Hansard -- Volume 3, Number 5 -- Monday, February 18, 2002

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
		Page

Private Members' Statements
	Aboriginal fishing strategy	1129
	M. Hunter
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Value-added wood industry	1131
	P. Bell
	R. Visser
	The building boom in Burrard	1133
	L. Mayencourt
	B. Locke
	The Thompson rivers economic accord	1134
	K. Krueger
	P. Bell

Motions on Notice
	Access to justice services
	J. Kwan	1136
	Hon. G. Collins	1138
	Hon. G. Plant	1138
	J. MacPhail	1142

Clerk of the House: Pursuant to the standing orders, the House is advised of the unavoidable absence of the Speaker.

M. Hunter: I want to address the House today on a matter which is one of the most troublesome in modern-day British Columbia. It is a matter that has divided families and communities, destroyed businesses and livelihoods. It has reduced a once-dependable resource to a mere shadow of its potential. I refer to the government of Canada's aboriginal fishing strategy and, in particular, that part of the strategy that is known as the pilot sales program.

It is now ten years since the federal government introduced this controversial piece of public policy. I want to outline the reasons why it's time, after ten years, for the policy to be recognized for what it is: a bad and expensive mistake which has cost and continues to cost British Columbia dearly.

For almost all of the 120-year history of the commercial fishing industry in this province, aboriginal Canadians were an integral part of it. In the early days a salmon cannery and a sawmill were to be found in just about every cove up and down this coast. The life of those coastal villages, their aboriginal and non-aboriginal inhabitants and characters, the business that serviced them is the stuff of legend.

Read Jim Spilsbury. Look at the history of the Union Steamships. Talk to some seniors whose jobs involved travelling the length and breadth of this coast, and you'll find the same story: aboriginal and non-aboriginal people and communities relied upon each other.

It's perhaps unfashionable to talk in such terms about our past, but the facts remain that aboriginal people did adapt to and profit from the business innovations of their age. No doubt, there were abuses — no question that some aspects of life in the villages of coastal B.C. were dictated by Ottawa's Indian agent, the church or other individuals — but it was not all bad.

The commercial fishing industry provided great benefits to coastal B.C. The major processing companies employed aboriginal people in the canneries and salteries. They rented fishing boats to aboriginal fishermen. Paternalistic? Perhaps, but an effective tool for making sure that aboriginal people were part of our economy and made money.

In more recent times aboriginal fishermen in the North Coast and in the Johnstone Strait area in particular became dominant players in the industry. The gill-net fleet of the Skeena River and the seine fleet of Johnstone Strait, built to harvest incoming runs of Fraser River sockeye, pink and chum salmon, had a very large proportion of aboriginal participation. Aboriginal and non-aboriginal people mixed freely. Lifelong friendships and business relationships were founded. The industry, as many fishermen who participated in those days will tell you — fishermen both non-aboriginal and aboriginal — was colour-blind.

All the while through these years aboriginal people continued to fish for food, social and ceremonial needs. On the Fraser River, where aboriginal populations were the most concentrated, Department of Fisheries and Oceans records show that up to the mid-1980s, some quarter of a million sockeye salmon were harvested each year under permit for food, social and ceremonial use by aboriginal people.

As the salmon increased in value, the black market trade in salmon began to increase. Challenges were made to the authority of the Department of Fisheries to issue permits for food fishing — famously in the Sparrow case, which found that there was an aboriginal right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes held by the Musqueam people in Canoe Pass in the Fraser estuary.

The government of Canada decided that aboriginal rights existed elsewhere and embarked on the development of the aboriginal fisheries strategy as its answer to what it construed to be a loss of its management authority. Canada acted as though an aboriginal right, narrow as it was, came before the government's responsibility for conservation.

The aboriginal fishing strategy included the pilot sales program, under which three of 92 bands on the Fraser River were issued new communal licences. Aboriginal fishery guardians were hired by the bands to whom commercial licences had been issued to police the new separate commercial aboriginal fishery.

In 1992, the first year of the AFS, the fishery ran out of control. DFO abandoned, to all intents and purposes, its enforcement activity, and worse was to come. I say "worse," because fish stocks can eventually recover from substantial overharvest of the kind that occurred in 1992. Undeterred by the failure of the aboriginal fishing strategy in 1992, a failure documented in a report by Drs. Peter Pearse and Peter Larkin, the DFO — Department of Fisheries and Oceans — continued its strategy. Today the results, in my view, are appalling. When harvests of salmon are made available by the

department, it is the pilot sales fishery under the AFS that comes first, after food fishing. If you are not an aboriginal person designated by one of the bands to fish, you are left onshore. Fishermen and processors with thousands and millions of dollars of investment in the industry are left high and dry by a licensing system that was supposed to be temporary — that's why it was called "pilot" — but seems to have become the norm.

As late as 1995, commercial fishermen who are aboriginal accounted for some 40 percent of all salmon and herring harvests in British Columbia. The aboriginal fishing strategy has brought this to a tragic end.

Ten years after the AFS began, commercial fishermen in Johnstone Strait, many of them aboriginal people with a huge investment in the commercial fishery, have seen their harvests reassigned to aboriginal people on the Fraser River, without any compensation. Fishermen in the Skeena estuary, many of them aboriginal people, have seen a portion of their harvests reallocated to inland and lake commercial fisheries.

In the 1990s opposition members in this House clearly stated their opposition to the aboriginal fishing strategy and its pilot sales program. It is time for this House to resolve again that it will continue to struggle against this kind of fishery, which is affecting the economics and social life of coastal British Columbia.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I am pleased to respond to the member for Nanaimo and thank him for raising the topic of the aboriginal fishing strategy. In particular, the member for Nanaimo's knowledge and expertise on fisheries issues is second to none. I always appreciate his efforts to move these issues forward and his support in dealing with them.

As the member said, the pilot sales agreements have been in place under this strategy now for ten years. It's somewhat hard to believe, but I've been the Fisheries critic for six of those years. I would like to start out by setting out our position as a party, which was stated in 1996 and maintained since that time.

Now, that is the end of the quote of our policy statement from 1996, Mr. Speaker.

There is a long history and many issues surrounding the commercial sales under the federal aboriginal fishing strategy's pilot sales agreements. Over the past several years B.C. has voiced a number of concerns about how the strategy was implemented and has advised the federal government that it does not favour an expansion of pilot sales agreements beyond the current three, nor for species other than salmon.

B.C. has also indicated that Fisheries and Oceans Canada should adhere to the following principles regarding the strategy: conservation of the resource, consultation with fishing groups, compensation for groups adversely affected and certainty for people who depend on the fishery.

The government recognizes that pilot sales agreements have an impact on commercial and sport fishing opportunities for others who depend on the resource. Pilot sales agreements have also created a number of challenges for management of the fisheries and for the allocation of harvest opportunities for both commercial and recreational fisheries, particularly in the Fraser and Skeena rivers.

There is also great concern on the part of the processing sector. The potential of losing access to their raw product resource is very critical to their future and their livelihood. British Columbia is very concerned, and we as a government are very concerned, about the potential loss of value-added for our fisheries resource through these processing plants.

The issues around first nations fishing agreements need to be discussed with government as the province formalizes its position on a broader range of issues involving treaty provisions. We need to work closely with the federal government, first to harmonize with them and then to seek a greater level of influence over management of the fishery in this province.

In summary, I see three issues that are critical with respect to the aboriginal fishing strategy. One is the issue of equity, to ensure that everyone is treated equitably. It's important to note the number of aboriginal people who are part of the existing commercial fishery. In some cases, they have had significant economic activity and resources displaced by this pilot sales agreement. Secondly, management of the fishery gets very, very complex.

M. Hunter: I'd like to thank the minister for his response. I think that some of the points he raised in

response are very important. I think he has focused on the fact that the province has a clear interest in making sure fisheries management is done properly. We have responsibility for civil and property rights. I think the interest, obviously, in the economic welfare of our residents is a self-evident interest. We also have a responsibility to ensure that we have peace, order and good government.

All of those, in my view, have been threatened by the pilot sales projects. I think that it imposes on provincial responsibility in all of these areas. It certainly has diminished the property right that exists in both recreational and commercial fishing licences as time has gone by, because it has reallocated economic opportunity, clearly, without any compensation.

One of the saddest parts about all of this is that there are alternatives. The commercial and sport fishing industries and aboriginal people in this province have long sought what has been called the industrial solution.

In fact, it's rather curious and ironic that one of the parts of the federal government's aboriginal fishing strategy, which provided money for the purchase of fishing licences and boats for transfer to aboriginal communities, is one of the more successful federal involvements in the fishing industry in the last ten years. There are a number of halibut licences and other licences that have been transferred to aboriginal communities. Those licences are fished side by side in the fishery with everybody else. This industrial solution to generate an economic livelihood in coastal British Columbia for aboriginal people does work, can work and is a much more satisfactory alternative. It certainly meets the test of equity that the minister talked about in his response.

It's my hope that during this term of office, this government can help bring an end to what I think has been a divisive and damaging approach to fisheries management, so that our responsibilities to our people in British Columbia can be maintained. Thank you.

P. Bell: I'd like to talk for a few minutes today, if I may, about the value of the wood industry in B.C. As you know, it's probably one of my personal favourite topics. I think we're faced with some huge challenges in the province of British Columbia over the next year or two. Certainly, we're facing the never-ending softwood lumber dispute. I'm encouraged to hear that we're back in talks today with the Americans in Ottawa. Hopefully, that will lead us somewhere.

We have a forest health issue similar to something that we've never faced before in this province. We have 72 million cubic metres of mountain pine beetle–infested forests right now. That number is likely to grow to 120 or 130 million cubic metres next year.

There's the entire process of forest certification that we're facing. That will be a huge challenge for us in the coming years and also an opportunity.

Then the other key area that I'd like to speak on for a few minutes is the threat of product substitution. It's not something we talk about on a regular basis, but I believe that probably more than any other challenge we're faced with today, this is our biggest risk.

Over the three-year period from 1997 to the year 2000, we lost 2½ percent of our market share in the U.S. in the residential construction market to wood and steel products. That's a large number when you consider that our portion of the entire U.S. softwood market is only 16 percent, so it has the potential to be very damaging. That's a $270 million-a-year decrease in revenues for wood through the United States, which translates into approximately three sawmills that would have closed down during that period of time due to the removal of that component of the wood.

There is, however, some good news. The U.S. commercial and institutional marketplace represents a huge opportunity for us. It represents about $270 billion per year in construction. Right now we only control 19 percent of that marketplace. We believe there's an opportunity over time, if we're intelligent about how we approach it and if we use advanced technologies, to grow that market share to about 50 percent.

Now, some of the challenges that we're facing in terms of restoring our industry competitiveness…. As we said during the election campaign, we need to develop a working forest land base. I'm very encouraged that the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management is working on that project at this point in time, and I think that will yield long-term results for us and help us in terms of growing our annual allowable cut.

We need to modernize our forest practices. I know there will be a White Paper presented this coming session speaking to the issue of the Forest Practices Code, and I believe that's very positive. I think we can grow our annual allowable cut, which is a healthy thing to do. It grows our industry. We need to enhance our tenure reform, and again I know the minister's working on that project as we speak.

Competitive timber pricing is a high priority for us as well. I know that will be a priority as we move forward in the coming months, and there will be a major shift in the way that we price our timber.

Certainly, we need to increase the volume of fibre that we have accessible to the value-added industry. That's a key component of our strategy.

There are really four opportunities in terms of how you diversify your markets. We can continue to ship old products to old markets, and certainly we want to do that. I don't think we want to turn our backs on the traditional marketplaces that we've had over the years.

We can ship old products to new markets, and certainly there are new and emerging markets on the horizon that we'll be able to ship to. We are approached on a regular basis by people from China looking at opportunities for us to move product into their marketplace. Certainly, that will be the marketplace in the coming ten years for us to grow to. As well, there's a huge and dynamic marketplace right now in India. There are many opportunities for us to continue shipping old products into new marketplaces.

The two other key ones that I'd like to focus on are the opportunities to ship new products into old marketplaces and high valued-added products — things like glue-lam beams and engineered wood products of high value — and new products into new markets. Both those represent significant opportunities for us.

You know, right now we take 52 percent of the fibre we harvest every year and turn it into dimensional lumber. Simply put, we run it through a spaghetti factory, make 2-by-4s out of it and ship it south. That has stood us well in B.C. for a long time, but that marketplace is shrinking, and we need to start growing our other opportunities in the industry.

We only take 16 percent of our total fibre base and actually put it into value-added products. I believe that this can grow significantly over time. Of our fibre, 32 percent goes into pulp and paper, and that likely will stay about the same. That represents about a $12 billion (U.S.) marketplace in the year 2001. We believe that by 2020, we can grow that to $20 billion per year. We would do that by increasing the portion of the value-added market from the traditional 16 percent to 50 percent. We believe that through that, there's a huge opportunity.

Currently, we have 16 percent of the U.S. marketplace. It's $35 billion a year for primary wood products like 2-by-4s. We only control 1 percent of the marketplace, of the $200 billion a year value-added market. That market grows at a rate of 8 percent to 10 percent per year. Clearly, if we're going to grow our industry, that's where we need to move to.

R. Visser: The member for Prince George North touched on several of my favourite topics around the forest industry, and I wanted to pick up on some of his comments.

There are some very hard issues out there, and all of them are felt very clearly in the North Island: the softwood dispute, trying to build a working forest, the Forest Practices Code revisions, streamlining and, last but not least, stumpage. Out of all those things, there are some very good and exciting occurrences happening. This is the opportunity we have to start talking about tenure reform, where we move from measuring the wealth of the industry in the volume that we harvest and move it to the volume that we grow; that we make long-term investments in the industry over time; and that we practise the silviculture and the forest technology that we've become world leaders in, in a way that allows communities, workers and companies to profit and to grow….

One of the things that's going to help us with that is coming back to what we used to have, and that's the wood culture. We need to think about how we use wood again. The member for Prince George North was right: we can't just ship 52 percent of our products in dimensional lumber anymore, specifically not from the coast. We have tremendous fibre here — tremendous structural fibre and tremendous aesthetic fibre.

In my area there are a number of projects that have gone on that are very remarkable. We have a sawmill just down the road that produces nothing but wood from yellow cedar for Buddhist shrines, and I think that's remarkable. They've built a whole industry around that. They go and seek wood all over the coast specifically for that marketplace.

I recently had the opportunity to open up the Nordic lodge, the Raven Lodge on Mount Washington. While that may be a run-of-the mill routine for some folks, what was most remarkable about the efforts at Mount Washington was that the building that they have now is virtually all made of hemlock. It is all wood that they got from expanding their Nordic ski areas and their ski hill. They milled it in the community. They kiln-dried it in the community, and they finished it in the community. They have transformed this lodge into a beautiful showpiece of what we can do with coastal hemlock. It is an undervalued species at the moment. It has come under strain from building code adjustments in Japan, and we as a province and an industry now need to come to terms with what we are going to do with coastal hemlock.

I think the people at Mount Washington have done a wonderful job. It is a beautiful building, and hemlock is a beautiful wood. We have allowed it to become a second-class fibre. I think part of this is building the wood culture. They hired the architects and engineers that could handle that.

We need to refocus on things like post-and-beam construction. It is prevalent in the residential world but not prevalent in the commercial and industrial world. I think those are things that we can work on.

We also have some undervalued species like alder, which is considered a weed. It is now considered one of the first-class furniture woods that we have. We have allowed some advancing technology in drying to bring that to market in a cost-effective way. That is proving lucrative for several small businesses in my area.

These are exciting times, and I want to reassure everybody that they are. I think the comments that the member for Prince George North makes are very right and appropriate at this time. While we have on one hand some tremendous crises and tremendous dislocations, we now have a great deal of opportunity, and we can take advantage of that opportunity. We can design a new tenure system that allows that fibre to flow into the marketplace and that allows those entrepreneurs that we have on this coast and in this province to take advantage of it to build a new industry, one that isn't focused always on dimensional lumber — which will always be part of what we do — but takes advantage of our fibre and the beauty of it and allows us to head out into the marketplace and be successful and build our communities.

P. Bell: You know, I really enjoy spending time with the member for North Island. His industry, the coastal industry, is one that we can learn tremendously from. It is such a mature industry. If we take the signs that the member has alluded to, I believe that we can move our collective industry further forward.

I'd like to finish up just by talking a few minutes about a wood culture and really defining — putting some fingerprints on — what a wood culture is. A wood culture is about pride — pride in our forests. We live in one of the most beautiful provinces, beautiful parts of the country, anywhere in the world, and we should be proud of that. It's about pride in how we manage our forests. I believe that we manage them better than probably any other country or province in the world. It's about pride in our wood products and our technologies. It's about pride in the knowledge and the expertise that we have in building with wood. Really, it's about pride in the buildings that we do build with wood.

You know, wood is a wonderful product. I was distressed originally when I discovered that wood was not included as a green product, yet fundamentally it is the greenest of all building materials that we have. Wood's great for the environment. Wood consumes the lowest amount of energy per square metre of construction. It produces the lowest amount of water pollution per square metre of construction. It produces the fewest greenhouse gases of any material, and it produces the lowest amount of solid waste to landfill sites. Wood truly is a very green product.

Speaking briefly about wood as a savings in construction, Heather Park Middle School in Prince George was built. An additional $700,000 worth of wood products was put into it after the fact, after it was originally designed, and we saved $200,000 in the construction process.

Qualicum Secondary School at Qualicum Beach — we're doing a major renovation there right now. The original project, when designed out of steel, was about $3.9 million. We did the redesign in wood products and re-evaluated it. We came in at $3.37 million, which is a savings of $507,000 on just a $3.9 million project. That's a 13 percent savings in cost.

Not only is wood competitive, not only is wood green, but it's a great product for us to build with in B.C.

To close, I'd like to mention four projects that we need to think about when we're considering our future in the province.

Number one is the 2010 Olympic bid. We need to focus as much on wood products — and I say this sincerely to the minister responsible for the bid process — as we can for the 2010 bid. The SFU Burnaby Mountain Community Project is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate our wood culture. The southeast side of False Creek and that redevelopment is a huge opportunity — and the Victoria multiplex.

L. Mayencourt: It's a great honour and privilege for me to rise today in this House. As you'll undoubtedly note, I have shed my crutches. After many weeks of convalescence, my ankle seems to have healed itself. With my recovery almost complete, I am able to enjoy one of my favourite pastimes, and that's to take a little walk around my riding of Vancouver-Burrard.

I took that opportunity this past weekend, and I was delighted to greet many friends on the streets. I had the opportunity to chat with my neighbours about our government's initiatives. It was nice to get out on the streets and interact with people, people that share this government's excitement about the future for British Columbia.

One of the things that does make my riding so unique is that everybody walks around a lot. We like to get up and go, because it is a great city that we can enjoy. We've got the high-end shops on Robson Street and the tempting edginess of Granville Street. You can really appreciate the diversity of my riding just by taking a stroll along Denman and up Davie — streets where seniors, young families and urban professionals mingle with the gay and lesbian community, where eastern European immigrants have started their new lives and traditions. Everything is close at hand, and there is a coffee shop on virtually every corner.

There are three great community centres — the Round House, Coal Harbour and West End community centres — dozens of mini-parks, the aquatic centre, and great skateboarding parks abound everywhere. Stanley Park and the seawall are just a couple of the other wonderful amenities that coax us from our apartments and condominiums. This weekend, like many others before it, the sidewalks of my riding were overflowing. There was great energy and bustle. People were talking and shopping. Everywhere there is a growing sense of optimism and of recovery, a belief that we're turning the corner after a long and harsh winter. There is room for hope in our lives once again. We have survived the September 11 attacks, and while we'll never forget those terrible acts, we're getting back on track.

This weekend many of my constituents spoke about this renewed sense of hope to me. They are proud of the many new developments that have been taking place. In each of the neighbourhood centres, exciting change is underway. The downtown south, Coal Harbour and Yaletown are growing. All have become the focal point of a major construction boom. Now that boom has reached the financial centre of British Columbia. In an area bounded by Georgia, Burrard and Hastings streets, known as the golden triangle, a decade-long building freeze has finally ended. Business is building again. A striking new project is rising on the corner of Pender and Burrard streets, while the Bentall Centre is expanding with a new tower. This spring Shaw will begin construction on the tallest building in all of British Columbia. Together they join an unprecedented increase in residential construction.

This boom is so remarkable that the Vancouver Sun and the Times Colonist recently cited its scope and impact on the business landscape as one that surpasses all other national construction initiatives so far this year. What's driving this boom? Well, I believe that it is the policies of this government. It has given Vancouver-

Burrard a leadership role in the economic recovery of B.C. We're both excited and grateful for this opportunity to showcase our wonderful city and move forward as an economic driver for the province.

B. Locke: Thank you to the member for Vancouver-Burrard for this privilege of responding to his private member's statement. You know, Mr. Speaker, my community of Surrey, like Vancouver, is also a very diverse community, and we are also seeing significant growth overall in building permits issued this year over the last — a positive signal in the midst of this world economic downturn. New building values increased by 33 percent in 2001, and this January we have recorded growth of over 30 percent in building values in my city of Surrey.

The member for Vancouver-Burrard has good reason to be optimistic about the future of this incredible region, this incredible province. There is much rhetoric of doom and gloom, but the reality is that we need to make some changes so that we can be assured of a better future. Change is always a little scary for some, but with the change comes opportunity. In the building sector we are seeing how the change is creating opportunities — opportunities for building trades, good family-supporting jobs. This investment will create jobs, prosperity and homes for many Surrey citizens and families.

Surrey is a young community with wonderful amenities. It has some great parks and rec centres, schools, a large regional hospital and shopping for young, for old and especially for families. Add to that the opening of RMH Teleservices in Whalley, a soon-to-open Real Canadian Superstore on 104th Avenue and a number of new hotels.

I would like to give special mention to a project I am so proud to have played a part in: on the Simon Fraser University campus, right in the middle of my riding, Green Timbers, the new central city building. What a great opportunity for students and our city — an opportunity that is sure to spawn even more growth in North Surrey.

I also want to take this opportunity to commend the city council, headed by Mayor Doug McCallum, for their active role in making sure that our city is active and open for business. Retail sales and even car sales are up as consumers take advantage of low interest rates to purchase all sorts of goods and services. You know, in my role on the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region I have had the privilege of meeting other Canadian and U.S. legislators. They, too, tell me: "Good on you. We are glad to see that B.C. is open for business once again." Surrey is well positioned to take advantage of that opportunity.

I don't live in a gilded world. I recognize that government faces a very tough financial situation, but we have committed to turning our province's economy around. I believe we are well on our way. Surrey has a population of over 320,000 people. These are people who are counting on this government to start making changes and creating opportunities. Building starts are just the beginning of that growth.

I'm proud to be part of a team that is finally taking steps in the right direction. Every day we are getting closer to the light at the end of the tunnel.

L. Mayencourt: I am grateful to the member for Surrey–Green Timbers for her comments. As the member mentioned, the construction trades industry has grown rapidly as a result of this building boom. I am grateful that the building boom has spread from Vancouver-Burrard over to Surrey and perhaps to other parts of our province. I believe it will because of some of the policies we have instituted over the past eight months.

Important to note is that in the month of January, British Columbia created 27,000 new jobs, and over one-third of those — 10,000 of them — were in the construction trades. Those are well-paid jobs, jobs that allow people to buy houses, allow people to start their new lives and create hope for their families. It's very, very important that we continue to move on the track that we have set before us. As a matter of fact, in my walk around my riding this past week, an underlying theme that everyone brought to me was for our government to stay the course, to stay on track, to continue with the policies that are going to restore our economic prosperity to British Columbia.

British Columbia must also address some of the issues of the underlying problems in our business practices in this province. That urgency is coming through to me from my constituents. They're saying: "Get our house in order. Restore some of the fairness to our practices in the province, and reduce the uncertainties and holdbacks — the things that stop economic development and reduce productivity and stop job growth." We have got to get our financial house in order, and only then will this prosperity spread throughout our entire province.

K. Krueger: Mr. Deputy Speaker, it's good to see you in the chair this morning and giving a little welcome relief to my colleague, the hon. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker and I had the occasion on Friday to take part in a very happy event, and that was the signing of the Thompson rivers economic accord. This is an accord signed by the elected people of all three levels of government, which was originated a couple of years ago. We had to sign a new one, because the team has changed somewhat with the elections that were held both federally and provincially in the recent past. Both MLAs from Kamloops — myself, from Kamloops–North Thompson, and the hon. Speaker, from Kamloops; Member of Parliament Betty Hinton; the mayor of Kamloops, Mel Rothenburger; the chair of the Thompson-Nicola regional district, Al Kemp; and the chief of the Kamloops Indian band, Bonnie Leonard,

Although I never like to read into the record, it's an important document, and I am going to read portions of it. I'll skip the first whereas, which names us.

This has been a very successful approach to developing economic opportunities in our region, Mr. Speaker, and it's a very unique region. We're particularly proud of the involvement of our first nations governments in much that is doing well in our area. In fact, over the last ten years the activities of our first nations groups led the way in economic development achievements. The Kamloops Indian band, particularly, is noted as a very progressive, forward-thinking band.

There is a beautiful housing development underway on the slopes of Mount Paul, right behind the Kamloops Indian band offices — 2,000 housing lots being developed by Mr. Georg Schurian in a development known as Sun Rivers. The homes are heated by geothermal currents of the Earth. The construction is beautiful — state of the art. It's an exemplary development. It employs a lot of first nations people and generates a lot of economic activity. It has 27 new holes of golf. Golf is a major economic driver in our area. You can go to Kamloops and golf on a different course every day for getting close to two weeks these days.

The Six Mile Ranch development is coming on stream. The first properties should be up for sale by late this year. There are so many things happening in Kamloops, and we want to facilitate that as elected leaders of the area.

Kamloops is famous for the way its people turn out in droves to volunteer for major events. We hosted the 1993 Canada Games. We had over 5,000 people on the roster. Many of the volunteer lists were more than 100 percent oversubscribed — for example, volunteer drivers to take athletes and guests from venue to venue. There were always 100 percent more drivers on task than were needed for individual shifts — similarly when we brought on World Cup Curling, the Briar and many other events. The volunteers of Kamloops are noted for their enthusiasm and the excellence that they deliver.

We have a number of first nations groups in our area who are, again, very progressive in their economic activities. Chief Nathan Matthew of the North Thompson Indian band is an individual for whom I have a particularly high regard. He has a sawmill that he's brought on for his band. He manages it himself — a tremendous little economic activity.

The Wells Gray Provincial Park in Clearwater is a park that I encourage everybody in this House to come and visit. Once again, there are a lot of really superb developments there. They made a very wise decision long ago to keep the commercial interests down in the community of Clearwater and keep the park in as pristine a state as possible. In the past some pioneers had established businesses and homes in what is now the park, and those remain. Some of them are very attractive, and they're wide open to the public. There's a new golf course in the park as well, which I recommend to everyone.

These are some of the things that we're working to promote and enhance as Team Kamloops.

An issue that came up at the signing ceremony, and one that is of great concern to all of us, is the need for a water treatment facility in Kamloops. We're actually under a provincial health officer order to have a new facility developed by March of next year. It's probably going to have a price tag of some $69 million. I was hoping that the Minister of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services would be here to respond to my statement. He isn't able to make it this morning, but since the water comes from his constituency, we're leaning on him to help us facilitate that.

P. Bell: I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member for Kamloops–North Thompson. I spent a number of years in Kamloops in the early 1980s, and I

can tell you that without a doubt, Kamloops is the second-best place to do business anywhere in the province — right behind Prince George.

The member for Kamloops–North Thompson also alludes to the quality of golf courses in his particular riding. I would be happy to attest to the quality of the golf courses in the member's riding. They are absolutely gorgeous facilities. I believe this is one of the contributing factors to attracting new business to the area, as it's such a great sport. I would encourage the member to continue to work on his game, or his wallet may become thinner over time. I would stress that that's a priority.

You know, the member mentioned the word "teamwork." I'd like to focus on that for a minute. I think that what the Thompson rivers economic accord really represents is truly the direction that we need to move to in the province. For too long we've been divisive. B.C. has a history, going back into the fifties and before, of divisiveness. We need to put that behind us.

I believe that in Kamloops's situation, they've made an attempt to do that. They've brought all of the various groups together and signed this accord, and they're attempting to move their economy forward in the community. I think that's admirable, and I think that's something that we collectively, as a House and as a province, can really learn from. I would encourage them to keep us posted on how that particular project is going, because certainly as a province we could move forward if we could focus more on teamwork.

The member also alluded to water as being a huge priority for us in this province. I would certainly agree with him. As we move forward over the next few years, the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection has prioritized water safety and has in fact increased the budget that is going to be spent directly on developing safe water throughout our province. I believe that's a wonderful step for us, as a provincial government. It's demonstrated clearly that we're putting our money where our mouth is in terms of prioritizing that service.

As I said earlier, I spent about three years in Kamloops in the early 1980s. In fact, all three of my children were born in Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops. Certainly, I always feel attached to the particular community and enjoy spending time there whenever I have that opportunity.

You know, Mr. Speaker, Kamloops has changed a lot since the 1980s. I recall driving back and forth to Vancouver at the time and it taking me some five or six hours, quite often in blinding snowstorms and difficult driving conditions. With the advent of the Coquihalla Highway, it's just been a wonderful opportunity for the community. I genuinely believe that Kamloops is on the edge of an economic boom. I think there are opportunities in Kamloops for the technology sector, for the wood products sector. Certainly, there will be a construction boom over time.

Kamloops truly has four seasons. It's one of the communities in the province where you can really enjoy recreational opportunities, whether it be the nice, hot summers and the many golf courses or the great skiing conditions locally.

I think that with the signing of this accord and the focus on teamwork, Kamloops is really poised to continue to develop its overall economic base. I believe that given time, Kamloops may even grow its economy to the level of Prince George.

K. Krueger: The member just spoke as my deputy, the Deputy Whip. To back up how much he believes what he said, he did actually move away from Kamloops once and moved to Prince George. I'd like to put on the record, though, that I've moved away from Prince George twice and opted to live in Kamloops.

It isn't that Prince George isn't a wonderful city. There are obvious contrasts between the places, though. In Kamloops you can actually golf and ski on the same day. Where you're skiing, it's winter, and where you're golfing, it's summer. In Prince George they have what they call snow golf. Essentially, there isn't regular golfing weather most of the year. I'm just joking. It's a wonderful place as well. I appreciate all that the member said.

I do recommend this team approach between all the levels of government for communities throughout British Columbia. We're certainly finding it a way to leave partisan differences at the door and work to the advantage of our area.

It's a real pleasure, as I said earlier, to have the first nations involved. One of the things the Kamloops Indian band did in recent years which I thought was particularly progressive was…. There'd been an ongoing dispute about the Harper Ranch, which had been in private hands for close to 100 years. Instead of proceeding with some of the activities that other groups have tried around the province, the Kamloops Indian band bought the Harper Ranch — paid market value and purchased it from the owners. They haven't added it to the reserve yet, although they're contemplating it. What a progressive way of getting things done. They did that through their taxation rights on the reserve. They've been leaders Canada-wide in establishing those rights.

We want to recommend this approach to communities throughout British Columbia. We certainly want to encourage everyone in this House to plan to take your vacations in Kamloops. Come and see Wells Gray Park. Come and ski Sun Peaks. Meet Nancy Greene, if you haven't already. It's always a pleasure to talk with her. Talk to her husband Al Raine about the Cayoosh development that we're all excited about. Come on up to Kamloops, and we'll accept your dollars at par.

J. Kwan: Pursuant to standing order 31(1) I ask that Motions on Notice 1, 2 and 3 as listed in schedule A be

allowed to stand and retain their precedence. I move Motion 4 standing in my name on the order paper.

Just for the record, for those who are watching the legislative channel, for the people's information, Motion 4 reads:

This is a very important motion, I think, for all British Columbians and really, I would say, for Canadians as a whole. One of the things that we as a community, we as a province, we as a country, pride ourselves on is the fact that, by and large, we actually have access to justice in a democratic society — until recently. The Attorney General just announced a 38.8 percent cut, almost a 40 percent cut, to the legal aid budget over the next three years.

As well, legal aid will be faced with additional costs that will be charged to them, which will effectively mean that a number of legal aid offices will have to shut down. The reduction in legal aid support would mean that family law and poverty law programs would be severely reduced, if not eliminated. The cuts, of course, will impact the most vulnerable British Columbians, including disabled workers, tenants, women who are faced with custody battles, single parents, the unemployed and many other citizens who are faced with challenges in the area of WCB, residential tenancy rights, even UI claims, as an example. This will tremendously impact British Columbians in terms of their well-being, physically and mentally. Those who cannot afford legal representation in these matters will simply have justice denied to them. Access to justice will simply be denied to this group of people.

The cuts to legal aid will make the Legal Services Society budget one of the worst in the country. These cuts come at a time when an array of social services are expected to be eliminated. This in turn will heighten the demand for legal aid services throughout British Columbia.

It's not just me who is concerned about the cuts to legal aid and its impact to British Columbians. Many other people are as well. Last week sometime we actually saw a news release come out from 12 organizations calling on the United Nations committee to give urgent attention to the massive assault on the rights of the poorest people in British Columbia. They had a press conference with respect to this matter. This has got to be an international embarrassment to British Columbia, right at a time when we're trying to go after the Olympic bid and trying to showcase British Columbia to the rest of the world. Yet the British Columbia government is going to hurt the most vulnerable people. In a democratic society that we pride ourselves on, people are not going to get access to justice.

According to the information sent out through the press conference, here are some of the statements that they have made around the 38.8 percent cut over three years in legal aid. The coverage that legal aid currently provides deals with matters of criminal law, the Young Offenders Act, mental health reviews, restraining orders, child apprehension, family maintenance or custody battles, poverty law, landlord-tenancy rights, employment insurance, employment standards, welfare, disability pension claims, appeals for closures and disability trusts. This is what the legal aid services funding now provides for. With a 38.8 percent cut, these services will be eliminated. Many native and community law offices are expected to be closed. Until now, these offices have been providing legal aid assistance for legal problems or situations that threaten an individual's or family's physical or mental health or safety, the individual's ability to feed, clothe and provide shelter for himself or herself and the individual's dependents or the individual's livelihood.

There is a mandate under the legal aid act to ensure that the provision of access to justice to the most vulnerable British Columbians is provided for. With this funding cut, they will no longer be able to do that. Let's not kid ourselves around this front.

You know, it's amazing. Even aside from the non-government agencies who have stated this issue…. Even the Attorney General himself has admitted to that fact. The Attorney General, according to the January 31, 2002, Vancouver Sun article, states that poor workers, single mothers and renters will likely suffer because they will have access to fewer legal services. He goes on to say: "British Columbia has traditionally had one of the most generous legal aid systems in Canada. We won't maintain the level of service…. I expect there will be people who will have an even harder time finding access to justice than before." These words I quote from the Attorney General himself.

Hon. Speaker, the president of the Canadian Bar Association, Carman Overholt, says: "It is devastating to the administration of justice. They have turned their backs on thousands of people who cannot afford legal assistance." These are the direct words, a quote from Carman Overholt, the B.C. president of the Canadian Bar Association.

The government is virtually eliminating funding for poverty law, which includes helping poor people resolve landlord-tenant disputes and legal skirmishes with the WCB, the B.C. Benefits and Employment Insurance. An example is where a poor person is claiming disabled benefits after a job-related injury and has not received the appropriate benefits from WCB. He formerly was entitled under the old system to receive the services of legal aid, provided that he had no money or no assets. Now, under the new system, the disabled worker will simply not receive legal aid services.

Carman goes on to say: "They just won't be represented. There won't be legal aid available to them." Those are the realities of what this government is doing and how they're hurting the most vulnerable British Columbians, hon. Speaker.

Even in today's Vancouver Province there was a letter to the editor about legal aid cuts. I'm going to read the letter into the record. It says:

You know what? This is just one example of the challenges that low-income people are going to be faced with in a variety of different areas. In British Columbia, with the government proceeding with cuts to legal aid at 38.8 percent, it will simply mean that those who are most vulnerable, who are unable to afford their own lawyer and legal representation, will have their justice denied to them.

I have to ask every member of this House: is this the British Columbia that they envisioned? Is this the British Columbia that they want for themselves and for their neighbours and for their community? I would hope the answer is no. I would hope that the members in this House will rise up and speak in support of this motion and challenge their own government to turn back their decision of cutting 38.8 percent of the legal aid services funding.

Hon. G. Collins: I just want to rise and speak to the motion that the member opposite has put forward.

She raises some very good points and makes her case well, I think. The challenge that government faces, that we face as a new government, is cleaning up after ten years of profligate spending by an administration who felt that everything was absolutely wonderful in British Columbia and that there were really no challenges that we needed to face whatsoever.

So after ten years of denying the fiscal state of this province, after ten years of ignoring the decline of economic activity, after ten years of ignoring the pressures that the taxpayers of British Columbia were under, it became clear that the new government needed to grapple with two things. First, it needed to grapple with our economy and put in place systems that would allow the economy to grow, that would allow revenues to increase over time and allow government to continue to support the fundamental programs that people rely upon. Second of all, it had to get its fiscal house in order, and it had to manage its spending more appropriately.

This government went through a very time-consuming and very exhaustive examination of what government does and how it does it. We did that through two processes. The core review process was part of it, where government looked at what services it provided to British Columbia and tried to figure out how those services could best be delivered, how they could be delivered in the most efficient way and what services government either didn't need to continue to provide or could provide through some other means.

At the same time as government was doing that, we tried to go through a Treasury Board process, which the members opposite will be familiar with, to try and put government's fiscal house in order and assign some dollars to the programs and services that government was providing and do that over a three-year period so that we could put in place a plan to balance government's budget, to get our fiscal house in order and to grow our economy.

The legal aid system was one of those programs — one of a multitude of programs that government has, which provide services to the public. Certainly, like every other service and program, it came under scrutiny and was asked those very same questions that every other one was. The Attorney General looked at great detail through his own ministry and his budget on how he might be able to provide services to British Columbians — legal aid being one of those.

I'll leave it to the Attorney General to go through some of the numbers, but I do know that even with this reduction in the amount of money that the British Columbia taxpayers put into legal aid, I believe British Columbia will still be in the top three provinces for the dollar provisions of legal aid. I think that's a significant commitment to justice for individuals and for people across British Columbia as well. It means we're not going to be the province that provides the most, but neither are we going to be the province that provides the least. In fact, we'll be in the top end of the scale.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member opposite takes these concerns seriously, as do all members of this House. I know that because I heard from members of the Legislature, during the core review process and the budget-setting process, about how highly they valued a whole range of services that government provides. This was certainly one that was up for discussion, and there was a great deal of discussion around it. However, I know that given the constraints we're under, government set priorities. Those priorities were predominantly health care and education, although there was a range of others as well. I think the fact that the legal aid services to government continue, and continue at a fairly significant rate, is an indication of the government's commitment to those very justice issues which the member opposite spoke about.

Hon. G. Plant: I'm happy to have the opportunity to stand to speak for awhile on access-to-justice issues and to talk about the things that the government is

On a number of levels and in a number of ways, recognizing that pursuing the goal of access to justice in difficult financial times creates additional challenges, my goal as Attorney General is to ask all of the participants in the justice system to turn those challenges into opportunities — opportunities to change the way we deliver justice services in British Columbia, to recognize that our justice system is the embodiment of some profoundly important societal and democratic values, but that as technology changes, as social and economic conditions change, as transportation systems and services change, as times change, we can look at different ways of delivering justice services to ensure that we maintain access to justice for all British Columbians no matter what their economic or social condition, or where they live.

It's certainly going to be a real challenge to maintain the level of service under the heading of legal aid that British Columbians have had over the past few years, because of the financial situation of the government which the House Leader and Finance minister have already spoken about. I will have more to say about that later.

I do think it's important that we recognize that access to justice means many things. Already as a government we have taken steps, and will continue to take steps, to ensure that in a real sense, a practical sense, access to justice is maintained for British Columbians.

For many British Columbians their front-line encounter with our justice system is, in fact, not an encounter with a court or a courtroom but rather is an encounter with an administrative agency or a tribunal. It could be the Workers Compensation Board. It could be a decision by a B.C. Benefits officer. It could be a decision made by a variety of statutory officials exercising a host of statutory powers across the spectrum of law and public policy in British Columbia.

British Columbians encounter administrative justice when they have landlord-tenant disputes. British Columbians encounter administrative justice when they do not feel that their employers have given them their statutory entitlement to holiday pay or vacation pay. British Columbians encounter administrative justice when they participate in collective bargaining through trade unions or as employers. They find that their affairs in the world of collective bargaining are adjudicated, administered and dealt with by the Labour Relations Board.

Across the spectrum of governance in British Columbia, there are dozens upon dozens of these agencies. Almost 70 of them, in fact, fit within a lawyer's definition, if you will, of administrative tribunals. They serve as the front line of the justice system for many British Columbians in many different ways.

One of the first things that we did as government was put in place a project that, for the first time in the history of British Columbia, will engage in — and is engaged in — a systemwide examination of the institutions of administrative justice. This is the administrative justice project. It commenced last July and has been underway since then. The goal is to make sure that our administrative justice system is the best it can possibly be.

I know that for many people who are involved in the detail work of administrative law on a day-to-day basis, and in the practice of these agencies that I've spoken of that are so important in the lives of ordinary British Columbians, over time a series of questions have been asked about our system of administrative justice. We have created these agencies one by one. Do we have a good sense of how the system functions as a whole? We have created these agencies one at a time to respond to individual public policy challenges that have arisen one at a time. But is it not timely to look at whether or not we can have standards of service, standards of performance and standards of accountability across the system?

Lawyers who practise in the area of administrative law, which is engaged in the question of making sure that tribunals act fairly and afford due process, of making sure that the courts have the ability in the right circumstances to sit in review on decisions made by these agencies, know that the principles that have been developed in this area over many years have become complex. Their application to a variety of circumstances is sometimes uncertain and unpredictable, and yet on a day-to-day basis it is the work of these agencies, across British Columbia, which represents in a real sense the issue of access to justice.

So the administrative justice project is engaged in looking at all these issues for the 60 or so agencies that are within its mandate. But as a first step in that examination, in order to make sure that the agencies were indeed serving the public interest of the people of British Columbia, we used the administrative justice project as a vehicle for facilitating the core review exercise of examining the mandates of each of these agencies — that is, looking at the Workers Compensation Board, the Human Rights Tribunal, the B.C. Benefits tribunals, the disaster assistance relief board, the Private Post-secondary Education Commission, and asking each of these agencies whether their mandates were current and relevant, whether the work that they did was necessary, was in the public interest and was work that could only be performed by government as opposed to the private sector, making sure that they were indeed serving the public interest by providing the people of British Columbia with meaningful access to justice across a range of issues that touch ordinary people in their lives every day.

The first stage of that review, Mr. Speaker, has now been completed. A week or so ago we announced the completion of that first-stage review by setting out a series of reforms to approximately three dozen of these agencies. In some cases we realized that the work of the agency in its former or currently existing form was no longer serving a critically important public purpose, that for one reason or another the agency was no

longer in active use. In some cases we found some appeal mechanisms or appeal tribunals that were hearing a dozen or 20 cases a year at most, and it seemed that in order to make sure that the people of British Columbia did in fact have practical access to justice, these agencies were no longer serving a valued or necessary public purpose.

In other cases the agencies clearly continued to serve an important public purpose, but the way in which they did it required some re-examination. In still other cases it was obvious that the agency continued to be relevant, that it continued to serve an important public purpose and that it required very little in the way of structural modification in order to ensure that it continued to serve the public.

The next stage of the analysis and the work of the administrative justice project is to embark upon a closer consideration of some of the principles of administrative law that have to do in part with the relationship between administrative agencies and the courts, to ensure that administrative agencies are operating according to a set of accepted standards that make sure that when they deliver justice, it is indeed justice according to law. With that in mind, the administrative justice project has up on the website — and it's available for the project — a number of background papers that set out issues, that set out questions that identify some considerations that are important to the work of these agencies. There is a time line for public response. I think, in some cases, that time line expired at the end of last week.

What we're going to do now, as the public discussion in this first phase reaches its conclusion, is move forward in government to create a White Paper that will form the basis of the next stage in this project, which will hopefully result in proposals for legislation.

When lawyers talk about administrative law, it can be a conversation that sounds a lot like a conversation about law. But as I've tried to say, administrative law, administrative justice, is for many people in British Columbia the front line of the justice system. If the Workers Compensation Board does not provide timely, effective and fair decision-making to claimants who have been injured on the job, then it is not meeting the needs of the people it is supposed to serve, and it is not providing access to justice. If the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Tribunal do not in fact encourage the prompt resolution of real complaints of discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere in British Columbia but instead engage in long, protected, endless investigations with files that never go anywhere, then those agencies aren't serving the public interest of British Columbia.

Similarly, if the B.C. Benefits appeal process doesn't work in a way that ensures that people who have had their application for welfare benefits denied inappropriately, then those agencies aren't serving the public interest of British Columbia. Through the administrative justice project, step by step, my hope is that we will improve the way in which these institutions work so as to ensure that they in fact help deliver in a real sense a measure of accessible justice to the people of British Columbia who are affected by the work they do.

This is actually relevant to a subject that has been talked about in this context over the last few weeks, since the release of the service plan summary for the Ministry of Attorney General, because clearly an important part of the service plan summary for the Ministry of Attorney General has to do with the fact that over the next three years the grant by the provincial government to the Legal Services Society is forecast to be reduced. It's going to be reduced in three stages, and the overall reduction three years hence will be approximately 40 percent. That is clearly significant, and as I have said on several occasions, that will have a significant impact on the delivery of what is sometimes called poverty law services to the people of British Columbia.

"What is poverty law?" is the question I am asked from time to time. I will tell you that poverty law is, in large measure, this very question we have already been talking about, which is to say the relationship between an individual and the agencies or the institutions of the state that deliver benefits or impose obligations or, in some cases, adjudicate disputes among individuals. That is, poverty law is about helping people who have applied for welfare, income assistance, and who have been denied it — wrongly — ensuring that they get what they're entitled to.

Poverty law is also about the Workers Compensation Board and how it works. Poverty law is about the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal and how they work. Poverty law can be about the situation that tenants are faced with when landlords do not obey the obligations they have under the Residential Tenancy Act.

I think it is not just legitimate; it is in fact urgently necessary for government to improve the way those agencies work so that they serve the public they are intended to serve better so that at some level there is less need for that thing we call poverty law. If in fact the agencies that administer benefits, that administer benefit programs and that administer adjudicative services that are supposed to be front-line, accessible justice for British Columbians work better, then we will have actually enhanced access to justice for the people of British Columbia, notwithstanding the fact that we are in my ministry required to reduce expenditures on legal aid. We have an urgent challenge to return to the original theme. The urgent challenge is to change the way justice is delivered in British Columbia so that we can make sure that people have access to justice and that it is affordable and effective as well as fair. It is legitimate to ask of our institutions of justice in this province that they be efficient. It is legitimate to ask of those institutions that they be affordable not just for the citizens who use them but for the government that funds the system as a whole. All of these questions are part of the overall examination of the Ministry of Attorney General which took place in the context of the

core review project that my colleague the House Leader and the Minister of Finance referred to in his remarks a few moments ago.

I want to say some more things about legal aid, because legal aid is clearly an important issue for many British Columbians, and the challenge of maintaining legal aid services in the face of significant budget restrictions is an important challenge for all British Columbians. I want, though, before I get to the substance of this, to make sure that all British Columbians understand a part of the context for the dilemma we face.

Two of the members in this Legislature made a public policy choice in the 1990s. They had before them a choice that is the kind of choice that faces all people who serve in elected office. They had a choice between, on the one hand, maintaining the fiscal ability to sustain services to the vulnerable and, on the other hand, building three ferries that don't take anybody anywhere they want to go for anything that anybody wants to pay for. Let's understand, all of us as British Columbians, what the impact of that choice is. The fast ferries cost $463 million. The amount borrowed to pay for the fast ferries was $463 million. The debt service cost every year for those ferries is $33 million.

Mr. Speaker, just imagine what we could do with $33 million. If, for example….

J. MacPhail: You've done more damage than the fast ferries could do in ten years in one eight-month period.

Deputy Speaker: Order, member. You can direct your comments through the Chair, please.

Hon. G. Plant: What we are doing is having to pick up the pieces for these disastrous public policy decisions. They have a real cost, and they will have a real impact on the lives of real British Columbians. That is what happens when irresponsible decisions are made: somebody has to pay for them.

That $33 million, if it were added to the budget of the Ministry of Attorney General, could buy a lot of services that the Ministry of Attorney General is not able to deliver because in a climate of fiscal restraint, someone has to pay, unfortunately, for the mistakes of the last government. The someone is all four million British Columbians, and we are all paying for those mistakes.

But we are, I'm convinced, able to maintain, even within the climate of fiscal reality that we are faced with, the most important of the services required under the heading of legal aid. You know, priority-setting unfortunately means that some things will be higher on the list and some things will be lower on the list. Sometimes when you're setting priorities in the context of a fixed budget envelope, it means there isn't enough money to do all the things you might like to do.

In the context of legal aid, let me set the context in terms of financial circumstances, just as the Finance minister did a few moments ago. British Columbia spends more per capita to fund legal aid than any other province in Canada. After the three years of expenditure reduction, British Columbia would still be the third highest–spending province on legal aid of any province in Canada.

Hon. G. Plant: I know the members opposite think it's funny. They always do, when it gets to a point when they're being called to account for the disaster they inflicted upon the people of British Columbia.

At this moment in the current fiscal year, the budget for the province's grant to the Legal Services Society for the current fiscal year is on the order of $87 million. It's not a complete answer, but I think it is legitimate to point out that in the province next door to British Columbia — a province which is currently enjoying significantly better economic circumstances than British Columbia — the amount spent this year on legal aid is $22 million. That is, in British Columbia we spend four times as much as Alberta does on legal aid. That is part of the context.

As we roll out the spending that is available to us, it's important to recognize that the Legal Services Society is statutorily created. It's independent. It gets to decide how it's going to spend the money that's given to it, but as we did the analysis, it seems to us that over the next three years legal aid will still be available in criminal cases, both for adults and for youth. Legal aid will still be available in child protection cases. Legal aid will still be available in domestic violence cases. Legal aid will still be available for applicants who are facing involuntary detention under the mental health legislation or are in front of the patients review board.

And there will be funds remaining sufficient to ensure that while we cannot maintain the family law tariff in the manner or at the level that it has been at, we think there is enough money there to ensure that there will be an ability to create a new set of programs and an expanded set of alternatives to take the emphasis in family law out of the disputes that end up in court that don't belong there and put that emphasis on early intervention, early settlement, early dispute resolution. Then we can build, inside the context of broken families, more enduring arrangements and agreements that will actually prevent disputes from ever arising in the way that needs the full-scale litigation process in court.

It's true we won't have the resources in family legal aid to sustain a family law tariff in the way it has been sustained and operated in the past, but I am convinced and I am determined that we can take the dollars that are available and ensure that they will be spent in a way that will minimize the need for traditional high-cost, high-antagonism, high-aggression disputes in the Supreme Court of British Columbia or in the Provincial Court.

There will be an impact on family law from the expenditure reductions that are proposed for legal aid, but I think that our challenge — and it's a challenge I hope other justice system actors will join with me in — is to figure out how we can expand on the tools that are already there for achieving early dispute resolution, to prevent cases from ending up in court that don't belong there.

There is a tremendous amount of ideas out there. British Columbia has traditionally been a leader among provinces in Canada in advancing these initiatives, and I'm hopeful that we will continue to make progress. Some of these initiatives were, in fact, undertaken during the term of the last government, and they're ideas that I think are worth pursuing and continuing.

We come back to the area of poverty law, where we started this conversation. We will not have the funds in place that will allow the Legal Services Society to continue to deliver front-line legal advice and representation across the same array of community law offices in British Columbia as is the case today. We will, I believe, have enough money to ensure that the basic building blocks of education and information are in place so that everyone has access to information to help them understand the nature of the issue that they're engaged in, understand what processes are available to them to contest something that they believe has been done in violation of their rights, and understand what their rights and remedies are.

I believe, over time, we will be able to build up a set of processes and structures, whether it's 1-800 lines or call centres or whatever it is. We will reach a point where people will also be able to get a measure of advice over the telephone. In fact, there are already institutions out there, thanks to the good work of the Canadian Bar Association and others, that make sure that people do get some access to information around their rights in a relatively low-cost way.

The point is this. Whether it's in the context of the administrative justice project or our reform commitments to change the way that legal aid is provided, this government is committed to maintaining access to justice, notwithstanding the extraordinarily difficult fiscal circumstances which it has inherited.

We believe that in the twenty-first century, with a new attitude to how justice services are delivered, an attitude that says what counts is services to people — not the buildings or the individuals, not the bricks and mortar, but the access to justice itself — we can make progress, maintain and in fact enhance access to justice for British Columbians. The twenty-first century will first, foremost and finally be a century of hope, opportunity and prosperity for all British Columbians.

J. MacPhail: Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to be able to rise on this very first day of private members' time, where we're actually going to debate private members' matters. It is interesting to note that on this very historic occasion, where it was much touted by the open and accountable government of the day that this would be a time for all members of the Legislature to participate, we have just had a filibuster by two members of the executive council who were talking about legal aid and access to justice on private members' motions.

First of all, we have the Minister of Finance rise up and tell us his bottom-line view of why this government is cutting access to justice. Then we have a filibuster by the Attorney General. During time that's for private members to discuss these very important matters, we have a filibuster by the Attorney General, explaining why he's denying British Columbians access to justice. What do the Liberal MLAs do? They pound their desks. They don't get up and rise…. [Applause.]

Unbelievable. They don't even know when they're being mocked. They get up and pound their desks. Instead of rising up during private members' time that was supposed to be making them do something for their constituents, they sit there and allow two executive council members to tell them, the backbenchers, why it's good for their constituents to be denied access to justice. They pound their desks. This is truly a historic occasion.

Well, the Attorney General can usurp the time of private members all he likes. The Finance minister can usurp the time of private members all he likes as well. British Columbians already know what the plans are of the Attorney General. How dare he stand up here and somehow think he's…. Maybe he's informing his own caucus. Maybe he is standing up here and informing his own caucus why he is denying British Columbians access to justice, but British Columbians already know his plans. British Columbians don't need to be lectured by the executive council of this government over something that they already know is going to happen and that they've already spoken out against.

Just to name one. The Attorney General, in his filibuster during private members' time, talked about the Canadian Bar Association and how they've been in the loop. Well, the Canadian Bar Association has spoken out vociferously against the Attorney General's and this government's cuts to legal aid. Vociferously, they've spoken out against that. The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia has spoken out vociferously against the denial of access to justice.

I note that the Attorney General didn't mention the court closures. I think it's interesting that he forgot that, and maybe it's because there's going to be a question during question period from a government caucus member, saying: "Oh, could you tell us why you closed down my courthouse?" Twenty-four Liberal MLAs could get up and ask that question: "Could you tell me why you closed my courthouse?"

Here's what the president of the Canadian Bar Association had to say about the cuts in access to justice. "It's devastating to the administration of justice," said Carman Overholt, B.C. president of the Canadian Bar Association. "They" — meaning the Liberal government — "have turned their backs on thousands of peo-

What did the Trial Lawyers Association say about the cuts and closures? Well, this was an open letter to government. On January 23 all the plans were out there on the book — the details of the service plan that the Attorney General reads out with such great pride. They knew about those details of the service plan, and they knew what courts were going to be closed. They knew about the cuts to legal aid. They knew about the administrative justice review, and here's what they had to say:

Just as an aside, Mr. Speaker, I'll stop at that quote there for a moment. That's why my colleague from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant put this on the agenda as the motion to debate in private members' time. She knows that every member of this Legislature should be concerned about these cuts, and we wanted to give every MLA the opportunity to discuss and defend the interests of their constituents. That's why we deserve to honour the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant for putting this forward. I'll carry on with the quote:

Not only does the Attorney General get up and filibuster the time afforded for private members, but he also is denying any discussion amongst those who would know best how to solve the problems that face British Columbians right now.

You know what? I find it unbelievable that every time any government member gets up and tries to justify their draconian cuts, they talk about what a terrible mess they were left. When they're really, really on the ropes and can offer no explanation, they get up and invoke fast ferries, and the government members pound their desks and go: "Hey, yeah. What about those fast ferries? Weren't they awful?" Maybe the government members need to understand that in their first eight months they've put the cost to British Columbians — ongoing every year, in extra costs that are going to come directly out of British Columbians' pockets for health care — way beyond anything imaginable about the cost of fast ferries. This government, in its first eight months, has created the ongoing cost to British Columbians, every year, the equivalent of about five fast ferries. Five fast ferries is what this government has done, putting the costs onto the backs of the taxpayers.

Yet they still have the gall, when they're on the ropes, to bring that up. British Columbians have moved way beyond this Liberal government in being terrified of what they're having to pay for their public services, terrified of what they're going to have to pay.

Every day this Liberal government loses another little knife that they try to jab into British Columbians, into taxpayers, about why the devil made them do certain things. The auditor general, last week…. I know that the Finance minister doesn't like the auditor general. It turns out that he's got criticisms of the auditor general, the way he criticizes anybody who disagrees with the government, whether they be an arbitrator, a negotiator, an auditor general — who knows? The Finance minister doesn't like anybody's advice. Economists? He doesn't like any economists whatsoever.

The auditor general, last week, came out…. Maybe the government members have had time to read the auditor general's report, where every single economic underpinning was examined. It turns out that one of the greatest threats to the economy of British Columbia is the current actions of the current government. That's what the auditor general said.

It is unfortunate that the Liberal government has to lose another little knife that they can stick into the taxpayer and explain why the pain has to be so great for them. It is reprehensible that the Finance minister and the Attorney General get up and say that the reason why the most vulnerable in society and rural British Columbians are denied access to justice is because of their failed economic policies.

Do British Columbians have any hope that the government is going to reverse its failed economic policies? No. Exactly the opposite. We have the Premier of the day getting on TV in an infomercial to explain why he's going to stay on his course of hurting the most vulnerable. He spent a half-hour saying to British Columbians: "Yes. I know we're causing you a lot of pain. I know there's incredible hardship. I know I didn't tell you any of this during the election. I know I'm breaking promises, but I'm not changing my mind." Get used to it, British Columbia, is what we were told in a TV infomercial last week. Get used to it. Get used to the pain.

What we were trying to do in this motion today was try to have a discussion to convince the Premier that his draconian, extreme agenda is not working and is hurting British Columbians no matter what riding they live in. We wanted an opportunity to debate that.

There are so many people who are writing in to the government very recently saying: "Please reconsider

what you're doing." This letter was dated February 4. What's that — ten or 12 days ago? It's to the Premier and the Attorney General. The Attorney General didn't read this into the record, but maybe I can. It's from the Law Students Society of the University of Victoria faculty of law. This is the future of our justice system. These are the people who are going to be directly responsible for providing access to justice to British Columbians.

Again, I just pause for a second. That's why we wanted to take this opportunity to allow private members to represent those voices that are in their constituencies, the muted and the vulnerable. Instead, we have the very people who are invoking the cuts getting up and defending their government. I'll carry on with the letter.

J. MacPhail: Yes, I'll carry on to represent all of the constituents of British Columbia, because other voices are being muted here.

Actually, Mr. Speaker, I'm only halfway through my time. I'm not sure whether the new members understand the rules in this new process. Perhaps if the Attorney General hadn't usurped all the time, it wouldn't have been a problem for others to speak. I'll carry on with the letter.

Hon. R. Coleman: Noting the time, hon. Speaker, I move adjournment of debate.

J. Kwan: I'd like to just ask the Clerk's office for advice with respect to calling the vote on the motion before we adjourn debate.

Deputy Speaker: Member, pursuant to the service order passed February 13, division is deferred until 5:30 this afternoon.