Hansard -- Volume 2, Number 11 -- Tuesday, August 7, 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

Introductions by Members		1400

Oral Questions
	Government handling of nurses' dispute	1405
	J. MacPhail
	Government handling of health professionals' dispute	1410
	J. Kwan
	Sale of Skeena Cellulose	1415
	R. Harris
	Chevron oil refinery and pollution issue	1415
	R. Lee
	Physician supply in B.C.	1420
	I. Chong
	Charter schools	1420
	S. Brice

Motion without Notice		1420
	Committee of Supply to sit in two sections. Hon. G. Collins

Throne Speech Debate
	Hon. R. Coleman	1425
	D. MacKay	1440
	R. Stewart	1450
	V. Anderson	1505
	P. Bell	1535
	H. Long	1605
	B. Locke	1625
	R. Visser	1630
	Hon. B. Barisoff	1655
	T. Christensen	1715

Health Care Services Collective Agreements Act (Bill 15). Hon. G. Bruce		1815
	Introduction and first reading

Hon. G. Campbell: Prior to introductions I would just like to take a moment to say thank you. Last week British Columbia hosted the annual Premiers' conference. It takes place in our province once every decade. I just want to say that the professional assistance we had from our office of protocol, from the people who were at work and making sure that this conference worked on behalf of British Columbians and all the Premiers, was exceptional. I want to say thank you to them.

I also want to say thank you to the literally dozens of volunteers who took time out of their lives to make sure that all of the delegates who came to the annual Premiers' conference felt comfortable, recognized the incredible city we have here in our capital city of Victoria and understood the way that people feel about our province, as they carried out their deliberations. It was a very good conference because there were an awful lot of very good people that worked very hard to put British Columbia in the best light. On behalf of the entire government, I'd like to say thank you very much.

Hon. G. Hogg: I'm pleased today to introduce a visitor from Edmonton. She is the executive director of the Alberta Association of Services for Children and Families, and she's in British Columbia discussing various models of accreditation with our staff. Would the House please welcome Ms. Catherine Hedlin.

Hon. S. Hagen: We have as guests in the House today two people from my community of Comox Valley, one of the most beautiful parts of the province. I'd like to introduce to the House Mr. Lucas Stiefvater, who is the manager and owner of Kingfisher Spa and Oceanside Resort, to which all of you are welcome to come and spend a weekend at your expense, and Mr. Glen Griffiths, also from Kingfisher Spa and Oceanside Resort. Please make them welcome.

A. Hamilton: I would like to welcome to my constituency teams representing Calgary, Windsor and Victoria who are participating in the Canadian Big League Softball Championships. The championships are hosted by Little League District No. 7, and games will be played at Juan de Fuca Parks and Recreation Centre until Friday, August 10. The winning team from there will go on to play in the Little League World Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Would the House please make these young ladies welcome.

J. MacPhail: Over the weekend the B.C. nurses tabled a new offer to the government, and the nurses have made substantial progress and are bargaining in good faith. The Minister of Labour also inserted himself in the process by meeting directly with the union. We've had media reports from that. There was also an emergency cabinet meeting today. Even Vince Ready was involved. His recommendations could have been instrumental in resolving the transit dispute earlier than was chosen by this government.

It's our view that the two sides are now closer than ever to a resolution. The cooling-off period has taken a step toward conclusion today.

J. MacPhail: The government has a choice that they can ask the parties to bargain in good faith. The government can legislate, or they can actually meet with the parties and bring Vince Ready in to resolve the matter. Will the minister today commit that he will bargain in good faith with the good office of Vince Ready and not legislate a settlement?

Hon. G. Bruce: It was a very long weekend. It's a situation I've found myself in, in several instances now, of picking up pieces that were left from the past. It's very difficult dealing with a situation when you're coming in after the damage has already been done. This isn't, of course, the first issue we've had to deal with. These two together will be the second and the third. I'm working very hard in all of what I can do to bring about a proper and effective resolution to this issue.

J. MacPhail: By the minister inserting himself directly into bargaining, he is now fully in charge and must take full responsibility for the actions that occur subsequent to today. The consequences of a legislated settlement are clear: the resignations, the recriminations, the resentment. They're a workforce that will not be able to carry out its duties. All of that is to the detriment of patient care. The Minister of Labour has not even uttered the words "patient care."

Again to the Minister of Labour. The nurses have compromised, but it takes two to achieve a settlement. The Minister of Labour has now put himself in charge. Will the Minister of Labour take the olive branch that's been offered? Will he make sure that the current pride of this government in recriminations for the past is set aside, and will he offer a compromise of his own making?

Hon. G. Bruce: Patient care is absolutely the highest of our priorities, and I am convinced it is the

highest priority of the professional nurses in our health care system. Certainly, the people of British Columbia want a resolution that will ensure that we have good-quality patient care throughout the province when they need it.

J. Kwan: A legislated settlement will break the Premier's promise to value health care professionals. Patients are counting on this Premier to honour his promise to health care professionals. If this government's dispute with HSA does not get resolved, that will also throw the health care system into chaos. Will the minister get directly involved in this dispute with the health professionals, as he has with the nurses, or will he let HEABC do his job? Most important of all, will he give HEABC the mandate to do his job?

Hon. G. Bruce: It's a very difficult situation, as everyone knows. In speaking with me yesterday, the parties have shown their position as a change. They are still millions of dollars apart. It's a very, very large amount of money.

One thing, though, I think is really important to know. Whatever does happen, the people in our health care system — the paramedicals, the nurses — will be the highest-paid people in Canada, doing a very important job for all British Columbians from one end of this province to this end here.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant with a supplemental question.

J. Kwan: The fact is that dealing with the issue around health care, with the health professionals, would cost the government only a fraction of what this government had given to the corporate donors, their backers.

Again, to the Minister of Labour. I know that he's trying to portray a tough-guy position, but the question is: will he put aside politics and put patient care first? Will he work towards making sure that the mandate is given to HEABC to offer a fair settlement to the health care professionals?

Hon. G. Bruce: Let me make it very clear that this government has put politics second. We sit in this House having to undo and deal with a situation that the former government made an absolute mess of: the health care system in this province. After ten years of neglect by the NDP, we as the B.C. Liberal Party, the government today in British Columbia, are going to have to fix it. We know the responsibility of undertaking that role. We understand the task at hand. We will fix it for the people of British Columbia.

R. Harris: My question today is to the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise. It was reported last week in the media that the government plans to close Skeena Cellulose if an investor is not found for it by the end of August. Skeena Cellulose is a major contributor to the economy of a lot of communities in the northwest.

My question to the minister is: can you tell the House what the government is doing to ensure the future of Skeena Cellulose?

Hon. R. Thorpe: First of all, let's be very clear. This is about 6,500 families in the northwest. We are working with our partners to return Skeena Cellulose to the private sector. We have just concluded an extension of our banking arrangements with the TD Bank. We continue to meet with potential purchasers. I am working together with my ministry staff, SCI staff, the local 4 and all of our partners in trying to resolve this very complex issue as quickly as we can in order to return Skeena to the private sector.

R. Harris: The operations of Skeena Cellulose are scattered across the northwest. There are facilities in Prince Rupert, Hazelton, Smithers, Kitwanga and logging operations out of Stewart. Is this government considering the option of selling this facility as a whole or in pieces? Can the minister give us his position today?

Hon. R. Thorpe: Our ideal goal would be to sell Skeena Cellulose in total. However, we realize there are families and communities throughout the northwest that are involved. We will entertain the sale of parts of the company if people come forward with offers to buy part of the company.

R. Lee: Mr. Speaker, the residents of Burnaby North are very concerned about pollutants being released into the environment by the Chevron oil refinery. In fact, residents may have been kept in the dark by the company as to the seriousness of on-site pollutants. Can the minister tell my constituents what steps her ministry is taking to solve this problem?

Hon. J. Murray: My ministry is concerned about the potential risks that MTBE and other petroleum products can pose to health and to the environment. Chevron has that obligation to fully disclose information to the public, and that has not been happening adequately. As a result, in July my ministry ordered an issue for full disclosure of on-site data, and Chevron has agreed to that. Chevron has put forward several ways that communication to the public will be improved, and all contaminated-sites reports will be made public.

R. Lee: Will the minister tell my constituents what actions her ministry is taking to ensure the protection of their health and safety?

Hon. J. Murray: The ministry is working with Chevron to have the company collect and treat the groundwater on the site, test groundwater off of the site to check for any possible contaminants, set in motion a series of research projects that will assess any risk to public safety and that will look at how this came about in the first place and how we can avoid it in the future. So, again, any study results will be made available to the public upon completion, and the ministry will continue to work with the city of Burnaby, the people of Burnaby and Chevron to make sure that the kinds of communication that are needed are happening.

I. Chong: Currently B.C. graduates one doctor for every 32,225 British Columbians. That's the worst medical-grad-per-capita ratio of any province. In the past B.C. has had to recruit doctors from other provinces and other countries. So my question is to the Minister of Health Planning. Can she tell us what she is doing to improve and reverse this awful trend?

Hon. S. Hawkins: It is true that B.C. graduates only half the medical students we need, and we know we must do more. That's why we are committed to a ten-year health human resources strategy that includes a physicians strategy. We are committed to working with UBC medical school to set up satellite medical schools at UNBC and UVic, and we hope to get new medical students in there by 2004. The Minister of Advanced Education and I have met with both universities and the dean of medicine, and we're really working hard to move that forward.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head with a further supplementary question.

I. Chong: The fact of the matter is that the B.C. Medical Association has reported that 100,000 British Columbians currently do not have access to a family doctor. So I still need to ask the Minister of Health Planning to tell British Columbians what her government is doing to find a solution to this problem of access to a family doctor.

Hon. S. Hawkins: We are very aware of that issue, and I am very concerned. We all know that patients do better when they have continuity of care from a general practitioner. Again, in the few short weeks that we've been here, we've been working on a physician strategy to help patients meet those needs. That's why we are committed not only to increasing medical school spaces but also to increasing residencies. We've looked at options to increase spaces across the province. We're also working with the minister responsible for immigration in aggressive recruitment of foreign medical grads.

S. Brice: I have a question for the Minister of Education. The Minister of Education has made a number of remarks concerning the need for more choice in schools. My constituency office has received calls on this matter asking if the government intends to allow charter schools in B.C. Will the minister stand in the House today and tell British Columbians if she intends to open the door to charter schools in British Columbia?

Hon. C. Clark: I keep hearing the member for Vancouver-Hastings talking about her interest in health care. If only she'd shown that kind of interest in health care for the last ten years when her government was in power, we wouldn't be having the problem we're having today.

But I'll speak to the member's question. Before the election and during the election this government said that we would not be welcoming charter schools into the system. Now, after ten years in British Columbia, we have a government that's going to keep its promises. No, we will not be welcoming charter schools into the system.

We believe that choice can be welcomed through the public system as it stands. We think that we can create differences within our public school system that will accommodate the needs of every single child. There is no reason that a parent should have to pull their child out of the public school system in order to access the kinds of choices that are going to work for that child. That's what we're working toward in the public education system, and I look forward to doing that with school boards and with every single member of this House.

Hon. G. Collins: It's fairly long. I'll read it to the House. It is just a relatively standard motion that will

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to retake my position in the debate on the Speech from the Throne, which I stopped last week in order to bring in legislation to put the buses back on the road in the lower mainland of British Columbia. When I was giving my remarks last time, I spoke just briefly. I'll summarize as I move into the conclusion of what I had to say and then yield to one of my colleagues across the floor.

I spoke about what our government would do, how our government was going to be accountable, how our government was going to rebuild our economy and keep our commitments, being a government that would put before the people of British Columbia what it said it was going to do: follow through on what they said they were going to do and complete that plan over the period of time that we were in government. That is very critical to our success and credibility.

I also talked about accountability relative to balanced-budget legislation and truth-in-budget legislation. I also talked about establishing measurements for the cabinet ministers and that fact of the forgoing of pay relative to them completing their service plans and meeting their budgets. I also talked about the government caucus committees and the work that they will do and how we are opening up government for access to the public and to members of this Legislature.

Just as I was past that, I started to talk about merit employment and a professional public service. I'd started to tell a story about a person related to my ministry when I became the Solicitor General, relative to consumer protection in this province. I want to go back and finish that, because that was where I was cut short. I think it's instructive that I complete that today.

As a minister — for those of you that don't understand — you get briefed on relatively huge amounts of information on different sections of your ministry that you're responsible for. In the case of my ministry, one of those sections is consumer protection. It covers a whole plethora of things, everything from cemeteries to motor vehicle dealers and the rest of it — all relative to one department of government that almost works on a cost-recovery basis.

When I had my briefing with the particular individual by the name of Terry Barnett, who runs that division of government, I asked one question at the end of the discussion. I said: "What would you like to do? What would be important for you to change to make your portion of this ministry work better?" Immediately, the individual moved into a discussion about how there's a number of pieces of legislation, about 13 in total, that are affected by consumer protection in the province of British Columbia, how they could be consolidated into one fair trade act, how the implementation plan of that could go forward to reduce regulation and red tape and actually improve the enforcement of consumer protection in the province. My only job as a minister was to say: "Okay, do it."

Now, the response of the civil servant was: "This is refreshing." This individual had been briefing ministers for a number of years, had talked about issues in and around the ministry for a number of years, and had never been given direction or been allowed to go and take that initiative forward so that they could use their imagination and get better results for government. Hon. Speaker, that's all that was asked.

Reinforced by a phone call within ten days was a binder with a plan to consolidate those pieces of legislation, to outline the benefits of that consolidation, both the cost analysis and the benefit to the consumer in British Columbia and its protection. That's what a professional public service is all about. It's about us giving them the initiative to do the job that we want them to do.

As a minister of the Crown in the position of the Solicitor General and Minister of Public Safety, it is important that I say a couple of words about my ministry as I move towards the conclusion of my comments today. I'm responsible for a variety of things in addition to consumer protection through the ministry: gaming, liquor licensing, police, Corrections, residential tenancy and a number of other things.

You can imagine the work that needs to be done in and around these areas. The previous government was, frankly, absent in its real responsibility to the structure of gaming in the province and how it should be managed and regulated by government. Well, we're going to fix that. This government was absent in taking initiative relative to how liquor licensing should be managed for the benefit of everyone in the province. Hon. Speaker, we're going to work on that.

On the policing side of this province, although we do have a provincial force in the RCMP, accountability measurements and how they are going to perform have to be improved. Frankly, municipalities have told me that, and looking at my own budget in dealing with it, I'm aware of that as well. In Corrections, hon. Speaker, we have a number of facilities around the province that deal with a number of things, and as I learn about Corrections, I am finding that we've got some pretty interesting and innovative programs relative to the people that are held in Corrections in B.C.

We did promise, in the New Era document, another commitment, which we've already initiated the early work to start on: the modernizing of the Residential Tenancy Act in this province — something which has been a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine for the past five years. In 1996 the then Attorney General asked me how long I'd be taking in the estimates debates on residential tenancy, and I said: "I think we'll take a couple of hours." His response to me was: "Well, that'll be good, because I never understood that act when I was in law school, and I still don't understand it today."

I was promised a plain-language rewrite of that act by the previous government in 1997. It is now 2001. There is no plain-language rewrite. There is no work that has been done on it, and it is time to move it forward. That instruction has been given, because in our New Era document we made that commitment, and we'll follow through on it. We're going to aggressively move on the goals of the Premier to reduce regulation and red tape, improve operations and deal with issues in an upfront, honest and open manner in the ministry.

Having said that, I also must talk about my riding just briefly here today. All of these members of this Legislature have waxed upon it, and they all say, "I think I come from, or I am part of, the best, or maybe the best...." I do represent the best riding in the province. It's Fort Langley–Aldergrove, Aldergrove and Willoughby. There's a difference between my riding and these other ridings.

You know, being at the museum the other night for a reception at the Premiers' conference, I took a moment to have a look at the model of Fort Victoria. You should know that Fort Victoria was built after the fort at Fort Langley, but the fort at Fort Langley and the Hudson's Bay Company will celebrate 175 years in British Columbia next year. It is the birthplace of British Columbia. It is the birthplace of our government, and it's in the middle of the riding of Fort Langley–Aldergrove.

Hon. R. Coleman: I used to get less from the government side than I do today.

It's a strong family community. It's a community built on what I refer to as the volunteer capital of Canada. This is a community that no matter where you go, you will find community centres, you will find parks, you will find water parks, you will find gymnasiums, and you'll find arenas. Those were all initiated because volunteers got together and raised the

The history of Fort Langley–Aldergrove is a history of people working together to build a strong community and a strong future for all of us, but it's also about friends. It's a remarkable community of friends that stand by one another. Even though it's only 50 kilometres outside of Vancouver, this riding actually knows one another. This riding doesn't feel like an urban centre but really feels like a community where people can know one another, know their neighbours and trust their friends.

It is also a community that has been waiting a long time for a vision for British Columbia — a vision that will change their children's future, a vision that will change their businesses' futures, a vision that they can look back on and say, as the birthplace of British Columbia, that we can now look forward to greatness in B.C. once again. I just want to reiterate what that vision is. That vision is the same as the vision for every member of this Legislature, except two. That vision is this.

"1. A top-notch education system for students of all ages." What a remarkable thing, which we need for our children and our families and the future of our economy, to have a top-notch education system.

"2. High-quality public health care services that meet all the patients' needs where they live and when they need it." Rest assured, Mr. Speaker, that that is a commitment of the members of our government. We will work toward point 2 of our vision, to have that health care system.

"3. A thriving private sector economy that creates high-paying job opportunities." It's very important that we build a future for our young people and for the people of our province, to have those opportunities and careers in the economy.

"4. Safer streets and schools in every community." That's a vision. That's what we talk about when we care about our community, and we have volunteers and friends within them. It's what we believe in.

"5. Better services for children, families and first Nations." Nothing could be more important in building a strong foundation for our children and our families for their futures than that they can be safe, strong and build a future for themselves in this province.

"6. The fastest-growing technology industry in Canada." We know that's where the emerging economy is. We know that it's important to all of us. We've made that commitment in our vision to do something about it.

"7. A leading-edge forest industry that is globally recognized for its productivity and environmental stewardship." You know, it's high time that we stood up and told the rest of the world that we have the best foresters in the world. We have the best environmental standards on the land base, and we do not play second fiddle to anybody when it comes to managing our land.

"8. Greater equity and equality for British Columbia in Canada." I think we saw the start of that at the Premiers' conference, where our Premier took the leadership last week and started to actually bring the Premiers of this country together to work on a longer-term vision for this country. That's what leadership is about, and that's what we need to build that equality within a strong nation.

"9. The most open and accountable democratic government in Canada." We're the home of the open cabinet meeting. We're the home of the government caucus committee where every member of our caucus can come forward and put forward an opinion so it can come forward to cabinet and to other operations of government so we can work together. We are the home of open government, and we will get more open. We will do an even better job, and other provinces will follow suit as they see what the success of openness, honesty and integrity in government can do for a province.

"10. Responsible, accountable management of your public resources and tax dollars." You couldn't ask somebody else to give you money and say: "Let me do with it what I wish, and I'll never be accountable to you in any other business enterprise if you're dealing with a financial institution." We are given the tax dollars of the people of this province to manage and to operate this province properly, and that means we need to have performance plans. We need to have business plans, and we need to measure our outcomes so we know that we are doing the best we can for the people of B.C. with the money they give us.

I'm proud to be back in this House after another election. I'm proud to be back in this House because here we are today, part of the cusp of the true vision of great government in Canada. We will be here in four years, having taken a pen and checked off the plan. We will be here telling British Columbians that for the first time in the history of B.C. a government was elected that was accountable, that followed through and did exactly what it promised to do. We'll all be proud of it on that day.

D. MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my first duty as I stand in the House for the first time this afternoon is to congratulate you on your election to the Speaker's chair of this House.

What a great honour and privilege it is to stand in this House as the elected MLA for the largest geographic riding in the province. Although the boundaries have changed over the years, it is also a great honour to follow in the footsteps of people such as Cyril Shelford, who represented portions of the riding now called Bulkley Valley–Stikine. Mr. Shelford was a Minister of Agriculture and later served on the B.C. Forest Resources Commission.

The riding of Bulkley Valley–Stikine, in case you didn't know, is in the northwest portion of this province. By road it starts east of Burns Lake, and at its apex it travels into the Yukon and then back into B.C. to access the small community of Atlin. To drive this distance it would take approximately 20 hours of non-stop driving. Let me put that in perspective. If you got in an automobile in Vancouver and started driving east, and I left Burns Lake at the same time, after 20

hours of driving I would arrive in Atlin, and you would arrive at the Alberta-Saskatchewan border.

Another example of just how large Bulkley Valley–Stikine is, is that today in Victoria we are at latitude 48.5 degrees. Smithers, which is where I live, is at 55 degrees, and Atlin is at latitude 59 degrees. The riding of Bulkley Valley–Stikine is made up of several smaller communities. Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake and the Hazeltons make up the majority of the population. We have numerous smaller communities throughout the riding as well.

For the past ten years we have been represented by the NDP. We split the vote in the 1996 election, along with several other ridings, and gave the NDP another five years. What a terrible five years that was. What a terrible two terms those were. Thank goodness it's over.

Let me take you back to the north once again and give you an example of problems we face that those in the south take for granted. During our recent provincial election, to vote in the advanced poll the residents of Atlin were told that the advanced poll was in Dease Lake. That sounds easy enough, but let me remind you that the driving time between Atlin and Dease Lake is eight hours of non-stop driving one way.

The communities of Atlin and Dease Lake are in the same health region. When a specialist arrives at Dease Lake, the people of Atlin are told they can see the specialist, but they need to drive for eight hours to see the doctor. Then they must overnight and return the following day. Fortunately for the residents of Atlin, we have a memorandum of understanding with the Yukon that allows those residents to travel into Whitehorse for medical treatment, a travel time of about two hours.

Our highway system into the northern part of my riding leaves a lot to be desired. For the most part, the roads are gravel and oftentimes very rough, making travel time slower. Economic activity in the northwestern part of this province has been reduced to a terrible state. Our once active mining community has been chased from the province by taxes and regulations. We need to address these concerns and ensure land tenure to those who would invest dollars looking for minerals, with the subsequent job opportunities for the people who live in the north.

We have gone from spending $250 million a year in mining and exploration in the early 1990s to approximately $19 million in the year 2000. This accounted for huge job losses in the mining industry, losses in airline services and losses to service industries, to name a few. As a new government, I would like to remind this House of the fiscal update which was delivered on July 30. We committed to get rid of the provincial sales tax on industrial machinery for logging, mining and energy sectors. We committed to get rid of the corporate capital tax over the next two years. We committed to reduce the corporate income tax on January 1, 2002; and to encourage exploration for new mines, a 20 percent flow-through share credit has been created.

We must ask ourselves: did anybody listen to that? Did the mining industry listen to the fiscal update and good news that came from it? Let me quote from the Mining Association of British Columbia news release dated July 30, 2001: "If it was the intent of the provincial government to send a message that British Columbia is open for business, then they have succeeded in doing so."

The people of my riding continue to wait for Skeena Cellulose to be picked up by private interests. Unemployment in the Hazeltons, which was impacted by the closure of the Carnaby mill, which is owned by Skeena Cellulose, is now close to 80 percent. If the unemployment rate was that high in the lower mainland or Vancouver Island, the reality of the numbers I speak of would be unacceptable. Well, Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that these numbers are not acceptable to the people of the Hazeltons. With the commitment of this government, I know we will find solutions to the problems we face in Bulkley Valley–Stikine and the rest of the province.

Health care is one issue that is common to all of us. Perhaps I should rephrase that comment and say the lack of health care. The lack of any long-term plan for the delivery of health care over the last ten years has brought us to the state of crisis we now find ourselves in. At one time we had nursing programs in our northern college systems. They were dropped. We have been burning out our physicians for years with no plan to help them. All of the people in the health care system, patients as well as medical people, have been neglected over the years.

This government has committed to long-term planning for operational and capital funding to ensure that the people of the province have access to health care where they live when they need it. The people in all the small communities that make up the riding of Bulkley Valley–Stikine look forward to improved health care.

There is another health care issue that was ignored for the past decade. The health care issue I speak of is the health of our number one industry and in particular the health of our forests. The central regions of our province are facing a problem of such proportion as we have never experienced before. I refer to the infestation of our lodgepole pine in the central interior by the mountain pine beetle.

This infestation is not something that has happened overnight. An area twice the size of Vancouver Island has gone from a once healthy forest to a forest that, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Estimates of the amount of timber now affected are close to 60 million cubic metres. One needs to realize the loss of revenue to the people of this province and the economic and social impact on the forest-based communities in the affected areas in order to appreciate the crisis we face in the forest industry.

I am pleased to report to this House that a few short weeks after this new government was sworn in, the Premier announced a task force to address this problem. Four MLAs from the north were assigned to

seek public input, and I can now report that we have visited communities from 100 Mile House to Smithers, seeking input from the people affected. A total of 11 communities were visited. We are in the process of preparing a report for the Minister of Forests, from which a plan will emerge on how best to deal with the pine beetle infestation.

I acknowledge, and a lot of my constituents acknowledge, that the past ten years have seen a steady decline in the quality of life we enjoyed in the northern part of this province. We care about the community. We enjoy hunting and fishing, and many used to make a living by extracting our abundant natural resources. That is what we used to do, and we look forward to that lifestyle once again.

Many of us acknowledge that a return to that way of life will not happen overnight. The B.C. Liberal government, under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell, is committed to bringing back trust in government to the people of this province. We all want a great education system, a health care system we can rely on, and we want a return to prosperity. We have been given a large mandate by the people of this province.

In closing, I would like to leave you and this House with this quote: "When the people are afraid of the government, you have anarchy. When the government is afraid of the people, you have democracy."

R. Stewart: I rise today to address the Speech from the Throne, because I believe it contains some of the key things that this government will be moving forward with in the next few months — some of the key priorities that must be achieved in order to bring British Columbia back to where it ought to be.

In my own riding — or adjacent to my riding — next weekend, I'd like to invite everybody to come out to our Acadian festival recognizing the Acadian involvement in British Columbia over the years. It will be next Saturday in Port Moody, and I look forward to seeing as many people as possible at our Acadian festival. I know that my colleague from Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain will undoubtedly be able to be there as well.

Earlier — I think it was last week — legislation was introduced in this House that addresses the issue of parent volunteers in our schools. As a parent with four children, I want to specifically mention that legislation. It goes a great way in addressing some of the fundamental issues that British Columbia now faces. For many years British Columbia has perhaps ignored the volunteer sector, ignored the role of parents in the education system and ignored a great many of the fundamental truths that British Columbians, I suspect, hold true.

The parent volunteers legislation will enshrine in legislation for the first time the right — I believe the inalienable right — of parents to work in the schools, in the school system, to the betterment of their children's education. I truly believe that piece of legislation is symbolic, as well as fundamentally important, in the way in which British Columbia will move forward in the next decade.

Since the House began sitting again, we've heard from the member for Vancouver-Hastings. She has said many times that from this point forward, the mess that we find ourselves in as a province is our responsibility. It is the responsibility of this government. It is not the responsibility anymore of the government that created it.

I want to speak to that. The throne speech clearly sets out a path that we must take to bring British Columbia back to prosperity, to bring back some hope for the future, for our children's future. That hope was taken away by the previous government. So when I hear that member stand in this House and say that from now on everything that happens, all of the results we get, are the results of our government, it makes me shudder a little bit. It ignores the horrible, horrible government, on so many issues, that we've seen for the last ten years in this province. That government has had a shameful, shameful record. We have an awful lot of work to do in the coming months and years to try to put right again some of the issues, the problems, that were created.

When I was speaking a few days ago in response to the economic update, I quoted from a man much smarter than myself — which doesn't narrow it down very much. I was quoting someone who said that the problems of today, the problems we have created, will not be solved at the level of thinking that created them. I believe that's entirely true. We must move on. We must reinvent the way government does things.

We have been in power, this government has been in office now for 60 days. I understand how the member for Vancouver-Hastings might think that after 60 days, the world has changed. That may well have been the idea of long-term planning for the previous government: anything that happens in the next 60 days.

Well, that's not what long-term planning is. For a business long-term planning is the next decade. For a household long-term planning may be the next 20 years. Surely, for a government long-term planning must be longer than has been happening in the last ten years in this province. We must reinvent the way government works. We must insist that government plan ahead, put in place a true business plan for the future, a plan to get our economy sustainable once again. That, I think, is our number one priority.

I may never do this again in this House. I'm going to be quoting from a former Premier. This particular Premier was quoted in the weekend newspapers — the member, as he was then, for Vancouver-Kingsway, the

Premier through the '97-99 period. Some of the things he said were enlightening. We've been saying them; it's not like they're new ideas. But it was enlightening to see that someone who was leading perhaps the worst government that this province has ever seen has come around a little bit.

R. Stewart: I'm not going to mention his name, because he lives on in infamy. He says that the problems with this government were a sheer size question: "It's like using a huge backend loader to move a little pebble. These are clumsy mechanisms that are very, very expensive."

He goes on to talk about the kinds of cost drivers that affect the way government operations move. He says that in times of economic downturn, there's less tax money to fund it all, but the cost drivers just keep driving. "It's hard to see how that's sustainable," he concludes, "unless government is reinvented."

Well, that's an interesting thought that Mr. Clark has said. It's an interesting thought that the former Premier of this province would have come to — unfortunately a couple of years past the time when he could have done anything about it. I urge the current member for Vancouver-Hastings to perhaps read the former Premier's words and understand some of the wisdom — and I use the word really cautiously — which Mr. Clark included in his comments in the Saturday Sun. "We were an old-fashioned activist government, with no money. So you're naturally driven to look at ways you can be an activist without costing anything. And that leads to regulation."

Well, it did indeed lead to regulation. It led to the creation of regulation for regulation's sake in many cases. One of the key tasks that this government must face in the coming months and years in trying to reinvent the way the people's business takes place here in Victoria and across the province will be to eliminate much of the regulation that was created by the past government, the kinds of regulation that stifle business creativity — not just business creativity but business investment — and stifle the creation of jobs. We won't be eliminating regulation to help business; we'll be eliminating regulation to help people who want jobs. I don't know anyone in British Columbia that thinks British Columbia can get by without jobs.

Mr. Clark goes on to say that public sector unions have to decide: are they going to try and work with the government to reduce costs and protect the system and promote progressive values, or are they going to be like business unions and merely advocate for more money for their members? "I think that here in B.C. we're a little betwixt and between."

I don't believe that the working people of British Columbia, though, see it like Mr. Clark. I think the working people of British Columbia believe that we can work together, that government can work with the labour sector and move forward to a new prosperity. I hope and I pray that B.C. will be able to see economic peace and economic prosperity, brought upon by a new level of understanding between labour and government. I really hope and pray that we will be able to bring that in the coming months.

Mr. Clark concludes his comments with something that I believe is one of the most telling comments: "For a private sector union to be successful, the company has to make money." Mr. Clark speaks specifically of private sector unions in that case, of course, but that doesn't apply only to private unions. That applies also to government all across this province. We must look at government using the tax dollars that it is provided as efficiently as possible.

When we speak of government doing something, we must change our mind a little bit, change the way we think of that. We must think not of government developing a program or government supplying a particular benefit to a sector but of taxpayers doing that, because that is in fact what is happening. We must say that taxpayers can't afford more than that or that taxpayers want to provide this program to this particular sector or that taxpayers believe that we should be more efficient, because that is what taxpayers believe, and I believe it strongly myself.

We must go forward with a government that is efficient. That does not mean that we can ignore the needs of British Columbians — the needs of minorities, the needs of persons with disabilities, the needs of youth at risk, the needs of sexually exploited youth, of single parents, of families coping with poverty and unemployment.

I want to speak for a moment about the issue of drugs and youth. My 15-year-old daughter was 13 at the time. I took her to a forum that was organized by the former member for Port Moody–Burnaby Mountain. Now she's the member for Port Moody–Westwood. It was a drug forum dealing specifically with the issue of at-risk youth. It was meant to scare us as parents, and I'll tell you, it achieved that. I believe it achieved it for my daughter as well. It was meant to make us understand that the issue of at-risk youth is vitally important to the health of our communities, is vitally important to our children, and that we cannot think that it's going to happen in some other city to some other family. We must think of it happening to us right here at home, right here on our streets and in our homes.

I was speaking this morning with one of the most vocal spokespersons in my community on the issue of sexually exploited youth. I know she believes that we can make some inroads and achieve some things to improve the situation for sexually exploited youth and for youth at risk in our community — at risk of drug and alcohol harm and all sorts of things. I know we can do that. I will work as hard as I can for the future of our children and the future of my community to make sure that happens.

We must also recognize that we have inherited from the previous government an incredible debt and an unsustainable economy. We must turn that around. We must do what we can today, in the coming months

and years, to make sure this government reinvents itself and that this economy regains its position as the number one economy in Canada — indeed, looks forward to its position as the number one economy in North America. We can do that. I believe that with the capable people in this House, the colleagues that have stepped forward and sought election to represent the people of British Columbia, we will move forward in the coming decade and re-achieve British Columbia's position in North America.

V. Anderson: Last week I spoke on the economic situation of the province, and I had a concern at the time that most of the coverage we received in the media throughout the province from the throne speech and the other presentations had to do with the financial aspects of our planning and programming. Of course the financial aspects are very important, because the economy provides the jobs. The jobs provide the income that every father and mother must have if they are to provide the necessities of life for themselves and particularly for their children.

Today I'd like to focus on another aspect of both the throne speech and the economic outlook of our province. Our province is rich primarily because of the people who live in it, because of the boys and girls who grow up here and find that they have the opportunity for the fullness of life — education, recreation, social interaction and personal growth.

Last week's throne speech attempts to set out, on behalf of the people of the province, an expression of their wishes, which were reflected to us as we were elected to become the government at this particular time. As we heard from them their wishes and desires, so the throne speech was our way of summarizing and putting together the priorities of our people.

The initial paragraph of the throne speech, after the normal and expected greetings, was simply this: "On May 16, the people of British Columbia elected a new parliament and a new government. In so doing they supported my government's sweeping vision for economic, social and institutional revitalization."

Sometimes we overlook the social and institutional revitalization, which is really what our programs are all about. It's in the social life that our people really come to express who they are and find their personal well-being.

The paragraph that leads into this section, which has to do with the social well-being of our province and our people, is called simply "A New Era of Hope." Within that section there is a promise. My government's new era of hope will extend beyond the economy to critical services for people. That's further elaborated in these words: "All of these commitments will be backstopped by a new approach to provide children and families with the support they need to lead healthy, happy lives. The new Minister of State for Women's Equality will play an important role in that endeavour, as will the Minister of Human Resources."

What I would focus on is the reason we are here. True, we have to have businesses, we enjoy working, we enjoy creating and we enjoy developing. But for every family person the focus of their life is primarily in their home-family interaction and with their neighbours and their friends. So we have seen in the pioneer communities right across Canada — and for that matter, around the world, but particularly here in Canada — that when people move into a new community and begin to develop, the first thing they do is build a school.

As soon as they established their businesses and began to interact and stabilize the economy, they established a school so they could teach the upcoming generation and also so they could go to the school on the weekends and have their dances and their social lives together. Or, if they didn't have a school, they'd run to the barns and the community centres. And they were the community centres for their midnight activities throughout the year.

Hon. Speaker, the schools, the churches and the religious organizations are fundamental to the life of our community, so they are fundamental to our reasons for being here in the Legislature. I'd just like to take a moment as we are here today and focus on some of the ministries, some of the organizational structure that is in place. The majority of our funds, of the money that we raise as government — the majority of the taxes that are provided to us by the people of the province — is spent on our social activities: health, education and support services for our people.

We need to focus on the reality that we as a nation, we as the province of British Columbia have put a priority on helping each other, on being neighbourly together, on providing services for those who could not provide it for themselves. We have discovered that often those of us who are providing services to others in the end become those who have need of the services ourselves. It's a give and a take.

If we look at some of the ministries, we focus on what the real work of the government is about. Taking them alphabetically, there is the Ministry of Advanced Education, which says that education is a lifelong undertaking. This means that, particularly today, every adult, every business and every profession has to continue to learn or they will be outdated and their business will cease to exist. It may be a technical education, it may be a skill education, it may be the initial university education or upgrading, but whatever it is, a fundamental part of our educational system today is advanced education.

We have our community colleges around the province. They're called community colleges because they take an interest in the community itself. It's not just training individuals. It's enabling a community to come together and have in their locality the kind of education which is appropriate to the needs of their community. It means that the education is on their doorstep.

We go from Advanced Education to the Minister of Children and Family Development and the new

Minister of State for Early Childhood Development. In this focus we have said as a government that our opportunity and responsibility is to be concerned with the development of children even prior to the time they are born so that they have a healthy opportunity in life and an early start and so that the educational opportunities for them begin when they are born. The process of education and development prior to their entering the formal school system is going to be of primary importance to us in our programming.

This means that there will be recreational opportunities, child care opportunities, opportunities for assessment of special needs children from the time they are born until they go to school so that their needs can be met as early as possible in life. We have learned that if you meet the needs of children before they go to school, then that well-being will continue for the rest of their lives. If we don't meet their needs during that early childhood development, the difficulties that go unserved during that period of time will be with them and with us for the whole of their lives.

So early childhood development and enabling the support of our families…. Also, hon. Speaker, you will find throughout the whole of this throne speech an emphasis on family development, on family cohesion, on family support, on the opportunities we have to support each other to have healthy communities so that we can have healthy people, so that we can have healthy children. The best protection we can give to our children or to each other is prevention, to make sure that the difficulties in their lives don't come in the first place.

With that focus on community we have a new title for a ministry, called Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services. We have said that this is a new era; it is a time to change things. It's not the time to do the things that have been done before, because we know they didn't work. So we have a focus on the communities, because that's where people live, in communities; that's where people work, in communities; that's where people play, in communities. Unfortunately, that's also often the place where people fight: in communities. So it's in the communities that we have to put our focus.

We put our focus there by bringing together many of the other separate ministries — Women's Equality, multiculturalism, immigration. All of these special interests — that's what they are — and very important interests happen within communities. It's the interaction of these which is fundamentally important to us. Also, one of the stresses we have found in our community is that we have not supported the aboriginal community in their style of community living, which may be different from the style of other people around them.

When we focus on communities and people living in communities, we focus on the aboriginal understanding that the community is responsible for each other and the collective opportunities that they have. We take a responsibility of working with them not only in the treaty and reserve situations, which are their homelands, but also in the urban communities, where in the past we have neglected to recognize that the community of the urban area has a special opportunity and challenge for those of our aboriginal people who come to join us there.

It's not only our aboriginal people but also our multicultural people who come from around the world, where they have a different cultural understanding of community, where they have different cultural customs which vary from each other. So we must support ourselves and them in coming together, in sharing with each other and enabling our communities to expand in cultural opportunities, to expand in customs that we appreciate, to learn to think in new ideas and work together.

The Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services gives us that focus upon community where we must live and work together. Within that focus there's a new appreciation and awareness, which we used to have and which we forgot or neglected — whichever word might be best appropriate — of the volunteer services that the people provide to each other within communities. Sometimes we call them charitable organizations. Sometimes we call them recreational organizations. Sometimes we call them non-profit organizations, but there are thousands and thousands of men and women of all ages who spend hours and days and weeks serving each other through all this variety of organizations.

There are thousands of those organizations within our communities. They're a fundamental part of our governance within our communities' activities. This government undertakes to recognize, respect and support those volunteer agencies in all of their activities as they work together within our communities. It is important that we realize that these are the agendas that we deal with every day in our activities in legislation and in government.

We know of education. I've talked about education for those in midlife and for seniors in our lifelong education. I've talked about education for children before they go to school, and then, of course, there is the education which children have in the K-to-12 opportunities within our communities. The importance of that to community was brought home to me one day on the east side of Vancouver as I was attending a hearing by the local council people and the parks board people about building a community centre.

They had the social workers there and the child care workers there, and they all said how important it was to have this centre for their children. After all the professionals had spoken, the chairman of the meeting said: "I see there are a lot of parents here. I haven't heard from you. Would you like to comment on what you've been hearing?" One of the parents stood up and summarized it very well for the rest of them and said very quietly and quite politely: "I've been listening to what all these people have been saying, and I agree with them. These centres are very important to our children, and I'm pleased that you'll go ahead — I hope — and complete this centre. But just remember, Mr.

Chairman, the school is the centre of our community. The school is where we as newcomers go for help, because we know the teachers. We trust the teachers, and we go to them first."

They knew their own community, where the children were recognized and respected. It was in that setting that they said: "Our community, as families, centres around the school. Education is not something apart from the families of our community. Education in our school system is the fundamental gathering place of the families in our communities where we live."

So, hon. Speaker, we put a prime emphasis on this, and therefore our emphasis is on education being an essential service. It's not education just of the children. It's education enabling the parents of the children to share with their children in their development.

One of the things that's happened is that we used to have in our schools — particularly in the lower mainland, where we have such a multicultural mix of people — what we called multicultural workers and home-and-school workers. They were teachers who worked with the children in school, and they worked with the parents at home. But in our cutbacks and financial realities and with our change in emphasis, these people were let go. What has happened is that our school system is unintentionally separating the children from the parents, particularly in multicultural communities, because the children learn new cultures and new ideas that their parents don't receive. But when you have an interaction in a community school — of which we have a number, and hopefully we will have more — where the parents are part of the school and come in and participate in the school activities, then the parents and the children change together. The well-being and the overcoming of the division of the families are very important.

Education is a community activity, not just an activity between teachers and children. It's an activity of parents and teachers working together in common. As my colleague has said, the opportunity for parents to come and be in the school is extremely important.

Another part of the well-being of our people and to building themselves up as persons is in our health system. I say health system because it's a system that enables people to have healthy lifestyles, which is fundamentally important before we come to health care. If we have fundamental health styles, then health care is not as needed.

That health style begins in the community, in the recreational opportunities. I myself had the privilege, from the time I could go out the door, to participate in community activities — in skating, curling, hockey, running and all of the activities that were there for me on the school grounds, in the community centres and the rinks. These were provided for us by the community.

I remember when I was a youngster, when we were involved in recreational activities, the person who looked after us — and I say that in a very positive sense — besides the coach and the planners of the team activities, was the caretaker of the rink. The caretaker was around and knew who we were, and we trusted him. The interaction between us and that caretaker in the community setting was fundamentally important. So health and education are community activities that we focus on for the social well-being of our people.

Then there's the Ministry of Human Resources through which we collectively say to those persons who have had difficulty in their lives, for one reason or another, that we have support and help for them in their time of need.

Let me give you an illustration that brought this home to me early in my life. I was minister of a church in Regina and was out visiting, as ministers are prone and supposed to do. I was given a name, and I went to visit an elderly lady. I eventually found her on a third floor, up many stairs, in the one room where she lived. It was about six feet by six feet. In there was everything she owned. She was a very lonely person, and she was trying to survive.

Not many years before she had been a farmer's wife. They had a farm and had lived there happily all their lives. Her husband died, and in the process she lost everything. She was left to live in that little room by herself in this urban situation where she knew no one else, and there was no one there to help her except community agents like the church and the nun volunteer and the charitable organizations that would reach out to her. That was in the days before seniors got financial support.

The supports that we provide to our seniors and to people with disabilities are very important and very fundamental. I learned early in life that that need may come very quickly upon every one of us, regardless of what planning or preparation we think we've made. It's fundamental that we share with one another — with our children, our adults, our singles, our unemployed — the opportunities that we can collectively provide through human resources, which we could provide for them no other way.

I talked earlier about Advanced Education. One of the other ministries is Skills Development and Labour, and again, one of the things I learned on the streets of Vancouver as founding chairman of the Vancouver Food Bank was that there were people who had skills but no places for their skills to be used. There were people who wanted to have skills. They were receiving Human Resources help back in those days, but if you wanted to get a new skill, you had to go off Human Resources. Then you couldn't eat or have a place to live. It was a catch-22 position.

We want to change that. We have promised that there will be equality and fairness in our programs for the people of our province, and we're going to need the help of the communities of our province to provide that equality and fairness. I wanted to stress today that we're here in this process not just to talk about money and jobs, though they're fundamentally important, but also to realize we're here to provide the environment not only where businesses can survive but in which communities survive.

It has always seemed very strange to me that in this land of forestry and mining, particularly, and fishing of late — particularly mining, where we knew a new town and a new development was going to cease to exist some ten, 15 or 20 years down the road…. As soon as it was begun, you knew it was time-limited.

Instead of trying at the very beginning for the change of that town, for the reorientation or redevelopment when that mine closed and building it into the planning and process, what do we do? We wait till the year before, and then the people are dislocated. They lose everything they've gained in their lives, and many of them commit suicide as a result.

We want to have a planning process that looks to the future. It begins now. In this early 90 days between the election and September 3, we have said that there are 90 promises we'll fulfil. We'll begin the process of implementing them, but the 90 promises are but a small fraction of what we need to do in the next four years.

The leader of the NDP opposition has said she'll grant us the 90 days. She'll grant us the reality of implementing what we had in our platform, because the people said that was what they wanted.

She has said — and I give her credit for this, actually — that what she will challenge us on and criticize us on is what we haven't said we will do. Now, we have said we will bring fairness and equality, justice and respect, and these are implications that are going to be tested not in these 90 days but in the next four years.

These are the things that happen in the community. These are things that happen in the relationships we have with one another. We have suggested and promised to the people that once we're past the 90 days, we'll not begin to do less but begin to do more. Our task is a renewal and a revitalization of our communities, of our families and of ourselves.

People have always reminded me over the years that you begin change with yourself. If we're not willing to learn new ways, to think new thoughts and take new risks individually, then collectively we'll never succeed. We have challenged ourselves to do that: to be different persons than when we came here, to grow and develop, to put aside our prejudices, to put aside our biases and to listen to the people of the province so that our communities can be healthy communities, our families can be healthy families and our individuals of all ages can be healthy, well-educated, socially able men, women and children.

P. Bell: Mr. Speaker, again, I would be remiss in not congratulating you on the elevation to your new position. I'd also like to thank the member for Vancouver-Langara for such an eloquent speech; it was wonderful. Thank you.

As I sit down here in the first few days of being in this House as a newly elected member, I'd also like to take time out to thank all the folks that are joining us in the gallery today. I think it's probably a wonderful day outside, and I'm glad that you've decided to come and join us.

I'd like to start out today by talking a bit about education and the education system. I believe that our education system needs to be revitalized and moved forward. I'd like to draw a simile and liken our education system to that of a farmer. A farmer who is a smart farmer quite frequently would save his best crop for the following year as a seed crop. We failed to do that over the past ten years. We've not encouraged our smartest and brightest young children to pursue the field of education. In effect, we've not saved our seed crop for the following year. What we've continually done is, in fact, sold our seed crop to the highest bidder instead of saving those individuals. As a result, we're seeing that crop get weaker and weaker each year.

Our education system is absolutely critical to us, particularly in the riding that I represent, Prince George North. We find it difficult at times to find any teachers for some parts of a very isolated riding. I have community schools in the city of Mackenzie that are faced with constant turnover of teachers. That needs to end, and we need to take an active role in ending that process.

I believe, really, there are four key things that every human being wants, in British Columbia and in fact in Canada. The first is a strong education system. I've spoken to that already. The second key component — and I don't think anyone would disagree with this — is that we need to revitalize our health care system. Again, it's diminished in its capacity, particularly over the last ten years. We need to get back to the roots of our health care system and start providing services to people when they need them and where they need them.

Again referring to the community of Mackenzie, which is located about two hours north of Prince George, the once-thriving hospital with an operating room and a delivery care facility is little more than a first-aid post today. We have individuals who cannot have a baby in Mackenzie anymore, in a town with a population of 6,000 people. It's absolutely devastating for those individuals. They have to travel two hours by road to Prince George, in some of the most difficult road conditions anywhere in North America for about six months of the year. Unfortunately, it's created an environment of turnover, and it's very difficult to keep people in that community.

The third area I'd like to talk about is the economy. I think all of us want to have an excellent education system and a well-funded and excellent health care system, but without a healthy economy that's impossible. We all want to have better opportunities for our children, and in fact for our children's children, in the years to come. In order to do that, we have to create that thriving private sector economy. The B.C. Liberal government is committed to that.

The fourth and final key component that I believe all individuals want is a safe environment to live in. You know, I think we would all like to be in a situation where we can close our doors at the end of the day and not have to worry about locking them. That has all but disappeared over the last 20 or 30 years. We live in a society full of crime, and again, we must aggressively attack that.

You know, whether it's a member of the government side or a member of the opposition side, I'm sure that we would all agree on those four key points. The difference is the ability to execute on those four points. Why is it that a gas station on one corner survives and the one across the street goes broke? Why is it that a pulp mill in one community thrives and makes big money, when another pulp mill goes out of business? Why is it that one restaurant is successful and the next one can't make it? It's the ability to execute, and I believe that's what we as a government now bring to British Columbia: the ability to execute on our commitments.

When you review our first 62 or 63 days since we've been elected, the first and most dynamic thing we did was introduce a 25 percent cut in personal income taxes. During the election we were constantly queried on this and asked, "What is dramatic?" and we purposely kept that to ourselves. We were told that it would maybe amount to $20 per paycheque. Well, let's do the math. On a 26-pay-period year, $20 per paycheque is $520. Multiply that by a two-income family, and it's $1,000, and $1,000 is dramatic. That's what we've executed on.

How are we going to fund our health care system? How are we going to fund our schools? How are we going to fund the health care contract that we're facing right now? We have to do that through a thriving private sector economy. The only way to have a thriving private sector economy is to be competitive in our tax regime. We have moved in a significant manner on our first day in office to achieve that, and I for one am very proud of that accomplishment.

The Premier also announced the appointment of a B.C. Progress Board. I think that is one of the key components that will lead us to a thriving private sector economy. If you do not have the ability to measure your progress, you will not know where you're going. If you're travelling down a new road, you're going to take a map with you, and you need to measure periodically along that map to see if you're moving in the direction that you want to move. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the individuals who have been appointed to this board, including Mr. Emerson, who is in fact chairing this board. I believe those individuals will tell us if we are in fact travelling the road that we need to be travelling to accomplish that thriving private sector economy.

When you look back to the 1990s, the decade of decline, I think it's perhaps worth reviewing where we were and where we travelled during that period of time. The private sector investment growth, I think, is particularly worth noting. For the period 1992 to 1999 the province with highest private sector investment growth was New Brunswick, with 118 percent. That's over double in a period of seven years. But there were other provinces that were not far behind. Alberta was at 107 percent. Nova Scotia had 104 percent, and so on down the line. Well, when we look towards the bottom, what do we find? The second-worst province in Canada was Prince Edward Island. They still had a 41.6 percent growth in private sector investment, and I believe that's a credible number. Unfortunately, there was one province that lagged behind that one.

P. Bell: I'm asked who it was. It was the province of British Columbia at 11.1 percent — from second-worst at 41.6 percent to 11.1 percent. I believe that speaks volumes in private sector growth. Now, private sector investment growth translates directly into private sector job creation. You can create all the government jobs you want, but you're really not going anywhere when you do that.

Private sector investment growth. Again, Nova Scotia led the way in Canada with a 13.6 percent growth rate for the period from '96 to '99 — just a three-year window. That's a very, very acceptable number, in my mind. Again, shortly behind Nova Scotia was Alberta at 12.5 percent. People say that those are relatively small economies, and those numbers don't mean anything. Well, let's look at the largest number in Canada or the largest economy in Canada, that being Ontario, which had a 10.6 percent growth rate in job creation in the private sector for that three-year period.

Let's move down the scale a bit. Let's go down again towards the bottom. We're not quite there. For that same three-year period, Saskatchewan had a 4 percent job growth in the private sector — not great, but respectable. We need to look one step further to find our wonderful province. British Columbia was dead last at 0.4 percent. What a shameful performance we had as a province.

Last, I'd like to touch on the gross domestic product for the province. Now, that's our measure of goods and services that we provided through that period of time. Really, I believe, it's the measurement that indicates how successful we were as a provincial economy. So we're back to the period of '92-99 again. This time we find a new province leading the pack. Newfoundland, with the exponential growth of their offshore oil, led the pack in GDP growth with 27.2 percent in the seven-year period from '92 to '99 — a phenomenal growth rate. Right behind Newfoundland we have Saskatchewan with 23.3 percent — again an exceptional growth rate, and in fact that was done with an NDP government. Yet this government failed to perform. Alberta, 20.9 percent, and again Ontario with 17.9 percent — exceptional rates of growth.

Well, let's look down at the other end of the scale again. I hate to do this, but we have to. Nova Scotia

had the second-lowest growth in GDP in Canada with 9.8 percent. So where did we settle out this time? Well, I hate to tell you this, but we weren't even in a positive number this time. B.C. had a GDP of negative 0.6 percent for the period of '92-99. That decade of decline is behind us. We need to move forward now to become a have province again instead of a have-not province.

So how are we going to do that? Well, I'm proud to say, as a member of the core review task force, that the Premier has appointed a group of ten folks to review every single thing that government does. I think it's noteworthy to see that both the Premier and the House Leader and Finance minister are on that committee.

P. Bell: A couple of very bright heads. We have a saying in that task force that we need to leave no stone unturned. I hate to tell you this, but every time we turn over another stone, we find something that we're not very happy about.

There are 971 agencies, boards and commissions in this province. Many of them are quasi-judicial boards or agencies that are left to their own powers to review different things that our constituents have to deal with on a daily basis. I say quasi-judicial because they aren't responsible to the court system. In fact, they really aren't responsible to government, so they really have the ultimate power. We need to review all of those various agencies and make sure they have the appropriate mandate and that they execute on what they're responsible for.

We need to consolidate the delivery of services. During the period, again, of '91 through 2001, many things were done to hide the expense of services. In fact, ICBC has responsibility for many different areas that are really not the responsibility of a Crown corporation. They've been running the weigh scales and road safety programs, different policing initiatives — things that are clearly not their responsibility, which they should not be involved in. So we need to consolidate those services, make sure that they are accountable to the appropriate ministries and create efficiencies wherever we have opportunities.

You know, efficiency is the key word. As a small business owner, I have learned how to make what we refer to as penny-profit. That's the way we've had to operate our businesses for the last ten years. Every cent counts, and we as a government have to be accountable for how we spend all those pennies.

We need to create a user-friendly government. I went on the B.C. Ferries website on the weekend looking for an opportunity to take a ferry from Prince Rupert down to Port Hardy. I thought that might be a nice way to travel down to the Legislature this weekend. Well, I'm somewhat computer-literate — I can work my way through the process — and I can tell you I found it impossible to figure out when the ferry left Prince Rupert. If I was struggling with that, I'm sure we probably all would have trouble with that as well.

So I think we need to make government more user-friendly. We need to find ways to explain the services that we offer within government in a more thorough fashion so that people understand what we offer.

The most common complaint I've had since I started in this life of politics revolves around the Workers Compensation Board. This particular agency seems to fail to understand the complexities of what they're dealing with. They collect large sums of money from employers, who struggle at times, and then they fail to offer the services to their constituents — the people that are injured.

I have a good friend who was injured about four years ago in an industrial workplace accident. That individual has yet to be settled with the Workers Compensation Board. Not only has he not been settled, but the injury that he's facing has never been corrected. He's not had the services that have been necessary in order to correct a hand injury.

This particular individual dearly wants to go back to work. He wants to be a contributing member of our society. But because the Workers Compensation Board has failed to fulfil its mandate with that particular individual, we still have someone that is struggling, at best, with his life. He's an honest, dedicated individual. We need to do something with the Workers Compensation Board, and we need to work on that quickly.

I'd like to talk briefly about the Highway Constructors Ltd. model. That was introduced some years ago by the previous government. It proved to be very ineffective and lacked the ability to be competitive. This model established an environment where someone else was determining the wages that were to be paid by a particular company. No longer could a corporation bid on a government project and try to be competitive. The wage rate was controlled, and it created an environment where we literally spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns on the Island Highway.

Let's not fool ourselves. Those tax dollars belong to everyone in the gallery here today. They belong to everyone outside and to everyone in the interior and Vancouver. I don't think that anyone wants to see dollars simply thrown away, and that is in fact what was happening with HCL. We need to correct that, and we've started that process.

Well, we can't focus on strictly negative things. We need to talk about some positive things as well. The 2010 Olympics are not that far away. I can tell you, as an individual who ran in the Olympic torch relay for the 1988 Calgary Olympics, that it's a tremendous experience. I still have my jacket from that time. In fact, the Olympic torch relay is considered to be the first event of the Olympics, so technically I was a participant in the 1988 Olympics, although my physique and my hairline have changed somewhat since that time.

The potential infrastructure that will come to us through a successful 2010 Winter Olympics is absolutely staggering. We're committed to spending

$44 million in the next four years to fund the process of this bid, but that number will come back to us ten times over should we be successful in the bid. I wholly support it even though I represent a constituency 500 miles away from where the Olympics would occur. I believe that the infrastructure would extend up through the Duffy Lake area and into Lillooet, Lytton and beyond. That will be a tremendous opportunity for us. It will create opportunities in tourism, certainly in the retail trade and certainly in the construction industry. There are many tremendous opportunities.

Coming from the north, I would be remiss if I did not take a few minutes to speak about the forest industry. There are really four key components that are negatively affecting our forest industry at this particular point in time, and we've addressed all of them in the Speech from the Throne.

The first key component that we have to deal with is the softwood lumber agreement. I can tell you that I'm excited to have the Minister of Forests working on this particular project. The minister is probably the best individual that we have in our caucus to represent us in the negotiations with the Americans. I wish him well. I believe we will be successful in those negotiations. He's been very proactive in his steps. He's already travelled to Washington, he's been to Ottawa a number of times, and he's met with many of the stakeholders already. I believe this area will move forward and that within a reasonable period of time — it may take a year or a little more than that perhaps — we should come to a successful conclusion for the softwood lumber agreement. That's absolutely critical for us.

The second key area that's devastating our forest industry right now is the current stumpage system that we have. I, along with three of my colleagues, have been travelling through the northern interior for the past few weeks, talking to people about the mountain pine beetle. Although I won't get into all the details, boring the members in the House today with those nasty little bugs, I will say that the most common thing we heard is that we need to have stumpage reform that accurately reflects the value of logs. Our system currently reflects the value of lumber. At times the value of lumber and the value of logs can be significantly different, especially in a flooded market like we have today.

The practice of waterbedding has been devastating to our industry in the north. Unfortunately, while some parts of the water bed have been at the low spot, in the north we've been at the high spot, and it's made our industry extremely non-competitive, particularly over the last five or six years. We need to deal with that.

The third key area that needs to be addressed is the Forest Practices Code. My understanding of the Forest Practices Code is that it's about six feet high and talks a lot about processes. Processes are great if you're a consultant, but results are what is important to this government, I believe. We as a government have committed to moving to a results-based forest practices code.

What does that mean? What is a results-based forest practices code? Quite simply, we're going to draw the picture for what the company has to achieve at the end of the harvesting period, but we're going to allow that company to get to that phase in whatever way they see best fits. We're no longer going to put handcuffs and a blindfold on them before they go to the bush. We're going to allow them to execute to the best of their ability.

In conjunction with that, we need to hold our registered professional foresters accountable. They want that accountability. They want the ability to work within the code and produce the appropriate end result. No longer can we afford to have our Ministry of Forests' green pickups chasing around the red and white and yellow pickups of the companies, checking up on their work. We need to check it once; we need to check it when it's finished; we need to hold them accountable.

The fourth key component that needs to be addressed within the Forests ministry is Forest Renewal B.C. I'm pleased that the minister has been very proactive in the replacement of a politically appointed board of Forest Renewal and is aggressively taking a review of Forest Renewal B.C. at this point. We all know the staggering number of dollars that were spent in the first three years of Forest Renewal B.C. without a business plan, well in excess of a billion dollars. It was: "Whoever has a good idea, come on in, and we'll start handing out the dollars."

Forestry is the key driver for our economy in B.C., representing over $4 billion of direct and indirect revenue, which accounts for almost 20 percent of our total provincial revenue base. We need to nurture and look after our forest industry, and we need to be aggressive with that.

I'd like to talk briefly again about education. You know, this government is committed to introducing essential service for education in the coming few weeks. Given the physique of our Education minister, I believe it will be necessary to introduce that quite quickly. Over the last ten or 15 years the strikes that have occurred in the education system have not occurred from the teachers. They've occurred from a lot of the other complementary workers inside the education system, but in fact, they have not been the teachers.

I find it a bit confusing that the teachers are concerned about essential services legislation, because what's gone on in the past is that they've ended up staying home and not collecting their income for that particular day when they've been forced off the property by a strike. That's not to mention the inconvenience and disadvantage to the parents, who are counting on their children going to the school system and not having that opportunity, and it's not to mention that the kids are not having an opportunity to be in the class system actually learning.

I think we need to expand our education system beyond simply the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic, and we have to take a look back at our high school athletic programs and our high school music programs. It's my experience that over the past

15 or 20 years, our athletic programs and educational programs have continued to dissipate.

The teachers are concerned that should they pile a bunch of kids in the back of their vehicle and take them off to a program somewhere and they're in an accident, they'll face a lawsuit. So they've created this risk-adverse environment, where teachers are no longer prepared to take those kinds of risks.

How did we get there? It's been a disappointing process, and we need to turn that environment around. We need to reinstate our high school athletic programs. I know that many of the members here were active in athletics during their early years. We need to re-establish those programs and make sure that we offer those services to our kids.

You know, our health care system is going to consume over $9.5 billion this year, Mr. Speaker. Certainly it's the first priority for every member in this House — all 79 of us. None of us would disagree that our health care system is in shambles. It's our first priority, and we need to reinvigorate it. Our nurses are frustrated. I understand and accept that. In fact, all our health care workers are very frustrated. There's not a day that goes by in my constituency office when we don't receive phone calls from someone speaking to one side or the other of the issue.

What I would like to do is suggest to everyone that we need to put our differences aside. Our health care system is on the brink today. We can no longer afford to bicker and argue and hold the system at ransom, because that's what's happening. We need to move beyond this. We need to start working together until we can have sufficient nurses, sufficient doctors and sufficient health care workers to provide the services that we're going to provide in the coming years. I would suggest to all the health care workers out there, all the management out there and all the other individuals — the doctors involved in the health care system — that we need to put our differences aside for a few years and work ahead all as one.

Briefly, I'd like to touch on the referendum process that we're advocating, Mr. Speaker. I have a first nations group in my riding, the McLeod Lake band, which has just signed off on a Treaty 8 adhesion, so they in fact have completed their treaty process. They were very concerned about us moving to a referendum. They asked me to explain it a bit, so what I said is: "You know, Treaty 8 was a framework. It was the framework that you had to work with in the establishment of your treaty." I asked them: "How long did it take you to work through Treaty 8?" I assumed that it would be two, three or five years, but it took 17 years with a framework to achieve a treaty.

How can we possibly expect, without a framework, to achieve a treaty in a year or two or three or five? This referendum is going to establish a framework for us, and that's exactly what we need in order to move this treaty process further. I'm confident that if we work hard on this treaty process and frame the questions appropriately, we will move ahead with this negotiation. It's absolutely critical….

H. Long: I rise today to speak on the Speech from the Throne. You could have let the last member continue on if he so wished, believe me.

You know, after reading the Speech from the Throne and going over the ten points, there's so many things here that come to light that the last government did not do. I think that on May 16, when they voted in a new government, a new parliament and a new era for B.C., they voted in a government that had a vision — a vision for the future, a vision for the many things that have been brought up by many members today and will be in the future.

We can't but look back on what's happened to this province over the years. I think it's been heard many, many times before. We look at the wasted millions in fast ferries. We look at the investment in business where they knew they were going to lose the money and put it in anyhow. They put our health care at risk. They spent the money in places it should never have been spent, and they put our health care at risk, our schools at risk and many other things in this province at risk, with disregard for the people of British Columbia.

One of the things that bothers me the most is when they talk about them being on labour's side or involved in labour and the union executive. I think they forgot to mention that the average working person in British Columbia is looking for a good life too. They're looking for something. This government isn't just going to give it to business. They're not bringing in tax relief just for business. They're bringing it in for every working person.

For ten years they had an opportunity to repair and get the union movement on line and to settle the contracts, but they neglected. They held off until a Liberal government was elected and foisted that upon a new government, and they now stand to criticize here in this House, day after day, what they have done in the past and about the new government and what they're going to do in the future. Well, we will look after that in the future. Our government has a plan. They know how to look after it. Each member in this House, all 77, will help with a solution to those problems we have here today.

If I'm not mistaken, I think our debt now is about $35 billion or close to $35 billion. A previous speaker brought it up that if the interest on the debt was a ministry, according to that speaker, it would be the third-largest in British Columbia — just to pay the debt. So you can see that when they run us into debt, take us to the depths, we pay in the end and the people suffer.

Education is probably one of the most important because without education, without teaching our

children, without having that available to our children, they cannot achieve in the future the high-paying jobs and the new industries needed to drive this system. Every one of our children deserves a good education.

I believe that both private and public education is key. I think our funding of private education is essential to get a different way of thinking within our province. I think the public system works very, very well, but I do believe that with a private system to augment the public system, the kids get a different way of looking at life. They get a different idea about how things are in life. They get a different perspective on exactly what's expected of them. They share that between them when they get into university, and they have a better understanding of other people's needs and what it is their cultures are about as well.

Health in this province, as we all know, is at a critical point. I come from a part of the province that is fairly isolated. It's not a long distance on the Sunshine Coast or to Powell River. In that distance we have ferries where we have a real tough time of getting to the points where we are serviced by Vancouver or Vancouver Island. These areas historically haven't had to travel to and from the main centres, and it's important to understand that we have to bring those services back to our communities, where they can get them on time.

That happened recently with a dialysis machine in Powell River. I talked to a lady and her husband this morning who were on it, and they're very grateful that it's there. For the last two years he's been travelling into Vancouver, and it's been very taxing on him. His health is not as good today as it should be because of his travelling, which our health care system basically dictated at the time.

I'm not trying to put down Vancouver and the big areas, because they have their own set of problems. I just want the people of the main areas to understand that the small communities have a different perspective; they suffer a different set of problems than most of the main cities have. If we asked the people in Vancouver to come to Powell River for dialysis, it just wouldn't happen. Under the health care system I think it's essential that we look after that and that we treat everybody equally.

When it comes to the private sector and the economy and the jobs they create, I think we've got to look at many areas. I think we've already looked at some of the taxation areas that free up the industries, free up the small businesses, free up industry up to invest their money, to look at a new era where they can invest, where they can create jobs and where they can create the employment that is needed. Our communities have suffered immensely in this province because of the forest industry downturn in the pulp and paper industry and so on.

In my area I have two pulp mills. Both have suffered big losses in jobs, and in that process the logging has gone down, as well, because of the Forest Practices Code and many others. It's good to see that the Forest Practices Code is being reorganized and revamped so the loggers and the companies can take the responsibility to do the logging. The responsibility of this government is just to watch, to make sure that if they do break the rules — and they're held liable for breaking the rules — then they will be taken to task. They will pay the price. At least they understand that they have the right to go out and do their jobs without having to be watched day and night by some. I was going to say some bureaucrat — and it's probably true — who is out there to regulate their every move.

I look here and see where it comes down to our safer streets and our policing, and I've got to admit that in my community and in most of our communities on the Sunshine Coast and Powell River they're fairly isolated. We do have just a fantastic policing system both in Powell River and on the Sunshine Coast. Even though we are a couple of officers short, they do try and look after the people there. We have a very low crime rate, I think, compared to most of the cities in British Columbia.

There are a couple of areas up in the peninsula that do have a problem, one of them being in Pender Harbour, where there is no police presence. They have to come from Sechelt, and I think that community would like to have a policeman stationed there, even if he worked in Sechelt but was stationed there, lived there and travelled back and forth. I think I can work for my community in the future on this issue. I look forward to my government working with me.

Better services for children and families and first nations — a huge area. I have 12 of my own grandchildren, and I look at what they're needing, where my family has come from, how big it's grown. I look at all the other families, and I've run into many families that are not as fortunate as mine, that need services. They need people to help them, and government is there not as much to help them but to facilitate them in gaining their worth in society. These children should be looked after. They have to be looked after. We have a huge responsibility to the children of this province.

We have a number of first nations in my riding. The two main ones are, in Powell River, the Sliammon band and, on the Sunshine Coast, the Sechelts. The Sechelts are the first self-governing band in Canada, and down the road I think they're looking forward, even though they pulled out of the treaty with the NDP, to being back to negotiate a treaty. I look forward to helping facilitate that with our government in the future, and I think they look forward to it as well. The Sliammon have already signed an AIP, and I'm hoping they will ratify it and get on with the process.

I do not think the native people are totally afraid of what we talk about on the referendum, because it's not a referendum of yes or no. It's just to bring forward the things that everybody in B.C. wants to negotiate into a treaty agreement with the first nations people of B.C. I think that through our tenure, the native people will find it better in the future than they have ever found it before to settle some of these treaties.

When they talk about the New Era document we promised during the election, I look back on some of the things we've accomplished already and what we have promised to do. I think that's the difference between the previous government and the Liberal government today. We all know that very seldom do you ever vote a government into office. You vote governments out of office.

That is the way it has happened over the years. It happens this time that they voted a government out that was the worst in B.C., and I think they voted in one of the best governments B.C. has ever seen in the history of this province, which will stand up — is standing up — and will do what it says it will do. That's a breath of fresh air. I was here once before, and some of the things we said we were going to do didn't happen. I never want to see that happen again. This is a great program, and I think it should be followed through. I know our government will.

A lot of the other speakers have hit on things of great interest to me, and I think one of the things that is predominant in B.C. is an aging population. We have throughout the whole of B.C. this aging population and seniors. I think our seniors have to be dealt with in a fair and equitable way. I know that in Sechelt, for instance, we have one of the highest senior populations in all of British Columbia. The one community has a seniors population of 22 percent.

They have a great seniors centre, and they're very, very active in what they want and how they want to see it done. I'm hoping to have the minister who works with seniors come to my riding and sit down with these seniors, because I think they can give us a lot of insight into some of the problems we have and how we can solve them from a seniors' point of view — not just from a government point of view but from how the seniors see them and what they see. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised to find out they have a more objective way of looking at it than what we may think today.

We talk about kids and sports and talk about the new sports in schools and how to keep them physically fit. I think we've all seen what's happening on television and radio, and we hear about children and obese children, and what it's going to cost us in the future when it comes down to our health care. I think it's really important that kids have sports in schools, in their home, in their whole communities. This is what will give them the physical fitness that will carry them the rest of their lives.

If we let our children at the ages of five, six and seven become obese and not active, we are going to pay the price when they become adults, believe me, because that's where the health care system will falter again. It will be the second wave. I think it's important that we really push the physical fitness of the children and the people of this province. I guess that goes for all of us, and I'd better take my own advice and start doing something myself.

On an ongoing basis I have people come to my office with compensation problems. It behooves me to see some of the cases come in that are being denied the right to get a decent living. I could understand it if someone comes in and they can't figure out what's wrong with that person. I had a man come in who's a shake-blocker, and one of the blocks came out of a sling while in flight in a helicopter and hit him on the head. He just about didn't make it to start with. They did a lobotomy and had to take some of his brain out. He applies for compensation, he goes through it, and then we ask him why he's wanting compensation. Then later on, to take away his licence because he wasn't competent enough to drive and still deny him compensation doesn't make any sense.

So we've really got to look at this compensation problem. I know it can be abused, but I also know there are a lot of legitimate people out there who are suffering because of our whole system. It's good to see what our government has done with the board at compensation. I hope they bring in people that understand and don't just build dynasties on a job at people's expense.

I'm kind of running out of things to say right now. I'm not a guy that says a lot of things, but I wouldn't mind going back to talk about deregulation. The Deregulation ministry, I think, is one of the most important for our government, because business and the working people…. I've had more people that are just ordinary citizens, working joes, who are fed up with the red tape they have to go through with governments at all levels — municipal, regional, provincial, federal. They're fed up with the red tape, fed up with having to jump through hoops that should never be there.

I hope that the Minister for Deregulation takes a hard look at what business is going through and how he can streamline it so this province can get on with doing the job it has to do and this government can do what it has to do without having a lot of regulations and red tape in the face of business, holding it up.

I think that the long term for this province is the best in Canada. We are coming from one of the worst positions in the history of British Columbia and probably…. I can't say for sure, but it must be close to the first- or second-worst position of any province in Canada.

We've seen what's happened in Newfoundland over the years when it went into its exploration of oil and gas in the North Sea. Now it is a have province, not a have-not province. I think we have to look at where we're going to get our wealth from in the future. The only place we can get our wealth in the future is from business, the industries and the workers who provide the tax dollars to drive the system in the future. I do believe that the oil and gas industry is one area that we can look forward to, to get the funds so that we can have the necessary health care in the future. I also think hydroelectric power is another.

Going way back, W.A.C. Bennett had a vision for this province, and he went ahead and did it. Probably the last time a government had a real vision was back in W.A.C. Bennett's time, rather than today. Now another government has a vision for the future, and I

think we've got an opportunity to grasp it and run with it. But we're still living off his vision back in the fifties, for heaven's sake, and it's petering out. Now we've got to have a new vision, a new way. We've got to have a new system and a new era to drive the system.

I look forward to working with each and every one of the members here in this House, and with everybody — the unions and the working people and the communities of this province — to make sure…. They all have the good of the province at heart as well, and we've got to know that it's not just us alone in this House. It's the whole people, our communities, our mayors and our councils and all other governments. They want the same thing, and I think it's time. Giving a leadership role, which our Premier has given, and a new vision, a new era, I think we can all get together and turn this province around. It may take some time, but I think we will again have the best province in Canada and that it will be the best province for many, many years.

B. Locke: Like the minister from Fort Langley–Aldergrove, I also live in a great area of the province. We have a beautiful urban forest, great shopping and recreational facilities, so it's a great place to raise a family.

It is my privilege to rise to speak to the throne speech. I am so proud to be part of a team that means what it says and delivers. My government is committed to doing what it said it would do, and we are well on our way to completing the 90-day agenda. Many thanks to all the cabinet ministers and caucus members, and special thanks to our Premier.

You know, the news just keeps getting better and better. We have seen an increase of 4.4 percent in average housing prices in Surrey, where I live. That's a positive sign for the people, that they are feeling confident once again. They're confident for two reasons: firstly, because they have more money in their pockets since the government reduced personal income tax by 25 percent; and secondly, because the NDP cloud has been removed from our fair province.

The NDP would have you believe that it's about class warfare. It's about business or working people. I want to talk about small business. I come from the small business sector, and I know hundreds of small business men and women that put everything on the line for their business. They are working people. They work 18-hour days, they risk their homes, they virtually have to give up their family life, and they risk their futures, as few of them have pensions to fall back on. They are the backbone of this province. I know how hard small business people work and their risks. I know their work, because my father was a small business man who lost his small business. I know how devastating that is for a family and that many never recover from that devastation.

Tragically, too many people in British Columbia lost their business, partially due to complete and utter incompetence by the NDP government, a government that squandered a decade. The nineties were positive for every other jurisdiction in North America but, sadly, not for British Columbia.

My background is in tourism and hospitality. I know how hard men and women that run neighbourhood pubs, cabarets, motels, hotels, restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts, campgrounds and all the tourist attractions work to run their businesses and make them successful. They are great people who didn't deserve to have their own government sabotage their success. Sadly, the NDP treated them and all small business with disdain and encumbered them with red tape, taxes and uncertainty. Add to that the left and right hand of government bureaucracies being at cross-purposes to one another. Business didn't have a chance. They were tinkered with, manipulated, bullied, and their future was destabilized. Business had no certainty.

A wise man once said that capital is cowardly and will not go where it is not wanted. B.C. in the nineties was given no certainty to create jobs, to expand businesses and to plan business. Capital just said goodbye to B.C., because it wasn't wanted.

I am so happy those days are gone — gone forever. There is no doubt that the black days for B.C. are over, and B.C. is open for business once again. The B.C. Liberal government proves every day that it is committed to this province — to everyone in this province — making it a better place to live, work and play, and a better place to do business. Rebuilding our province is critical if we are to have the society we all want to live in. I am so proud to be a part of the future of British Columbia — a new era for business and families, for seniors and students. We all have to work together to make our province return to what it was, what it can be and what it will be.

R. Visser: Mr. Speaker, I haven't had the opportunity to congratulate you on the ascent to your chair. Thank you for taking the position, and I look forward to your deliberations over our debates in the next three years.

I need to start by talking to an injustice that was perpetrated in this House a little earlier by the member for Fort Langley–Aldergrove. The birthplace of British Columbia is not Fort Langley or somewhere. It is indeed Tahsis, which is in my riding, where Captain Cook met with Chief Maquinna in — gosh, I meant to remember this year — 17-something. I want the record to reflect that the injustice was handled here for the people of Tahsis.

Like many of my colleagues in this House, we've come to government with some very high expectations. We have high expectations of the leadership of our party. We have high expectations of each other. Most of all we have high expectations of ourselves. I think that with those expectations we've set the bar of Liberal democracy high, very high — higher than any other

jurisdiction that we have in this nation. I think we all have a great deal to live up to. As private members, that means we'll have a great deal of hard work to do over time and to be open and accessible to our people who we represent.

As private members, one of the things we fought this election on very strongly was the issue of free votes in the House. It allows us to be responsive to our constituents. It allows us to be responsive to the notion of democracy, and it allows us to provide yet another check and balance in the system that we haven't ever had before. I think it's a testament — the notion of free votes for private members and all members of this House — to the leadership of our government and all that it does in its deliberations. I think that free votes for private members will be the true test of legitimacy of our government over time. I think that's something we can't underestimate. It means a government and legislation in a relationship with the people that will come through cooperation and innovation and not through blind and naked power — the type of power we've seen exercised over the last decade.

Another important aspect of our government's commitment to democracy is opening up cabinet meetings for the first time in the Commonwealth. We're lifting the veil of secrecy that has blanketed the deliberations of the executive council so that all British Columbians can see how our government works. I think that's an important undertaking. All British Columbians, over the next four years, will get to see that this is indeed a new era for democracy. It's a new era of openness and a new era of accountability. Those are things that we haven't seen in this province for a long time. Those are some of the things I'm most proud of in this government and something I look forward to being part of and something that I think will be our legacy to parliamentary deliberations around the Commonwealth.

A third aspect of this that is very important for private members — and all of us have taken our responsibilities very seriously — is the concept of government caucus committees. It's a wonderful opportunity for us to pursue our interests as legislators and members of this society. It's also a wonderful opportunity for us to influence legislation and the development of public policy on behalf of our constituents.

I sit on the Natural Resources Committee. This committee has already played a critical role in developing our government's policy surrounding our relationship to natural resources: how we develop them, how we extract them, how we relate to them on the land, how they are used as tools to enhance our standard of living. I think that the government caucus committees are going to reshape our ability to influence change along the way and that we'll be able to put the stamp of our constituencies, our ridings and our people on important legislation that comes along.

Another thing that I think is going to be critical — something I've already seen in all of my colleagues, including myself — is a new openness to the people in our ridings. We are increasing the access to ourselves by all the people in our ridings. Our office hours are longer, our people are happier, and we're more willing to have meetings and entertain people in our offices. We're more willing to get out into the public than we have seen in the last decade. We haven't hidden our offices down long hallways in obscure buildings. We're on the main streets of every small community in every neighbourhood. I think that's an important thing and a new thing that we haven't seen for quite some time in this province.

Another thing I would like to speak to today in regards to the throne speech is the revitalization of the concept of free enterprise. We have a long and proud history of free enterprise in this province. We are open traders, and we've relied on conquering the frontier over the last, according to the member for Fort Langley–Aldergrove, 173 years.

We've overcome hardship on the land. The trees were big; the rivers were wide; the fields were rocky. The oceans were full of peril, and we had small boats. We've done all kinds of things to make this province prosperous, but for some reason we've lost our ability to be innovative and to be energized in our economy. We need to regain that.

I think this will come through some of our commitments to free enterprise. We need to re-energize. In history, it was the hand loggers and the fishers and the miners and all the people who fanned out across this province and extracted resources and built our economy. I think we need to mine the future and harvest the future. I think we've made some critical strides as a government already in pursuing some of these important goals and reinstituting the concept of free enterprise as an underpinning of how we behave as a province.

There are a few things that are a testament to that or that show our commitment to that. One is that we've gotten out of ten years of a dark and painful taxation policy. We're more competitive on two fronts: personal taxation and taxation for businesses, especially those small businesses that have become a more important part of our economy.

We've come to understand that we need to cut red tape. We've committed to cutting red tape by a third. A lot of people say: "Well, what does that mean?" I'll tell the House a little story. I was touring a logging operation a few weeks ago in the North Island. They were relating to me how they had spent about 60 hours explaining to certain regulatory bodies why a road that they'd built across a rock face was two feet wider than their development plan had said it would be. They had engineers, foresters and all kinds of people in their employ trying to explain to agencies why it had to be two feet wider. After they had filled out all their documents — all 19 feet of them — to get permission to

build the road through to the cutblock…. The reason they built the road two feet wider was so that when you're loading logs with a log loader, at no point can the counterweight swing within two feet of a rock face. That's mandated by another agency, so they had to build it two feet wider.

That's red tape. Those are the things that cost us a competitive economy. We need to allow the professionals in the forest industry to make decisions as they go about critical things like that. Those people should be able to understand, be capable of and have our blessing to make decisions on the fly that have no consequence on the environment but have consequence on safety. They shouldn't be burdened with red tape, explanations, paperwork and more paperwork as to why they made that decision. They are professionals. They have their designation from engineering schools and professional bodies in this province. They can, should and will be held accountable for the decisions they make. We as a government shouldn't have to explain or have explained or rationalize or have paperwork for every single thing that occurs out in the field.

When we say we need to cut red tape by a third, I think that's exactly what we're talking about — restoring professional abilities to the people who work in industries like the forest industry, and I'm looking forward to doing that. I think that's called moving to a results base. Here is the result we want. We want an environmentally sensitive forest practice. We want safety. We want all kinds of things like that, and you need to achieve those results. We don't need you to fill out a mountain of paperwork to do that.

I think the other thing that needs to be understood, in terms of the free enterprise economy and getting our spirit back, is that risk needs to be rewarded, that it's okay to be profitable, that profit is a good thing. Profit leads to a number of things, including more jobs. I think that for the last decade, we've spent a lot of time focusing on the concept of jobs when we should have been focusing on the concept of employers. Employers create jobs; profit creates more jobs. Profit and growth are the two things that we've been missing from this province for the last decade. We need to get that back if we're ever to stand a chance of creating the jobs that we need in our communities and in ridings like the North Island.

I also want to make some comments about health and our government's commitment to health care. There are a number of things in the throne speech that, from the perspective of North Island, I think are very, very important. One of those is — and not the least of which is — rural and remote training for health care professionals. It doesn't matter whether you're a doctor, a nurse or a technician in a hospital. We need to be able to send our nurses and those people from Port Hardy, Port Alice, Campbell River, Alert Bay, Kyuquot and Gold River to the larger urban centres so they can have their skills and training upgraded so that they can be energized about their work and feel included in a profession that is ever-changing.

A lot of the people that graduated 20 or 30 years ago from colleges, universities or technical schools in health care professions would argue that things are very different now, that they need this training and that it is important. It's very important for rural health care deliverers to have access to those kinds of facilities and training. I think that's a commitment that bodes very well for ridings like the North Island.

One of the other critical components that I want to just mention is ambulance attendants. They need the same kind of training. These ambulance attendants and paramedics in rural areas are the front line of health care. They often mean the difference between not only life and death but partial and full recovery in events of major and sudden illnesses. In rural areas that is paramount. When you live in Port Alice and you're faced with a major and sudden illness, you need the best possible initial care you can get so that you can be stabilized.

We in rural communities all know that we will be taken somewhere else for tertiary treatment. We know that we're not getting triple bypass surgery in Port Alice, but we need to know that the people preparing us for the trip to those centres are the best trained that we can find. Mr. Speaker, I was heartened to see in the throne speech that we've made commitments to those kinds of initiatives so that the health care for all British Columbians, whether you're urban or rural, is delivered in a way that's appropriate, fair and meaningful.

I think rural and remote communities, coastal communities like those on the North Island, are also faced with a great number of challenges in delivering intermediate, long-term and home care. I was very pleased to see, in our government's commitment to health care, a minister of state assigned to that task.

The wait-lists on the North Island are very long — up to two years and sometimes longer, depending on cases. They're having a profound effect on a number of families — not only the patients but the families that are caring for them. We have had our home care cut. Home care is expensive in rural communities. There are great distances to travel. We don't have access to the same number of beds that they do in other places. It's an issue and a shortage that exists across the province, but it is important for places like Campbell River, Port Hardy, Port Alice and Alert Bay that we get focused on how we deliver some of these services to them.

I think the solutions that we'll come up with are going to be innovative. They're going to be flexible. I don't think it's outrageous to say that they're going to be courageous. We need to find new beds. We need to find care for these people. We need to make sure that we understand there is a cost to our society for not doing something and that that needs to be factored into the decisions we make.

Mr. Speaker, there's another thing I want to speak about, and that's the environment and our commitment

as a government to coming to some scientific understanding of how we relate to the environment and building public policy that's based on good science as opposed to rhetoric, innuendo, fear and plain scare tactics. These science-based principles need to be laid out on forestry, aquaculture, fish farming, shellfish farming, and oil and gas development, whether it's in the northeast or offshore at some point. They need to be discussed around mining and tourism.

We need a clearer understanding of our relationship to the environment, but we also need to know that we can move forward, that these industries that have been the backbone of our province and are the backbone of rural and coastal communities can and will be able to move forward, that we can see some successes, that things like finfish aquaculture have a role in our society, that we can do them environmentally sensitively, that we can proceed in a way that's managed and equitable for all and includes public participation and has some foresight.

We are the best in the world at doing a number of these things. We have the best forest practices in the world right now. We have the best finfish aquaculture practices in the world, and we are developing them as we go in a way that no other jurisdiction on this planet is doing. We are very good at what we do, and we need to stand up and be proud of those things now. They are the lifelines of coastal communities: forestry, fishing, mining. We need to accept responsibility for the actions that we take. We need to understand that we are capable of being environmentally sensitive. Nature is a powerful entity, and while we may have some short-term impacts, in the long term recovery is inevitable and appropriate.

The last thing that I want to speak about is of tremendous importance to the North Island: our negotiating treaties with first nations. We have a number of first nations in the North Island, and I have met with almost all of them now. We have discussed a wide range of things with regard to treaties.

I think the discussion around treaties starts in one place, and that is with building economic capacity in first nations. They need to be able to build their communities with self-respect and the foresight that they are going to be significant decision-makers and significant players on the land.

I speak to that from the sense of some of the remarkable partnerships I have seen between first nations like the Kyuquot band and fish-farming companies, where they have come to mutually beneficial arrangements in their traditional territories. They have real and lasting partnerships in their traditional territories with industries that are new and exciting, that have to be in places like Kyuquot for their very existence. They bring jobs and economic activity to places that have been struggling for years. They are a shining light in some ways.

I think we need to pursue some of those initiatives. We need to encourage the forest companies and the mining companies and the fishing companies to have real and lasting partnerships with first nations. We need to encourage economic capacity building through education programs for first nations, where we go to places like Kyuquot and teach them about fish farming, where we go to the Quatsino band and teach them about forestry, or have them come and we all learn together about how forestry works. We need to have these relationships be ones of true give-and-take, based on equality and partnership-building from an economic sense.

That will go a long way to resolving some of the concerns and anxiety that exist around treaties. They are eminently solvable through good economic development, good partnerships, good buy-in and good relationships between first nations and non–first nations in coastal communities, and those are the communities that I know most about.

I'd like to speak a little bit about the referendum idea. I think it's one of the most fundamentally important things that this government has said it would do. We have been told for years, and we understand clearly, that negotiating treaties with first nations is not something we can opt out of. It is something we have to do. It is mandated by the Supreme Court and, more importantly, by the constitution of this nation. We can't back away from it. We need to meet it head-on.

I think that our concept of a referendum will be one of educating all of us on the realities of negotiating treaties. Both first nations and non–first nations alike will be engaged in a process that includes one of the most fundamental underpinnings of democracy: the right to vote. When we are granted a right to vote, we pay more attention to what we do, and we take an interest in how those issues that we're about to vote on relate to us personally.

Through leadership, tenacity and intelligence on the part of our government, the referendum on treaty issues will be very enlightening to all of us. It will raise the level of understanding of what treaties mean to non–first nations communities. So if you live on a small street in Campbell River or a big street in Vancouver or a street in Kamloops, we'll have a greater understanding of why treaties are important. It is an exercise of education. It is an exercise of eye-opening. It is an exercise of bringing the issues that first nations have to the forefront of this province's political debate and dialogue, and I think that is long overdue.

I am glad that we are going to tackle these things head-on. I'm glad that we're going to be out in the public travelling with a committee that looks at this issue, that engages with the first nations and non–first nations on what questions on a referendum might look like. We can frame this debate right from the ground and take it forward to the people. I think this is one of the fundamental parts of democracy. I think this is one of the things that this government can be most proud of. I suspect that the results are going to be very fruitful and very rewarding to all of us over the next couple of years.

I'd like to close by saying that I'm very proud to be part of this government. The time that I've spent here

so far and the times that I've risen in this House are some of the most meaningful things that have happened to me in my life. I think that if all of us who have been elected take this job and this career, this vocation — this calling, even, for some people — seriously, we have the opportunity to shape the province in a way that is remarkable. We have a mandate to make change, and I think we will make change. I think all the people of this province are looking forward to that change.

Hon. B. Barisoff: Hon. Speaker, first of all, I'd like to congratulate you on your appointment as Speaker of this House. Having had the opportunity to sit, for the last five years, in the benches of the opposition, I'm sure that you're going to do a marvellous job of representing us here in the Legislature in the upcoming four years that we're going to partake in, creating the laws and making new things happen for British Columbia.

I'd like to just touch base a little bit on the fact that I feel almost like a new MLA, in the sense that my riding used to consist of, starting over in the eastern part, Christina Lake and Grand Forks, moving into Greenwood and Midway, Rock Creek, up the Christian Valley to Beaverdell, over to Bridesville and then across the pass to Osoyoos, Oliver, OK Falls, Kaleden and over to Keremeos and Hedley. The new riding, actually, now consists of a little more north-south geography. I go from Osoyoos in the south to Oliver and up to OK Falls, Kaleden, Penticton and Naramata.

The last time that I ran I got elected by a mere 27 votes. This time I won by in excess of 10,000. I want to attribute some of it to the fact that I think I've done a reasonably good job in the riding, but I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the people of British Columbia were fed up with what happened in this province. We've seen a province that was number one in Canada deteriorate to the lowest, to number ten. We've seen people suffering, businesses closing. I've seen that in my own riding; I've seen it in the new riding. People were totally frustrated with what was taking place. People wanted a fresh start; they wanted a new era.

I think that under the leadership of our new Premier, people are going to see that new era. They're ready for change, and we're going to bring change. But we're going to bring change in a very positive way — make people feel wanted back in this province, make them come back to do things, have jobs for our young people.

I know the Premier has mentioned, on a number of occasions, his youngsters that have left the province. I have the same situation with one of my youngsters that has left the province. We want to bring them back into British Columbia, and the only way we can do that is by creating a sense of hope and a sense of well-being so that people want to live back here in B.C. I think we started that off.

First, we got elected on May 16, and cabinet was sworn in on June 5. On June 6 the Premier and the Minister of Finance brought in a 25 percent tax cut to the people of British Columbia. Well, I want to say that I was fortunate enough to be appointed to cabinet and to be the Provincial Revenue minister. When they said that news back east, because Canada Customs and Revenue collects the taxes for the province of British Columbia — the income tax — they sent a note back to the staff saying: "You must have made a mistake, because it couldn't possibly be true that this represented a 25 percent tax cut. Could you double-check this?"

We sent it back, of course, to the Minister of Finance and said: "Of course. That's exactly what's happened." The Premier of this province made a commitment to the people and said: "Listen. I'm going to give tax cuts, and I'm going to make sure that the money goes back into the people's pockets." We're seeing the benefit of that already, and it's only been just over two months since it passed. We're starting to see the benefits: people wanting to move back to British Columbia, people from Alberta saying that we've got the lowest tax rates in all of Canada. When I think about it for a while, I say to myself that we made our first commitment, and we've done what we said we were going to do.

When I travel throughout the new riding from Osoyoos up to Penticton and Naramata, people are excited. They're saying: "You guys are the first politicians that have ever said something during an election and have lived up to it." We made that commitment.

When we go on to our 90-day commitments and we see it, whether it's in the cabinet chambers or in the caucus room, the big board says: "Here are the 90-day commitments that we're going to make, and this is what we're going to do." People are really flabbergasted by that. They can't believe that a group of politicians are truly going to do it. I think that's why they put their belief in the fact that out of 79 elected people, we have 77 B.C. Liberals. We cover every part of this province, whether it's in the northeast sector in the Peace River, down in the southeast sector in the Cranbrook area or right through the Okanagan, up into the Peace, over to the north coast on Vancouver Island or the metro area of Vancouver. There is no part of this province that we don't cover.

I think it's an indicator to the people of British Columbia that it wasn't just isolated support; it was support throughout the entire province. People gave their support to every sector of the province because they knew that the B.C. Liberal Party was going to make a change to what's going to happen in this province. I think about it, and I think about all the new people that got elected. I look across on the other side, and we look back and forth, and I think about each day that we hold our 15-minute question period. I realize that there are only two people over there who are asking questions. They wonder why. They criticize us for some of the things that we're doing, yet they don't realize what happened over the last ten years.

We had truly a decade of decline, a decade where there was no hope of wanting to be in British Columbia. People were moving south, down into Texas. They were moving into Washington State. They were moving to Alberta. As the Premier has mentioned on a number of occasions, they were even moving into Saskatchewan. You probably heard the Premier say that the good Lord didn't mean for people to move from B.C. to Saskatchewan. He meant them to move from Saskatchewan to British Columbia. That's not a slight against Saskatchewan. It's just that we've got much better weather here.

The member for North Island thinks that he's got the best spot, and of course the member from Fort Langley always thinks that he's got the best spot. But we all know that if you come from the Okanagan Valley, that truly is God's country there. It truly is the nicest place to live. I was just thinking about when I left there this morning. They were indicating that the temperature would rise to close to 100 degrees, or 35 or 38 degrees Celsius, in Osoyoos. So we do know that it's truly a beautiful spot to be from.

I look at our 90-day commitments, and I look at our New Era document, and I look at our vision for a top-notch education system in this province. Prior to getting elected five years ago, I spent 18 years on the school board. Those were good years, and I enjoyed the benefits of what we could bring to the children of British Columbia, but I've seen a slow deterioration of what was taking place. It seemed to get worse and worse. Probably one of the bigger reasons that prompted me to get involved in provincial politics was because I was concerned about what was happening in education.

After May 17, I got excited again. I got to thinking that we are going to be able to make a change. We're going to make things happen for the students of British Columbia. We're committed to making education an essential service. This is going to happen in the summer session of the Legislature. That's important, because the students of this province are our most precious resource. I'm fortunate enough to have three boys of my own, and when I think about it, I think to myself how valuable the education system is. When people criticize the fact that we're going to make it an essential service, I say to myself: just think about it for a second. My three young boys…. They're not young anymore. The last one is leaving home this year and off to college. But when I think about it, I think to myself that it's really, really important that they get all the schooling they can possibly get so that they can better themselves and move on and do the good things that we want and be able to stay here in British Columbia.

Then I move down to the next one, and I see that one of our visions is high-quality public health care. Well, I'm fortunate enough, I guess, to be involved in the education system myself, just as a school trustee and a school board chairman. Then I think of the public health care system, where my wife is a nurse and does the scheduling now for South Okanagan General Hospital, and I think of how important she views the public health care system and what she thinks of when she comes home to tell me the benefits that we can do and what can happen. I think to myself about where we've gone in the last ten years. I get calls to my office that elderly people are waiting for hip replacements. They're on the list, and they're a year or a year and a half away. I say to myself that we've got to do something different. And, you know, we're starting to do that. This government is going to make the changes and make things happen.

When I keep looking at our visions I think, boy, you know, the first two are just unbelievably right on the mark. Then I look at No. 3, and I look at a thriving private sector economy that creates high-paying job opportunities. The second day in office we created that 25 percent tax cut, and we automatically created higher-paying jobs for everybody in the province. As the member for Fort Langley–Aldergrove…. We happened to be downtown in the bank here in Victoria, and we made the comment that we were making these tax cuts. They had asked us why they should vote for us — this was prior to the election — and we said: "Because we're going to raise your pay." She laughed, and we said: "Well, you can take that to the bank." The fact is that we did; we raised everybody's pay in British Columbia — every single person that's a working person. By cutting their taxes, we raised their pay.

From my perspective, I just think to myself that these are the kinds of things that are going to keep people in British Columbia, because we've automatically raised the bar a little bit and created higher-paying jobs.

When I look down to "Safer streets and schools in every community," this time around the Premier has created a Solicitor General who's in charge of safer streets and looking after every community. This gentleman is a fine gentleman. I happen to be a good friend of his, and I know that's part of what his job will be. He's going to look after those kinds of things. He's a very principled person. I know that's the No. 4 item on our vision, and that's going to happen.

I look down to "Better services for children, families and first nations." I'm extremely fortunate in the riding of Penticton–Okanagan Valley to have the Osoyoos Indian band. Chief Clarence Louie there has just done an extremely great job of developing the area of the Osoyoos Indian band. We've got golf courses. We've got wineries. They've got a construction company. They've built their own school. They're in the process of building a health centre. Chief Clarence Louie has been recognized throughout all of Canada as one of the top-notch entrepreneurs, in a way, in making things happen.

There was an article in the weekend Sun. Reading through it, it was about Chief Clarence Louie, of course, and the Osoyoos Indian band. I was excited when I looked down there. One of his comments was that he plans to have the Osoyoos Indian band totally self-sufficient by the year 2005. They're not looking for

more government handouts; they're actually making sure that they run as a business. They're making profit there and doing things that are just great. It helps the economy of the south end of the valley and does all kinds of things. They're building their own winery in Osoyoos and, from what I understand, a 300-place hotel. It's just fabulous to think that right there in my own riding I have somebody that is known throughout all of Canada for doing such a marvellous job.

Then I look at No. 6, "The fastest growing technology industry in Canada." We all know what's happened to the NASDAQ market and what's happened to technology throughout North America and throughout Canada. I think to myself: here's an area that is going to turn around, because we have our ups and downs. We'll see it come back. But we've got to make sure that we're on that leading edge. We're going to be able to do that simply because as we've lowered the taxes, we've created a much better business climate for people to live in. These are the kinds of things that are going to make it happen.

I look down at No. 7, "A leading edge forest industry that is globally recognized for its productivity and environmental stewardship." Just prior to this, I was listening to the member for North Island speaking of the logging in the North Island and the things that they're doing up there. Hon. Speaker, this is happening throughout the entire province. We've got to make it happen. Our forest industry was probably on its knees, on the verge of…. I hate to think what's happened to it over the last ten years.

The economic decline in some of our forest-dependent communities, particularly in the middle and the northern parts of the province, has been devastating. A lot of that has to do with the fact that when profit became a dirty word in B.C., people started to leave. People weren't prepared to invest more money to create the new technologies, whether it was in forestry or in mining or wherever it was.

This is about to change. These are the kinds of things that are changing with the new government and particularly with the fact that the people of British Columbia have given us a mandate like no other government has seen in the province: 77 out of 79 seats. It's something that I think all of us should be proud of. And particularly the Premier of the province should be proud of it, because he was the one that led us into this stage, and he's making sure it's going to happen.

Then I look down to "greater equity and equality for British Columbians and Canada." Hon. Speaker, this is a totally diverse group of people here, and these things are going to happen. I look down again to "the most open, accountable democratic government in Canada." We're moving in that direction also. We're making a budget transparency law so people understand where we're spending the money.

I know that the Minister of Finance is making sure that every nickel is accounted for now. In the past this hasn't happened. People haven't been accountable for their money, haven't been accountable for how the dollars have been spent in British Columbia. We have to be more accountable if we're going to make this province accountable so that people believe in politicians, believe in this institution. When you come here, you think to yourself that the people who get elected…. To me, it was really something five years ago to be elected to these chambers, to be able to take part in making laws and doing the things that have to happen. But we have to make sure that the people of this province believe in what we're doing also.

Then I look for responsible, accountable management of your public resources and tax dollars, and again, that's just a strong indicator of the direction that we're going in. We're going in a direction to make things happen.

Oh, I just got the note here to wrap it up, to get things going. Hon. Speaker, again I congratulate you and I congratulate the Deputy Speaker on the fact of holding the posts. The opportunity to speak to the throne speech is something that we all endeavour to do and of course like to do. We get the chance to talk a little bit about our ridings. I would just like to thank the people of Penticton–Okanagan Valley for the support they have given me in this past election. As I said earlier in my speech, from 27 votes to over 10,000 certainly makes you believe in the people, and I hope I can accommodate them and do what has to be done in the south part of the Okanagan Valley.

T. Christensen: I certainly didn't mean to cut short the member for Penticton–Okanagan Valley, but I do welcome the opportunity to respond to the Speech from the Throne. Mr. Speaker, it truly is a historic document in that it signals a fundamental change in direction for the province of British Columbia. It's a change that will require determination to implement — I think that's very clear — but will collectively benefit all British Columbians as this province gets back on track.

I want to make reference to a number of the specific initiatives in the Speech from the Throne, Mr. Speaker, but first I want to remind this assembly what the government has set out as its ten overarching priorities. The previous member did speak about a number of these, but I'd like to set them out essentially as a top-ten list: a top-notch education system for students of all ages; a high-quality public health care service that meets all patients' needs where they live and when they need it; a thriving private sector economy that creates high-paying job opportunities; safer streets and schools in every community; better services for children, families and first nations; the fastest-growing technology industry in Canada; a leading-edge forest industry that is globally recognized for its productivity and environmental stewardship; greater equity and equality for British Columbia and Canada; an open and accountable government; and responsible, accountable management of British Columbians' public resources and tax dollars.

That certainly sets out a tall order, but it's one that I'm sure this government has the full capability of pursuing. Those ten overarching priorities come about within the context of an overwhelming mandate for sweeping change, a sweeping vision for economic, social and institutional revitalization. As was stated in the Speech from the Throne, it's going to take resolve, fortitude and tenacity to fulfil the commitment to meet those ten overarching priorities. But by working together with British Columbians, this government is certain to reach those goals.

The Speech from the Throne signalled and the government has followed through with a new approach to governing. It's one marked by consultation and cooperation within government and between governments. It's marked by the involvement of all government MLAs in making recommendations to cabinet through government caucus committees.

It's marked, as well, by a Minister of State for Community Charter, which signals a clear indication that we want to work with communities throughout British Columbia to ensure that we're all striving to make British Columbia a better place and each community a better place. We cannot simply continue to work at cross-purposes with other governments within our own province.

It's marked by a constructive, cooperative approach to intergovernmental relations, an approach that started this past week with the annual Premiers' conference and with our own Premier hosting that conference. That was an important first step in establishing a new relationship among Premiers throughout Canada. That will in turn establish a new relationship in terms of how the Premiers deal with the federal government, so we can all move forward recognizing that there really is only one taxpayer in this country. It doesn't matter whether you're at the municipal level, the provincial level or the federal level, we need to work together to reach our common goals.

The Speech from the Throne also indicated a commitment to work with the federal government among related ministries to reduce overlap and ensure effective service delivery, as well as proposing an annual provincial congress of all B.C. MLAs, MPs, Senators and the mayors from the 12 largest cities to ensure that we continue the dialogue among different levels of government within the province — again, all working toward common goals.

It's only through consultation and cooperation in pursuing this government's vision for a renewed B.C. that these ten overarching priorities set forth in the Speech from the Throne will be accomplished.

Unfortunately, there's even a bigger task at hand, which seems to override all others as we approach this thirty-seventh parliament. It's a sad fact that one of the greatest but most important challenges we face is restoring the public's faith in government. It's an enormous obligation to meet British Columbians' desire for a government they can trust and respect, and it simply can't be dictated and announced that we're going to establish trust. We actually have to follow through and ensure that British Columbians feel they can trust this government to do what it says it's going to do. We have to bring forth the qualities of honesty, integrity and competence in governing this province.

The Speech from the Throne clearly indicated the direction we're going, and I'll quote just briefly from that speech. It says: "First and foremost, my government will be true to its word." I can't think of a more important statement a government can make, particularly in its first mandate, to ensure that and to reassure the people of B.C. that it's a government moving in the right direction.

Already there are numerous promises that have been kept, despite the fact that this government has been in office only just over two months. We've seen, on day one, a dramatic personal income tax cut. We've seen follow-through on the commitment to review FRBC. We've seen follow-through on the commitment to have open cabinet meetings. We've seen an elimination of photo radar. We've seen the government follow through on its commitment to phase out taxes on investment and on productivity as well as on a number of other fronts that will certainly get the economy back on track.

To ensure that promises continue to be kept and that each cabinet minister is reviewing his or her particular ministry with a view to ensuring that promises are kept, for the first time in this province's history cabinet ministers have a direct consequence if those promises aren't kept and if the mandate of their ministry isn't lived up to. It hits them directly in the pocketbook, and that's a first anywhere in Canada.

What are we doing in pursuing those ten overarching priorities? I'm not going to go through all ten, but the Minister of Provincial Revenue, who spoke before me, alluded to a number of things that were already happening. I may be a bit repetitive, but I think it's important that we recognize exactly what's being done and how much progress we are already making.

A top-notch education system for students of all ages simply recognizes the critical importance of education to everybody in the province. We're doing that in a number of ways. We're making education an essential service. That simply recognizes how critical it is to the future of our children, who are the future of our province.

We are ensuring the involvement of parents in our children's education. That really accomplishes two things. It assists in the delivery of education by having parents involved in their schools and actually helping out, perhaps at times in the classroom, in the overall delivery of education. It also allows parents to see what's going on in the schools. That allows them to go home and think about what and how their children are learning, and then be vocal in suggesting change where necessary.

There's a commitment to introducing more choice in our education system. Choice allows innovation, creativity and the development of unique programs.

Perhaps one technical change, in terms of the delivery of education, has been the commitment to provide three-year funding envelopes to school districts. While that's a rather technical change and has to do with accounting — so it's a bit dry — the fact remains that when I was speaking to my own school district during the course of the election campaign, and subsequently, providing consistent funding that they can plan around was the number one thing that they indicated they needed.

Beyond education, we want to create high-quality public health care services. To do that, you need to plan to get results. The number one thing we've done there is actually recognize that, as we look to the future, we have to plan our health care system. We've established a Minister of Health Planning. That shouldn't be a novel concept. Unfortunately, over the course of government in this province until now, nobody seems to have recognized how critical it is that we think in advance so that things don't come to us by surprise.

A Minister of Health Planning is going to go a long way to ensuring that as we resolve the difficulties we're facing today, we don't simply re-encounter them two years down the road from a failure to look ahead.

We've announced considerable initiatives, and followed through on a number, in terms of creating a thriving private sector economy that creates high-paying job opportunities. Finally some attention is being paid in this province to the private economy. We've decreased taxes to encourage investment. We've established a concerted, organized effort to attack unnecessary regulation through the establishment of a Minister of State for Deregulation. We've made a commitment to improve access to Crown lands and to provide timely response to applications for land use — again, things that are simply common sense but that nobody's cared to do in the past.

Another point on those ten overarching priorities that I want to address very quickly is the commitment to developing the fastest-growing technology industry in Canada. There's no question that the province of British Columbia has the talent, but we need to create a supportive private economy to ensure that that talent is capitalized upon. We need to encourage the technology sector with a competitive tax structure. We're doing that. We need to increase the graduates in technology-related degrees. We've committed to doing that, and I expect to see that we'll be following through there very soon.

The member for Kelowna–Lake Country under the previous parliament had taken the initiative to establish the Okanagan Technology Symposium, which brought a number of high-tech industries to the Okanagan on an annual basis with the hopes that ultimately we will create what has been termed the Silicon Vineyard in the Okanagan. Certainly, as the Minister of Provincial Revenue suggested before, there's no better place to live in the province, and it remains a great attraction in terms of its physical location. We simply need to establish the economic base there and the infrastructure to support high-tech industry. Hopefully, the Premier's council on technology, which is also being established, will work in that direction as well.

Those are but a few of the initiatives announced in the Speech from the Throne. As I indicated earlier, it is a historic document in terms of the number of initiatives it sets forth that this government is going to pursue. I have the greatest confidence in the other 76 B.C. Liberal MLAs that were elected on May 16, and I very much look forward to working with all of them in pursuit of the initiatives set out in the Speech from the Throne. It's been a privilege to have the opportunity to speak to the Speech from the Throne, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for that opportunity.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, the question is on the motion in Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, moved by the member for Victoria-Hillside and seconded by the member for East Kootenay.:

Hon. G. Collins: I move that this House stand recessed until 6:15 p.m. this evening.

Hon. G. Bruce presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Health Care Services Collective Agreements Act, 2001.

Hon. G. Bruce: I move that Bill 15, intituled Health Care Services Collective Agreements Act, 2001, be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. G. Bruce: This evening I am introducing legislation that will make B.C.'s nurses and paramedicals the highest paid in Canada and that will bring an end to the lengthy labour dispute between their unions and the health employer. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to reach a collective agreement through the mediator or through the cooling-off period. The chasm between the parties remains so wide that this legislation is necessary to end the dispute and to ensure that patients get the care they need.

For health care professionals this settlement provides a compensation package that gives fair compensation for the vital services they provide, competitive rates of pay and benefits that will let British Columbia attract and retain health care professionals. Nurses will see a 23.5 percent wage increase over the life of this contract, and that brings them to wage parity with Alberta and gives them the highest total compensation package in the country. Paramedical professionals will receive increases ranging from 5½ percent to 14¼ percent. At a time when public sector increases are in the 2 percent to 3 percent range, these are very attractive settlements.

Legislation is our last option, but we must protect patient care, and it was necessary to conclude these disputes. We take this step, keeping in mind the

commitment and dedication of our health care professionals. But it is fair, it is competitive, and it is what we can afford.

I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 15 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.