on average, at the Insurance Corporation of B.C. -- 232 people. It's preposterous. And that's just the short-term leave. There are many people on long-term disability as well. Perhaps the minister could put that number on the record as well. What's the percentage for people on LTD?
Hon. J. MacPhail: In 1997 the LTD hours lost as a percentage of hours worked was 3 percent. In 1998 it was 2.83 percent, and in 1999 it was 2.34 percent.
K. Krueger: Then I'll point out to the minister that those numbers add up to something in excess of 6 percent of the corporate staff away at any given time of the year. That's a lot of people, and in spite of her flaring moments ago, she should have a look at that and who is responsible for an absenteeism record of that magnitude.
Something that we've pursued year after year with this government is the question of how the premium freeze has affected people outside the lower mainland compared to people in the lower mainland. For years ICBC talked about beginning to rate people's premiums according to the loss experience of the region that they lived in. They finally started to do that in, I believe, 1991, '92 and '93. They're relatively small percentages, but there were reductions outside the lower mainland. On Vancouver Island and throughout the interior there were reductions in people's average premiums, and there were increases in the urban centres where the numbers of claims are dramatically higher.
Each year we've asked the corporation to give us the numbers for the relative comparison of premiums collected in each region to the claims paid for accidents arising out of that region -- never received them. Will the minister give them to us this year?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The information that the member asks for certainly does infringe upon the competitive commercial aspects of the corporation and are in many ways protected. However, the corporation is developing models to collect as much information regionally as is possible but must also keep that information in the context of it being a competitive commercial corporation.
I'm sorry. I just wanted to conclude by saying that the corporation is moving to geographic pricing and has done so with huge reductions in premiums -- last year about $26 million. How much was our announcement this year? We'll get that -- tens of millions of dollars more. We certainly are sensitive to the need to become more customer focused in having geographically priced premiums.
K. Krueger: I'm always a bit puzzled that the corporation and the government would say it's a potential harm to the competitive position of the corporation to disclose that number. What it seems to be saying is that if people in some regions of the province knew how heavily they're subsiziding other regions of the province, they wouldn't buy their insurance from ICBC. I suspect that's true, and if it is, it's wrong. It shouldn't be the case, and we want to see it corrected.
[2025]
I can tell the minister that in the late eighties and early nineties, I was able to track what was collected in premiums for the region surrounding Kamloops and what was paid out in claims. A single broker -- the largest broker in the area, granted -- Barton Black and Robertson, collected enough in
[ Page 16743 ]
premiums to pay all of the claims that arose out of that territory. So all the other brokers were collecting premiums, the money for which was spent somewhere else, and I submit it's the lower mainland.
So I don't think it's proper or fair to refuse to disclose that number. I'm pleased to hear that the corporation is moving in that direction once again. If anything, the corporation has harmed its own competitive position through no fault of its own, because this so-called premium freeze was imposed by our disgraced former Premier, as the minister knows.
I would like to encourage the minister to move more rapidly in that direction. The interior of the province subsidizes the urban centres in many ways, from resources to taxation to this -- ICBC premiums. It's unfair, and I want to see it corrected.
Now I'd like the critic to resume the line of questioning.
D. Jarvis: We stepped forward a bit there, where I was approaching this section. Just a couple of brief little questions that I wanted to continue on and step back another foot. If the minister could tell me
Hon. J. MacPhail: I want to get the exact, accurate information. The move affected 450
D. Jarvis: Quickly, can the minister just tell us
Hon. J. MacPhail: To repeat, I said that I hope to bring this forward to cabinet within the next couple of months.
D. Jarvis: Therefore we can expect them over on our side of the House, I assume -- if the government is still standing.
Would the minister give me an idea with regards to the theory that they have going -- and I won't go into this in too much detail -- about insuring the vehicle rather than the driver? Is that still a possibility that's coming before ICBC? Pardon me -- it's insuring the driver versus the vehicle.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Options such as that are constantly under active review.
[2030]
D. Jarvis: A great answer.
I want to ask another few questions. The surplus this year is $95 million or $96 million, although I feel it's really an artificial surplus in that sense, because you've taken moneys out of the reserve fund in order to establish a surplus. I'm wondering. If ICBC took $240 million out of the claims reserve in 1999 and have taken a total of $775 million over the past five years, without robbing the claims reserve, there would be a huge debt in this corporation, which could mean a premium rate hike.
But with an election coming -- and it is coming within the next 12 months, probably sooner -- I'd like to know how ICBC can possibly take these reserves out of the reserve fund. Just how do they ascertain what is the right amount of money to take out of every claims file in order to loosen it up from the reserves? In other words, let's go back to the beginning. How do you establish your reserves? What extent do you go to when you remove those moneys from the reserve fund in order to help balance your books?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The corporation, even though it's a Crown corporation, follows exactly the same rules as the private sector. I'd be happy to give a full briefing about the general rules of reserve to the member. The rules are exactly the same as for other insurance companies; yet our ratio is lower, as I've already said. It's 3.9 percent versus 4.4 percent for the privately held insurance corporations.
D. Jarvis: Well, a private health insurance corporation has nothing to do with this. What I'm trying to find out is how you get those reserves out. What is the premise? Do you just arbitrarily take $140 million out of your reserve funds -- just helter-skelter? What is the procedure you go through with regards to taking out the reserves?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is a claims forecast committee that consists of independent auditors, people from within the corporation and outside of the corporation. The forecast is done on generally accepted actuarial principles.
D. Jarvis: Do I assume, then, that all your claim files are audited by this group of independent auditors, that they audit each file to see when the moneys are required and find out that they have a surplus in them?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Generally accepted actuarial principles do not require the auditing of every file, but generally accepted actuarial principles by which each insurance corporation governs itself look at trends of claims.
D. Jarvis: Well, again, normal insurance companies, other auto insurance companies, across the country do not take their reserve moneys if they feel there is a surplus in it, have them audited and put them into general revenue in order to balance their books. That's not how it's done. So I'm trying to ascertain how this so-called group of people, these independent auditors, can come in and ascertain that you've got too much money in your reserve fund. There's got to be some procedure they go through in which they have to audit the individual books.
[2035]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The premise by which the member just suggested that somehow there's something funny going on here through the reserves, which is different from privately held insurance corporations, is ridiculous. The same generally accepted actuarial principles apply to this corporation. In fact, our reserves change at a lesser rate than private insurance companies. The money doesn't go into general revenue. It goes into rate stabilization, and it's all independently audited.
D. Jarvis: From what I understand, I want to ask the minister
[ Page 16744 ]
accounted for when there's an accident. They take a certain percentage of what they believe is to be the potential loss down the road, whether it be one year, five years or ten years -- what they estimate. And they take moneys that they feel are required and put them into a reserve fund for each loss.
Now, you're telling me that they do not do an audit of each file to see whether that loss money that is being held in a reserve is coming due in, say, six months -- because you never know when it's going to be settled -- or a year or four years, when you go to Supreme Court. So what you're saying is that they just arbitrarily take a percentage out by guess and by golly, virtually, because they haven't done an audit.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I have actually given the information about how the reserve is established and how adjustments are made through the claims forecast committee. These practices are identical to the practices that the private insurance companies hold.
If the member is suggesting that the only way that the whole industry can possibly hold its reserves properly is through auditing each and every file, feel free to make that suggestion to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Feel free.
D. Jarvis: Well, what I'm trying to tell you is that the independent insurance companies that are out there, other than ICBC, do not go to their reserve file and take the money out in order to
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, they do.
D. Jarvis: They do not. And I'll tell you
I've talked to people inside ICBC who have been claims managers, and they've told me that very same thing: ICBC does it on an arbitrary basis instead of an audit basis, which is completely contrary to what the insurance superintendent requires. ICBC has a rule of their own; they do not have to comply with the superintendent of insurance in B.C. So ICBC has a double standard which only applies to them.
I wonder if the minister would like to reiterate what she said before, so that we can get it in writing that ICBC does not audit individual files but takes a by-guess-and-by-golly figure by this group of examiners that they have there. And they arbitrarily take an amount of money out, whatever's required in order to give you a surplus. Every year you've taken money out of that fund, you've had your surplus.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The member for North Vancouver-Seymour is dead wrong on every account. So let me be clear about what happens here. And let me be clear that these numbers are not the numbers of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. They're the numbers of a publication by TRAC; it's an industry publication from which this information is got.
[2040]
Also, I would like to state that the way in which the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia calculates its reserve is the same as the rest of the industry. There is no by guess and by golly; it's by trends -- forecasting of trends -- by the accepted principles that apply across the industry. No insurance company audits all individual files. Yes, ICBC does specific auditing of files, but not every single file -- for determining trends and to establish the reserve. From the independent industry publication TRAC, the information is obtained -- and we'd be happy to provide this to the member opposite on the premise that he would share it with the other members of his caucus, unlike prior information that he's kept to himself -- that private insurers have averaged 4.4 percent of unpaid claims liabilities, and for ICBC, positive adjustments to prior years' claims have averaged 3.9 percent of unpaid claims liabilities.
D. Jarvis: Well, it's very interesting that the minister would mention the fact of TRAC. It's an independent sort of auditor of all insurance companies across Canada. Last year at this time the CEO, Mr. Thom Thompson, and the vice-president, Mr. Basham, when I brought up the aspect of TRAC and that TRAC had said in their summation that last year ICBC failed every point that they did in auditing across it
So the minister really doesn't know what she's talking about or else hasn't been given the proper information. And if she can't get the proper information, let's retire for the night and come back tomorrow when we can get the right answers. Tonight you haven't been giving us many answers; you've been putting them off. And that's completely irresponsible on your part.
Hon. J. MacPhail: That's ridiculous. Has he run out of questions? Of course, when he did take a breather, he went back and asked us all exactly the same questions. Continue on. Continue to ask the questions. The member's getting his questions. He's kind of obfuscating; I think he's run out of his list. I mean, he might have taken his files from '95, '96, '97 and said: "Oh, God, even I'm bored with those questions, and I don't want to ask them anymore." But feel free to go back to your files and bring up the same old questions.
What the CEO said last year on the record of TRAC was that the corporation failed one test, and that was on maintenance of capital, proportion of capital that the corporation holds -- 6 to 10 percent, while the private insurance companies have to hold between 20 to 25 percent. And yes, that is the single difference. That is true. That's the only distinction TRAC made, hon. Speaker. Please insist that he continue to ask his questions and stop obfuscating.
D. Jarvis: Well, I think the minister
I'll go on to another aspect there, because obviously we can't get any answers out of the minister on that subject. I wanted to ask the minister if she could tell me how many claims they had last year that went to litigation.
[2045]
[ Page 16745 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's coming. There are very big briefing binders here, but that information is right here, and we'd be happy to get it for him. He's not going to have to wait past the point when we find the briefing note. But he'll be the last one to find it himself.
D. Jarvis: I wanted to ask her the number of claims that have gone to litigation or gone to court. And at the same time she could tell me: is that an increase or a decrease over last year?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The number of cases that go to trial is approximately 500 each year, and that's fairly steady.
D. Jarvis: Are we to assume, then, that every year they have approximately 500? Surely the minister can give me more specific or closer
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm going to actually read from the letter that was sent to the Liberal caucus on this matter. "The number of cases that go to trial is approximately 500 each year" -- and that's steady. "To give some context to these numbers, ICBC receives approximately one million claims per year. While the number of claims that involve injuries is in the range of 50,000, only a small percentage end up in trial." That percentage has remained steady.
D. Jarvis: So the minister is telling me that there were 500 claims last year, approximately, that went to trial. Is that what she's trying to tell me? And if so, how many of them
Hon. J. MacPhail: Not only did I answer the question, I read from the note that was sent to the Liberal caucus.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yeah, that's terrific.
So only a small percentage go
D. Jarvis: Would the minister have a breakdown as to how many claims were settled through litigation and how many claims were settled without having to use the services of a lawyer? How many claims were established or settled through their claims departments without having to go into the courts? This is what I'm trying to get at. See if you can figure that out.
[2050]
Hon. J. MacPhail: We can get you that information. Perhaps if the member would give us the context in which he's asking it, we could get him the full range of information that he requires. I've given him the statistics about the trends, etc. If he's looking for the number that were solved by alternate dispute resolution in the year 1999, I'm sure the corporation could get all that information for us. In what context would he be asking for that, so that we can make sure that we get the exact information that the member wants, which is fairly detailed information?
D. Jarvis: Well, it's simply because ICBC has told us that they are trying to get away from going into courts, to jury trials, because it's too expensive. So they're going to be pushing the ADR, the alternate dispute resolution system. I'm trying to establish if that has been done or hasn't been done. The closest way of finding it out without having these sort of approximate figures is to get the exact figures of what's going on. That's how we're going to tell whether you are settling more claims out of court or in court.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I appreciate
D. Jarvis: Could the minister give me any idea when that may be forthcoming? I say that not to be -- how would you put it? I can't think of the word right at the moment -- combative or however you want to put it. I'm just saying that in the past it's been months before we get all this information, and I would like to see it as soon as possible. Thank you.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I don't think the corporation has been unforthcoming in giving you information. But it's important that we know the context in which you would wish the information. The member has been clear now about the context in which he wishes the information, and we'll be happy to get that for him very quickly.
Another way of interpreting a response to his question is this: in 1999, approximately 37 percent of people who settled their tort bodily injury claims retained counsel to represent them. Contingency fees paid by insureds were estimated at $158 million. In 1998, the year prior, the figures were that 46 percent of people retained counsel. So there was a drop of fully 9 percent of claimants in retaining counsel from '98 to '99.
D. Jarvis: Can the minister tell me
Hon. J. MacPhail: Go ahead.
D. Jarvis: Well, okay. What time are we open till tonight -- 10 o'clock?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Nine.
D. Jarvis: Nine. Okay. Well, there are only a couple of minutes.
[ Page 16746 ]
I was wondering if the minister could tell us what the present situation is with regards to soft-tissue injury claims? There has been a certain amount of discussion outside on the streets that ICBC's attitude toward soft-tissue injuries is that they are denying them whenever they can, they are not giving them any consideration whatsoever, and they are also using the premise that if there is insufficient damage to the back of their car, then there's no
Well, I'll hesitate a moment, because the minister is looking for a ride home, evidently.
I wanted to ascertain how they're going about these soft-tissue injuries and if she can establish with me at all or discuss with me at all the contents of that study that was done in Quebec with regards to soft-tissue injuries.
Hon. J. MacPhail: ICBC does not have a policy of refusing compensation for injuries and collisions resulting in little or no material damage. The low-velocity impact program has been put in place to help stem a growing trend towards claim pay-outs for questionable soft-tissue injury claims.
About one-third of all claims that are reviewed under the low-velocity impact program are paid out. Decisions on claims on the low-velocity impact program are made according to objective guidelines intended to assist claims adjusters in determining compensation levels in very low impact collisions. ICBC is currently working together with the Ombudsman's office on the review of procedures of the LVIP. This review is ongoing.
[2055]
D. Jarvis: Could the minister please give us some in- formation as to whether ICBC has studied that Quebec soft-tissue plan and whether they agree with it or disagree with it?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, the corporation has examined the Quebec soft-tissue program, and in fact that was the model on which the ICBC guidelines are based.
Hon. Chair, noting the hour, I would move that the committee rise and report considerable progress and a very thoughtful debate and ask leave if we could possibly sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 8:57 p.m.
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 resolutions, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 8:59 p.m.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.
The committee met at 2:45 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EMPLOYMENT
AND INVESTMENT
(continued)
On vote 25: ministry operations, $37,154,000 (continued).
B. Penner: It's good to be back here in Victoria, as long as we're not here for too long.
A Voice: That's up to you.
B. Penner: Pardon me?
A Voice: That's up to you guys.
B. Penner: Partly.
When I was asking questions before the one-week hiatus, I had received a commitment that a number of different documents containing information would be provided to my office. I've just been going through my in-basket, and I don't appear to have received anything from the minister or his staff. I had been assured that I would be provided with some information before we resumed today, and I'm just about to check through Hansard to see what a list of those items includes. I have not received that information as yet. There will be some additional questions that I have based on that information that I hope to receive shortly.
I do have a couple of questions I can proceed with at this time. When last we met, I had been asking some questions about British Columbia's participation in organizations known as Pacific NorthWest Economic Region and Cascadia. I've been told that the province of British Columbia contributes $25,000 a year in annual fees to PNWER as well as $150,000 to Cascadia. I'm not sure if that $150,000 is an annual fee to Cascadia or if that was a one-time grant. I wonder if the minister could clarify that.
Hon. G. Wilson: Just to help the member opposite out, we have a list of two items that were asked to be presented: the actual versus budget cost of international travel -- I understand that it has been supplied -- and the outgoing missions. I understand that a list of the planned outgoing missions, specifically to which country, staff members and so on, was made available to the official critic. If there's other material you're looking for, I'd be happy to expedite it. But those are the two items we saw that were outstanding.
Specifically to the question
We have twice now made that allocation, so it's not on an annual basis. It's voted on each year.
B. Penner: I wonder if the minister could tell us how much is budgeted to be spent this year on Cascadia.
[ Page 16747 ]
Hon. G. Wilson: The second expenditure runs out at the end of July. We are considering our options.
B. Penner: Do I take that to mean there is no amount budgeted for this year for Cascadia?
Hon. G. Wilson: There is an amount budgeted. We just haven't made a determination as to whether or not we intend to spend it there.
B. Penner: Can the minister tell us when a decision will be made about that?
Hon. G. Wilson: Before the end of July.
B. Penner: Can the minister tell us whether the $150,000 per year that's been spent on Cascadia includes the amount that's been going to a former Premier, Mike Harcourt, for his involvement in that organization?
Hon. G. Wilson: It's my understanding that he does have an arrangement with Cascadia, but we don't pay him directly.
B. Penner: When we were discussing this prior to the one-week break, the minister informed us that in fact Mr. Harcourt was receiving $4,000 per month for his involvement. Is the minister now saying that the Ministry of Employment and Investment is not paying Mr. Harcourt directly? I think we were told something quite different a few days ago.
[1450]
Hon. G. Wilson: I think what the member, if you review Hansard, will see is that it is our understanding that the arrangement the former Premier has with the Cascadia Institute is $4,000 a month, which they would pay him. But we do not directly pay the former Premier. He has a contractual arrangement with Cascadia. We believe it to be roughly $4,000 a month.
B. Penner: I wonder if the minister can tell us whether there are any other contracts, or any contracts of any kind, that the former Premier Mike Harcourt has with this ministry.
Hon. G. Wilson: Not within this ministry.
B. Penner: Is the minister aware of any other contracts between Mr. Harcourt and the government? His last answer seems to indicate that.
The Chair: The question is out of order, member.
B. Penner: I wonder if the minister can tell us whether the $4,000 per month that Mr. Harcourt is receiving from Cascadia is paid in U.S. dollars.
Hon. G. Wilson: Because we don't pay him, we're assuming it's in Canadian dollars, but that's only an assumption.
The Chair: Member, just before I recognize the member for Chilliwack, this area was covered extensively in the last session of these debates. These questions, to the Chair, are extremely familiar. In fact, I think the Chair, if stretched a little bit, could answer them, because they've come back and forth at least three times in the last session of debate. We had the discussion then, member and minister. As this contract is with Cascadia, not within this ministry, it really fringes on irrelevancy to the ministry. So if the member could clarify the direction where we're going for the Chair and for the committee, and where we're at with this, then we can proceed, but with the caution that this is getting repetitious. It was covered very extensively in the last session.
B. Penner: I can understand that this is a sensitive issue. Cascadia, according to the minister, is receiving $150,000 per year from the taxpayers of British Columbia. It appears that a portion of that money is going towards the former Premier Mike Harcourt, so I think it is worthy of some exploration. Certainly I think taxpayers would be curious about the relationship between the B.C. government, the Ministry of Employment and Investment, Cascadia and former Premier Mike Harcourt, as this all seems to tie together.
Can the minister tell us if the Ministry of Employment and Investment is receiving any type of workplans, reports, proposals -- any kind of work at all -- from Mr. Harcourt in return for our investment in Cascadia?
Hon. G. Wilson: Yes. We get workplans and reports.
B. Penner: I find that to be interesting, because I've never seen any such workplans or reports. I wonder if the minister is prepared to make those public and, if so, when.
Hon. G. Wilson: I see no reason as to why we shouldn't save the expense of an FOI. We'll be happy to make it
B. Penner: Did you say when?
The Chair: Does the member have a question? Member.
B. Penner: I wonder if the minister could tell us when we can expect to receive that information. Again, just to clarify, that's information that Mr. Harcourt has prepared in his capacity as a representative of the B.C. government to Cascadia -- any reports, recommendations, anything at all that he's produced for his pay for that organization.
Hon. G. Wilson: If we could conclude these estimates in the next hour or so, we could probably get on it this afternoon.
[1455]
B. Penner: I don't have a great deal further in terms of my questions. I have just now been provided with a Hansard from Thursday, June 15. I will go back to review the various commitments that the minister had made in terms of information that he was going to get to me by today, which as of ten minutes ago was not on my desk. I'll just go through that and reserve my right to make some concluding comments.
S. Hawkins: I just have a couple of questions about the Team Canada trade mission that the Premier will be embarking on, I understand, this fall. I wonder if the minister can bring us up to date with those plans and the dates of the Team Canada mission.
Hon. G. Wilson: I was just hoping that there would be something more current than I have here, but I'm certainly
[ Page 16748 ]
prepared to keep the member apprised. The mission is scheduled for the mid to late part of November. That is principally to China -- Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, although I understand there's a tour of a region outside of Beijing.
The negotiations or discussions with the federal government are ongoing. I have a meeting later this week to finalize arrangements, and I'd be more than happy to make sure the member is kept apprised of dates, times, places and whatever opportunities there may be.
S. Hawkins: I understand that the mission is usually around two weeks. So the middle to end of November are the dates that have been tentatively set. I think it's the federal government that usually drives these missions, so they are more involved in the companies that will be going from B.C. But I understand we have some say in the people we take as well. Can the minister give me any kind of information on the kind of companies that are going to be represented or if there have been any invitations sent out to date?
Hon. G. Wilson: As the member opposite is aware, while we make recommendations for companies that are going, the federal government has the final say. We get 10 percent of the seats on the plane, based on GDP. The companies that are going this time, because of the focus of the mission, would be involved in engineering, environmental issues, wood-related issues and issues related to trade.
S. Hawkins: Could the minister inform me: of those 10 percent of seats that we get, are those strictly for companies? Or will there be officials and ministers besides the Premier and his wife, who I understand are also going on the trip?
Hon. G. Wilson: The federal government will pay for the Premier, the Premier's wife and two officials. Everybody else pays their own way, and I don't intend to be going.
S. Hawkins: I understand that there are some plans around the Premier also taking a trip then to India, if he's in that part of the world. Can the minister confirm where those plans are and how long this side trip will be?
[1500]
Hon. G. Wilson: It is true that there is some ongoing discussion with respect to a trade mission into India. It would more than likely happen at the end of the two-week session, although that's not confirmed. These discussions are very preliminary at the moment. There's nothing that's hard and fast. And it would be largely a provincial mission, not a federal-provincial mission.
S. Hawkins: With respect to the trip, then, to India, which would extend from the federal-provincial trip, can the minister tell me if there is a budget for that? Does E&I pay? How big will that trade mission be? And who -- in the plans, anyway, in the workings -- is possibly going to be joining the Premier on that trip?
Hon. G. Wilson: The answer is yes. We would pay for that portion as soon as he gets off the airplane. It is speculative at this point as to who would meet with him. It would depend largely on what we believe we can achieve in such a mission. Assessment of that is ongoing at the moment, so there has been no final commitment made. But once that has been done, I'd be happy, once again, to make sure that member is properly informed.
S. Hawkins: A final question: what is the purpose of this trip primarily? What kind of benefits is B.C. going to see from the Premier going to India? What kind of trade opportunities and what kind of relationships are we looking for over there?
Hon. G. Wilson: The member will know that the provincial interest in India is longstanding. It is now the fifth most important market with respect to our economy. It is a growing economy. In fact, many economists estimate that it will be among the most important economies globally, as their capacity to consume is greater.
There is obviously an interest that we have with respect to high-tech in southern India, particularly with twinning incubators and bringing exchange between British Columbia and India with respect to people who are trained and skilled in high-tech. We also have a serious interest with respect to lumber exports, particularly with respect to new housing, similar to China, with new building codes being established. Those would be the two primary focuses of such a mission.
My anticipation is that the trip -- if we in fact do undertake a trip -- will be to the south of India, not to the north and that we will spend most of our time in the south and in the capital. If the Premier chooses a private trip beyond that, that would be his own doing.
S. Hawkins: So there is a possibility, then, that the Premier would tack on a holiday at the end of this trip and take a holiday in the north. Is that something that's also being planned for him?
The Chair: Just before the minister answers, it would appear that that's not part of the administrative capacity of the minister's office. The question, frankly, is out of order.
S. Hawkins: I'm just getting to the part
The Chair: Hon. member, it would be appropriate to address the Premier in his estimates as to his personal calendar and see if you can solicit an answer from the Premier on that.
S. Hawkins: Is it the intention of Employment and Investment to pay for the Premier's holiday? Or can we get a guarantee from Employment and Investment that no moneys will be spent on a trip that includes the Premier's holiday? Does E&I have a budget for that?
Hon. G. Wilson: The ministry has no budget for the Premier's holiday or anybody else's holiday, for that matter, not even the hard-working staff who I'm sure would love to take
[ Page 16749 ]
sions of interest in the high-tech sector, particularly with respect to exchanging skills and technology. That would be the focus of the trip. I can't comment on what the Premier may or may not do once he gets to India.
[1505]
B. Penner: I'm still trying to track down the information which the minister and staff indicate was sent to at least one of our offices last week. It would have been helpful if it had been sent to my office, as I was the person who had asked for the information and the person to whom I was told the information would be sent. Nevertheless, I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to find it in short order.
In the meantime, I have a question to the minister regarding, again, Cascadia: how was it that the contribution of $150,000 per year was determined to be appropriate? Was that a request put forward by the Cascadia group to the province of B.C., and if so, how was that justified? Or alternatively, was that simply an offer spontaneously put forward from the province of B.C.?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that this contract was negotiated by the previous minister. The member should be aware that it's a 50-50 contribution: the province gives 50 percent, and the federal government gives 50 percent. The Cascadia Institute therefore has both federal and provincial contributions. That was an agreement that was negotiated prior to my becoming minister.
"B.C.'s International Investment Strategy," I'm advised by my staff, was actually given to the official critic, with your name on it. But if that's been mislaid or misplaced, I'm happy to give you another copy right now.
B. Penner: I wonder if the minister can tell us how B.C.'s contribution to Cascadia compares with that from other sources. I'm thinking of perhaps Washington State. Is the minister able to advise us how much Cascadia receives in total from other agencies? Or are we the only ones footing the bill, along with the federal government?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that Washington State make their own arrangements, and we're not actually privy to what those arrangements are. I understand that they do contribute for their own chair; we don't. I want to make clear to the member that of the $150,000 that the province gives, it's broken $75,000 and $75,000, TFA and the ministry.
B. Penner: I just was quickly looking through the document that the minister provided me, and I thank him for that. However, I think I'll restate what those two issues were that I raised last week with the minister, which he didn't have answers for, because they don't appear to be answered by the information provided.
Number one, I had asked the minister to tell us how much the Employment and Investment ministry spent last year on travel. The budgeted amount had been $82,000, but I was wondering what the actual amount spent was in fiscal 1999-2000. And another question related to a list indicating the various countries that we're planning to visit in the current fiscal year, as well as an indication of which staff and how many will be going along on these different trips. Those were the two outstanding issues that I had from June 15.
[1510]
Hon. G. Wilson: I see no reason why I can't just hand this over to the member, but let me say that the total ministerial travel cost, fiscal 2000, was $116,545.98. It's broken down by minister and ministry. I see no reason why I can't just make that available to the member. Do you have a copy of that?
B. Penner: Again, thank you to the minister and to the Sergeant-at-Arms staff for providing excellent courier service, handing me this document.
In the fiscal year 1998-99 the budgeted amount for travel had been $82,000, but the actual spent was $121,000. Now we're told that in fiscal 1999-2000, despite the budget for travel being $82,000, the actual spent was $116,545.98 -- getting closer but still exceeding the budget. This year again we're told that for the 2000-01 fiscal year the ministry expects to spend $82,000 on travel. What prospect is there that that budget will actually be met, given the performance over the past couple of years?
Hon. G. Wilson: The member will, I think, accept that we don't actually control those expenditures. If the member will look at the material I've given him, he will see that in fact that expenditure comes from line ministries. We are simply the banker. We pay the bills.
With respect to the trade and investment missions that the member also asked about, I'd be happy to give you the possible dates of potential missions. They include the United Kingdom, India, Japan and Team Canada. I'll be happy to give you this, too, if the Sergeant-at-Arms
The Chair: Chilliwack.
B. Penner: Thank you, hon. Chair. Did you acknowledge me?
The Chair: Chilliwack, yes, you've been acknowledged. The floor is yours.
B. Penner: Thank you, hon. Chair, I appreciate your acknowledgment.
I don't know of many banks or bankers who don't control finances or who wouldn't want to have the last word on the amount of money being spent. I find it a rather odd situation that, through this budget estimates process, we allocate a certain amount of money to this ministry based on their statements about how the money is going to be spent, but then after all this process we're told that it doesn't really matter anyway because the ministry doesn't control the total amount spent, at least as it relates to travel. To me, there is something that's not quite connecting. Perhaps the minister could help me with that.
Of interest in the list that he's just provided me with, in terms of where actual travel expenses went for fiscal '99-2000, I see amounts of about $5,000 for a gentleman by the name of Russ Pratt and $4,100 to a Mr. Meggs. I wonder if the minister can tell us what the purpose of that travel was and why that got charged to this ministry. I'm not sure if those are entirely appropriate expenditures under this heading.
Hon. G. Wilson: I would suggest that the member, to get greater clarification on that, might, when the Premier is in estimates, ask the Premier. Both those gentlemen were in the
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Premier's Office. We have an international travel fund, and the line ministries charge against that fund. The approval for international travel comes through the Premier's Office.
To answer the earlier question about how it seems a bit odd that we don't keep control, based on the fact that there is a finite amount in the budget: we control expenditures the best we can, but the approval for expenditures comes out of the Premier's Office. We can't, on the basis of that budget, deny travel.
[1515]
R. Thorpe: I just want to make sure I understood the minister's comments with respect to this travel. So the budget is in E&I, but the approval for the out-of-province, out-of-country travel comes from the Premier's Office. In other words, do they sign off on that? So if the minister could clarify those, and also I'd ask the minister: is the Premier's Office aware of the budget amount, and do they exercise any management responsibilities with respect to the budget amount?
Hon. G. Wilson: I want to be clear. It's the international ministerial travel that is approved out of the Premier's Office. We're not talking staff travel. I'm certain that the deputy is well aware of what budgets are.
B. Penner: Just to clarify again: this $82,000 amount that's budgeted is for international ministerial travel; it would not include travel undertaken by ministers within Canada. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Wilson: That is correct.
B. Penner: Before proceeding, I'd just like to note that the Chair himself was fairly frugal in his time as minister responsible for Fisheries. I notice an entry here next to his name of $118.84. I don't know how far you could get on that amount -- perhaps you made it to Blaine -- but I hope you had a good time.
The Chair: The brass ring goes to the member for Chilliwack. Actually, it was a little bit south. It was Bellingham, for the record.
B. Penner: Knowing the Chair's automobile of choice, I'm surprised that it only cost that amount in gas. However, I digress somewhat.
I've just about concluded here, but again, I think we've highlighted a couple of concerns about us debating an amount to be spent for international ministerial travel in the Employment and Investment budget estimates, wherein it seems that the ultimate control rests in the Premier's Office for how much money gets spent on ministerial travel. Is the minister comfortable with this arrangement? Can you see some other arrangement that might lend more control, in the proper ministry, of the ultimate expense incurred by taxpayers for such travel?
Hon. G. Wilson: I think that the issue is a little bit more complex than purely an accounting process. When ministers travel internationally, they're travelling on behalf of the government of the province of British Columbia, and it's entirely appropriate that the approval for them to travel would come through the office of the Premier.
The way the budget is allocated, I guess one could argue
B. Penner: I believe that concludes my questions at this time. If I think of anything else, I'll be sure to let you know.
R. Thorpe: I just have one follow-up question with respect to the convention centre from last week. Actually, I could have two, but one I don't think would be a fair question, so I won't ask that at this point in time.
With respect to the task force that's studying the future viability, how much is in the E&I budget to be allocated to the task force for this fiscal year?
[1520]
Hon. G. Wilson: There is no specific amount allocated to that particular project. STOB 20, as the member will know if the member reads the budget, does have a sort of strategic investment fund. Some moneys may be available through that fund, if we deem that this project is actually going to go forward.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister clarify, then? Has there not been an indication that $400,000 would be allocated to this task force?
Hon. G. Wilson: I think what the member is referring to is the Treasury Board approval that was given to the ministry for up to $400,000 for soft costs to get us through to engineering. There were two subjects, however. It was subject to industry investment being secured, and it was subject to federal moneys being secured.
R. Thorpe: But $400,000 is in that budget with those two conditions on it. That's my understanding from the minister. If that's incorrect, the minister could clarify.
Could the minister also confirm that the numbered company for this exercise
Hon. G. Wilson: The company is still there.
R. Thorpe: Is there any activity whatsoever going on with that company?
Hon. G. Wilson: Other than the completion and the windup on the east side, the answer would be no.
S. Hawkins: We spoke a little bit about EDCs last day, and we talked about call centres. So I have a question for the minister regarding that.
I understand that back in 1998 the Ministry of Employment and Investment, along with Telus and four or five com-
[ Page 16751 ]
munities -- I believe the communities at that time were Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Victoria and Nanaimo -- agreed to jointly work together to market B.C. as a viable location for call centres. I also understand that Penticton recently joined that group as well. I understand the deal was that each community would agree to put $10,000 on the table, along with a contribution from Telus. That was $40,000 a year. Plus Telus was also going to supply some human resources for the program.
The province, through the minister's ministry, E&I, agreed to give the program $100,000, I believe. And that was supposed to be included in the last fiscal year, '99-2000. My understanding is that to date these funds have not come through. I understand that a staff person from E&I is working on the project, but there's no money.
The communities that are involved have worked very, very hard to access dollars through a matching federal fund, the PEMD, program for export market development. They're investment dollars through an Industry Canada marketing fund for communities. I understand that the communities were very successful in securing $127,000 from Ottawa. And because it's a matching fund, 50 cents on the dollar, the provincial contribution is key to unlocking the extra federal dollars. The grant was forwarded and needed to be spent by March 31. Unfortunately, it couldn't be spent. The communities ended up only using $57,000 of the fund. Anyways, the communities raised their share. They had $100,000 on the table, Telus had $80,000, and the province had nothing.
[1525]
This minister, last day, told me that we were actually well ahead of setting up call centres and were doing better than other provinces. Yet my understanding is that there was money that was promised -- matching dollars that were secured from the feds. But because the provincial contribution didn't come through, we apparently lost those dollars. I wonder if the minister can comment on that.
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, we are well ahead. We did, at the end of last fiscal, flow $100,000 into these public-private partnerships. Kamloops is up and running, to my knowledge, and Nanaimo is. I believe that they're moving ahead now with Victoria, and I think Kelowna and Prince George both continue to actively pursue call centres.
The member should be aware, however, that we are not going to simply cast a lot of public money at call centres that don't meet a certain test. What we are not interested in doing is simply having call-out that brings people in at minimum wage and essentially provides call-out services without opportunity for people to have both training and advancement and a reasonable wage.
I was at an opening in New Westminster of a call centre that has been able to proceed without government funds, and it is providing meaningful employment in New Westminster for people.
So certainly we are moving ahead. We are going to be fiscally sensible in the way we commit our money, and we're not going to simply drop money at every individual who would like to bring people at minimum wage to be able to do call-out. We're more interested, frankly, in call-in, although some of them are currently in transition from the call-out phase to call-in as well.
S. Hawkins: I don't know if the minister understood what the problem was here. Apparently there was a commitment made by government to invest $100,000 towards this marketing program. Five communities came on board, as well as Telus, and apparently the government had committed to give $100,000 to this group of Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Victoria and Nanaimo, and now Penticton.
This group went ahead, and because they thought they had the money from government, they applied for a grant from Industry Canada, which gave them $100,000. But they couldn't get the money, because the province didn't come up with the amount that they had promised, which they had said they would match. What I'm asking the minister to address is: is that money forthcoming for this group?
Apparently there had been a commitment made back in 1998 that this would be done. The money didn't come through then, the money didn't come through last year, and the EDCs are wondering if the money is going to come through this year. If it does, then they get the matching grant from the feds, and they can go out and market these areas so that they can get the call centres. This isn't about investing in the call centres per se. It's about these communities going out and marketing their areas as places where call centres from around the world can come and set up.
Hon. G. Wilson: We did flow $100,000 last year. We are going to flow, and we are in the process of negotiating, moneys for this year. The government hasn't gone back on its commitment; it honoured its commitment for $100,000 last year, and it is looking at flowing money again this year.
The member should keep in mind that Telus is only one group. There are a number of other competing groups now. Sprint is another one. There are others who are looking at British Columbia for investment. While the member is quite correct that we have been very successful at marketing communities for call centres, the province is now looking beyond the marketing. We want to actually get the call centres set up, established and working, and get people hired. We're looking more at committing what public money we will to real centres that will employ real British Columbians with livable wages and not simply give the money to municipalities for marketing strategies.
Now, we have entered into agreements on a number of occasions where the marketing has been very successful. We are starting now to look at real investment, and that's something that the province is prepared to come to the table with real money for.
S. Hawkins: The $100,000 that was spent -- can the minister break that down for me? It didn't go into this agreement that I'm talking about, because this group of communities tells me they did not get the $100,000 in the agreement that they had struck with the government. So I'm just wondering
[ Page 16752 ]
[1530]
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm hoping we're not talking at cross-purposes here. In the 1998-99 fiscal year, the province did contribute $100,000 to Linx B.C., which was a public-private partnership to promote British Columbia as a location for call centres. Partners in that Telus campaign were the communities of Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna and Prince George. That money did go and was spent.
This year we are prepared to come to the table again, but what we are looking for this year is beyond the marketing. We want to see real investment for our money. It's one thing to market; you can continually market. We want to see some deliverables now, to make sure that the money is actually going to go into the creation of some real jobs.
S. Hawkins: Can the minister tell me: is the budget this year $100,000 again, and has any of it been committed for the real investment that the minister is talking about?
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, I think the member will be sensitive to the fact that we are currently in negotiations, so I don't want to give a top figure, but we're certainly prepared to make comparable investments.
S. Hawkins: I just want to go back again to another issue we were talking about the last day, and I hope my mind is a little clearer today. I had quite a hoarse throat and wasn't feeling that well on Thursday, but maybe my mind is a little clearer and I can express myself a little better today. We were talking about the immigrant investor fund. The minister informed us that there were three investments made of $9.3 million: $3 million in Agro Pacific Industries and two in B.C. Transit totalling $6.3 million.
If I could just go back to the $3 million that was in Agro Pacific Industries
I guess this isn't the first time that Agro Pacific Industries has been in trouble. I understand that in the past ten years they have received government grants and they have received receivership protection. I wonder if the minister can explain to us why we would invest immigrant investment funds in this company and what kind of due diligence the account manager does before he decides to invest that money.
Hon. G. Wilson: We did go through all this last time, so my comments are in the Hansard for the member opposite to read to refresh her memory, if necessary.
[1535]
Let me correct again -- because I did correct last time, and I will correct again -- that this company is not in receivership. The company has availed itself of the CCAA court protection, which is essentially a provision that allows a company to
I. Chong: I'd just like to follow up on the comments by the minister on this. I do recognize creditor protection is different than receivership situations, where a trustee usually goes in and someone is appointed to manage and run the affairs. I'm presuming the situation we're currently at is that Agro Pacific still has the same people at the helm and is just bringing in the odd person to enable a restructuring -- a refinancing, I suppose. If that's what the minister is saying, could he confirm that before I follow up with another question?
Hon. G. Wilson: I should correct myself. It is not the government that is protected; it is the investor fund that is protected. It's not our money.
My understanding is that they're having some changes in management, but I'm not fully privy to the management structure of the company. However, we do make sure that those who are doing due diligence on behalf of the fund are fully aware of the changes and give us accurate and sound advice. To date, that has proven true.
I. Chong: If these are not government funds -- these are investor funds which come through the immigrant program and provide it to these businesses -- there is still the requirement to oversee these funds, obviously, because this government is allowing for the distribution or the allocation of these funds.
My concern here -- and I think it is a reasonable concern, especially for those who've allowed their moneys to be put into this fund -- would be that this government would take some responsibility for managerial changes or financial changes that happen in a business where funds have been invested. If there have been management changes, then I would think it would be incumbent upon this ministry to find out specifically what those management changes are. I'm not talking about replacing an accountant or replacing a staff person who's in the day-to-day operations, necessarily. But if we're talking the top managerial positions that will direct the future of this company and its success or possibly failure, then I would hope that this ministry would have staff available to be in contact with this company. I would like to know if that's taking place now and whether the minister is able to get more information to find out specifically what is happening in terms of the management of this company.
I say so with all due respect, hon. Chair, understanding that this company has been in financial difficulty in the past. To step aside and not follow through when you see that there is once again a substantial management change would show a lack of responsibility on our part. If the minister could provide any additional information or clarification on this, I would appreciate it.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm not entirely sure where this line of questioning is going. It's not the role of the ministry to manage a private company. In placement of these funds
[ Page 16753 ]
that has been done. We do have a fund manager, Canadian Western Capital, which is in daily contact with the company. It is fully aware of what is going on. We have on staff two directors who are right here and who sit on the board, so they are intimately aware at both the deputy minister level as well as at Mr. Lofthaus's level. I'm not quite sure what the concern is by the member. I mean, we are obviously monitoring very carefully what is taking place.
The fund is not at risk. The company asked for core protection while it repositions itself; that's not something that's entirely uncommon. The prognosis is that this company will do well in the future. I'm really not sure where the concerns are.
[1540]
I. Chong: According to the ministry goals and targets, I suppose, that were provided to the critic for BCIF, the B.C. Investment Fund, the goals and targets are to manage the immigrant investor funds. I would take in this that management would imply that the ministry is responsible to oversee, I guess, the security of these moneys. I realize that the fund is not moneys from taxpayers as such. But if this government is involved in investing in projects and has to manage this fund, in order to do so it would have to ensure that those investments are somewhat secure.
I can appreciate the minister feeling confident that everything is fine and that there doesn't seem to be a problem. But I bring to his attention again that some years ago, it is our understanding -- maybe ten years ago -- this same company was in receipt of government moneys, government grants, perhaps not through this program but through another program, and has in fact gone through a refinancing or restructuring process. It has had some financial difficulties once before.
Why would this government, then, choose to invest in a company that has a history of financial difficulty, unless something strategic or something new came about when this government made the decision to use investor funds to be placed in this company? That's all I'm trying to ascertain, hon. Chair. If the minister can provide that clarification, it would be most helpful at this time.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm not entirely certain that the member opposite understands fully how this thing works, how this fund works. The government doesn't invest the money; fund managers invest the money. The government oversees; we have a fiduciary obligation as a result. We oversee the fund managers to make sure the fund managers place their investment in areas that are low-risk.
Now, this company is an agricultural company. Yes, it has had dealings with the government in the past. Most companies that are engaged in agriculture are involved with governments from time to time. The fund managers do not deem this to be at high risk. Those who are observing the management of this fund don't deem this to be at high risk.
Frankly, I am not going to stand up in the estimates and put onto the public record comments about the economic viability of a private company in the province of British Columbia. They are under court protection. They are now reassessing their options financially. We fully expect that this company will continue to do well, as it has done over the last 50 years. Now, from time to time, companies go through low ebbs and high ebbs. But you're not going to get me, as the minister of the Crown, to stand up and basically slander a company.
I. Chong: I apologize to the minister if he interpreted that I would expect him to get up and slander any company. That's certainly not any kind of intention I would have.
Hon. Chair, I note that the bells have rung. I will defer until we return.
The Chair: Thank you. We'll have a division vote in Committee B or in the chambers. We will recess to accommodate the vote and reconvene at the conclusion of the division vote.
[1545]
The committee recessed from 3:45 p.m. to 3:58 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
I. Chong: Before the division bells rang, we were talking about the BCIF and, in particular, Agro Pacific and the investment there. I do want to advise the minister that I had a chance to peruse the Hansard of Thursday, June 15, when we last sat. I note that there was some commentary given by the minister at that time, so I'm not going to belabour the point.
I do want to say to the minister that the points of my question are, first of all, to get an understanding of how the fund works, the role of this ministry with this fund and also the due diligence and the evaluation that is done for this fund.
I note the minister's comments in the Hansard are such that he states: "The BCIF, or the immigrant investor fund, is an immigrant investment fund owned by the province and authorized to sell up to 100 units worth $350,000 each to prospective immigrants." Obviously the minister has concluded that this is a fund owned by the province, albeit not moneys coming from treasury, but yet a requirement for this province or for this ministry to ensure protection of this fund. Also, I note in this Hansard, when the questions were raised, that again in this particular investment he felt he was fully confident that the $3 million that was loaned or advanced to Agro Pacific is fully secured.
[1600]
So again it begs the question: is the due diligence in the process to ensure that these funds are fully secured at all times? We take a first credit ranking when these funds are loaned out. Those are some of the questions that come to my mind. Also, in making comments on this, the minister indicated that perhaps the creditors may, if fortunate enough, be able to pay dividends, so again there's to be a return on investments. All these questions come to mind as to ensuring that there is ample communication, ample notification, that there are changes to ensure not only the security of the funds but also possibly the payment of dividends, if that were the case. With that, I'd like to ask the minister when
Excuse me; I'll back up for a minute in order to rephrase. He also went on to advise that there were a number of investments made to date, totalling $18.5 million. Given that the minister is concerned about the security, given that the minister also wants to see that there are dividends paid out, can the minister advise, to date, whether there have been payments of dividends from any of these amounts that have
[ Page 16754 ]
been invested and whether there have been any amounts that have been invested that have not been secured or have not taken a first-place security ranking?
Hon. G. Wilson: I appreciate the member's question, because if last time I used the word "owned," it's probably not a really accurate description. We enable the fund. The fund is actually owned by the investors, although the province enables it, and it is regulated through federal legislation. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify that.
Interjection.
Hon. G. Wilson: If it's on the record, let me clarify that now. We actually enable this fund, because it is owned by the investors, technically. No dividends have been paid to date, but we do believe that the funds are well secured.
I. Chong: I gather, therefore, that no funds have at this point been lost or are considered non-recoverable. As I understand it from the description or explanation that has been given to me, these are investor funds; the ministry enables it; and because they're secure, there is also a component where these would be returned back to the investors. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Wilson: The member is correct that all dividends will be returned to the investors.
I. Chong: I'd like the minister, if he could, to also clarify that the fund
Hon. G. Wilson: Yes, the principal plus interest and any dividends will all be returned.
I. Chong: Then can I ask the minister about the long-term vision or goal of the fund? As I see it, if the funds are always going to be returned, we'll always have a minimum, at this point, of $24.8 million, which is what has been received to date. Is it just going to be
[1605]
Hon. G. Wilson: The fund does not revolve, so it will never go below $24 million.
I. Chong: When these funds are disbursed or expended, however you want to state it, are agreements drawn up with a requirement-to-repay date? Are they renewable terms as well? Oftentimes you'll have loans which are three years and then three-year renewable, etc. What are the criteria in that case?
Hon. G. Wilson: The agreements are drawn up, and they cannot exceed five years.
I. Chong: Then I'm to assume that at the end of each agreement, at the end of a five-year term, the entire funds must be returned. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Wilson: That is correct.
I. Chong: I note, as well, in the comments made by the minister on June 15 in Hansard that of the $18.5 million expended, there were two investments in BCIT, three in B.C. Transit and, of course, the one to Agro Pacific. Apart from Agro Pacific, the other investments are to an educational institution and to a Crown corporation. What I'd like to ask the minister is: is that normal in the circumstances? Was this not designed to deal with private investment or private companies, as the minister alluded to earlier? Or are the requirements to disburse the funds more to institutions and Crown corps as such?
Hon. G. Wilson: The funds can be invested in either public or private investments. The investors want maximum security. The investors have asked for public sector investment because they believe there is a greater security, less risk, which is the reason that that investment has been made. That is largely at the request of the investors.
I. Chong: I have one further question before the critic has some follow-up on this. I'm trying to get a more complete understanding of this fund. When the minister mentions that there are investors who are looking for maximum return, which we can all appreciate, would the ministry then be responsible for maintaining a list of all these investors and where their moneys therefore have been invested? And do these investors therefore receive a statement every six months, every year, not unlike someone who is a member of a pension plan, who gets a statement every six months to find out where their investment stands?
I'm presuming that these $350,000 units are all identified as to who the investors are. My question to the minister is: is there a schedule available? Would it be appropriate for this side of the House to receive that? I understand that if there are privacy rules, then that might not be possible. But again, it is for the sake of the investors -- to know that we're all looking out for their moneys, that there is some form of communication or accountability as to where their funds are going.
Hon. G. Wilson: I think the member might keep in mind that this is an immigrant investor fund that is governed by federal statute. They are looking to put their money into a secure investment as part of that immigration process. They are not looking to go into high-risk venture capital investments. Neither are they playing the market. This is not a way for them to take those dollars and try to make those dollars grow in the money markets. This is a specific amount of money with a number of members who are placing their money in what they believe to be the lowest-risk investments possible, given that we cannot provide a guarantee. They look to the public sector investment as that area where they put their investment.
From our perspective, we have to balance that with the need to administer the fund, to have enough dollars coming in that that fund is appropriately and properly managed. There's an ongoing challenge to make sure that the moneys are properly placed, so that there is as low a risk as possible, but a reasonable amount of expectation for return so that we can
[ Page 16755 ]
allow that fund to grow and provide enough resources to have proper administration of the fund. We should not confuse this as a pot of money that is being placed into the venture capital markets for maximum growth.
[1610]
I. Chong: No, I was not going to suggest that it was going to go into high-risk venture capital projects. I just wanted to get a better and clearer understanding of this ministry's responsibility -- in its fiduciary responsibility, I suppose -- in the enabling of where the investments are to be placed. I was happy to hear that certainly you can't provide guarantees, which obviously in a low-risk situation would be near impossible anyway. However, given that these funds are to be returned after five years to the BCIF, we still have to ensure that there is a monitoring of the funds that have been disbursed to ensure that they will be fully secured.
If this is the only investment made to a private investor -- Agro Pacific Industries versus the public institutions -- I'm just wondering, if that's the way we're headed: why did we choose one private investment to be made versus all of them being in public sector institutions or organizations? Why was one chosen in this particular case?
Hon. G. Wilson: The short answer is: because it was deemed by the fund manager to be low-risk. If the investors had their way, they would have probably put all of their money into public sector investments. We have to keep in mind what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with new immigrants who are coming into the country, who through a federal statute are able to put money in to facilitate their entry into the country. They're not coming in here looking for investments.
But given that this is an entry point, given that the legislation allows them to put a certain amount of capital into an investment, they want to put it into as low risk as possible. The fund managers deem the investments that they have made to satisfy the needs of the investors.
I. Chong: I thank the minister for his clarification. However, I'm also mindful of his comment that he made earlier as well: that investors are wanting the best return on their dollars and that these funds are all returned to the investment fund after five years. And that was the basis of my question earlier: are all the investors advised every six months or every year, at least, to know that, yes, they're still at 0 percent return perhaps, or that now they're going to get a 1 percent return? To that extent, what kind of communication is made with the investors, if any at all?
Hon. G. Wilson: The investors are advised on a quarterly basis as to how their investments are.
I. Chong: One last question in this area, I hope, this time, before I have to turn it back over to the critic, who I think has one more herself on this area: again for clarification, after five years when the moneys are returned, do the moneys then have to stay in this fund? Or do they ever get returned to the investors? Under what circumstances would an investor be entitled to receive any of these moneys back, if at all?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that there is a phased pay-out depending on when they entered the fund.
S. Hawkins: Just a follow-up to the investment that was made in B.C. Transit: I wonder if the minister
[1615]
Hon. G. Wilson: We were just chatting about the track records of the other provinces. The other provinces have a very poor track record of loss as a result of putting the money into private sector investments, which is the reason that the investors prefer, almost exclusively, to put their money into public sector investments. B.C. Transit and BCIT were both deemed to be the most secure possible. While there's no dividend potential, there is certainly an interest payable. So from their perspective, those were sensible investments to make.
I. Chong: At this point I'd like to canvass the minister on a number of other funds. I hope he'll indulge me if I skip from the natural resource or the industrial incentive fund. There are so many different areas that this ministry is involved in.
But given the minister's most recent comments about investment in private sector companies and losses by the other provinces, I know the minister is all too aware of the recent report that was handed out through the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, wherein they stated that this province has lost or has loaned out a substantial amount of money -- I believe some $400 million worth. I know it goes back over time, and this minister was not minister at that time. However, his government has been involved for a number of years with these investments.
I understand that $27.2 million was written off recently, with an expectation of another $104 million. So my first question to the minister is: does he have a list of those companies -- the $27.2 million -- that were written off? Is that available? And does he have the breakdown of the $104 million that is potentially going to be written off?
Hon. G. Wilson: I don't know where we begin with this Canadian Taxpayers Federation report, because their numbers are all wrong, and they've mixed up retirement provision loans with debt loss. I think my comment was that the author needs to give his head a shake, and I would underline that at this point. I would suggest to the member opposite that you don't rely on the information that you've got in the Canadian Taxpayers rating because it's tough to go
Interjection.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'll be happy to give you a complete breakdown of where the IIF is at this point. If you want to ask specifically with respect to where the IIF fund is, if that's where we're going, I'd be happy to give you a breakdown on that. I'd be happy also to give you a breakdown of where we see investments taking us in this fiscal year -- the investments that have been made up until now. Obviously I can't speak for those that have not yet been made.
I think where the difficulty is in the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, specifically the $100 million area that the member
[ Page 16756 ]
refers to, is that is a fund set aside for bad debt. It is a fund that is not expended, and we don't anticipate it will be fully expended.
I. Chong: I would appreciate then that the minister is able to provide a more comprehensive list.
I'm not suggesting that I'm relying on anybody's statistics, other than what this ministry is able to provide. However, given that others do that work and seek out information and put their reports together, then sometimes that is what we have as a basis upon which to rely and from which some questions arise.
However, I'm curious as to the minister's comment on the $100 million that he indicates is not a fund that is written off. Is he saying, then, that this is a reserve, an allowance for doubtful accounts? Is that what he's referring to, that $100 million?
Hon. G. Wilson: Yes, hon. Chair.
[1620]
I. Chong: My experience as an accountant -- and I know the minister is going to appreciate this -- is that when a reserve for doubtful accounts is set up, it's usually set up after some time has passed. It is where an account does appear to be doubtful, and where it's very unlikely there would be a return. So I'm curious as to why the minister would think that this $100 million would not in fact be a bad debt. If a reserve is set up, very likely it will be a bad debt -- unless the minister is aware of circumstances now that would alter that figure to be substantially less. If that's the case, again, I would appreciate if the minister was able to provide me with some kind of analysis.
I know in accountants' terminology that we do aging analysis. Those kinds of things are done frequently. If the aging analysis shows that there's $100 million, yet he feels some of these amounts will no longer be in jeopardy, then I certainly would like to have a look at a copy of that, if that's available.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm not an accountant, but I'm advised that on every transaction the Ministry of Finance books a portion of reserve. The child protection commissioner, for example, books 100 percent of the value. So the member will appreciate that if we are going to make an investment through the industrial incentive fund, the Ministry of Finance and Treasury Board are going to want to make sure that they have built in the satisfactory projections or protection, if the due diligence that we have done doesn't materialize.
I. Chong: Can the minister then advise as to the criteria that are used or the evaluation method that has been used? My concern is that if in fact a certain percentage is booked at the time a loan is made or is given, there is a virtual assurance that not all of it will be returned. In other words, 30 percent is going to become a bad debt. Can the minister advise: has that scale changed in the last few years? Or has it been consistent in the last few years?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm sure the member will appreciate that it's based on two things: business risk and security. The track record of government over the last number of years has been exceptionally good with respect to the IIF. We've made some extremely sensible investments which have not only assisted companies to get up and running in British Columbia and to have now become, in some cases, world leaders but have also provided significant revenue return to the province. Ballard comes to mind; there are others.
We do, I think, if one wants to look at an analysis
I. Chong: I'm not suggesting that staff go to a lot of work. If something is available, I would appreciate it.
The minister indicates that business risk and security are two items, and I'm presuming that there would be a whole list of items which are used as an evaluation as to whether a loan is made out of this fund. If that's the case, in making those evaluations using these two criteria -- and perhaps another dozen criteria; I don't know
I'm not suggesting that these evaluation methods aren't going to be appropriate. However, I do ask and I do question how often we take a look at whether or not the level of risk that we want to have imposed on this fund is reasonable in light of our economic situation. If in the past we had used a 20 percent level of non-returned funds and now it has gone up to 50 percent, then that would cause me some concern, as I'm sure the minister would be concerned about that.
I'd like to get an idea of where we were at one point and where we're headed to. If it's the reverse and we're accepting less and less of a write-off or a reserve that's set up each and every year, then that would be fine, and I think the minister would want to get that on the record.
[1625]
Hon. G. Wilson: The acceptable level of risk or loss is zero. Nobody enters an investment with a view to losing money.
Interjection.
Hon. G. Wilson: But I think that's fiscal prudence. I think the member opposite, as an accountant, would know that you are obviously going to have to establish a fund to be able to protect against the unexpected and the unpredictable. Treasury Board has a very clear set of guidelines with respect to what those levels are. We don't enter into an agreement through the IIF and expect to lose any money. I mean, the acceptable level of loss is zero. That's what we shoot for, and that's what we are obviously trying to maintain.
With respect to the other criteria, there clearly are areas where government is anxious to see fledgling industry that has its genesis in British Columbia succeed. In the areas where those industries are starting now to take a larger percentage of the market share, we're anxious to see them get going. A number of environmental industries, in particular water reclamation, sewage management industries, aerospace industries
[ Page 16757 ]
is another one -- where the government has recognized that there is a real opportunity here not only to put people to work and to see businesses grow but where we may take an equity position in some cases to actually get a reasonable return for the province.
I. Chong: I would wholeheartedly agree with the minister that any prudent financial person would always say that the acceptable level of loss on any loans would have to be zero. However, given that this ministry, working in conjunction with Treasury Board, has set up a reserve
Hon. G. Wilson: That's a fair question. On the Job Protection Commission
I. Chong: Can the minister advise what has been the maximum amount that has been set up as a reserve on a loan, and the history of granting of these amounts -- recognizing, as he's indicated, the varying factors that are involved?
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, on JPC there's been 100 percent provision; that's the maximum.
I. Chong: I will wait to receive any other information that the minister's office staff can provide to me, as I've outlined earlier.
I'd like to move on to another particular investment that may not be, I guess, out of this fund. I'm not sure where it would be. Again I ask the minister to indulge me, because it originally was set up through the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture but now is administered through the Employment and Investment ministry -- that is, the moneys that have been advanced to deal with the Burns Bog lands.
[1630]
The minister may recall that a few weeks ago I had asked a question in question period to the Minister of Small Business, Tourism and Culture as to why the fund or the loan that was advanced was not fully secured. The minister advised that it was. At the time, there wasn't sufficient time to ask the supplemental question I had, which I can now provide to this minister. The reason why I was given the information that it was not fully secured was that -- having read the documents -- a $25 million loan was advanced. However, security that was given in return was based on an appraisal on the property, an appraisal coming in at $21 million.
With those kinds of figures, alarm bells go off. You wonder if the reason why you set up reserves for losses on investments is because you don't fully expect to be able to recover, because you know you're loaning out more than the security that is being provided. So on that basis, perhaps the minister can first of all advise why there is the discrepancy and whether this is a normal occurrence and again advise me as to what fund these moneys did come out of.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm not sure what kind of guaranty the member would find satisfactory. We are in first position on the entire bog, which is appraised at something in the neighbourhood of $70 million, and our investment is $25 million. So I think it's a fairly significant difference. I think the lowest appraisal we got is consistent with the amount that we have invested or slightly more. Since we are in first position, I don't know what other guaranty the member would want us to have.
I. Chong: Through the freedom of information we did receive some documents that indicate that the $25 million that was loaned was not based on the entire bog. In fact, it was only based on a portion or a section of land that was appraised for the purposes of a loan being granted. That appraisal came in at $21 million. This is one of the reasons why we were questioning why that kind of a transaction would occur.
Why would the government be loaning out taxpayers' dollars and not requesting full security? Certainly if the entire bog lands, valued at $75 million, were given as security -- no question. But that is not what we received back from freedom of information.
Hon. G. Wilson: I had the same confusion, actually, when I first became minister, so I understand where you're coming from. I'll just read from the document that I got to straighten me out, and hopefully it'll straighten you out: "The IIF loan, repayable in 2002, requires monthly interest payments. And the loan is secured by a mortgage on 5,340 acres of land, providing a first charge over all the lands, with the exception of a 1,000-acre parcel, which has a prior-ranking mortgage of $2.5 million."
I understand where the member's confusion is, because if the loan was made specific to an individual or to a company
I. Chong: Perhaps if the minister were able to provide to us that clarification that he's been reading from, if that were possible, I would appreciate it. Unfortunately, through freedom of information, as he can appreciate, some things are not as complete and comprehensive as they perhaps should be. That is where there might have been some confusion. I'd like to review that at a later date. If I still have questions, then I can follow up with staff perhaps after that.
Also in speaking on this issue of Burns Bog, the repayment schedules that were set up for interest, etc., the indication is that there have been missed payments at this point and
[ Page 16758 ]
that this loan is likely not going to be recoverable. Or at this point I guess everything is being held in abeyance, wondering where the province is going to take this. I'm not sure if the province is intending to request the return of the moneys and therefore request the sale of the property, or whether the province is going to wait for another transaction to occur before they move on.
I'd like to understand, if possible, where the minister sees this loan. Does he see it all in jeopardy? Does he see it at all being in a doubtful account situation? Or does he expect repayment? What activities are going to be taking place in the next little while to see that the funds are returned?
[1635]
Hon. G. Wilson: The member's information is partially correct. Let me just update. There was a four months' interest payment in arrears. The province issued a demand letter on May 23, formally requesting payment of the arrears. A payment of $589,975 was received on June 2, covering all interest owing up to May 15. We are told that there is a commitment to pay the remaining arrears by the end of June.
I. Chong: So that would be on Friday that the arrears would be caught up to date. I would presume that's all payments -- arrears and current payments up to date would be made by June 30. Or would that just be to get rid of the arrears, and we might still be one month behind? As interest works, we're always one month after. Is that correct -- that everything will be right up to date in terms of interest payments as at June 30?
Hon. G. Wilson: The June payment will bring the account up to date as of the end of June. The payments are due on the first of each month.
I. Chong: I have a copy, dated February '99, regarding the agreement that was made. I also confess that I'm not as familiar with it as other members here. However, the agreement that was drafted did come out of the Small Business ministry at the time. There were some conditions that were made, which is natural in all agreements. But I guess in particular there was a clause about the company: Delta Fraser Properties partnership would not be considered in default if a number of conditions occurred. One of the conditions was if they were not able to agree on the location of the PNE site, which we all know is not going to happen.
So I'm curious as to whether there was an amendment made to the agreement. Or is this agreement still in force as it presently stands, where the Delta Fraser Properties partnership is able to default on this at some time, using that particular clause?
Hon. G. Wilson: I wasn't 100 percent sure what the question was, but I think the question is
I. Chong: No, my questions deal more regarding the rezoning situation and also, I guess, the premise for which the loan was made. I don't want to read the entire agreement. But I think the agreement purpose part of the letter, section 3.4, where there is the rezoning issue
[1640]
So I'm curious as to whether an amendment has been made to this agreement and where we stand with that. Is that an out clause, I suppose, for this company to walk away without making payment of the $25 million back to the province? I'm concerned about what jeopardy our moneys are in, if there hasn't been an amendment to this agreement.
Hon. G. Wilson: Our side isn't quite certain what agreement you're referring to. If we have a chance to take a look at it, we might be in a better position to give you a more forthright answer. But from our perspective, the agreement between the IIF and the partners is an agreement between the IIF and the partners. It's inconsequential as to what the issues may be within Small Business and Tourism. So I'm not certain exactly where the member is going with this. I might be able to be more helpful if I knew exactly what document she's reading from.
The other issue, which obviously needs to be made clear, is that the principal agreement with respect to rezoning was between Western Delta and Seaman. It wasn't up to the province of British Columbia to act in that respect.
I. Chong: Well, then, just for clarification for the benefit of all the taxpayers who are concerned about this particular investment, can I have the minister confirm that in fact the $25 million investment that he feels is fully secured is therefore completely repayable to the taxpayers of this province? At what point would that be repayable, then, if that is the case?
Hon. G. Wilson: The short answer is yes, we are fully secured. We are in first place. And if they fail to live up to their contractual obligation, we are in a position to be able to seize that parcel of land. Clearly that's why they want to keep it current. So, yes, we're fully secured.
I. Chong: The terms of the agreement, then, the loan
Hon. G. Wilson: The interest is paid monthly. And the loan principal is fully repayable the earlier of February 4, 2002, or 12 months from the date that the proponents obtain zoning from the city of Delta.
I. Chong: That probably would have settled the question that we had, because the documents that we have are through the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture, as I indicated, and they dealt with the zoning issue. Perhaps that's what this is leading to, when he mentions the date upon which zoning was to be provided. If it wasn't provided for then, it would probably kick in that the loan would therefore be repayable. That's my understanding of it, and that makes some sense.
[ Page 16759 ]
Can the minister then advise in terms of this ministry's involvement with Burns Bog? Is this now strictly a financial obligation, a financial commitment that has been made -- the ministry and this government have no other interests, other than to allow the developers to proceed in whatever matter, and this is just a loan that has been made, upon which we do expect repayment? Or is there another condition or subject-to that this minister or the government is anticipating? What I'm really asking is: are there plans this government has for these Burns Bog lands or a part of the Burns Bog lands, that are not obvious to members on this side of the House?
Hon. G. Wilson: I think that those questions are actually better put to the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, because we did not do the due diligence on this deal. We were asked to pay for the deal; we did that. We got first position, and we got security. That's the extent of the involvement of this ministry in the operation.
I don't remember if the member opposite was in favour or opposed to the PNE going out there -- interesting debate.
[1645]
I. Chong: The question I had for the minister was
I also state that rather cautiously, because what we have seen at times is that where things occur in one ministry, they are often overtaken by another ministry. The Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre is a prime example, where at one point it used to be through the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture, and now it's in the Ministry of Employment and Investment. I'm just trying to head you off at the pass to find out whether or not this is something that this ministry is more keenly interested in and will take a greater role in, in terms of its development. If the minister says it's only about the money, then I'll accept that, if he wants to confirm that for the record.
Hon. G. Wilson: I can assure you that we're only interested in the money. Whatever else happens to the bog is between the municipality of Delta, the property owners and other interested parties.
S. Hawkins: I want to investigate the industrial incentive fund and canvass it a little bit. Can the minister tell me how much money was distributed through the fund in 1999 and to which companies?
Hon. G. Wilson: We're struggling to make sure we give the member exactly what was asked for here, because there's a difference between when approval is given and when disbursement occurs. We want to make sure it fits in the 1999 period, so we do an aggregate; we don't actually break them up by years. Let me say that Conair is $17.5 million; Hydroxyl, $2 million; Seanix is $2 million; and Vancouver Film Studios was $20 million. Those are ones that were approved.
S. Hawkins: Can the minister tell us what total amount of outstanding moneys is left in the fund to date?
[1650]
Hon. G. Wilson: I should add that Delta Fraser Properties, which we were just talking about, had $25 million, which was in 1999. There's about $100 million left in the cap.
S. Hawkins: Western Star got moneys from the province; I believe it was last year as well, 1999. And that was a $60 million investment. Am I correct in that?
Hon. G. Wilson: The member is correct: Western Star did receive money in 1999, but not through the IIF.
S. Hawkins: If we can just talk about Western Star for a minute, they were recently in the news regarding merger talks. I understand that with the $60 million investment -- I seem to recall that it wasn't through the IIF -- we did get a member on the board of Western Star. Can the minister refresh my memory as to who that member is?
Hon. G. Wilson: Mark Lofthaus.
S. Hawkins: I was actually out of the province at the time, but I understand there were rumours of merger talks last week. On Tuesday, I believe, the shares in the stock market were halted from trading. I'm just wondering: how does the company keep us informed? The province does have a $60 million investment in this company. How is the province or the board member, then, informed of what's going on? My understanding is that our board member didn't know that there were talks of a merger until after the trading was halted. Am I correct in that?
Hon. G. Wilson: No, that's not correct. Our board member knew about a week before trading was halted.
S. Hawkins: Can the minister then advise us, if he can, on what the status of the talks is and how that affects our investment in this company?
Hon. G. Wilson: We're in a bit of a difficult position here, as the member opposite knows, because this is a publicly trading company. Any comment that would be made publicly may be either misread or misused by others who may seek gain. The best response I can give, and I think the only response I will give, is that there are merger discussions. I can tell you that we have no fear of our investment and that employees in the Okanagan should not, at this point, feel any concern for their jobs.
S. Hawkins: The minister must have read our minds, because that's where we were going next. Certainly the merger might be good for the province's investment. But if the company leaves, that isn't necessarily good for the jobs in the community. It is a major employer, a good corporate citizen in the Okanagan Valley. There is a lot of apprehension on whether those jobs would actually leave the province.
[1655]
From last year's investment there was $25 million given as a training allowance over ten years, $2.5 million a year. This spring we did see some layoffs at the company. I understand that the job targets were still met, so the company did see the $2.5 million given this spring. I wonder if the minister can
[ Page 16760 ]
comment on that, because certainly the $60 million investment that was invested in the company was for the company to stay here, to keep the jobs. The investment and the training allowance, really, was invested for the jobs to stay in the province.
I don't know what kind of guarantees
Hon. G. Wilson: Discussions at this point are confidential. I really am bound by that confidentiality, and I can't say much more. Obviously the province shares the view that it would be bittersweet if we were to get a substantial return and at the same time lose jobs in the Okanagan; that's not our desire. At this point I can say I think that people should not unduly worry about that.
S. Hawkins: The $60 million investment was, in part, to go towards developing a new industrial park north of Kelowna. I understand that the plans to develop that park are going ahead. Is that the understanding of the minister as well, that they are still planning and are going ahead with a world-class industrial park?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that they have completed the land purchase, and they have commenced engineering. I think that while rumours of this discussion are underway, things may be somewhat on hold. We have no knowledge to lead us to believe that they don't intend to proceed.
I. Chong: I do want to thank the staff for having provided the briefing to us last year when this all occurred. I think at the time we did ask the questions about the investment itself being a loan which is convertible to equity capital. I presume that, with the merger talks, what would happen is that this would in fact no longer remain outstanding as a loan, that it would in fact be converted to equity capital. Can I just get that confirmation first?
Hon. G. Wilson: Let me say that at the moment this is hypothetical. So, hypothetically, if a merger were to be completed, we would be able to immediately recover the first $20 million. And we would have an option as to what we wanted to do with the remaining $40 million. We could keep it and demand cash payment, but that's purely hypothetical at this point.
I. Chong: I'm not asking the minister to speculate. I'm just trying to determine whether or not, as a result of the merger, the nature of the loan will change. What I'm hearing is that it isn't going to change, that it will retain its identity in the same form. Even if the merger takes place -- or doesn't take place -- the $20 million that was repayable and the $40 million to be exercised as equity shares will remain the same. And there is no change in that structure; that's what I was just trying to get the minister to first of all confirm.
[1700]
Hon. G. Wilson: If there is a merger, the conversion of the $20 million will almost certainly occur, and the $2.5 million ceases.
I. Chong: The minister jumped ahead to the next question, and that was when the $2.5 million would cease. Therefore it would no longer be tied into the job situation. As I understand it, the $2.5 million that was being advanced for training and to retain jobs was this ten-year commitment. Is the minister now saying that, should the merger take place, that obligation would cease automatically? Or would it have to be renegotiated?
Hon. G. Wilson: Given that there would be new owners -- again I stipulate that this is purely hypothetical -- then obviously, if we desired to have the same level of job training and protection, we would have to renegotiate an agreement.
I. Chong: I know the minister has been very cautious about stating that these are all hypothetical situations and speculative in nature, and I can appreciate that. I'm not trying to suggest that I have any knowledge over and above the minister's. In fact, probably he and his staff have more information on this than I ever will have.
However, another hypothetical: if in fact the merger doesn't proceed, then the $2.5 million would continue. The loan arrangement that was made for the $60 million would continue in its current state. But if that were to be the case, would this $2.5 million
As I understand it, the member for Okanagan West and the critic is more fully aware that there have been layoff notices handed out -- some 300, as I understand. I'm not sure where that fits into the level or the criteria, where it would fall below the number of jobs that are there for which the $2.5 million is allowed to be expended. If the company should continue without the merger, and we have this situation, what then would be the process for this ministry in recovering that $2.5 million, if it has already been advanced?
Hon. G. Wilson: The layoffs were a response to the softening of a tough market. Keep in mind that the contractual obligation is on a three-year rolling average. Last year they had 1,497. So their requirement in this year is roughly 1,200, and they're above that. We don't anticipate that the current downturn is going to last much longer. We are quite confident that you will see a good rebound. While we're obviously keeping a very close eye on it, it's not something that our analysts have said we should have any undue concern about at this time.
I. Chong: I appreciate the minister's confidence in the investment. However, I would still like to pursue this, to the extent that and given that these are layoff notices that have been given. If an additional number of layoff notices are given, what would this ministry's obligation then be to protect the $2.5 million that has been advanced? I'm presuming it's advanced at the beginning of the year. Or is it advanced, phased out, throughout the year? Perhaps that clarification would make it easier to understand where we're headed.
Hon. G. Wilson: The payment is made on April 14 each year. If the company was to miss its targets, there is a series of
[ Page 16761 ]
remedies that can be made. There is a period in which the company is able to remedy its own situation by increasing the numbers.
A Voice: A grace period?
Hon. G. Wilson: A grace period. And failing to do that, I guess we could take action.
I. Chong: So the money is advanced on April 14 of each year, the full $2.5 million for the ensuing year. And the grace period or the period for which there may be some instability -- can the minister advise what that length of time would be before the ministry would step in? All too often, I think, taxpayers are concerned that we're not keeping a watchful eye. And we certainly want to exercise accountability. Certainly you don't want to come in heavy-handed. But taxpayers are wanting us to ensure that the best use of their dollars is being considered here, at the same time wanting to protect jobs in the regions where jobs are very much dependent on a community's survival.
[1705]
So just an idea from this ministry as to when, I guess, at what point
Hon. G. Wilson: There is a one-year care period. But in this year my understanding is that the company was 300 over target, so it didn't kick in this year. We don't anticipate that the softening of the market will put them in jeopardy next year. But there is a one-year care period, should they
S. Hawkins: I thank the minister for the discussion around Western Star, something that we obviously will be keeping a close eye on. With the type of employer it is, a good employer, it would be a shame if the province lost those jobs.
I'm interested in Canadian Airlines. There was money that was loaned to Canadian Airlines. Would the minister refresh my memory on how much we had invested or loaned there and what the status of those loan moneys is?
Hon. G. Wilson: There was never a loan. There was a guaranty that was set up, and there was a fuel tax rebate. The guaranty has since been discharged.
S. Hawkins: Okay.
Could I just get the minister's thoughts on what functions they carry out to attract investment to B.C.? It appears that the firms that did invest in B.C. got either loans or subsidies from the government. What does the ministry do to attract investment to B.C., and how do they track it? Certainly between 1992 and 1999 we've seen a very pathetic growth rate, an 11.1 percent growth rate. We really have gone from first to worst. We placed last among the provinces in private sector investment between those years. We've seen Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba experience certainly higher rates of growth: Alberta, at one point, 70.5 percent; Saskatchewan, 89.6 percent; and Manitoba 73.9 percent. It's really a shame that we seem to do that.
I'm wondering if the minister can give me his thoughts on why private sector investment is so poor here in B.C., and what the ministry's doing to attract investment besides giving out loans and business subsidies.
Hon. G. Wilson: I think its important that the member not generalize. I think there's always a danger when you're using aggregate figures or using figures that deal with comparisons, particularly when you're engaged in debate in the political arena. It's often easy to become very negative and down on your own province, and that's not a good thing.
We have to recognize that the province of British Columbia, up until the mid-1990s, was very much dependent upon primary resource extraction and secondary manufacture and processing. We were heavily dependent on the fishing and mining and forestry industries in those regards. And we were completely captive of international markets and international prices.
Now, because forestry was such a growth industry and a boom industry for so long, I think what had happened is that British Columbia had always believed that it would be the cash cow that would deliver us. When we saw a downturn in the Asian markets, when we saw difficulties accessing the American markets, clearly that signalled a very significant downturn in that industry.
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Secondly, mineral prices made it more difficult. And I guess one might take some responsibility also to say that government policy with respect to mineral exploration in British Columbia pushed the mining industry either into a standstill or into a slow-growth period. There were some new mines that were developed, but clearly the kind of exploration and growth did not occur, largely.
With international prices being what they were, those people who were prepared to make investments were prepared to make investments in those countries where there were no regulations on safety standards, no regulations on environmental standards, no regulations on mine reclamation, where there was no labour code to protect workers, and so on. So they took their money where they could make their maximum profit, because they didn't have to worry about all those other things I've just mentioned.
In the mid-1990s, what happened is that the province of British Columbia switched; it changed largely toward investment in new economy. And to get directly to your question, our focus primarily has been to try to grow B.C. business first, before attracting somebody who's footloose to come and invest money, and hereby dangling big incentives to them, which is the norm now in many jurisdictions. Notably, in Canada, Quebec has billions of dollars on the table to attract investments, but also Alberta and some governments who tend to try to poach investments from one part of the country to the other.
Our intention is to try and grow the business here. We've been extremely successful in the aerospace industry. We are now becoming world leaders with respect to aerospace technology. We've been extremely successful in the fuel cell industry; we're definitely world leaders there. We've been very successful with respect to attracting money into environmental or green economy initiatives, particularly around water reclamation and municipal sewage. Hydroxyl comes to mind
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as a company that's in the forefront of bringing in new technologies that are going to be able to be marketed around the world. We've been very successful also with respect to the communications and high-tech, the e-commerce prospects that are here.
So if you look at the comparisons of the numbers that the member opposite reviewed in aggregate, one does see that in our concentration and focus on primary extractive sectors and the supplementary industries or secondary industries that are supplementary to them -- pulp milling, saw milling, those sorts of jobs -- we did suffer significant job loss. We have seen a significant downturn.
We have therefore been, I think, somewhat slower than other jurisdictions to move into the transition, but we are fully into the transition now. And we're growing. Our economy has, I think, huge potential. In this year I think we're going to exceed the growth rates forecasted, by those who are forecasting, of 2.5 or 2.4 percent. And I think we can expect, in the sectors where we have put our investment, that we are not only going to maintain our position as world leaders but that we will attract ancillary industries that will want to come here and locate because we have become world leaders.
Those are our focuses. We're not going to get into a bidding war. There was great discussion around the idea of bringing in semiconductor manufacturers to the province of British Columbia. There's been discussion, as the member opposite will know, with respect to the attracting of aluminum smelters into British Columbia, or actually aluminum plants -- not smelters, but aluminum processing industries.
We have taken a conscious decision, certainly in the time that I've been minister of this ministry, that we are not going to try to compete with other jurisdictions by putting pots of money on the table and saying: "Come here, and we will give you all that you desire." First of all, we can't afford the competition. Secondly, I don't think it's sound business practice. And thirdly, I think we'll get a whole lot more secure and better investment if we simply invest in British Columbians and allow British Columbians to become owners of their economy and not tenants within it, which is what would happen if we just hung our star on every multinational corporation that drifts by.
S. Hawkins: Well, I think the minister is not quite correct when he says that other provinces give huge incentives. Right next door, in Alberta, it's actually against the law to give business subsidies and incentives. They feel that the playing field should be even for all businesses. They have done that by looking at their taxes, by looking at their labour laws, by looking at their regulations.
Certainly when the minister talks about what they've done for this province, they've added to the cost of business here. I don't think it's any secret that, over the past few years, business and government in this province have not had a good relationship and at times have been at loggerheads with each other.
When the minister talks about going high-tech, the minister knows that high-tech companies have said they're willing to invest here, but that the government has to look at the tax situation. It is very regressive and doesn't meet the needs of high-tech.
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When I look at the record in the past few years, in 1999 alone we've seen 131 B.C. companies, that we've been able to track, move away from B.C. to Alberta. We've seen over 618 B.C. companies leave since 1992. So when the minister says they decided to grow B.C. first, I think the focus of the government has been to try and maintain or retain jobs here rather than focus on going out and attracting new investment and new jobs to B.C. We can barely keep hold of the ones we have here, because other jurisdictions are more attractive. I'm not speaking from a position of negativity; that's the facts.
If you go out and speak to people around the regions, they're not happy with government policy. They're not happy with the taxes. They're not happy with the burdensome regulations. I know in the past year or so the government has been working with the business community to try and reduce the red tape. But it's red tape that government put there in the first place that has forced companies to reassess whether they actually want to be here, whether they want to invest, whether they want to stay in B.C. Those are the kinds of situations businesses face.
Again, I'm asking the minister: what is this government doing to attract new investment? What I'm seeing and what the people in B.C. are seeing is their tax dollars being used to retain jobs here, to retain the companies that are here and to keep that investment here. If the government didn't do that, those companies could conceivably move, or they couldn't grow, because they can't attract private investment from around the world. That's a sad situation.
Investors from around the world look at B.C. They say: "Gee, the labour costs are awfully high. The taxes are regressive. The regulations are absolutely excessive. Why would we want to invest there?" So they look south of the border, or they look to the east of us.
Again, when I look at what's happened here the last few years, bankruptcies have gone through the ceiling here. B.C. recorded the worst rise in business bankruptcies in Canada during 1992 to 1998; that's the facts. Maybe the minister wants to comment on some of that.
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Hon. G. Wilson: I don't know how productive a debate we can get into. I mean, one can selectively pull out a number of figures to prove a case. Certainly I don't take issue with the fact that British Columbia went through a difficult time economically -- actually, I would not say '92 -- I would think from '94 through to probably the end of '98 or early '99. Some of the statistics that one can look at are fairly alarming with respect to real take-home pay, for example, and actual disposable income and those kinds of things, where you actually can start to chart and look at the graphs and understand exactly what's going on.
So I don't look at this through political lenses or rose-coloured glasses. There's no question that the province has gone through some very difficult times. Some of it may have been caused by the high cost of doing business here. Some of it, I think, was caused by international market prices. And some of it was caused by difficulties with respect to access to the American market and the lumber industry. There's a whole series of different events that one might point to.
But where I become a little bit concerned is that, given the fact that those of us in British Columbia are striving hard to try and attract investment and to maintain investment, it's very
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difficult to do so when we have a constant flow of negative commentary coming from people who should be there to
Anybody who disbelieves that should spend some time living elsewhere, because, I'll tell you, we in British Columbia have got it pretty good; most of us do. And I'll tell you what's interesting. People talk about the high tax rates. In fact, an average income earner of $55,000 to $60,000 a year, I think, pays the second-lowest income tax of anywhere in the country.
We've got the lowest unemployment rates in British Columbia in 20 years. We have got companies such as Evans Forest Products that see an investment from Louisiana-Pacific far outweighing any kind of investment the government has made, putting hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of overall capital expenditures investment into the province of British Columbia. Weyerhaeuser made sure that when MacMillan Bloedel opportunities were there, they were prepared to come and to make their investment.
Does that change the nature of the industry? Absolutely. Does it cause some concerns among the mad people in the rural communities? Yes, because it's an economy in transition.
Conair is another one. Conair has now moved majorly forward in terms of the aerospace industry and the work that is being done here. All of these are private, invested capital, that are coming forward with respect to what we're doing.
If the member wants to look at the good points instead of simply constantly harping on how bad it is
V. Roddick: Oh, listen to us. It's our fault now.
Hon. G. Wilson: It certainly
Look at the cruise ship industry. If the member wants to do some data, take a look at that; it's booming here -- adventure and ecotourism, booming. Destination tourism, particularly in ski hill development in the province of British Columbia, is
C. Hansen: That's a winner.
Hon. G. Wilson: Oh, the member says: "That's a winner." Well, perhaps it's not a winner in the flatness of Tsawwassen, but it certainly is in communities like my own community, for example, which is now looking at the potential for new development. People are looking at the development with respect to the coastal mountain range as well as the interior ski hill area.
Film animation -- the member talks about it. We are world leaders in film animation right now. Notwithstanding the fact that California is worried about it, we continue to move forward.
Interjection.
Hon. G. Wilson: The member says it's because they're taxed to death; that is simple rubbish. They are not. Take a look at those areas, hon. Chair. Take a look at the non-traditional primary industries -- aquaculture, viticulture. Greenhouse production is booming. The value-added industries and specialty marine products, the yacht-building we just toured on last Friday -- companies in British Columbia have got a lineup of people from all over the world building $7 million, $4 million, $5 million, $6 million yachts in British Columbia, nowhere else, all of it here, all of the labour being done here.
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The wood processing industry, with companies like CAE Newnes -- now, there is a company that this member ought to spend some time with, so that she doesn't have such a negative view of her own province. Road and rail vehicle manufacturing, with respect to Western Star in her own community -- the member who didn't support this and the members of the Liberal opposition who didn't support government investment in Western Star are now saying that it's a good corporate citizen. She doesn't want to lose the jobs.
Aircraft maintenance, repair overall, aircraft parts manufacturing, as well as the venture capital community, customs brokers, the ports, YVR
It is time we stopped the negative doom and gloom and started to work together. We can have our differences with respect to approach. We'll have our differences with respect to regulation. But for goodness' sakes, when the message goes out, outside of British Columbia, it should be a united message. That united message should be that we are proud of this province, and we want to see investment here.
S. Hawkins: Do you know what? This is the fourth province I've lived in, and it's probably the most beautiful province I've lived in. The quality of life is second to none. And that is why people stay here and don't want to leave, but are
Well, why don't we have that investment? Why are we the worst in Canada right now? Why did we go from number one to number ten? I'll tell you why: nine years of deficit financing, nine years of bad provincial bookkeeping, nine years of racking up debt by this government, excessive red tape and policies that have been inflicted on business in this province.
I mean, you know, we just have to look at the kinds of companies that left. Perhaps we are starting to attract that investment again, because some of these companies perhaps see a change coming very soon, a bright light coming in the
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future, with an election coming up in the next year. And they know that the members in the opposite benches aren't going to be around within the next year. So maybe that's what we're seeing.
Do you know what? It's really easy for this minister to stand up
Well, it doesn't work like that. You know it doesn't work like that. It's not the opposition going around the world saying that B.C. is a bad place to invest; it's not the opposition going around Canada saying that B.C.'s in trouble. In fact, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported
Oh, if I can just go back for a minute about Western Star, I have never said that they were anything but a good company. And you know what? We didn't agree with the investment, the government investment, last year because
A Voice: They won't come.
S. Hawkins: They won't come; the member's absolutely right. Investors have
If you have a province that can't balance its budget and you have a province that keeps racking up debt, why would an investor want to come here? If you have a province that keeps adding to the cost of doing business, why would you want to invest here? Why would you want to do that?
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I think, again, that there is a bright light coming in the future, and that's why some companies are looking at keeping the investment here or at least going a little bit at a time until they see this government change.
But anyway, getting back to some facts, because these aren't numbers that I make up, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported that in the Kelowna area, housing starts plunged by more than half, to only 42 units from 108 units in April. That's a 61 percent decline, and that represents 165 lost jobs in Kelowna. There were 74 fewer starts in May 2000 than in May 1999, a 64 percent decline.
It's not me that's saying this. But Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation analyst Paul Fabri says: "Slow employment and population growth and weak consumer confidence in B.C. overall continues to dampen demand for new housing." That's not me saying that; that's a housing analyst. When the minister stands up and says, "It's every opposition member," and our voices are so loud, I guess they're heard around the world. That's why no one's coming to B.C. or no one's buying homes or whatever.
It's kind of hard to take when the minister tries to blame everyone else and the government tries to blame everyone else, instead of looking at themselves to say: "What can we do to make it better?" When the minister talks about the film industry, yes, the government did a little tax tinkering with the film industry. Why didn't you give those advantages to everybody? Why would you only do it for one little sector here? Why not make the playing field even for everybody? That's the philosophy that our next-door neighbour has taken. In Alberta, it is illegal -- it's against the law -- to give business subsidies and incentives. They play on an even playing field.
I guess one way of looking at it is: is the economy recovering? Are there going to be some improvements? I look at the housing sector for my area alone, and it's discouraging. It is very discouraging.
Anyway, I'm wondering again what the ministry is doing besides saying: "The negativity has to stop. The opposition has to stop talking about doom and gloom." Well, it's hard not to talk about it when we see indicators of it every day. I'm talking about figures that came out this May. The housing industry is still in trouble. Housing starts are slow. That interprets into job losses in communities and in regions around the province.
So what role is the ministry playing, and the minister at the cabinet table, saying that we have to do things differently in order to get new investment, not just maintain the jobs we have in the province or maintain the companies that we have in the province? But what kinds of things are they doing to make sure that we see some new investment? I can understand the minister trying to look at a few companies here and there and saying they're doing it. We want more. It could be a lot better.
The high-tech industry had meetings with the government; they've had meetings with us, and they've given the minister, I believe, a fairly good idea, and the Minister of Small Business as well, of what needs to be done.
What is the minister doing to address those concerns and make sure that they improve relations with the business community to make sure that we do get that investment here? What is he doing as far as taxes, as far as regulations and as far as balancing labour laws? What kinds of things is E&I advising at the cabinet table, so that we do get our share of jobs and investments in this province?
The Chair: Before I recognize the minister, I'm going to caution the committee that we're moving way out of the bounds of the administrative capacity of this minister. Labour laws -- the Labour estimates are coming up. That's the appropriate place to debate labour laws -- the Minister of Finance, if you want to talk about tax breaks and what not. So if we could keep this on track, we might be able to make some significant progress today.
Hon. G. Wilson: I don't know what the member opposite is doing wrong in Kelowna. I mean, even at a time
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when the mill is laying off in Powell River, we've had more building permits in the last three months than we had in the whole of last year. The place is really starting to grow.
Directly to the question, we think that clearly there are some things the government can do and can make some changes to. Issues around taxes and regulations are being examined. I'm not the Minister of Finance. Obviously I don't make taxation policy; the Chair is quite correct on that.
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We are looking to expand capacity and to build capacity in our communities so that we have an opportunity for people to invest. I think you are starting to see the economy rebound, and it will turn around. I think that one of the things we can do is to continue, as we have done with the wine industry, to make appropriate investments where possible. The wine industry is doing exceptionally well in British Columbia and will continue to do so.
In this year we've put investments into agriculture, which is again in the member's riding -- to know that there was a substantial increase in investment with respect to agriculture and agricultural investment.
S. Hawkins: You took it away five years ago.
Hon. G. Wilson: The member, hon. Chair, wants to know what we're doing. I'm suggesting what we're doing, and again we get this negative commentary.
I think that the people who are investing and succeeding in their investments in British Columbia are clearly strong and bullish on this province. There are a lot of people who are coming here. It is a very desirable place to live; I believe it's a very desirable place to invest. We are going to have to move our economy into a period of transition when we move away from primary, extractive-based economy into the new economy; that's happening. This ministry is here to facilitate its growth and development, and I expect that we will see such growth continue.
S. Hawkins: I want to know what the minister's doing, then, in improving
Hon. G. Wilson: I've certainly had a number of meetings with people who are putting investments together in British Columbia, meeting with investors and people who are also in business. One of the things that we're doing, really at their request -- we're listening to their concerns and issues -- is to celebrate their success with them and to be able to assist them in marketing where possible.
We are now actively engaged in looking at a number of impediments with respect to their own particular industries, whether that's an impediment through jobs and training, in which case we are providing assistance and training. The aviation industry comes to mind on that. If there's a review of taxation issues because of investments, we're looking at that. The high-tech sector comes to mind. In that way we are obviously looking at the general economic climate to find ways in which we can remove disincentives for investment, where we can promote marketing of the new economy in British Columbia, something that we're having some success at and I think we'll see much more success at.
All of this is being reviewed and is being looked at. It's no secret -- my views on machinery and equipment tax. It's also with respect to the 3 percent manufacturing tax credit. While announced in the budget -- it's a good start -- we're actively looking at what that impact might be with respect to investors. All of that is work that's underway and that we're undergoing.
Contrary to what the member opposite may think, I have an excellent relationship with people in business. We have an extremely good working and cordial relationship. They're always anxious to meet and always anxious to talk, and my door is often open to them, and my phone is always available.
S. Hawkins: The minister might have a good relationship. But I'm reading straight from their performance plan. It says: "Improving relationship with business communities." What I was looking for was some specific strategies to do that. Which business communities are they looking to improve their relationship with, and how do they plan to do that? Does he have some specific strategies within the ministry to deal with improving relationships?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'll offer three things that we're doing directly. One, we are meeting on their turf and their marketplace to help celebrate their success so that we can partner, perhaps not economically, but certainly in terms of process and marketing their success, to let people know that government and industry and business can work together in British Columbia, and do work together. That's step 1.
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Step 2 is to participate with them in their missions abroad, so that when they see that there are market niches there and that they may need some assistance in opening some doors, we will go with them as opposed to them coming with government, so that we can act in tandem and again partner with the work that we need to do to get rid of regulatory impediments to investment. Most notable among that is the fuel cell potential in Hong Kong. We've had a very successful venture with our producers -- huge market, great potential for British Columbia development in that sector.
The third thing I would say is that we're now actively working with them to help build capacity in terms of jobs and through training, making sure that we do, through our training initiatives, come up with the people they need. As my assistant deputy has just passed to me, a good example of that is the Aerospace Industry Association of British Columbia meeting last week, where we sat down and we talked in very frank and very direct terms about what they need vis-à-vis everything from budgetary issues right through to how we can expedite and make sure that the trading initiatives are going to keep them on the cutting edge. All of these things we're doing, and I think we're having great success.
S. Hawkins: The B.C. Chamber of Commerce and certainly the Business Summit group represent a wide range of businesses in British Columbia, and I'm wondering what relationship the ministry has with those two groups.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm aware of the B.C. Chamber. I know the past president fairly well. I'm actively involved in a num-
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ber of meetings and discussions with various chambers around British Columbia. When I go into communities, the chamber of commerce is usually a stop I'll make to have an opportunity to meet and talk with businesses. I think I have a good working relationship with most.
With respect to the B.C. Summit, I have had an occasion only once, I think, to have discussions over the phone with several of their members. They have not issued an invitation for me to meet. However, I do keep myself cognizant of their actions and activities. And they know through my past portfolios that if they want access to me as a minister, they've got it.
But I don't pull out two particular groups in British Columbia and hold them up as two key areas and go to them. There's a broad base of people, mostly industry-related, who come to us. But for the most part, we work with the industry associations rather than with the more political figureheads that they elect.
The Chair: Member, minding the time.
S. Hawkins: Thank you, hon. Chair.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the annual general meeting of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, and there are not too many friendly comments there about the current government. The minister should be aware of that, the Minister of Employment and Investment. That business group, which represents groups across the province, is not too happy with the government and the policies, the fiscal irresponsibility, the debt-racking, the red tape -- everything we've talked about in the last half-hour. In fact, the comments made at the podium in the evening were directed at hoping for a provincial election very soon to turf this bunch out, so we could get a group in that was more fiscally responsible
Hon. G. Wilson: What's your point?
S. Hawkins:
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, thank you.
S. Hawkins: He, as a new member of the governing party, may have good relationships with business groups. But the same old gang that's been running the place or mismanaging and misrunning the place for the last nine years has seemed to poison the well of the business community. Really, they represent small business and investment across the province. They're the ones that drive our economy. They're the ones that create the jobs and keep our economy going. It doesn't seem to me that they've been getting an ear from government over the last few years. If this minister is providing it, that's great. He's doing it single-handedly, then.
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I know we've met with groups. Certainly our caucus has been open to meeting with groups and discussing. There's a group, the Coalition of B.C. Businesses, that's discussing labour policies. Our caucus has met with the groups that have been touring the province. And you know what? I understand that only two caucus members on that side are willing to meet with that group, and that's a shame. They've been touring the province and trying to put forward their ideas on improving labour laws in the province. Again, these are business groups. These are the job-makers, the job-providers, and they're getting very, very little support or even a listening ear from that side of the House.
We wanted to get into infrastructure projects, but perhaps, noting the time, we'll rise and report.
The Chair: We'll recess until 6:30.
The committee recessed from 5:46 p.m. to 6:46 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
S. Hawkins: I think what I'll do is just continue on with investment. As soon as one of the other members gets here, we'll do infrastructure.
I wonder if the minister can tell me
Hon. G. Wilson: Following up on the Premier's summits, there are a series of community report-outs that take place. In the last summit that took place, for Vancouver Island and region, those report-outs have occurred, and some actions have already been taken. I was pleased that a number of initiatives -- both in the lower Sunshine Coast as well as Powell River, which are the most recent report-outs that have been done -- have already been undertaken. There was also a meeting in Quesnel with the Cariboo Economic Action Forum, which took place this weekend. I know that Minister Kwan was in attendance there. So all of that report-out work is taking place, and actions are being taken on the recommendations that were accepted.
S. Hawkins: Were the report-outs public documents? And can I get copies if they were, and even if they're not?
Hon. G. Wilson: The answer is yes, they are public documents, and yes, you may certainly get copies of them.
S. Hawkins: I understand that there is another summit that I believe is taking place here on the Island shortly. Am I correct?
Hon. G. Wilson: I don't know of another Premier's economic summit that's taking place on the Island. The Island summit has taken place. The report-outs may be what the member is hearing about. There may be a report-out from North Island coming up. I know there have been a number of report-outs in the lower Sunshine Coast and the Sunshine Coast, as well as the areas around Courtenay and Comox. I believe what the member may be referring to is a report-out from North Island.
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S. Hawkins: When the minister talks about the report-outs
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the report-outs quite specific with respect to what kinds of goals and targets are going to be reached from the meetings that are taking place?
I do know that in my own region -- and we have a lot of good people involved in the one that took place in the interior; it was in Kamloops -- there is some feedback now that there is not a lot of follow-up that's been done and that there were a lot of good ideas and a lot of time invested. I'm just wondering if the minister can give me a specific example of what kind of follow-up takes place and what kind of strategies are put in place to meet some of the goals and targets that have been agreed on at some of the summits.
Hon. G. Wilson: I can give the member a couple of examples. There is the example of the Vancouver Island summit, where there was a desire to have an expansion of cycle paths, to allow people who were wanting to get to and from work to get involved on cycle paths. That in fact has been funded and has been completed.
There was a considerable amount of discussion around community airports and the expansion of community airports and developing multiple services. I know that that's been worked on and some actions have been taken. There was discussion around a broader assessment with respect to local land use in the small business program and the Ministry of Forests, and in the tendering process. Certainly in my own community, in Powell River, that's been acted on. A number of tourism initiatives in North Island, particularly around the Alert Bay area where there was discussion of an overall strategy, have been acted on. I understand that that's now being considered for a broader base of funding.
With respect to the southern interior, there were wine regulations and J licences; that's been done, and they're now in place. In the Cariboo-Chicoltin, there was emphasis on snowmobile trails. There's been a lot of work done on establishing those through Ministry of Lands and Parks, BCAL and so on. Those are the kinds of initiatives that are suggested. There are not necessarily a lot that are huge cost items, but there are ways in which communities can in fact seek benefit through having these actions done.
S. Hawkins: For the summits, can the minister tell me: did the budgeting for those summits come out of E & I? How were they paid for? If there are follow-up projects, which ministry is responsible for doing the follow-up and looking at the projects that are being proposed?
Hon. G. Wilson: We did have a basic amount of administrative budget. The line ministries that were involved also budgeted some moneys together. The follow-ups are the responsibility of the line ministries themselves.
S. Hawkins: Is there any money budgeted this year towards anything like that? Is there any funding set aside for projects coming out of the Premier's summits?
Hon. G. Wilson: There's no money budgeted for new initiatives, although there is some base money for follow-up to implement some of the recommendations from the previous summits.
S. Hawkins: Could I just get a thumbnail sketch of that funding and what it's going to be used for?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that the amount is about $200,000, which constitutes about two FTEs. Most of the work they'll be doing is coordination with line ministries, implementation of work and the report-out process. With the Ministry of Forests, for example, or the Ministry of Ag and Fish where there were actions to be taken, in order to make sure those actions are completed, there is a coordinating branch with the $200,000 to make sure the line ministries implement the recommendations.
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I. Chong: I'd also like to canvass the minister at this time on one of the ministry goals and targets, and that is to do with the Infrastructure Works program. I understand that one of the goals or objectives is to negotiate, I guess, an Infrastructure Works program -- the IWP 3, I guess it's called. I wonder if the minister can give us an idea of where we are with that.
Hon. G. Wilson: I am pleased to be able to say that we have had preliminary discussions with the federal government. We have the terms of reference set. They are now going back to get their negotiating positions established; we are doing the same. We expect to negotiate an agreement over the summer.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise, recognizing that they are in the process of negotiating an agreement, what approximate value we would be taking a look at that is in negotiation right now?
Hon. G. Wilson: If we can take our per-capita percentage from what the federal government announced, we are expecting somewhere around $350 million.
I. Chong: I think that's substantially more than the previous year. I think the previous year there was $160 million that was provided for, of which about 200 projects were being considered. So if this year we're looking at $350 million, are we saying, then, that the projects would be somewhere in the range of 400 to 450?
Hon. G. Wilson: The difficulty we have is that this program is spread out over six years. We're not sure how the federal government is going to finance it -- if they're going to front-end load it or not. There's some speculation around the fact that they're looking at an election; we might be the same.
A Voice: You will be.
Hon. G. Wilson: Will we? Who knows?
So the situation is such that we are in negotiations for this, and we're not certain whether or not they're going to front-end load it. We obviously have to match this. So there is going to be considerable discussion around what projects will be eligible. There will be a portion of that money, as I'm sure the member is well aware, that will be allocated in highways projects, bridges and so on. It'll be interesting for us to see what kind of dollars they're putting on the table for this fiscal year.
I. Chong: Well, I am quite curious as to some of the comments the minister made in terms of the projects that will
[ Page 16768 ]
be considered. I do understand highways and bridges, etc. But one of the criticisms that was levelled at the last IWPs that were available was that they were supposed to be locally driven initiatives, and what in fact occurred was that they were more provincially driven initiatives. Local governments felt very much shut out of the process, which is one of the reasons why they went to the senior minister here in British Columbia, the Hon. David Anderson, and lobbied quite heavily to get the province to pay attention. I don't recall if this minister was with this government at that time, so I'm not going to lump him in with everyone else who directed those kinds of projects.
As I say, recognizing that some of this will go to highways and bridges and basic transportation infrastructure, I'm wondering whether this minister has any idea as to how much will be allocated to other forms of infrastructure. I know that in the past, there has been money allocated, for example, to arts and cultural heritage facilities, etc. People are still asking for moneys in that area. But given that in the last round, a substantial amount was paid towards your basic roads and sewers and infrastructure of that nature, does this province have that as one of its major objectives as well?
[1900]
Hon. G. Wilson: Of the $2.6 billion, $600 million has to go to highways. That's nationally; that's not what
I'm not sure that I'm going to enter into a debate around why the communities tended to be shut out of the decision-making last time, although I do agree with the member that many of these grants were not community-driven. But I will say, so that I'm not antagonistic and we don't get into a long diatribe here, that part of the problem was that the federal government announced this project at the last minute. A number of provincial governments, this one included, simply were not in a position to be levered at that point because of where they were fiscally within the financial year, because it's matched dollars. That was a problem. I don't anticipate that'll be a problem this time.
I. Chong: Well, I appreciate the member not wanting to engage in who said what and who's right and who's wrong. Suffice it to say that certainly he has been made aware, as an elected MLA through his constituency. In fact, local governments very much felt they had been pushed to the background in the decision-making when they were told specifically in IWP 2 that it would be community driven, that it would be local government driven. Here we're pursuing IWP 3. I think some local governments, rightfully so, are feeling a little bit cynical about their involvement. Seeing that these are still going to be matched in a one-third, one-third, one-third partnership, I would think that the local governments would certainly have an interest in the improvements necessary in their communities to improve their quality of life.
I am assuming it is still going to be the same sharing of one-third, one-third, one-third. Maybe I should just get the minister to confirm that before I follow up.
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, last time it was 50-50. So no wonder the municipal governments didn't, because it was last minute and we got levered. This time it is one-third, one-third, one-third. Therefore, all levels of government and the interests of all levels of government will be respected in the negotiation.
I don't anticipate a problem. I think there's a great willingness of the federal government to spend their surpluses of money by giving back to the provinces that which the provinces should have.
I. Chong: I thank the minister for the correction. Perhaps I was thinking about IWP 1 then. It was one-third, one-third, one-third when I was on municipal council. So it has been a while.
I would also like to ask the minister that if the anticipation -- and I realize it still is at negotiation levels right now -- is $350 million that is going to be provided to this government, that would represent the federal government share, which means this government has to come up with $350 million in its budget. Is that correct? Has the minister made provision for that within the 2000-2001 budget, especially if it's in negotiation?
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, to the member opposite, keep in mind that this is a six-year program. Because it was announced after the fiscal year, there is not a substantial amount that is either budgeted or anticipated to be spent in this fiscal year. Applications will be entertained as soon as the agreement is signed, which we anticipate to be sometime in the fall. By the time those applications have been processed and the monies will be forthcoming, we'll be very close to the next fiscal.
[1905]
I. Chong: Then would it be safe to say it's not anticipated that any projects would actually begin in this fiscal year 2000-01, given that applications will have to be made and due diligence processes have to be in place, unless there is a commitment by the federal government that spending has to occur by a certain time? From my understanding of what the minister has just said, I would assume -- but I don't want to make that assumption -- that we wouldn't see any, say, shovels hitting any of the dirt until probably at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Is that correct to assume?
Hon. G. Wilson: That's not correct. There may be some projects that can be underway. They will not be huge in scope. But it is anticipated that our share of what may be available in this fiscal year would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12 million because of how much is left in the fiscal. So there may well be some projects that are staged that may get initial funding with an anticipation of completion funding, or there may be some projects that are relatively small in scope that might qualify in this year.
I. Chong: So what I'm hearing is that in fact there will be some funding. Possibly if everything goes well -- applications are received and due diligence process is followed and approval is given -- perhaps as much as $12 million is available through this budget. And that is probably the extent the ministry can commit to in this fiscal. I see the minister confirming that. I'll just take that.
[ Page 16769 ]
I'm curious, then, because as soon as this negotiation concludes, there will most likely be a flood of applications coming in, as is the case. Can the minister confirm: is it his ministry that will solely be responsible for doing the due diligence on these applications? So often we hear that one ministry will do the due diligence, and another ministry hands out the money. It gets a bit confusing. I'd like to know whether it will all be contained within this one ministry.
Hon. G. Wilson: We will work with the appropriate line ministry. If a project, for example, is to be directed through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, we would work with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. If the project is through Small Business, Tourism and Culture, we would work through that ministry. One possible source of funding on convention centres, for example, in downtown Vancouver may be through Infrastructure Works, in which case we'd be working directly with the city of Vancouver, with the industry, with this ministry and with the federal government.
So it will depend upon the project, but the due diligence that will be done will include the appropriate line ministries that are involved.
I. Chong: Given that clarification from the minister, unless it was a project that could conceivably be one that this ministry would undertake, such as the Trade and Convention Centre, then primarily all the applications and due diligence would be taking place at all the other ministries -- with this ministry, Employment and Investment, being primarily responsible for the distribution or the expenditure of the moneys. Is that correct, then?
Hon. G. Wilson: This ministry will have two primary functions. We will receive the applications, and we will then be working with the line ministries. We will also be working with the corporate entity of the provincial government to ascertain what the corporate government's priorities are in relation to what we're hearing from local government.
So we are a coordinating agency. Although there may be some projects that will be administered almost exclusively through this ministry, my guess is that they will be the minority by a margin.
I. Chong: That is perhaps a better way to clarify: this ministry is more of a coordinator, more so than being the ministry solely responsible for the Infrastructure Works program.
Would this ministry then have to have in place a certain number of FTEs available? Are those people in place now, or is this ministry looking to set aside people or second them from other ministries once the negotiations are concluded?
[1910]
Hon. G. Wilson: We would probably have to work with the staff in place, although Gordon Robinson here is telling me there are a couple of unfilled positions that might need to be filled. But that could just be wishful thinking on Gordon's part. I'm not sure.
I. Chong: In addition, as I say, there's going to be a flood of applications that come in once the process allows for this. Is this ministry developing some guidelines or criteria for use for the other line ministries to deal with? Surely you wouldn't want to have 20 other ministries all doing something somewhat different than what this ministry would be doing in terms of approving the applications that come forward.
Hon. G. Wilson: We do have an existing staff of people who work on this issue with the federal government and provincial government, whether through the Infrastructure Works or through western economic partnership agreements. These are people who have an expertise with respect to ongoing negotiations with the federal government.
Now, keep in mind that not only do we have to coordinate with the line ministries provincially, but there may be criteria agreed to in the negotiation where the federal government will say that certain projects will or will not qualify or they will not partner with them. So that kind of discussion sets the broader guidelines as to what will or will not qualify. Then, from that point forward, there will be a process that will be very clearly outlined so that we can tighten up the process. I think it's fair to say that the federal government is currently working with the province to find ways to tighten up the process so that there is greater accountability for the way that moneys are spent.
I. Chong: As was stated earlier, this round of Infrastructure Works will be back to the one-third, one-third, one-third sharing.
It's difficult to phrase this question, and I'm not sure
What I'm trying to determine is that I would hate to see a smaller community, perhaps in the rural areas, not be able to participate in an Infrastructure Works program because their one-third share would just be too onerous on the taxpayers because they have such a low taxpayer base. I'm wondering if the province would come along and suggest that they could supplement or augment that shortfall that a local government would have. Or would that just be totally out of bounds and inappropriate?
Hon. G. Wilson: I can foresee where there may be instances where a project will be one-third federal, one-third provincial and one-third an agency other than a municipal government, whether it's a Crown corporation or whether it's B.C. Tel, which I think, in one instance, came forward with dollars.
In the case of discussions around potential funding on the convention centre, for example, there's a portion which is industry-based, which would be an industry contribution -- albeit through Vancouver city, nevertheless, it's still an industry portion. They may say: "Well, is the industry portion really the municipal portion?" That may be the case. I think there will be some flexibility, provided that there is a third partner. It may not necessarily have to be local government. I mean, I completely agree with the member that it would be unfortunate if worthwhile projects couldn't be completed simply because the municipality couldn't come up with its third and there's another partner that may be able to be brought in to assist in providing that funding.
[ Page 16770 ]
[1915]
I. Chong: But my question, more specifically, I guess, would be whether the province would consider in this formula whether the province or the ministry would be obliged, or would be enabled, to participate more than the one-third, in a case where a project looks like it could not proceed with the other two-thirds coming from the federal government and from local government or agency-related government. Would we ever see a situation where a project proceeds with more than one-third provincial participation?
Hon. G. Wilson: I think it's fair to say we haven't really thought about that. It's not inconceivable that the province might partner with a higher portion than its one-third, in order to provide assistance to, say, a municipal government, for example. It's certainly not a likely scenario. It's not one that I think the province would advance of its own volition, for sure. But it's not inconceivable. If the project was deemed to be of such merit and to have such community appeal that everybody believed that it ought to be done, I think a case may be made, and there may be some exceptions provided by the federal government. But generally speaking, the intention is for there to be three partners.
I. Chong: I guess we'll have to wait to see what happens and evolves when the negotiations are completed and when the applications come forward. Again, it would be a shame to see communities that just don't have the tax base or the industry base there to provide that one-third share. If it means a government Crown or a government agency gets involved, whether they would be considered as a part of government and therefore the share would obviously be higher than the one-third -- that's a little bit where I was headed. And I just didn't want to preclude that from happening, as I say, in some areas, and I wanted to get the minister's feelings on that.
The other question that I would like to ask about the Infrastructure Works program is whether or not, in order for a project to be considered by this government, in order for this government to agree to submit its one-third allocation, there would be any restrictions in terms of the contracts to be provided, in particular the labour contracts. Are they going to be specific, in that a project, if it's undertaken, must be restricted to particular trade unions, as opposed to being open to anyone and everyone who wants to participate?
Oftentimes, at a municipal government level or a regional district government level, projects are let, and it's always -- not always, but oftentimes -- the low bid, which is not always an organized labour contract. Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. I'd just like to get an idea from this minister whether those kinds of restrictions would impose a higher cost on projects that would otherwise be approved by a municipality.
Hon. G. Wilson: I can't speak for the Highways portion, but the answer would be no. Certainly it's not been advanced as part of the discussions by either side to date. Mind you, we're very early in discussions, and the federal government may have a requirement. I'm not certain.
I. Chong: Then I would just put on the record for the minister's information that my concern isn't so much that they should be related to a certain labour contract. Clearly Highways may be one that is non-negotiable; everybody agrees it may require certain skilled tradespeople. But you will see, I think, proposals and applications for some projects, perhaps in the cultural industry side, where a part of their one-third base will come from non-organized labour; it will come from donated equipment and donated labour that makes up the other one-third.
I would hate to see restrictions there that would preclude them from being able to undertake a project. Because that's very clearly
[1920]
I just want to ensure that the minister is aware that's
I would like, then, to quickly canvass on the projects and IWP 2 from last year, the year 1999-2000. I note in the ministry's documents that the goal was to have approximately 200 projects, totalling more that $160 million, creating over 2,600 jobs. The actual achievement shows that in fact 210 projects were approved and started, of which 189 were completed. I'm presuming that 189 of the 210 were completed, so that there were, at year-end, 21 projects still in progress. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Wilson: My information is that as of March 6 there were approximately 24 projects that were still to be completed or would not be completed by the March 31, 2000, deadline.
I. Chong: By not being completed by the deadline, does that put the project in some kind of jeopardy in terms of financial obligation on the province?
Hon. G. Wilson: Extensions were asked for and granted for all projects that needed it.
I. Chong: Is there a complete list of all the projects for the year '99-2000? Perhaps, if that's available, the staff could provide that to the critic so that we have that.
The other achieved results were that there would be approximately 2,600 jobs created. In fact, the target was over 2,600, but I see, very strategically, the word "approximately" -- approximately 2,600 jobs were created. I presume that we didn't create over 2,600 jobs and that we perhaps fell short of that. Can the minister advise as to how we were counting those jobs as FTEs? Were they counted in the same way as all other FTE jobs are counted, in terms of the length of the job? The length of the job is, I think, generally what is counted.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that the number of jobs is an estimate based on the total funded project. We don't actually go out and measure specifically each of the FTEs, so it's an estimate based on the job multipliers.
[ Page 16771 ]
I. Chong: I can appreciate that. It gets very confusing when governments proclaim certain jobs created -- especially if they're short-term, part-time, auxiliary part-time jobs, or however they are. It is extremely difficult to measure, yet you see that numbers are thrown out all the time -- that we've created 500 jobs or 200 jobs or 100 jobs, and really the jobs may not in fact have been created. They may have existed in a firm. They just got employed through a contract. They're very confusing numbers, and it's just rather telling that it was a goal that was stated and then an achievement that was supposedly measured. It just didn't seem quite measurable.
I thank the minister. I won't be looking at that as concrete evidence of jobs created, then. I hope the minister doesn't talk about 220 or 600 jobs being created, because they don't exist -- in theory perhaps, but not in a concrete, measurable way.
I also see that about $160 million was being targeted as what was being spent on these projects for IWP 2, and of course, as indicated in the statistics we received, $163.5 million in total project costs was expended. I'm hoping that along with the list that staff provides, we'll see the breakdown of those. But again, because there were still 24 projects not yet completed, is this $163.5 million inclusive of these entire projects, or is there a balance of moneys to be expended that we'll see in the year 2000-01 budget?
[1925]
Hon. G. Wilson: The amount that the member refers to is an approved amount. It is an amount approved to be expended; it may not all have been expended to date. But it is approved to be expended.
I. Chong: Then can the minister advise what has been expended to date and what is anticipated to be expended for the remaining 24 projects which were still in progress at year-end?
Hon. G. Wilson: We don't have that information at our fingertips, but I'm certainly happy to provide a list of the 24 projects, as well as the amount of money that's left outstanding.
I. Chong: I think those conclude some of the questions I have in this area. I think the critic would like to follow up with some concluding remarks.
S. Hawkins: Just a couple of questions for clarification. The member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head asked about the criteria: how does the province decide which projects get which funding? I'm wondering if you're working on the criteria with the municipalities or the federal government. Is there a committee that's struck to develop the criteria, or is the province coming up with it on its own?
Hon. G. Wilson: The criteria is a negotiated criteria between the federal government, the province and the UBCM. In the initial discussions the executive director of the UBCM was represented there. But my understanding is that there was a broader discussion among the UBCM, so it will be a negotiated criteria between the three levels.
S. Hawkins: I understand that those discussions are going on right now. Is there a time line for that? I understand from what the minister was saying earlier that there would be some moneys that would be freed up this year for some projects. So are there different levels of criteria according to how big the projects are? Is that something that's being considered, or are there general criteria? And who gives the approval for the projects?
Hon. G. Wilson: There are two parts to the process. First of all, the broad program criteria are agreed to by the three parties as to what is going to be the central theme of these projects. Then the second is for the municipalities to directly make application or for the province and the municipalities to jointly make application.
Generally speaking, the toughest nut is the feds -- to get the federal government onside to make those expenditures. There is obviously a lot of give and take with respect to what will and won't be funded in terms of scope and scale. There's a regional component. We're anxious that not everything goes into the lower mainland, that there's a broader regional application. We're also very conscious of the fact that we want to try to be as fair, as equitable, as we can in making sure that the money's evenly distributed and that the projects being funded are projects that have broad community support.
S. Hawkins: If the minister, once the criteria are set, would keep the member apprised of that
I have some specific areas to canvass, and hopefully, within the hour we can be completed. The first is
[1930]
The Chair: I'm getting signals that there's a requirement for about a two- or three-minute recess, if that works.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'd be happy to answer your questions.
The Chair: Minister, whatever you'd like -- the break or the answer. I'm in everybody else's hands.
Hon. G. Wilson: We're going to move to that area, so perhaps as the staff prepare that, we can take a two-minute break.
The Chair: We'll just have a couple of minutes, a two- or three-minute break, and then we're back -- okay?
S. Hawkins: How many?
The Chair: Two or three minutes, not very long. If you need five, I'll give you five, but no more.
The committee recessed from 7:30 p.m. to 7:33 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
[ Page 16772 ]
S. Hawkins: Just before the short recess, I asked about the Asia Pacific Foundation and whether the minister could give me a quick sketch of what the foundation's place is within the ministry and how it fits with the overriding policy objectives of the ministry.
Hon. G. Wilson: We provide about $180,000 to the Asia Pacific Foundation. Its role, predominantly, is to assist us with relationships with Asia-Pacific countries. There is also an involvement from other jurisdictions in Canada. To date I think we've found it to be a worthwhile organization, although there is some discussion around the overall funding of it.
S. Hawkins: Is that funding -- the $180,000 -- up or down from previous years? Does it vary, or is that our contribution? I understand that several provinces participate in the Asia Pacific Foundation, and I'm wondering if they're all in equal shares, or do we pay more than others?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that the $180,000 is the same as it has been for the last year or so and that the other contributors are at around the same amount. Sometimes they're in and out, but generally speaking, they're at about the same level.
[1935]
S. Hawkins: Is this a program that we're going to continue? What kind of benefits do we see because of our participation in this program?
Hon. G. Wilson: Insofar as the head office is in Vancouver and we get an inflow of money into the province, in addition to the fact that they do some valuable work with respect to Asia-Pacific countries, I don't think there's any intention to discontinue it. Obviously there's always ongoing discussion as to how we might be able to make this more productive than it is already.
S. Hawkins: Are there any FTEs in the ministry that
The next area that I want to canvass is the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region program. I'm wondering what the province's policy regarding regional cooperation with our U.S. and Canadian neighbours is within that program.
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, we have participated with PNWER. Our involvement, from a ministerial point of view, is one that I had hoped to be able to actually heighten in this year. I'd hoped to be able to attend in Idaho, but circumstances prevented it. It's unfortunate that I couldn't be there. However, we do have the member for Rossland-Trail, who was the vice-chair and who will become the chair this year, so British Columbia's involvement is there. I think that it certainly does provide a very worthwhile opportunity for British Columbia to work not only with our neighbours to the south but with our neighbour to the immediate east, Alberta. It's something that we've participated in and will continue to participate in, as I think I've mentioned to the member for Chilliwack when he was asking questions on this subject.
S. Hawkins: I was in and out of the House when those questions were being asked, but if that area has been canvassed, that's fine.
I also have questions regarding the International Financial Centre. I'm wondering if the minister can explain to me how the IFC has contributed to the growth of financial institutions in Vancouver, since the ministry is involved in this program.
Hon. G. Wilson: I guess the short answer is that we do have a number of financial institutions here that wouldn't be here otherwise. I think it is fair to say, however, that I don't think it was quite the panacea that it was originally anticipated to be. I think we would like to have seen and would like now to see greater emphasis with respect to relocation of financial institutions into the province.
S. Hawkins: Can the minister tell me what the operating cost of the IFC is and what office in the ministry they report to? If he could just give me an idea, as well, of how the activities of the IFC are coordinated in terms of attracting new institutions that qualify?
Hon. G. Wilson: Chris Nelson, who would be the best person, is not here now, but I'll get you the exact figures. I can tell you that we have been scaling back and that the numbers that have been committed have in fact been declining.
S. Hawkins: I'll just put a couple of questions on the record, then if the proper official can put them in writing and get them back to me, I'd appreciate that. I'd also like to know if the minister can outline the incentives or refunds that the province offers to the various institutions, fund managers and investment dealers -- if there are such -- and if I could be provided with a list of the new institutions that have come to Vancouver as a result of the IFC. Just some information around that would be appreciated.
[1940]
I want to move on, then, to Power for Jobs. I'm wondering if the minister can give me an update on how much new investment has accrued through this legislation.
Hon. G. Wilson: We do actually have a report here and will endeavour to get that information with all the numbers in it over to you. If we can find it before we close today, I'll just pass it over.
S. Hawkins: If we can ensure, then, that we have the new investment, the initiatives that have been started under the act
Hon. G. Wilson: There are still a number of companies -- principally two companies -- who remain interested in investments in the province of British Columbia. They are currently looking at a number of sites for location. The location criteria that they are most concerned about are availability of power, and availability of water and transportation, principally rail transportation in the Midwest.
The price of aluminum continues to rise, which is a good thing. That means that there is a greater potential. What has slowed down any decision-making was the consolidation or
[ Page 16773 ]
attempted takeovers that were well documented, and that I'm sure the member was following carefully, with the Alcoa and Alcan propositions with respect to Pechiney and so on.
What is happening with the companies at the moment is that they continue to remain interested. They are continuing to do their due diligence. I have met with the principals of Norsk Hydro as minister. They were here to once again visit sites and to look at our environmental protection and our environmental review materials to see what the length of delay might be prior to construction and also what kind of hurdles they would have to cross or be able to get by. The feedback, I'm told, is good; they seemed very pleased with what was reported. We have had staff that went back to their meetings as recently as -- what -- three weeks ago or two weeks ago. In fact, Doug Callbeck is in London now, meeting with aluminum interests.
So there remains interest. I'm not going to give wild projections, but we're certainly doing what we can to continue to make that a reality.
S. Hawkins: It's encouraging to hear that the government's not going to make any wild projections. We've seen a lot of those in the past few months and years.
I wonder if the minister can tell me about the fuel cell strategy, if he can outline the province's fuel cell commercialization strategy and if he can tell me what resources the ministry is devoting to this strategy.
[1945]
Hon. G. Wilson: The member, I'm sure, is aware of the work that Ballard is doing with respect to the development of the fuel cell. There are now companies who are moving partly in partnership with Ballard to develop a commercial engine. XCELLSIS is one of those companies locally.
In order for us to be able to see the expansion of this industry, obviously we need to work on both local as well as national procurement in the transit system. We're working on trying to get a local transit authority, TransLink, to come forward with a buy strategy, and we're working with the federal government as well as with Ontario and Quebec to see if we can get a national procurement policy there. We're also actively working on international markets to have engines built in British Columbia sold abroad. Hong Kong is an area that is interested in converting fuel to fuel cells not only for buses, but for all of their commercial transportation networks, in order to get away from diesel fuel. And of course, the new regulations in California outlawing diesel engines by the year 2007, I think it is -- 2006 or '07 -- is going to push us along toward the advancement of truck engines which are hydrogen-based in terms of their fuel.
So we are directly involved in the marketing strategies. I've met recently with both XCELLSIS and Ballard. I will be advancing, with the federal minister, our interest in seeing a national procurement program put in place. We're trying to get a team together now to do that national procurement strategy which would include federal as well as provincial governments.
As far as our resources are involved, we have, as you know, provided assistance to Ballard through the industrial incentive fund. And under the western economic partnership agreement, WEPA, we also have a portion of dollars that are federal and provincial that have been dedicated to fuel cell development.
S. Hawkins: If the minister could just refresh my memory on what resources -- if there are FTEs or dollars -- that the ministry is devoting towards this strategy.
Hon. G. Wilson: There's only one FTE that is dedicated to fuel cells within the ministry, because the industry is doing its thing on its own. We have provided, through the industrial incentive fund, some dollars to assist, and we have also provided, through the western economic partnership agreement, which was signed recently, some moneys that are dedicated to a fuel cell strategy.
On the Hong Kong side, if we need expertise, we bring expertise in that can assist us in the marketing in Hong Kong. On a case-by-case basis we may bring people in as we need them, but there is only one FTE that is dedicated to fuel cells.
S. Hawkins: How much was given to Ballard through the industrial incentive fund, and is there going to be more invested in Ballard?
[1950]
Hon. G. Wilson: The reason we're having a little bit of a struggle here is because I think the member asked if there was any money out of the industrial incentive fund, and the correct answer to that would be no. Under WEPA and directly out of capital in terms of the assistance, for example, about $4.5 million or $4.6 million was provided for the development of a commercialized engine for XCELLSIS. But that wasn't under the IIF; that was done under different funds. We have provided assistance. We're becoming increasingly aware that they require less and less assistance as they become more commercially viable. We're finding ourselves in a comfortable position where the industry's going to be able to take off by itself.
S. Hawkins: I have some questions. First of all, I appreciate the opportunity to meet with the job protection commissioner later in the summer -- we agreed on that in the briefings -- and also with the B.C. Utilities Commission, so we won't canvass those in these estimates. We had some very good briefings in the past by both commissioners, so we'd be happy to do that later in the summer.
I do have some questions around the B.C. Utilities Commission. The government decided to do the B.C. Hydro rate freeze again this year; they extended it to 2001. I wonder if the commission sought the opportunity to hold hearings and if the minister would share that with us. If they did, why were they refused, and if they didn't, why didn't they -- because isn't it the job of the Utilities Commission to seek hearings on the rates?
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm advised that there were a number of letters written questioning whether or not the commission was going to go to a series of public hearings and that the commission had considered going to public hearings had the rate freeze not been extended. The extension of the rate freeze made it redundant.
S. Hawkins: Would the minister tell me if BCUC will be carrying out a review of Powerex's electricity trade revenues? I know that's an issue that is currently outstanding as well.
[ Page 16774 ]
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm told that there will be a hearing in September of 2001 when it expires. At that point there may well be a full rate review.
S. Hawkins: Can the minister just tell me what the public policy is behind the rate freeze -- freezing the rates and not letting the market decide and not letting the BCUC do its job to exercise its independent authority in assessing rates?
Hon. G. Wilson: It sort of falls in line with freezing ICBC rates, tuitions, hydro rates -- generally good news for middle-income-earners in British Columbia and students and people who have to buy insurance.
S. Hawkins: Well, that's debatable, because ICBC rates are set by the province, and the Utilities Commission is supposed to be an independent regulatory authority that looks at market rates and sets the rates according to the market. The government can artificially freeze those rates high or low -- some would argue high. And ratepayers really should be getting the benefit of lower rates when the market is there. That's a bone of contention. Obviously that's a philosophical political question that we're not going to solve here today.
But on the record, it's not something that people in the province are very happy about. Certainly the industrial users are not very happy about it, and I'm not happy about it. The BCUC should be allowed to exercise their independent authority. That's something that the opposition is very much in favour of, and we will correct that as soon as you call an election and vacate those benches. So we'll move on.
I'm interested in just a little information around the enterprise facilitation projects. I'm wondering if the minister can again just give me a thumbnail sketch on the main policy objective of that program -- the Sirolli enterprise facilitation projects -- and if he can tell me how many projects are currently in existence in British Columbia and at what cost.
[1955]
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm tempted
Interjection.
Hon. G. Wilson: Well, I'm just curious to know if the last statement meant that the member opposite is fully in support of the recent hikes in natural gas, which the B.C. Utilities Commission has just regulated on and which, of course, is causing huge concern among a number of natural gas users. But presumably the Liberal Party fully supports that.
Anyway, let's come back to Sirolli. There are seven projects: five are in the Kootenays, which are as a result of the Premier's Summit; one is in Kamloops and one in New Westminster. Kamloops is partially funded. The total amount of money budgeted is $380,000. It's cost-shared 50 percent with local enterprise.
S. Hawkins: Of these pilot projects, are there measurements and targets in place? Are they being monitored to see how many new businesses and jobs are being created? If there is that kind of measurement, will the minister commit to giving us a copy of those measurements and targets and keeping the member apprised of whether those measurements are being met?
Hon. G. Wilson: We are actually just in receipt of our first progress report. I'd be happy to make that available to the member opposite. But we do monitor the success of each of the projects very closely.
S. Hawkins: I'd also like to get some information on a press release that was put out on May 12 of this year. It was with respect to a $40 million economic development agreement that was signed that was to encourage new jobs, support new economic infrastructure and new technologies, promote entrepreneurship and develop entrepreneurial potential in the province. This was a cost-sharing between the feds and the province, $20 million for each, between now and March 31, 2002. I'd like to know who is deciding how the money is going to be spent, if there are criteria developed, if there are going to be business plans that are required and what the turnaround is. If the minister has that information or if he needs to get it, could he pass that on to the opposition as well?
Hon. G. Wilson: The member refers to the western economic partnership agreement with the federal government, and we are very pleased to have made that agreement. The answer is yes. There are fairly rigid criteria as to what is and what is not an approved project that is negotiated between the province and the federal government. We have negotiated most of the money -- the $40 million. My understanding is that there's roughly $9 million, give or take, that is not yet allocated, and that we are in the final stages of identifying projects that fit the criteria and will be making announcements as those come forward.
I'd be happy to give the member a complete list of those approved projects and the dates that they are scheduled to be announced. Some have already been announced, and others are scheduled to be announced shortly. But I'd be happy to make sure that you are fully apprised of all of them.
[2000]
S. Hawkins: Yes, I would appreciate that.
I noted that there was also, the same day, a press release that came out announcing a new media innovation centre that was to be established, and I'm wondering if that $4 million is part of the $20 million that was already announced. I see an affirmative to that.
Hon. G. Wilson: Yes, it is. It was jointly announced between Minister Anderson, myself and Minister Bowbrick. It was at the downtown centre of Simon Fraser University. It is an excellent partnership agreement with a number of local producers who are now actively engaged in the high-tech sector.
S. Hawkins: Is that, then, a $2 million commitment from the province and $2 million from the feds? Is that a cost-sharing split there?
Hon. G. Wilson: No, it's four and four. It's a total $29 million project, so ours is only a small portion.
S. Hawkins: Also, when I was reading the ministry progress report -- it's to do with employment equity -- it stated that the ministry's policy was established to give preference to designated groups in 100 percent of auxiliary hires. I'm wondering if I can get some numbers outlining how many hires
[ Page 16775 ]
have taken place under this policy. Is this policy only specific to this ministry? Or is it across government? That's the employment equity program within the ministry.
Hon. G. Wilson: It's consistent with cross-government policy. We generally have a fairly low or small turnaround, but I'm happy to get the information to the member. It won't be large numbers.
S. Hawkins: The last area I want to canvass, and I should have done this when I was doing BCUC, is electricity policy. I understand that the ministry develops the provincial electricity policy through the electricity development branch. Again, if the minister doesn't have the proper officials here, if he would direct the information to my office
Hon. G. Wilson: This is actually a very interesting side of the ministry. It is dealing with a number of energy initiatives, particularly around the green economy and greenhouse gas emissions -- the whole issue on Kyoto and the need for us to move away from carbon-based fuels to electrical generation, water use plans, co-gen operations and small-scale electrical production. We've recently met with photovoltaic interests who are interested in doing broader-scale photovoltaic development in British Columbia. This is a kind of exciting area in order to do a lot of the electrical policy. We're not actively engaged in directing business, but we are actively engaged in encouraging those sectors that are involved in alternative energy and alternative electrical production to get rooted in British Columbia.
S. Hawkins: The 1998-99 annual report states that the branch has "developed positions and strategies on the impact of and management of opportunities within the B.C. electricity sector." I wonder if the minister can provide me with the reports of those policies, if there are any. If the branch has been carrying out any studies or policy papers on deregulation, can the minister confirm that, and could he provide copies of those reports?
[2005]
Hon. G. Wilson: We haven't done anything on deregulation in the last year, though previously
S. Hawkins: A former official in the past Premier's office, Adrian Dix, wrote a letter or an article in Le Source newspaper, March 22, 2000. The minister's probably familiar with this. He wrote that the government is "considering a partial privatization and major restructuring of B.C. Hydro." I wonder if the minister will confirm if the electricity development branch has been reviewing this issue, has had it under consideration and whether or not they've pursued any studies to that effect.
Hon. G. Wilson: I don't want to flatly say no, because that's not technically correct. We certainly have somebody who sits in on the regional electrical generation group. We are actively looking at other jurisdictions with respect to what other jurisdictions are doing, particularly in light of the North American marketplace now. We are not directly engaged in taking on B.C. Hydro and making recommendations with respect to B.C. Hydro. Questions that relate to that are more properly placed with the Minister of Energy and Mines.
S. Hawkins: I'll end my questioning there. We've canvassed quite a few areas in the ministry, and the minister has made commitments to get information to different members on this side of the House and to myself. I look forward to receiving those documents, and I appreciate the help of the staff and officials from the ministry. I look forward to the briefings that we're going to do out of session, specifically the job protection commissioner and the BCUC.
Vote 25 approved.
Vote 26: British Columbia Utilities Commission, $1,000 -- approved.
The Chair: We will recess for five minutes until the Minister for Children and Families comes in.
The committee recessed from 8:08 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
The committee met at 8:15 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY FOR CHILDREN
AND FAMILIES
On vote 22: ministry operations, $1,500,955,000.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: I'm looking forward to this occasion, my first go at such an interesting exercise as part of the Legislative Assembly deliberations. I'm quite looking forward to all of this. I know folks on the other side are old hands at all of this, so I'm sure that will be lots of fun for them, too, to get started on a new ministry and a new minister. I'm sure they're going to have some fun. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about the work of the Ministry for Children and Families.
Tomorrow I will have an opportunity to introduce the staff who will be supporting the minister at that time and will then say some complimentary things about all of them, which they mightily deserve. But I did want to comment at this time as well about the full group of people who are involved in so many aspects of what the ministry work is. I'm not talking just about the ministry staff, although there's lots of them, but I'm also talking about the staff and volunteers in the many, many community organizations who work with the ministry to support children and families.
These folks give so much to the people of British Columbia, and they do it in an atmosphere, very often, of close public scrutiny which sometimes fails to recognize the value of their hard work, their commitment and their dedication. So I just wanted to spend a minute to acknowledge at this stage some of the work that they do for children, youth, adults and families and all of our communities all across this great province.
All ministry staff, and all of us in government, are committed to making B.C. a better place for children and families.
[ Page 16776 ]
This year's budget affirms that commitment with an increase of 14 percent, raising our total to $1.5 billion. The increase means that we can continue the good work done so far, as well as investing new dollars in three priority areas: enhancing children's health, supporting children in care and meeting emergency needs in adult community living.
First, I'd like to talk a bit about each of these areas in some detail. It's been interesting, having just taken over this portfolio in the last couple of months, getting caught up in all the things that they've been doing and noting how many people, in fact, really do appreciate the services that the ministry provides.
I want to add that I've also listened to the critics: the advocate, the children's commissioner, the media, the general public, some of the people we serve, as well as some of our own community partners. Let me assure you that I do indeed take their concerns very seriously. What they've told me, loud and clear, is that the ministry has made significant progress in addiction and child protection services over the last few years and that while we must continue to strengthen these two areas, we must also direct attention to early childhood health and development.
With that in mind, we are devoting $9 million to new children's health initiatives this year. Approximately $6 million will be dedicated to better serving children with special needs by improving their and their families' access to a range of supports. Approximately another $2 million will fund a prevention and early support pilot project to help improve health outcomes for all children six and under. The remaining approximately $1 million will fund an early behavioural intervention project for children with autism and their families. All three initiatives are aimed at helping children get the right support in the right place at the right time, as far as it's humanly possible. We're inviting parents and other concerned stakeholders to work closely with us to direct these projects.
We will also be appointing a children's health officer, a medical professional whose role will be to give our staff and service partners expert advice on children's health, along with the health advisory committee which we established earlier this year and which has already had its first meeting. These new initiatives, I believe, reflect our growing commitment to children's health, and they're only the first in a series of investments we plan for this area over the long term to strengthen services for children with special needs and for all children across British Columbia.
In this budget we're also targeting new dollars to help find permanent, stable homes for children in long-term ministry care. These efforts were recently accelerated, and I'm pleased to say we've had significant success. In the past 12 months, more than 175 children in permanent care have been adopted. We expect to see the numbers rise substantially this year when we introduce a new public awareness campaign. The campaign will remind prospective parents that they don't have to look outside the country to adopt, because the child who will be their son or daughter may very well be right here in British Columbia.
[2020]
While we work to find new homes for these children, we're also taking steps to better parent the children who stay in our care. For example, we're investing a total of $8.5 million this year to hire new staff, including 108 new child and youth workers, 30 staff to work directly with children in care and 25 staff to support foster parents. We're also hiring 11 new guardianship consultants and 11 new adoption workers. This year we're fully implementing a new 53-hour foster care education program. It's available at no cost to foster parents through 16 community colleges, and it's only one of several new supports for foster parents introduced in the past year.
We also have a new after-hours phone line to give foster families expert advice and support outside regular office hours. We continue to support the development of the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents Association run by and for aboriginal foster families. We're also establishing a team-building forum in each ministry region to give local staff and local foster parents another way to work together to solve local issues on behalf of children.
I just want to acknowledge what a critical role foster families play in our communities. We're always looking for more people to work as foster parents. At the same time, I am pleased to note that in the past year, although we're doing more child protection investigations than ever -- some 24,000 last year alone -- we're also finding more effective ways to care for children and keep them safe without removing them from their families.
For example, we're now able to supervise children at risk in their family homes without taking them into care. We've improved risk assessments, have hired additional staff and integrated a range of family support services. In addition, our new youth agreements allow some older youths, who might otherwise be in care, to live independently.
I think we can all be heartened by the decline in the number of children needing ministry care. At the same time, we continue to see a growing demand for services in another sector, and that is adult community living. In 1996, this province became the first jurisdiction in North America to fully phase out institutions for people with disabilities. With the support of families, advocates and service providers, we've done a good job of caring for those individuals who left places like Woodlands and Glendale.
However, many adults with developmental disabilities never lived in institutions. Family members, mainly parents, have cared for them all their lives. Today those parents are aging and finding it increasingly difficult to meet the needs of their adult sons and daughters. To support these families, the ministry is investing an additional $7.5 million in community living services this year. The new funds are dedicated specifically to increasing and improving support for aging families and their sons and daughters.
Just as in children's health, we are committed to working with families and service providers to make sure these dollars have the greatest possible impact, whether it means providing more support in the home or developing more options for residential care.
I would like to add that the front-line staff and non-profit agencies that support these families will also benefit from our budget this year. It includes $135 million to boost wages and benefits for approximately 15,000 community social service providers, moving their compensation levels closer to those in the community health services sector. The professionals work with some of the most vulnerable people in British Columbia, but historically, their work has been undervalued. Increasing their wages and benefits is fair to them and to their families. It also brings stability to a sector where consistency is and always will be a critical success factor.
[ Page 16777 ]
Looking at other expenditures and accomplishments, this year's budget increase will also support a new capital plan to develop more group homes for adults and youth and to replace outdated youth justice facilities. We will invest a total of $33 million for capital and operating costs to upgrade the ministry's internal systems, such as computers, to help improve the quality, consistency and efficiency of our services.
[2025]
We will also continue to implement an extensive range of new drug and alcohol treatment programs and services for youth. Our budget for these services increased by $9.25 million last year. This higher investment is targeted toward helping young people get the help they need in or near their home communities. As of March 30 more than 60 new treatment beds and program spaces were opened, and by the end of this fiscal year the number will rise to 81.
While these numbers are increasing, I'd like to acknowledge a very positive downward trend in two other critical areas. First, in youth justice, thanks to the new FTEs the ministry deployed last year, the average caseload for youth probation officers has fallen to 33, which is the lowest level in recent history. Officers now have more time to work with other professionals, to do proactive planning and to work with youth themselves to help them build healthier lives. As a result, our youth custody population has fallen to its lowest per-capita level since 1985, and the youth crime rate has fallen to its lowest per-capita level since 1992.
These are very positive trends, and so is the other significant drop I'd like to mention, involving youth mental health. The ministry has made a lot of progress in this area, including enhancing services for youth who are deaf, developing an early psychosis identification program and building on our partnership with the suicide prevention experts at the University of British Columbia. Since that partnership began in 1995, we've done extensive work around education and training.
We've also established demonstration projects in seven communities, aimed at finding effective local approaches to preventing youth suicide. This year we're funding another four demonstration projects, and it appears that the work we're doing is making a difference. The suicide rate for B.C. youth has fallen to its lowest level in well over a decade. This year we're determined to see it fall even further.
This budget reflects the government's commitment to do an even better job of serving children and families and to balance the need to control the deficit with the need to serve the people of British Columbia. The ministry will be spending more, but we're investing in areas that we believe will pay the greatest dividends in the coming years. There's also no question that we still have plenty of work to do and plenty of room for improvement.
I also think it's important to celebrate some of those successes. Along with the numbers I just mentioned, several other recent statistics point to the ministry's broad success. For example, since 1995 we've had a 50 percent reduction in cases of sudden infant death syndrome, an issue around which we've done a lot of public education. We've seen a reduction of nearly one-third in the province's infant mortality rate, and the number of teenage mothers has dropped by almost 25 percent.
These are very encouraging trends. I certainly wouldn't suggest that the ministry is solely responsible for making them happen. However, the numbers clearly show that we are seeing a change for the better and strongly suggest that the ministry's work with families and communities may well be starting to pay off for all British Columbians.
I want, then, to thank the staff and all our community partners and everyone who has worked with us over the last year. I look forward to building on our successes in the year ahead.
L. Reid: I am pleased to join the debate this evening for the Ministry for Children and Families.
I wanted to begin my remarks this evening by laying the groundwork for some issues that we will canvass in some detail as we go through the estimates. Certainly I want to talk for a few minutes on Joyce Preston's report "Not Good Enough." I want very much for us to have a reasoned debate in the next number of hours and days in terms of the recommendations that have gone forward on behalf of this office and, frankly, have not been well followed.
The advice to this ministry has been voluminous. There have been many, many recommendations that have come forward over the last number of years, particularly the years that I have sat as a member of this Legislature. It's been a decade of change, of new opportunities for discussions around children's welfare in the province of British Columbia, whether it was the creation of the Children's Commission office, the advocate's office, a new ministry or new legislation.
It has been a decade of enormous change within the system. Each of those bodies went forward, I think, with tremendous legitimacy. They had authenticity, they had professionalism, they had expertise, and they said: "These are some of the things that need to happen for this to be a decent place for children to be raised and cared for in the province of British Columbia."
[2030]
Certainly it's Joyce Preston's comment that the recommendations are wonderfully congruent, that all of them speak to the same issues. In fact, frankly, she believes there's a thousand of them that have not been implemented -- stalled, if you will, at the implementation stage. That's a huge concern when you realize the number of recommendations that come forward, the constancy of the recommendations, the similarity of the recommendations
I have taken the view, and my caucus colleagues have certainly supported it, that it's the kids' turn in this province for some funding -- that they don't need to fall well behind every other megaproject that comes along, whether it be fast ferries, whether it be Skeena Cellulose, whether it be X. Whatever it happens to be, kids have not come first. We need to change that. We need to decide what our commitment is to children in British Columbia.
I have some comments that I'm going to put on the record -- and I know my colleagues will, as well, over the next number of days -- about when it comes to priority
[ Page 16778 ]
enormous expenditure in your government. We've not always found favour with where you've chosen to spend those dollars. That's a perfectly appropriate discussion for this very day, for this debate on the Ministry for Children and Families.
I do believe it is about human resolve. If indeed the will is there to put children first, the money will follow. I have not, frankly, seen that; it hasn't been well-evidenced over the last number of years. I have sat in this Legislature for close to nine years, and it seems to me that we have always seen a government that has readily found dollars for the big megaproject, whatever the big megaproject happened to be. But the direct service, the front-line service delivery for kids, is what is constantly compromised, whether it's last year's example of clawing back 1.5 percent, and someone suggesting that that wouldn't impact on service
All of those areas need to come back to the discussion about political will. Where is it we're headed as a province? Frankly, the last ten years we know where we've been, and we know the kinds of things that have happened in this province around children.
I for one would be the first person to put on the record that there has been wonderful work done by the front-line sector, by the folks who deal day to day with kids
We have front-line service providers today who, out of their own pockets, buy graduation dresses for kids who don't have access to that, for kids in care who don't have money available to them. The bureaucratic hoops that one has to hop through to buy a $25 pair of running shoes
The minister will know that there are many, many examples, and I don't need to cite them individually. I know they exist in her riding just as well as they exist in mine and the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain's. Those kinds of examples are out there. What it says to me is that we are prepared to nickel-and-dime to death the life and livelihood of a little kid, as opposed to somehow saying maybe we don't need to do the fast ferry program. When I come back to the human resolve issue, that speaks to me very, very personally, first as a teacher and certainly now as a legislator -- that there have to be ways for this group of individuals to put kids first in the province of British Columbia. There have to be ways for us to do that.
I will canvass over the next number of days many issues around residential care -- what we do with individuals in our communities who need some kind of protective setting. What kinds of options do we have for them? What kinds of opportunities are available to them? Again, this is the sector that I think has not been treated particularly well, when it comes to parents of mentally handicapped adults.
[2035]
My colleague from North Vancouver-Seymour and I have attended countless meetings where the parent group is in their seventies and eighties, and the child group is 40 and 50 years of age. Those young people -- those older folks, if you will -- have no opportunities, and there are no significant plans in place for when their parents pass on. The letters that have crossed their mail slots, if you will, have left them at wits' end in terms of what they will do if they were to die and their offspring were not to have some kind of plan in place.
The same fear is in place for individuals who have had some supports to the very moment they reach their nineteenth birthday. Those fears are not unique to my riding or to anyone's riding; they're fears that are prevalent across this province when it comes to parents' commitment to have a plan for what their kids will do the year they're 20, the year they're 21, the year they're 22.
Families in my riding
I have family groups across this province that talk to me about good rhetoric -- that it's all good rhetoric. They want to see a good plan. They want to move beyond the words to the implementation plans. They want to see what that looks like. They want to have somebody come back three months, six months, nine months later, who's done some evaluation, who's looked at it, who's said this either makes sense or it doesn't. That's the kind of performance-marking that I think we haven't done a particularly good job of in this ministry. People have often suggested that it can't be done. The only way you deliver a decent service is to evaluate exactly what it is you're doing, so you have some opportunity to modify, to make some provisions, to go forward.
One of the discussions that I have often been privy to has been around the entitlement, if you will, of children in the educational system and children in the health care system. We believe children are entitled to an education; we believe they're entitled to decent health care. We somehow don't have that same notion around their social development, around their right to a community service that will benefit them as a child. We have very little demonstrated commitment to that.
We don't say to the child who happens to be 12 years old: "There is no place for you in any grade 7 program in this province." We don't say that. Countless examples where the system says to a child who may need some mental health programming: "I'm sorry, it's not available. The wait-list is three or four years long." Why is it appropriate to say it when that very service is what will determine that child's success or not in this life, whether it's a drug-and-alcohol bed, whether it's a detox program, whether it's a mental health counselling situation? That same thinking doesn't exist around issues that are there to provide supports to young people and their families. The notion is completely contrary to what it is for health and for education. That's a discussion I would welcome with this minister as we lead into this debate.
[ Page 16779 ]
One of the other concerns that I want to put on the table and canvass in more detail tomorrow is around the issue of staffing. The inability to build relationships in communities because of the turnover is an enormous problem. I mean, good social work is dependent on good working relationships. It's not different if you're a teacher or if you're a social worker in Burns Lake. You have to be able to commit to the child that you will be there the day after next, two weeks hence. We now have locum programs in this province where the social worker changes every two or three or four weeks. There's no ability to generate and develop a relationship, to build on the humanity, the aspects of trust that are critical to making differences in the lives of children, absolutely critical. So the staffing issue for me
Then we are always having the discussion around instability within the foster home placement. If that exists -- if a child can be in nine or ten or 12 different placements before they're ten or 11 or 12 years of age, and have 15 to 20 social workers -- what is it that we've accomplished? Total discontinuity in that little person's life. They haven't had a relationship. They don't know who they belong to, and most children in this life have a real desire to belong. That probably is the driving force of childhood -- to belong within some context, whatever the context happens to be.
Those issues, I think, are all part and parcel of the staffing question. We have to commit to having individuals who are prepared to stay in communities and build those lifetime relationships. The lifetime of a child could be ten years. It could be 18 years if a child were lucky enough to live in the same placement until they reached the age of majority. But we have to look beyond placement that changes every two or three or four months, and expect that we're going to produce a generation of children that has some sense of continuity in their lives, has a sense of attachment, values relationships. The goal of this entire exercise should be to create a really well-rounded citizen, not someone who has no ability to have a conversation or to generate a relationship, no ability to have any lifelong attachments.
[2040]
We have a generation of kids that we are in the very process of producing who are completely disconnected from anything they've ever known. That is not going to be in their best interests, and frankly it's not going to be in our best interests, whether we are talking economically, socially, as the Legislature, as a province or as a community. Those kids will be isolated and disconnected. That can't be something that we would wish for our own children; it just cannot be.
I think we have to move beyond the discussion where it's somehow appropriate if it's a child that's not someone in our immediate sphere. That's never been appropriate for me, and I can't imagine that it's appropriate for any members of this Legislature. So, collectively, we have to come together and place some priority on how we would provide homes for children, because for me it's a whole lot more than just housing. It's where that child belongs and who they feel connected to that we have to address as a Legislature.
I'm convinced that we can do it better. I'm absolutely convinced we can do a really decent job of ensuring that kids have a fighting chance. One of the ways that I want to see us do that in the next number of years is to really concentrate on the early intervention piece: support programs for children who are zero to six years of age -- vitally important in terms of occupational therapy, speech therapy, physiotherapy. Little guys who have significant special challenges should not have to go to school unsupported.
Let's take speech-language therapy as an example. There are some little, tiny guys out there today, who stutter. That could absolutely be diminished by decent, reasonable intervention in the speech-language area. The wait-list for that is two and a half to three years long. They will be in the school system before they receive any service. The stigma of going to school and not fitting in is huge for little guys. So again, we are not solving a problem; we are simply delaying a problem by putting children on a wait-list. Wait-lists have to have some immediacy in children's lives.
The parent group in the province today who are putting forth their wait-list initiative -- they're horrified that thousands of kids can sit on wait-lists for special services and will, frankly, age their way out of the system before they receive the service. Again, it's not something that we would wish or, frankly, accept for our own offspring; it cannot be something that we support or accept for the children of this province. There have to be some ways that we can, as a community, come forward with some political will that says: "These are priority messages for British Columbians today."
There have been some interesting examples of the public being mobilized over the last number of weeks around the notion that it takes a village to educate a child -- that it's vitally important that we all share in the responsibility of looking out for the offspring of this province. It's vitally important that we do that.
There are opportunities for us to continue to have that discussion, and we need to focus very carefully on what we hope to achieve in the next six to 12 months. I know that will be the intent of the debate about this ministry's budget for this year. What we will spend on children in the province and where the priority will be placed will certainly be issues that I want to canvass in more detail.
I want very much to see us build some professional support networks. I think it's vitally important that everybody believes they have a role to play when it comes to safeguarding children -- safeguarding the next generation. I feel an enormous obligation to look out for the next generation. Frankly, that's why I sought public office in the first place -- that it is about those who come after us. It's not about what happens in this place today; it's what happens tomorrow that this place may have been a part of that speaks to me very, very strongly as a legislator. So for us to craft circles of support in communities
The discussion over the last number of days to craft regional directors of child protection -- a good decision. Not a new recommendation -- I think it was something that Justice Gove talked about a number of years ago, because it places decisions close to where children live. That's the idea. Frankly, it wasn't done five years ago. I'm delighted if it happens today, and I trust the minister will, in her remarks later, indicate when those recommendations may come to life. Again, it's good rhetoric, but it's time to put it into practice. It's time to value children by what we do as opposed to what we say in the province of British Columbia.
[ Page 16780 ]
So, hon. Chair, if I might be so indulged and continue my remarks tomorrow, I would be ready to rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
[2045]
The Chair: Just a correction to the committee and an explanation from the Chair: earlier this evening we concluded the estimates of the Minister of Employment and Investment, and we have to move the motion for resolution in order to conclude those estimates. That keeps this committee alive and healthy to continue the debate on the Ministry for Chil- dren and Families. So if we could have the motion to rise, report resolution and seek leave to sit again, that would be in order.
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: So moved, Mr. Chairman. I should be happy to move the motion that we rise, report resolution on the Ministry of Employment and Investment and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 8:46 p.m.
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