Hansard -- Volume 2, Number 9 -- Thursday, August 2, 2001

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY



CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Time

Tabling Documents		1000
	Auditor general, financial statement for year ending March 31, 2001

Budget Debate
	Hon. S. Bond	1000
	Hon. T. Nebbeling	1010
	R. Visser	1020
	Hon. K. Whittred	1035
	V. Anderson	1100
	Hon. C. Clark	1115
	H. Long	1140

Tabling Documents		1150
	Judicial Compensation Committee, report and recommendations, 2001

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, it is my honour to present the financial statement of the office of the auditor general of British Columbia for the year ending March 31, 2001.

Hon. S. Bond: Good morning, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity today to resume my comments on the economic and fiscal update. I want to assure you that I still believe what I said in the first part of my speech and will not be repeating it for you this morning.

Mr. Speaker, this government has a mandate to restore hope, confidence and trust. This, to me, is the most important task that we will undertake during our term of office. Perhaps there was nothing more challenging during the election campaign than trying to reassure my constituents, who, like other British Columbians, had just given up. As I met with hundreds of residents, the most common question was: "How can we be sure that when you get to Victoria, something will be different, that there will be change?" That question motivates me daily as I work to prove that we are going to do exactly what we said we would do, and by our actions we will prove that we can and will make a difference in this province.

As the Lieutenant-Governor said in his Speech from the Throne: "Public trust and confidence in government must be earned, not through words but through deeds. Qualities of honesty, integrity and competence must be earned by degrees over the months and years to come. First and foremost, my government will be true to its word. The people who elected it demand and deserve nothing less. That is not simply my government's mandate; it is also its duty."

Those are powerful words, and I could not reinforce the importance of this fundamental commitment with any greater enthusiasm. In this speech to the Legislature I would like to commit to the residents of Prince George–Mount Robson that everything I do as their representative will be rooted in honesty and integrity in upholding the principle to do what we said we would do and, even more importantly, that we will do the right thing, even when it isn't the easiest thing.

As I was reading through the newspapers last weekend, I came across a couple of headlines that filled me with pride, because they reinforced the idea that this government will live up to its commitments. In the Vancouver Sun a column by Craig McInnes was titled "Campbell Sticks to the Plan." Mr. McInnes states in his column: "…everyone agrees he is sticking to his agenda." He goes on to say that business leaders and political scientists agree, regardless of their political stripe, that this government is keeping its promises and sticking to its agenda.

The Victoria Times Colonist read: "Liberals stay faithful to 90-day action plan." That is something British Columbians should take heart in. Led by a Premier who truly believes that we can and must make a difference and who is prepared to be held accountable, we have embarked on a new era in B.C., an era where politicians and public officials can be trusted to act on the things that are most important to British Columbians: the promises and commitments that they were voting for when they cast their ballot for a member of the B.C. Liberals.

It is no wonder that British Columbians are skeptical. They have lived through ten years of broken promises and unfulfilled commitments. For example, before the 1996 election the NDP said they had balanced the budget in 1995-96, and again in 1996-97. However, the truth is that they rang up deficits of $356 million and $337 million in those years. The NDP said they would never touch FRBC funds, yet they tried to divert hundreds of millions of dollars out of FRBC to pay for their deficit spending.

The NDP promised that municipalities would have the right to ban photo radar from their streets, but they went back on their word when some municipalities said no to photo radar. In 1996 the NDP promised a physician recruitment plan to provide scholarships for medical students in return for a commitment to practise in remote communities. It, too, never materialized.

This government believes that British Columbians deserve better. We promised the people of this province that we would cut taxes, and we have. We promised to scrap photo radar; we did it. We promised to provide forgiveable loans to nursing and medical students who agreed to practise in underserved communities. We have already begun discussing this and begun to implement this commitment. British Columbians can rest assured that we will do it.

They can rest assured that we will keep every single commitment we made in the New Era document, and they will be fulfilled over the next four years. That is great news for British Columbia.

While restoring public trust in our province's politicians is the principal reason that I decided to run for office, I have a deep-rooted love for education and, in particular, for B.C.'s young people, as I learned during my seven years as a school board trustee in Prince George. Quality education is one of the most important advantages we can provide to our children and our communities. If we can instil in them a love of learning, a desire to strive for excellence and the tools to achieve their dreams, the possibilities for both our

children and the future of our province are endless. Our government has a plan to provide consistent, high-quality education for our young people from elementary school to the post-secondary level. In our schools, our universities and our training in trades and technical occupations, our government is committed to a top-notch education system for children and students of all ages.

The economic and fiscal update confirmed that health and education are top priorities for our government. To ensure that we are able to adequately fund these top priorities in the future, however, we must ensure that we have a healthy economy in the province. A competitive tax environment that encourages investment and restores confidence is an important first step in getting our economy back on track. From the economic and fiscal update to the balanced-budget legislation, I am pleased to lend my full support to each and every one of the initiatives announced by the Minister of Finance.

I am proud to be a member of this government, because I believe that as we keep our promises and commitments, the constituents of my riding and indeed in ridings all across our province will begin to have hope again.

There are many obstacles to overcome, many late nights ahead and much work to do. But I am invigorated by the challenge of fulfilling our mandate of positive change, rebuilding the economy, renewing health care and improving education — making the sometimes very difficult decisions that we know are right for British Columbia. I am looking forward to the next four years of restoring confidence, hope and prosperity in British Columbia.

I would like to conclude by thanking the residents of Prince George–Mount Robson for placing their trust in me and providing me with this opportunity to serve them.

Hon. T. Nebbeling: I, also, am glad to rise to speak to the budget speech. Before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to give you my sincere congratulations for having taken on the position of presiding over what I believe will be one of the most exciting sessions this Legislature will see for a very long time.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the constituents in my riding who returned me to the Legislature for a second term in an enormously strong show of support. I also consider it to be strong support for the agenda that we very openly presented to the people of British Columbia. Of course, it is an agenda that is based on less government and more empowerment to people and to business, with the objectives of strengthening the economy and providing the services that the province counts on to be delivered. Those are health care and education, as the priorities.

I have a riding that stretches from West Vancouver right up to Anderson Lake. It's 350 kilometres, and it is a riding with an enormous amount of diversity. We have well-to-do West Vancouver. We have Squamish, which is a community that today is really suffering from the fallout of ten years of NDP government. It's a community that has lost its economic base and is trying desperately to find new ways to survive in this time. It is that community that I will use as an example to show that just getting a new message in this province does something to people.

During the election — and I think most of my colleagues will have had the same experience — I began to see spirits lifting in people. Nine out of ten times when I've been in Squamish over the last couple of years, I have dealt with problems. It was always: "How can you help me?" During the election, suddenly people were coming to me and saying: "Hey, I think I'm going to do something. What do you think about my idea?"

That was the first sign for me that people realized there was going to be big change in British Columbia. It was the first sign that people were beginning to realize we were indeed going toward an era where it was okay to take a chance and maybe invest a little of your savings, if you had them, into bringing some element of security to your family life and to your future.

That spirit, of course, came to a crescendo after the election. I have no doubt that any one of my colleagues here and anybody out there has had the same experience — that people suddenly began to believe there is a future for British Columbia. It has been a feeling that has been missing for the last ten years, as has been abundantly clear by the large number of people who actually left this province over the last ten years because they didn't think there was a future under the NDP government in British Columbia.

It was really a great pleasure for me two weeks ago. One of the people who talked to me during the election had told me he was going to open a small store, together with a partner. These are two young families who both had a little bit of money. They felt that because of the new sense of optimism and hope being created by the people of Squamish, not just by the people overall, they wanted to open a store on the main street of Squamish. It was a store with secondhand furniture — nothing big.

Two weeks ago they asked me to come and do the opening, and I was really thrilled. We did open the store, and I talked to one of the partners. Basically, he said he had been in the logging industry. "At this stage," he said, "I don't see much hope for me to make a living. My partner feels the same, so we feel we have an opportunity here to do something ourselves, to make ourselves a living and get through this period. Hopefully, things will get a lot better." That's the kind of initiative we see happening.

I did ask the person: "Would you have done this a year ago?" His response was: "I've been thinking about this kind of opportunity for a couple of years, but there was no way I was going to invest my money in a venture like this with the NDP here. There was no hope that, with the overtaxation and overregulation, I could have made it." It's a small example, but I think it reflects that people are truly willing to take charge of their own lives and to tap into the opportunity if it is there.

I think that spirit is so important, because it is what makes people motivated to look forward and do things. I say this because my own life story is not unlike that. I came to Canada on a holiday in 1976. I visited Whistler, which at that time was a very small, regional ski resort with a small community, and I really felt there was something special there. So I went back to Europe, got my immigrant status and a year later was back in Whistler.

I believed Whistler had tremendous potential. At that time there was a government that truly celebrated business success and believed that small and medium-sized business were key to economic success and job creation. When the Whistler program — the dream of Whistler — started in 1980, I was right there. I opened a number of businesses in Whistler, and I can guarantee I could only do it because government was not in my face, trying every step of the way to stop me and make my life as a small business man miserable.

I think my story is the story of hundreds of small business people who were part of the Whistler experience. I believe the success of Whistler and the sum of its successes is in part because we had a government in the early eighties that believed in small and medium-sized business. It believed in free enterprise; it believed in the entrepreneurial spirit. That's what made Whistler special and made it a success.

It wasn't always easy. In '81-82 we had problems in British Columbia. We were in a recession, but most of us succeeded in getting over that. We went forward, and Whistler became what it is today: an enormous, well-known resort that entices the world to come to Canada, to British Columbia, and experience our natural beauty.

Losing that kind of government spirit and support for the business sector during the nineties has been reflected in tremendous hardship throughout communities everywhere else in British Columbia. My main reason for running in '96, actually, was to fight for bringing back some of the principles that made the eighties so successful for British Columbia and that made us the number one province when it came to economic growth in Canada, a place everybody wanted to come to who wanted to come to Canada. People didn't want to go to Ontario then; people didn't want to go to Alberta then. They wanted to come to British Columbia. This was the place where the opportunities were.

My motivation for running for office was to bring British Columbia back to that status. Listen to the budget speech. Look at our agenda. Look at the commitments we have made and already delivered on. I believe that indeed we are on the way back to a government that represents the values that made the eighties so good for British Columbia.

We're going to face hurdles along the way. I don't think there's anybody in British Columbia who doesn't accept that. But as long as we know that at the end of the road there is a bright future for British Columbians, then I think the suffering of the nineties that we had to go through…. We will overcome the pain from that, overcome the setbacks from that, and this province will clearly thrive again.

One of the ways to let the world know, of course, that British Columbia is open for business again and that it welcomes people to live here and invest here is the 2010 Olympic bid for Vancouver and Whistler — an opportunity that is unprecedented. I think the government support behind this bid is essential, because we are telling the sports communities of British Columbia, Canada and the world that we support young athletes. When we do that and succeed in getting the bid for the Whistler-Vancouver area, what we also get, besides support for our young athletes, is worldwide media exposure.

We're going to have an opportunity over the next nine years, on a very regular basis, to show the world what opportunities British Columbia represents. We're going to have the opportunity to show that we have natural resources in this province that we can tap into in a very environmentally responsible way and that will create a tremendous stability for our economy, which means our people.

I have no doubt, once we are successful in getting the Olympic bid to come to British Columbia, that this opportunity will lead to further prosperity and opportunities not only for our own people but for all Canadians. I have no doubt that within that nine-year time frame, we are going to have the world focus on British Columbia again. We will, because of all our assets, once again become the one province that truly can say it's the leader in economic growth in this country.

I just wanted to explain my strong support for the budget and for the direction this government is going in. I wanted to use my own experience in Canada, very briefly, as an example that if government allows you to do what you think you can do best, you can really be a success in this province. I want that message to be heard by many people. I would like to support the budget and all efforts that this government is undertaking and will continue to undertake.

R. Visser: Mr. Speaker, as I rise in this House for the first time, I'd like to offer my congratulations to you, sir, and commend you on the grace and authority you have brought to this chamber.

I am at once both humbled and honoured to be here. My family has a long history on this island. My forebears were pioneers who arrived in 1865, and we've been here ever since. Our photo albums are filled with the growth and change that this island has seen over the last 135 years.

My upbringing reflects that history, that tie to this place and that sense of having roots. My daughter is the seventh generation to be christened in the same small church, St. Stephen's, just down the road in Saanichton.

It is a great privilege to be elected as the representative of North Island in this thirty-seventh parliament, and it is a great privilege to be part of the

new era for our province. It is humbling to know that democracy is alive and well in this province and daunting to know that we as a government are faced with some great challenges, many of which are felt in places like the North Island like they are in no other. It is comforting to know that I, as an elected member of this Legislature, face these challenges surrounded by one of the most talented and focused groups this province has ever elected. It's comforting to know that the leadership that created our government's vision for this province has us all working hard to make that vision a reality.

It's difficult to describe the place I know as home to many of you in this House. It's challenging for me to put into words what it's like to sit in a community hall in Zeballos on a rainy spring evening and talk for hours with the people about their frustrations, their fears, but most of all their hopes. It's difficult to describe how green those hillsides that rise out of that valley can be at dusk. I wish I could tell you how I feel heading down Nootka, Quatsino or Kyuquot Sound and out into the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean in a small boat. Or walk the beaches of San Josef Bay with your young child, as my parents did with me, while the never-ending surf of the Pacific Ocean hits the rocks nearby. Or pick blueberries in the warm alpine meadows on a summer day.

I wish everybody heard the meaning that I hear in the sound of an old wooden troller as it sits in the dark in Port Hardy, idle and at the mercy of time, water, the wind and the markets. I wish my colleagues understood the sense of accomplishment and pride one has as you sit on a hillside of the Nimpkish valley in the pouring rain, wet to the bone, watching a turn of logs being yarded to the landing, or how eerie, calm and gentle a huge pulp mill can be at three in the morning during a maintenance shutdown.

I wish everyone could understand what it was like to sit around a coffee shop on a Saturday morning, as a kid, and hear the stories of the work week from the loggers in the woods, the men on the green chain in the sawmills, the miners and the fishermen on the water. All of this is my home. It's the place I was born in, the place I have lived in, the place that makes me all that I am. It is the place whose people I now represent.

I'm here not only to remind us of our past but to carry us forward into a brave new future. My home is a very large place. It stretches from Campbell River across the Island — Strathcona Park to Gold River — and then up both sides of the Island to Cape Scott. Geographically, it's exactly half of Vancouver Island. Its communities include Sayward, Woss, Quatsino, Gold River, Holberg, Quadra Island, Cortes Island, Coal Harbour, Sointula, the ever-embattled Tahsis, Alert Bay, Port McNeill, Port Hardy and Port Alice — whose pulp mill, incidentally, still uses a digester that was manufactured in Brandenburg, Germany, in 1888.

It's a place of great history and thriving communities that are learning to reinvent themselves again and again. It's a place of ghost towns, for whom reinvention was not possible. As you travel the roads and coastline, you see the remnants of settlements gone by: Camp Five, Ceepeecee, Shushartie, Rock Bay. Those remnants may be farmhouses like the ones you could find on the trail to Cape Scott, which were abandoned by settlers before the turn of the century; or the decaying pilings that once held the canneries that dotted the coast; or an overgrown apple orchard that formed the back yard of a long-abandoned track-side logging camp; or a first nations midden village, where the stone-white beaches of broken clam shells remind us of centuries of connection to the land and its abundance. It is this history, this physical legacy, Mr. Speaker, that is stark evidence of change. And it is this change I want to speak about today.

I would like to start by paying tribute to one of the greatest men this province has ever known, who left us a few months ago. Bill Moore of Winter Harbour — Winter Harbour is the most northwest of all the communities I represent — was a pioneer, a philosopher, a gentleman, a lover of music and a leader, but above all he was a logger. He was also a poet and, for many of us, captured the true nature of the North Island, its history. I wanted to quote for this House a few lines from his poem about logging up coast in the thirties. It was titled "The Loggers Hiring Slip."

For those of us who had the pleasure of Bill's company from time to time, we will all miss him dearly. He's left this world a better place.

The last decade has been hard on the people of North Island. Certainly, all of British Columbia has been subject to economic dislocation, overturned and abandoned economies. But for us it has been different. For us it has been an attack on a way of life. It has been an attack on an industry and a culture.

When I grew up, the people I looked up to could skin 120 tonnes of logs down a steep hillside in a Hayes HDX, the jake screaming on a V-12 Detroit and the brakes billowing with steam as we poured the water on to keep them cool and working. They yarded logs with a tower or grapple yarder, and they loaded out with an old TL 6 line loader. They boomed those logs and made sidewinders dance as though they lived outside the laws of physics.

There were highliners of the seine fleet, and they fished the coast for sockeye, and they lived like kings for some years and paupers for others. They owned trollers and would tack up and down the Halibut Bank in search of coho and springs. They went underground every day and mucked out the ore and the coal. For all of them their day started at 4:30 in the morning, and you could drive through our town and see them standing at the side of the road in the dark and the rain waiting for their buses and crummies to take them to the day's work.

Many of those role models are gone now. The times have changed, and we're in a constant state of renewal, a state that's been a little overwhelming for many of us.

As all of our industries downsized over the last decade, we found that the jobs folks had — the skills and talents they developed over the years and sometimes for generations — were no longer in demand. We were told that what we did as loggers and miners and millworkers and fishers was wrong, and the world would be a better place if we were all made to stop. We were made to feel ashamed, and we were forgotten. Even worse, we were ignored.

I am here and I rise today to tell this House that my constituents and the people of this province are indeed in the midst of a new era, a new era that will restore pride and dignity to the coastal logging community, the mining industry and all the other things that we have come to do on the North Island. It's a new era that will restore vitality and vigour to coastal communities, a new era that will embrace that pioneer entrepreneurial spirit that was once the backbone of this province. I'm here to say that enough is enough, and it's time that we find some heroes and role models again for our future generations. We still face many challenges, Mr. Speaker, but I am convinced now more than ever that we will be able to move forward.

Yesterday I was in Kyuquot, a first nations village 40 minutes by boat from the end of the road in Fair Harbour, which is an hour and a half from Woss, which is an hour and a half from Campbell River, which is three hours from here. The community lies sheltered behind an island, but I can tell you without question that it is the furthest west one can live on this continent and possibly one of the most beautiful places I could ever take you to on this planet.

I went to pay tribute to eight first nations people of the Kyuquot and Che:K'tles7et'h' first nations who were graduating from an intensive aquaculture course offered by our local college, North Island College. After my evening there, I am convinced more than ever that the future of our communities and the future of first nations lies in education, an education system that is flexible and responsive to both the culture of those communities and the subjects that it teaches.

I was deeply moved by the sense of pride not only in those eight graduates but in the community itself — the elders, the educators, the people from the company. They've all formed a real and lasting partnership with everyone who lives and works in that first nations traditional territory. This is where our future lies. It is in the lessons we have from the past but looking to the future. It's about small steps. It's about eight students here, five jobs there. It's about allowing someone's idea and a dream to find a footing and take off. It's about saying yes, rather than finding a dozen ways to say no.

For the North Island the throne speech sets the tone, lays the foundation, gives us hope for the future. As I travel through the region, I am constantly reminded that people are desperate for leadership. They want a government that will do what it says it will do. They want a government that is open, honest and accountable. They want a government that gives them security in knowing the rules aren't going to change on them midstream. They want a government that not only allows success but encourages success and even rewards success.

The North Island and this province are full of rugged people. We can adapt, and we will. We can find success if we are given the opportunity. We can use our history, the spirit of the pioneers — the gyppo logger, the handliners, the homesteaders and the claim-stakers — to forge a path into the future. It will be in forestry, in mining, in aquaculture, in tourism, in fisheries and all the ancillary and support services that go along with these primary industries. It will also be in whatever else we decide it can be, because our young people will be given all the tools they need to explore and create the possibilities.

The people of the North Island have asked for and demand change. They want to be heard, and they want to be respected. They want to be valued once again. That is the task of our government, that is the task of

I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the time to tell this House a little of where I'm from. I am most grateful to the people of the North Island for allowing me the opportunity to help them decide where they want to go.

Hon. K. Whittred: Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues who have gone before me, I would like to congratulate you on assuming the role of Speaker in this House. It is, of course, a most important and rewarding, I hope, position for you. I would also like to thank the citizens of North Vancouver–Lonsdale who returned me to this House to represent them for yet another four years.

As I did in my maiden speech five years ago, I would like to just remind the members of this chamber a little bit about my riding. North Vancouver–Lonsdale was a new riding, created in 1991. I often call it a riding that sits with two bookends. Its bookends are the Lions Gate Bridge on one end and the Second Narrows Bridge on the other. Its southern boundary, of course, is Burrard Inlet and the highway on the north. I probably am one of the luckiest members in this chamber, because geographically North Vancouver–Lonsdale is very compact. Unlike many of my colleagues who represent very large rural ridings, I in fact have the pleasure of representing a very compact urban riding.

This government was elected a few weeks ago with a huge mandate. That mandate was to return prosperity to the province of British Columbia. If there is any image that sticks in my mind about the last ten years, it is a graph that I saw at a presentation which basically showed British Columbia as being flat-lined. In almost every economic measure you could mention over the last ten years, B.C. was absolutely flat-lined as compared to other provinces who were, of course, increasing. Whether or not that was in terms of personal income, whether it was in terms of housing starts, whether it was in terms of gross national product…. It really didn't matter which economic measure you used. Our neighbours in Alberta, in Ontario, in every other province were going in the right direction; they were increasing. B.C., on the other hand, remained absolutely flat.

It is therefore my pleasure and honour to stand today to speak in favour of the budget that was presented to us the other day — or perhaps more accurately, hon. Speaker, I should say the economic update that was presented the other day.

I have used this analogy before, but in my riding I often feel that it's a place where we have a window on this province. We sit and look over Burrard Inlet, and we can see the entire landscape, if you like, of British Columbia going past us. From that perspective, we can see the entire port of Vancouver, we can see the goods that move in and out of that port, and we can see the ships and the countries that they come from — all of which remind us of this particular location that we enjoy on the Pacific.

Actually, you know, my family in North Vancouver has a small business located very near the waterfront. From that small business, we look out the window and see a great big empty shed. Do you know what that empty shed is? It is Catamaran Ferries International. Do you know what was built there? That is where the fast ferries were assembled.

It's not just the ferries that are for sale. It's also this prime waterfront property with this great big empty shed. To my mind it's the metaphor for the last ten years. This was a government that put together in that shed, as we well know, three ships that didn't float, were the wrong thing for the wrong place at the wrong time and have, of course, drained $500 million out of the economy. I am reminded of that particular metaphor every time I go into our family business.

I had the pleasure the other morning of meeting with some people that represented some of the waterfront industries in my riding. Do you know what they told me? Their main message to me was that we can't be competitive. Do you know why they couldn't be competitive? Mostly because of taxes. They told me — not just one of the industries but basically all of them — that they are losing money. They can no longer even count on the kinds of contracts that they had in terms of shipping products. They are fearful that our lumber that is produced in the interior of the province is no longer going to be shipped through their facility from our port, because it is more economically feasible for people to go to Bellingham or Seattle and to ship from those ports.

It's my experience and observation over the last several years that this whole concept of competitiveness is one that the former government simply didn't understand. They didn't understand that you can't simply tax and tax and tax — no matter how many reasons, for all the good reasons they thought you could tax — because that business would not remain competitive.

I'm pleased to note in the economic update the other day that there was some relief for these industries. I think the waterfront industries which are part of my riding will be very pleased that there was a reduction in the tax on bunker fuel. That means the large ships that come in to pick up grain at the elevators or lumber, coal or sulphur at the terminals — all of these products that are shipped from the waterfront in my riding — will now be able to fuel up more cheaply. I think they will be pleased that the corporate capital tax they have had to pay will be reduced. I think they will be pleased that they can now go out and refit with new machinery without having to pay huge taxes on that machinery. These are things that have been done in this economic update that will help to make these businesses, which are such a vital part of the economy, of this province competitive.

If we move away from the waterfront in my riding, we will find that through the Lonsdale core and the Marine Drive corridor is an area of small businesses. My colleague who went before me talked about how small business is the backbone of the economy. It is small business that actually creates the jobs for 80 percent of the people who work in business in this province.

I think they, too, will be pleased about some of the things in this budget. The Finance minister has taken measures to try to get government out of their faces. We have introduced a deregulation initiative, which is being looked at by my colleague the Minister of State for Deregulation. He is going to be looking at all these kinds of silly things that small businesses have to do, often at great waste to their business. We have set up a waste-buster website, which will allow such businesses to go on the Web and to point out to us: "Hey, this is a great waste of time." Reduction in the corporate capital tax will be of huge benefit to small business. These are the businesses that pay triple net rents, and they pay for this through their rents.

I'm pleased to tell you, hon. Speaker, about a whole new development that is happening in my riding, called the Fullerton lands. Historically, the Fullerton lands were once a privately owned mill, I believe, and dock. Over time they were sold to the city of North Vancouver and ultimately sat empty for many, many years. They were one of the final spots on the port of North Vancouver that could be developed. The development is, I'm pleased to say, now well underway. I know from talking to the industries going in there that they are ecstatic we now have a government that is going to be encouraging investment and the lands will be able to develop according to plan and to fill up their businesses.

The city of North Vancouver is particularly inviting high-tech industries to this region. I'm sure these industries like Pivotal Software, which is one of the largest businesses in my riding, will be very supportive of the initiatives we have taken around high-tech and the establishment of a technology council that will take a leading role in bringing high-tech to this province.

I am further reminded of the college that serves my riding, Capilano College. I met, just the other day, with the board and the CEO of Cap College, and I'm really pleased to be able to say that Cap College has developed a number of programs that are very unique to that community. They have particularly focused on programs that are supportive of the movie industry. The movie industry, mostly from Lions Gate studios, is very valuable to my community.

One of the issues that came up during my conversations with the people from Cap College was that they hoped that we would be supportive of their request to offer applied degrees in some of these very specialized areas. I indicated that yes, I personally was very supportive of that. I will, of course, be pursuing that with my colleague the Minister of Advanced Education.

There is also, unhappily, an event occurring in my riding as we speak that is most distressing. That involves events around Lions Gate Hospital. Yesterday, on top of the ongoing nurses crisis, the specialists in many different specialties walked out of Lions Gate Hospital and are no longer offering services. This is, of course, very distressing to a health region that is accustomed to enjoying very timely health care. We like to believe on the North Shore that we have access to the best health care that can be offered. Two years in a row Maclean's magazine has identified the North Shore as being one of the areas in Canada that has the best access to health care.

So what is wrong? There's something really wrong with this picture when we have the North Shore, which we all know as being a reasonably affluent area…. We have a good hospital; we have good doctors. What is wrong with this picture that we now have a number of specialists who are so frustrated in their work that they have said: "We are not going to offer services"?

Well, I think it indicates just that. It indicates, on the part of doctors, just an absolute and total frustration over the lack of resources. They tell me they cannot adequately treat their patients. They are frustrated. They are just at their wits' end, and I think that the fact that they would take this action is illustrative of their frustration.

We know that health care, as we have known it, is not sustainable over the long run. The other day my colleague the Minister of Health Services pointed out to us that the increase in health budgets over last year is almost a billion dollars. He pointed out that every year the health budget increases and increases, and yet as the budget increases, so the population's trust and confidence in the system decreases.

There's something wrong with that. It shows us that we just can't keep throwing money at the system. It just doesn't work. We have to start to be, I think, more creative. We have to somehow get our heads outside of this picture and start to think outside the box on how we are going to fix the delivery of health care in this province. If we were to continue on this present route, by the year 2010, which is not very far off, health care would be over $12 billion. That would be the status quo of health spending. We simply can't go in that direction.

Now, what have we done? What are we going to do as a government to try to address this? Well, obviously we have to try to find efficiencies. That is what the Health ministry is doing at the present time. We also have to do other things, and these have been done. There has been a complete shake-up in the way that the Health ministry is organized. For the first time we have a Minister of Health Planning whose task it is to actually plan for some long-range solutions to the problems in health.

One of the things we discovered when we were in opposition was that the Health ministry did no planning. It had absolutely no idea where it was going. It was just crisis to crisis and more crisis and more money and another crisis and more money, with

apparently no strategic plan about where the system was going. There did not appear to be a plan to develop the human resources that were necessary.

Now, we know this situation is not just in British Columbia, but we have to look after our own home before we can start to look outside. This is why we now have a Minister of Health Planning who will be looking at ways to get more nurses into the system. She is going to be looking at specific proposals to get more doctors.

We also have a Ministry of Health Services to look at the daily, run-of-the-mill services. Within that ministry are two ministers of state, of which I am one. My colleague is the Minister of State for Mental Health. These ministers of state were created so that we could start to address those things in the health care system which, over a period of time, are going to enable us to deliver more timely and more economical health care.

We all know that one of the biggest problems faced in the health care system today is that many people are receiving what is called inappropriate care. These people are usually elderly. They are usually in acute care beds, not because they need acute care treatment but because there is no other bed in the system for them. We hope that by having someone in our ministry who is focusing on these problems, over the next few years we will start to reap the benefits of those decisions.

I would like to conclude on a slightly more optimistic note, the Olympics, which we are looking forward to, hopefully in the year 2010. This government is very supportive of the whole Olympic bid, and it has incredible benefits and relationships to the North Shore. Of course, we are looking forward to the possibility of some of our facilities being used during the Olympics. We have Grouse Mountain, which may be used for some events. If they're not used for events, they will be used for practice. Certainly, at the North Shore Winter Club, in my riding, or at Karen Magnussen Arena, we look forward to having figure skaters or hockey players practise.

We hope it will bring together people who, for the last ten years, have felt that there really hasn't been something that we could work on in this province. It will bring together people with a common purpose. It's something we can work on that is going to showcase British Columbia so that in the year 2010 we can go out into the world and say: "Hey, we did it; we have put this province back on track. We have brought prosperity and hope to the people of British Columbia."

V. Anderson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate you on your elevation to the high office that you have received. I look forward to the guidance and direction that you will give us at the Legislature during this coming term.

I wish to respond to the Speech from the Throne and also to the economic and fiscal update. It's different this time. I have responded to at least nine others of these over the last number of years, only this time I respond not as a member of the opposition but of the government.

Let me go back and review the context from which I speak. Some 20 years ago, in the last week of July, was the time when I decided to become involved in provincial politics. At that time I was working on the east side of Vancouver as a United Church minister, and I had become very aware of the negative impact that government actions had taken upon people's lives and upon their businesses. Under the tutelage of the federated anti-poverty group, FAPG, I learned even more of the drastic circumstances that deprived many residents from all parts of the province of their well-being.

As part of that involvement in politics I became president of the British Columbia Liberal Party in 1985. At that time, it was both provincial and federal in one organization. In 1986 I ran as a possible federal candidate and also in the provincial election and was defeated in Vancouver East. However, in 1991 we had moved into the Marpole community, and I was privileged to be elected as MLA for Vancouver-Langara. So for nine years now I have had the opportunity to see the circumstances of the people of this province become even more difficult and more burdensome.

It has been a sad time to realize that government words continually did not match their actions. Regulations piled up in every aspect of government to make life more difficult for those whose lives were difficult enough because of poverty, because of unemployment, because of sickness and because of the pressures of family disruption. Interestingly enough, in the previous throne speeches I was, unfortunately, able to comment on a regular basis that the throne speeches and the budget speeches were aimed not at what was a traditional constituency of the NDP but at the middle class. Consistently in those throne speeches and those budget speeches, those who were most in need were most overlooked.

Now I am privileged to be a part of the elected government that has committed itself to seek and to have an emphasis on equity and equality for all. The principles and values expressed are fairness, equality of opportunity and responsibility, equality under the law, compassion for those in need. Included in this is a new approach to provide children and families with the real support they need to lead healthy and happy lives. Funding will be targeted to where it is most needed, to the people who need help most.

Unfortunately, these promises have not been heard by many throughout the general public. The news media has not covered them in their stories about legislative developments. They have picked up comments on economic development, but they ignored comments about the well-being of the people of the province. They ignored the emphasis that has been part of each of our presentations: that funds and economic reality are important, only as they bring the possibility for social well-being and provide programs that enable social care to be undertaken.

In the economic and fiscal update emphasis was placed by the minister on rebuilding our collective economy, which has been spiralling downward for many years. Why this emphasis? Let me quote: "If we don't do something now, over time B.C. will wither away and end up being a have-not province, without the strength to support quality social programs. That's not what British Columbians want or deserve."

Let me use an analogy of making a major renovation of a family home. The need, of course, is to have a family conference and to have a vision of the end result, and then to have a plan of how to get there. In implementing the plan for the renovation of this house, one first must tear down the old structures and put in their place a new foundation, new plumbing, new wiring, new heating, etc. The walls are completed. The painting is done. The finishing is added. Finally, the furniture is brought in. Then it's ready for the people to move in and enjoy.

Each stage of that renovation must be done in a sequence to achieve the desired result. One important prerequisite is to have the financial plan in place, to know what the resources are to make this project possible. So the family must first consider their financial income and then develop a plan to pay the bills as they arrive.

To undertake the major social renovations which we need within the province, we must also have a plan and a sequential process, and we must begin with the financial viability of a proven economic system within the province. This initial focus on finances is not to indicate a disinterest in social needs and opportunities. It is, rather, to provide a firm basis upon which social reforms can be developed.

In the meantime, there are pledges to maintain basic services, social services, until better service can be put in place. These renewed services are to be developed with the guidance of the people of the province. So there is a pledge to renew all the services that government provides — not to just continue what is not working but to develop current services for current needs. This is not only a reasonable and healthy way to go but is absolutely necessary to build a renewed lifestyle for all British Columbians.

Part of this undertaking is a new approach to appreciate that we must be inclusive, not exclusive. The focus on education and health is inclusive, not exclusive. Education is not just about the school system. Rather, it is about the whole educational experience of children, youth, working adults and seniors — an educational process that covers all of one's life. Health is not just about a hospital system where one treats the sick, but it is about the healthy lifestyle of all ages — children, youth, working adults and seniors. All must be part of a healthy program so that we have healthy people and healthy communities.

For too long we have thought of people's needs and opportunities in stovepipe ministries, where the actions of one ministry were unrelated to others. We even have had the experience where the actions of a program within one ministry were unrelated to the other programs of that same ministry. For too long we have thought of people in bits and pieces rather than responding to them as whole persons with many interrelated desires and opportunities in their communities.

We believe we must relate to people, all of whom are family and community members, each being of equal importance and validity. All of us have disabilities to more or less degree. These must be acknowledged and responded to for the well-being of all of us. All of us have special needs which need to be recognized within the wholeness of families and communities. Support programs need to respond to actual, personal opportunities.

When we think of the family, the need of each person in that family is important. Each one, though, is very different, but it is as we work together that we get the best results not only for the collective family but for each individual within it. Every member of the family is special. Every one of our children is equally special to me and my wife, yet each one of them is different and each must be treated differently. At different times each will have their opportunity for priority consideration.

We need to work in our community with hundreds of community organizations and societies that seek to partner with one another and with governments to provide community services to people of all ages in all social realities. We have a Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services in which we would coordinate and interrelate with the programs of the community to strengthen them, to support them and to enable the communities, each in its own way, to take up their challenges and opportunities.

Our vision as government is to share in cooperative supportive programs that are responsible to individual and community opportunities. Our motto might well be: "Together we can, and together we will." Over the years the caucus has looked at a basic value statement, and that value statement has become a foundation of our thinking and our planning. I'd like to share part of that value statement with you today.

The value statement says we support the rights and freedoms and dignity of individual British Columbians and encourage their responsible participation in forms of social organization which articulate a common interest. The value statement says we are committed to achieving a fair-minded and prosperous society by means of a sustainable, competitive and compassionate free enterprise system in which individual initiative is balanced by protection of the freedoms and dignity of all citizens and which is qualified to sustain vital services to those in need.

It also states that we believe government must be responsive to the needs of the people of the province and must seek their responsible participation in the economic and social well-being of British Columbia. One of the special realities in British Columbia is the

necessity to respond more effectively to the opportunities of the aboriginal people, who are significant members of our province and of our communities.

A new first citizens forum has been appointed so we can plan and act together, and additional funds have been given to the First Citizens Fund of the province. New undertakings to support the improvement of the quality of life, the education and health care of aboriginal families both on and off reserves, are a commitment. Also, there is a commitment to address urban aboriginal issues in a manner that listens to the people of the community and to fast-track treaty talks — not only with talk but with action and, more importantly, with results.

May I suggest that all of us as residents in the province need a great dose of what I call CPC, meaning communication between each other, patience with each other and cooperation amongst all of us: communication, patience and cooperation.

I would be remiss if I did not express appreciation to the residents of Vancouver-Langara for the privilege of serving them now for over nine and a half years. Vancouver-Langara is a friendly, diverse, multicultural community — primarily residential but integrated with local businesses, commercial and industrial enterprises.

Our community is, in many ways, a gateway to Vancouver, as it comes off the Oak Street Bridge and goes, as of this last election, from the Fraser River to 31st Avenue, from Granville to Fraser Street. There are 50,000 residents who, over these last number of years, have increasingly included multicultural, multi-ethnic representatives from around the world.

Our community is one of great history within the city of Vancouver, because along the Fraser River was the home of the first nations people thousands of years ago, and there has been that continuous presence in our community.

More recently than the thousands-of-years context were the settlements of the non-aboriginal people in the early 1860s — indeed, in many people's minds, pre-dating the actual development of Vancouver itself. From the very beginning that was a multi-ethnic and multiracial community.

Much of the area in which the residents and the businesses now operate was still forest land until after the Second World War. Since then, the trees have gradually been taken down, and new homes and businesses have developed. From the 1980s on we have had the rapid redevelopment of the community and the encouragement of having even more ethnic and national representatives from around the world. It is a great place to live, study, play and make friends.

I must also express my appreciation to hundreds of volunteers who, over 14 years, have given time, effort and resources towards building a party that might be re-elected to be a responsible, people-oriented government within British Columbia. Their hope and promise has been picked up by our present government, and it is our aim to fulfil the vision that they have provided for us.

Again, I appreciate the opportunity of being in this Legislature and particularly the opportunity of being in government so that with my 76 other colleagues, we can work and plan together. We can listen to the people of the province and of our own ridings, and we can plan with them a community in which all people may be respected, appreciated and honoured.

Hon. C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, let me first offer my hearty congratulations to you — and the Deputy Speaker — on your election to your new role. I know that both of you will serve this House very well over the mandate of this government. The fact that both of you have already spent a substantial amount of time in this House, I know, will guide you in making sure that we all behave. I think that's what you're supposed to be doing.

With a mandate of 77 in this House, with a historic mandate for this government, there's no question this is going to be a different kind of government from ones we've had in the past. British Columbians resoundingly said they wanted change. They got behind the B.C. Liberal candidates in this last election, and they voted resoundingly for change.

I would like to thank not just all of the members who joined us here in the House after this election but all of the volunteers, all of the people who worked so hard to elect this government after ten years of the worst government we've seen in British Columbia's history — all those thousands of people who worked their guts out to make sure that the government finally changed. And, boy, did it change.

When we travelled this province from corner to corner to corner to corner, British Columbians said that they were fed up with what's been going on. They said that it was time to come forward, to lay their labour on the table and say: "We're prepared to work. We're prepared to get behind our candidates who are representing change in this election." That is why this government represents the historic mandate in this House in British Columbia.

That is not due just to the members who were elected to serve today. That is due to those thousands of volunteers who put in literally millions of hours to make sure that their will was heard, that finally, after ten years of an arrogant government that refused to listen to British Columbians, their voice would be heard in the Legislature of British Columbia.

On a personal note, I would add that for me to sit on the government side of the House is tremendously special. It may be hard for you to believe this, but I actually joined the Liberal Party before my colleague from Vancouver-Langara, who spoke before me. My father was a candidate for the provincial Liberals in three provincial elections. He lost every single time, but his hope was always that one day in British Columbia we would see a B.C. Liberal government again in Victoria. He worked throughout his life for that. He joined the Liberal Party in 1959, when he became

president of the Burnaby-Willingdon — I guess at the time it was Burnaby-Richmond — riding association. He worked in every single election, unsuccessfully, until he finally died in 1995.

He never saw me get elected. He never saw the Liberals get elected to government. He never saw our current Premier take his oath at his swearing-in, but I know that the day of the election was a day that would have made my father enormously proud. So to be able to stand on the government side of the House, finally, after all those years of work that my father put in and that he forced me to put in, quite frankly, when he made me go knocking on doors with him, when I was uninterested and far too young to be taking up such activities…. This would be an enormously proud day for him as well.

What did British Columbians tell us in the last election? They said that it was time for a change. They said that they were fed up. After the experience of 1996, when the B.C. Liberals got 42 percent of the vote but didn't get into government, where so many people said, "Well, we were just sure you were going to get elected so we didn't go out and necessarily put in 100 percent of our labour," British Columbians said: "We will not make the same mistake again. We now know what happens when we stay silent and allow someone else to do the work for us. We know what happens when we sit back and assume that the outcome is predetermined."

British Columbians said in the last election: "No, we are going to do it differently this time. We are going to put our backs into it. We are going to be a part of the change for the future of British Columbia." And that is exactly what they did. They got behind this government — this Premier and, most importantly, our platform. They got behind a platform for historic change, a new era for British Columbia; a new era of hope and opportunity for every British Columbian, no matter where you live; a new era for our economy, where people can have hope for jobs. No matter where you live in British Columbia, you have a hope of being able to stay there so that you can raise your children and they can be educated and have jobs there.

For too many years British Columbia has been a place where, if you wanted to work, you had to move down to Vancouver or Victoria. For too many years towns like Mackenzie, Prince Rupert and Smithers have been slowly withering away under a government that just didn't care anymore. Those have been towns where you walk down the street, and every time you go you see a few more "Closed" signs, a few more businesses for sale. That means that people's futures are being taken away from them. When somebody starts a business, it's not just an income for them. It's not just a way to support their family. It's their life's dream invested in that business. If that business is choked by government regulation, by overtaxation, by an economy that drives people out of the province instead of welcoming them in, that business means that someone's dream is lost.

There have been too many dreams that have been strangled by government over that last ten years.. It is time for a government in Victoria that is prepared to say: "We want to help you build your dreams, and British Columbia is the place you can do that. No matter where you live in Canada, no matter where you live in the world, British Columbia is a place where you can make your dreams come true." That is what British Columbia has always been about.

When my great-grandparents first came to this province, they came here because this place was a dream for them. They left Scotland. They left their language, their farm, their families, their friends. They left everything that they knew, and they came to a place that they knew nothing about. But they knew that British Columbia represented a dream, represented a hope for the future. They sacrificed everything to come to a place that was entirely unknown, because it was a dream. They built their dreams in this province. They made their family here. They provided for their children and created a future in the fishing industry for them. British Columbia was good to my family.

British Columbia has been good to thousands of families. We should remember, as we sit in this House today, that British Columbia still represents that dream for millions of people all over the world. People all over the world are prepared to risk their lives to come to British Columbia, and it is our duty as elected representatives to make sure that this province is everything they dreamed it could be and that for every single person who comes to our shores and becomes a citizen of British Columbia, this province offers them every opportunity we can to build their futures, to provide for their children, to create their dreams. That is our duty as elected representatives.

I think that over the last ten years, many of the people who have sat in this place have forgotten that duty, forgotten that we are here to serve the people, not the other way around. This Legislature is a creation of the people who live here, and it is our duty to make sure that we care for the province in a way that suits their dreams, not the other way around. In the election we said to British Columbians that we wanted to create a new province, that we wanted to build a place that was different from the place we'd been over the last ten years.

Ten years ago British Columbia was number one in Canada. We were number one by almost every single measure in the country. People were flocking across our borders to be a part of this province. No matter where you went in the world, if you told them you were from British Columbia, everyone would say: "You are so very lucky." And we are lucky.

But over the last ten years fewer and fewer people say that. Fewer and fewer people say, "Boy, you know, British Columbia is a place that I would love to go live," because there aren't so many jobs in this province anymore. The opportunities have been diminished. Let's not forget this is still the best province in the best country in the world. There's no question about that.

But if people can't find a job, if they can't provide for their own future, how can they afford to come to this province and live? We want to change this economy. We want to create an economy that works for everybody.

We want to put money back in people's pockets. That's the key to getting our economy going again. The historic 25 percent tax cut that our government announced on virtually the first day of office is the first step in getting that economy back on track. Let's put money back in people's pockets. Let's give them money to spend in their own communities so that they can go out and buy a dinner or renovate their home or whatever it is they decide they want to do. Let's let them decide where they will spend their money. Let's let them spend their money in their local community, where they can create jobs, where they can create economic activity, where they can build hope for someone else in their community. That's what tax cuts are all about.

In every jurisdiction where personal income tax cuts have been tried, they've worked. It's meant more revenue to government from personal income taxes. That's what we are going to create in British Columbia.

The other thing we need to remember in B.C. — and I'm from the lower mainland — is that all of us depend on what happens outside the southwest corner of this province. We all depend on the mining and forest industries as the lifeblood of British Columbia.

Those are the industries that sustain us. Forestry has always been the industry that sustained British Columbia. Each of us, no matter where we live, depends on the forest industry being a healthy industry. That's one of the reasons I'm so very, very proud of this budget, a budget that reduces the PST on machinery and equipment, a budget that reduces the corporate capital tax, one that reduces business taxes, one that reduces the tax on bunker fuel. These are important reductions. What they will mean is that investment will come flooding back into British Columbia. People will be able to thrive in the forest and mining industries again in our province.

You probably know, hon. Speaker, that mining jobs are the best-paid jobs in the province, the best-paid jobs you can find. We should be encouraging our mining industry. Forest jobs — some of the best paid jobs you can find — have sustained families for generation after generation and small towns and small coastal and interior communities everywhere in British Columbia. That's what our province is about; that's what we were founded on. We were founded on our resource industries, and it is time we had a government that is proud of our resources industries, a government that is prepared to trumpet our success in resources instead of being ashamed of them, a government that is prepared to stand up for forest workers, stand up for mining workers, and say: "Yes, that is what we do in British Columbia." And guess what. We do it the best of anywhere in the world. No matter where you live in British Columbia, you will find that our mining and forestry technology is the best, the most refined, anywhere in the world.

What have we been doing with that over the last ten years? We've been exporting it. We have been exporting our talent from every corner of this province because there hasn't been enough work to go around, in particular for the mining industry. The mining industry is the number one user of high-tech services in British Columbia, the number one. Don't we want to grow our high-tech industry? Well, the way to grow our high-tech industry is to grow our mining industry. The way to grow our high-tech industry is to grow our forest industry. Let's attract investment back so that people want to build again in British Columbia. When they build and modernize, they'll use the high-tech industry. Particularly in your riding, hon. Speaker, but also in my community that'll create even more jobs.

That's what we need to be thinking about in British Columbia. We can no longer have a province that's divided between the urban and the rural. We can no longer afford a government that thinks we benefit from exacerbating those divisions. We need a government that recognizes that British Columbia is one great place and that we all depend on one another for our success and our survival. That is what's going to put British Columbia back on the map: a government that recognizes that we are all part of this great experiment, this great dream we call British Columbia and that our interests aren't different and we aren't served well by a government that wants to divide us.

It's time we had a government that wants to bring us together, that wants to create consensus, that wants to listen to people from every corner no matter what they do. That government was elected on May 16 of this year.

I was appointed, when the cabinet was sworn in, as Minister of Education. The reason the economy is so important to me is that we will not be able to support health care and education services in British Columbia without a strong and vibrant economy. That's the key to making sure those services are always provided.

Over the last ten years we've seen our ability to provide those services diminish, and people have watched as their health care system withers away. They've watched the education system struggle as cuts happen at the local level. That's not because those systems aren't filled with good people who work hard. It's because government's ability to fund and care for and manage those services has been diminished. We need to make sure we have a sound economy so that we can pay for those services, but more importantly, we need to have sound management in government and apply good management principles so that we make sure that every single penny we spend on health care and education goes toward helping the patient or helping the student.

In the Ministry of Education we are charting a brand-new direction, one that we presented to British Columbians in the last election in our platform and one that we are pursuing now. We are going to introduce flexibility into our education system so that school

districts are able to have more ability to make decisions about where they spend their money so that not everything is micromanaged from Victoria, which is perhaps the worst way to manage money. Local school districts can make decisions about spending their money that meet their local needs in their communities. What a surprise. What a first in British Columbia: letting a local school district that's elected by local people make decisions that are good for local priorities.

We want to build accountability into the system so that every single parent, taxpayer, student and citizen knows how well their education system is doing. We want to make the results for school districts public so that people understand how well their children are doing.

I want to be clear. We don't want to just publish the year-end results at the end of a year for students, because that doesn't tell you very much. All it tells you is that maybe a kid who got in with high marks at the beginning of the year ended with high marks at the end of the year or that a child who started with low marks ended with low marks. That doesn't tell you very much.

What we need to know is how far the school system has brought our children. There are kids who start in our school system with huge obstacles, children who can't read or write when they start in the school system. I see one member pointing to himself, but I'm sure that's not true.

There are children who start their school years with very, very few measurable abilities to read or write. Our school system can take those kids and teach them. It can get them to score maybe 60 percent on an exam. There aren't very many measurements that would say, "Boy, 60 percent on an exam is great," at the end of the year. But you know what? For that child, that could be a miracle. It could be a miracle that that child got from where he or she started to where he or she ended at the end of that school year.

We should be celebrating those successes. We should be celebrating those schools, those teachers and those students that make those kinds of achievements, because not everybody enters the system with exactly the same advantages. Many, many children will enter with huge disadvantages and disabilities, and we need to recognize that when we measure our system. Every child in our system has different needs. Parents need to be able to look at the results from school districts and say: "Does this district, this school, provide what my child needs?"

Not every single child is going to be academically inclined and university bound. Many, many children will have different assets. Our school system needs to recognize that as well. We need to have choice in our school system. We need to create a system where, within our public schools, there are some differences, where a child can access a different kind of program or curriculum or learning environment within the public system.

I am a big supporter of our independent school movement in British Columbia. They have done an enormously good job in supplementing our public school system; there is no question about it. Government supports it, and government will continue to support our independent schools.

At the same time, I am a passionate advocate for public education. I want our public education system to compete on an even footing with independent schools. I want our public education system to offer the kinds of choices that the independent school system already offers. Parents pay for public education through their taxes. Why should they have to pay again in order to access an independent school because they can't find choice within their public system?

We want to create those choices within the public system. We want to allow parents to decide how best their children should be educated. The decision about how children are best educated is not best made by politicians in Victoria. It is best made, and rightfully made, by the parents of those children who are charged with raising them. That is every parent's right, and we intend to respect that right in British Columbia. We intend to enhance that right. That is what choice will be all about.

This is the best province in the best country in the world. There's no question about it. I know that every single member — including the two opposition members — who was elected in the last election intends to do his or her best to serve our province. I know those of us who sit on the government side of this House, in particular, are intent on restoring the pride that British Columbians once felt about this place — restoring the sense of hope and opportunity that our province has so long represented for people from around the world.

I know that the members of the government side of this House are dedicated to working day and night to make sure that British Columbia goes back to its rightful place in Canada — a place that was number one ten years ago and that will be number one again; a place in this country that will provide, for everyone who wants them, jobs and opportunities and hopes for the future. This is going to be a place, once again, where every child can expect to be able to work in the community in which they were raised, where every single citizen can walk proudly and say: "I am so very, very lucky; I'm from British Columbia. I am from the best province in the best country in the world."

H. Long: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the throne speech and the economic speech. I want to congratulate the Speaker of the House on his election to his position — and also yourself as the Deputy Speaker.

I did, back in 1986, sit in these chambers. At that time the Speaker of the House was a member...a different government of the day. At that time the economy was very robust. It was one that you could be proud of. In 1991, as you know, there was a catastrophe

with that government, and we were all removed from office. I'm not saying that because we were removed from office, it went the way it did, but I will say that it went that way because the NDP government had no idea how to run a province, how to run a business or how to run anything in this province, and they took it to ruin.

H. Long: This has nothing to do with my speech. I'm not reading it, if you notice.

I followed it. For the ten years I followed what the NDP were doing. I watched what my member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast was doing. Not only was I dismayed, but I was ashamed. I was ashamed of the government; I was ashamed of what they were doing. I looked at the rest of the world and the rest of Canada and I said: "How do they see us?" We were being laughed at; we were being ridiculed. I think it's time we brought this province back to where it is looked at from a different eye altogether, one that looks at a community and a province of prosperity rather than gloom and doom, which they had taken…. I could go into all the antics that the NDP did and what they stand for, but I don't think it's necessary.

I want to thank all the people who got me elected and got everybody in this House elected. I want to thank my family, and I want to thank everyone that worked so diligently. Believe me, in my riding it's a very tough one. Powell River–Sunshine Coast starts at Port Mellon in the south. It runs all the way to Oweekeno Inlet, a small Indian village on Oweekeno Lake in the north, which is on the end of Rivers Inlet.

In that area, of course, is the Mid-Coast forest district. On the lower coast we have a pulp mill in Port Mellon. We have Langdale, Gibsons, Sechelt, Pender Harbour, and then we have a ferry between Pender Harbour and Powell River. There's as much difference between Powell River and the Sunshine Coast as there would be, almost, between Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast. It's just different lifestyles and a different way of being. So it's a very diverse riding.

It's one that, over the years, has supplied timber to the lower mainland sawmills on a regular basis and still does to this day. During the NDP government they virtually ruined the industry and logging. We saw our pulp mill in Powell River — the number of staff that work there — go from nearly 2,000 down to about 1,000. It was devastating, and we have to bring the forest industry back.

There's another thing too. Most of the area we have is great — beautiful. Everybody says their riding is the most beautiful place in the world, and I agree. I've been to many of them, and they are beautiful. But I notice everybody comes to my riding to holiday, so it's got to be the most beautiful. I have to say that, because it's just the truth. I'm afraid if I make it too inviting to all the members, they'll all want to move to Powell River, and I'll have a tough time getting the nomination next time around. So I'm not going to invite you today.

There's one other aspect. I was listening earlier to different members speaking, and they were talking about these buildings, what they stand for, how beautiful they are. I have to admit, being back here after ten years, that they are gorgeous — some of the best in Canada and surely the best in B.C. as far as I'm concerned. When I'm here I think: what are they for? What do we do here? We only represent the people who voted us in here. That's all this chamber is. It's a place for us to make a decision on their behalf, and we're only here for a short time. We're only in here when they want us here, and if we don't do the job properly, we won't be here.

Therefore, I'm standing here today saying that I'm following a government which I believe in. I believe in the Liberal government; I believe in the leadership of this government more so today than I have ever before. I believe we have more input, as MLAs, into this government than any government in the history of B.C. and probably Canada. When I say that, I say that with honesty. I was here in '86 to '91. I knew the process then; I know the process now. It's inviting, and it feels good to have the input into committees, into the forming of legislation and the right to speak out against it or for it in caucus, and so on. It feels good, completely different from what I felt before. I'm not putting down the other government. They did good things too. We had a good economy then, but it's just a new era. It's a new way of being governed, and it's a new way of participating.

I'm going to have to break this off, but before I do, I want to bring one thing to the attention of this group here today, and that is that the very foundation these buildings sit on comes from my riding. The stones that make it come from my riding. We have been a part of these buildings the whole time. The very granite we sit on today comes from Nelson Island, Quarry Bay, right off Pender Harbour. It's still there today; some of the machinery is still there.

With that, it looks like someone has to raise a matter in the House, so I'm going to have to break off. I was kind of starting to enjoy this.

Hon. G. Plant: I rise pursuant to section 13(12) of the Provincial Court Act to lay before the Legislative Assembly the report and recommendations of the 2001 Judicial Compensation Committee.

I want to tell the House that the report is dated April 30, 2001. It has been available on the website at the Ministry of Attorney General for a number of weeks now. I am obliged to advise the House of some

of the provisions of the Provincial Court Act that apply to this process. The first is this.

"The Legislative Assembly may, by a resolution passed within 21 sitting days after the date on which the report and recommendations are laid before the Legislative Assembly under subsection 12, (a) resolve to reject one or more of the recommendations made in the report as being unfair or unreasonable and (b) set the remuneration, allowances or benefits that are to be substituted for the remuneration, allowances or benefits proposed by the rejected recommendations."

Subsection 13(14) of the Provincial Court Act provides as follows: "If a recommendation is not rejected by the Legislative Assembly within the time limited…" — that's the 21 sitting days — "…the judges are entitled to receive the remuneration, allowances and benefits proposed by that recommendation beginning on January 1 of the year in respect of which the recommendation was made."

The process for determining the compensation for Provincial Court judges is established by statute, the Provincial Court Act. That process and that act are informed by constitutional principles established by the Supreme Court of Canada. The cornerstone principle is the principle of judicial independence, and the process established by the Provincial Court Act which leads to my tabling a report is intended to respect judicial independence, which really is a foundation of our democratic system of government.

Every three years a Judicial Compensation Committee is formed, and the recommendations of this committee apply to the years 2001, 2002 and 2003. The report speaks for itself, but it is important that we as legislators remind ourselves of the hard work of the Provincial Court bench in British Columbia. They now hear 90 percent of all criminal cases in the province. They deal with a wide variety of other important and difficult matters: child apprehension cases, family disputes, custody and small-claims civil cases that affect the ordinary lives of many British Columbians.

Our court, the Provincial Court of British Columbia, is at the forefront in Canada in terms of its contribution to reforms of how the judicial system and our legal system operate. It has led the way in terms of its contribution and commitment to processes like mediation and the flow and management of the cases that appear before it. As I think we all know, day after day they are required to decide the most difficult cases that appear before them, oftentimes in circumstances of extraordinarily high public scrutiny. We are lucky to have them as part of our system of government and law in British Columbia.

The Provincial Court Act specifies that we can in this assembly reject the committee's recommendations only if those recommendations are clearly unfair or unreasonable. I have advised the government that the recommendations in this report are neither unfair nor unreasonable. The government has accepted my advice. The government, therefore, accepts the report and its recommendations.

I want to thank the committee members for their hard work over many weeks and months in looking at the work of the court and entertaining a variety of important submissions and contributions from representatives of the legal system and the public at large, and delivering a report that I think is, in itself, a significant contribution to our understanding of the important work done by the Provincial Court of British Columbia.