Hansard -- Tuesday, February 18, 2003 a.m. -- Vol. 11, No. 7 (HTML)

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

Tributes		4843
	Gertrude Fraser J. Wilson

Motions on Notice		4843
	Public written questions (Motion 90) Hon. R. Coleman

Throne Speech Debate (continued)		4843
	B. Penner R. Hawes L. Mayencourt K. Krueger

J. Wilson: It is with some degree of sadness that I stand here today. Yesterday Gertrude Fraser passed away. For those of you who may not be familiar, Gertrude was the wife of Alex Fraser. Alex Fraser served the Cariboo as its MLA from 1969 until 1989. He was Transportation minister in this province for 11 years. Alex was a man of vision. He understood the importance of the highway infrastructure to rural and remote British Columbia, and we would not be today what we are as a province if it had not been for Alex.

In his last term Alex developed throat cancer, and he had an ongoing battle for several years with it. During that time it was Gertrude who delivered his speeches. As with many of us here today, we would not be able to do the things that we want to do without someone behind us — the silent pillar that supports us and keeps us going. So it would, I think, be becoming of us in this House to extend our sympathies to the family and recognize the importance that those unsung people supply to us as government here and allow us to do our job — just in recognition of that.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. The House will convey condolences to the family.

Hon. R. Coleman: I move Motion 90 standing under the name of the Minister of Finance on the orders of the day.

Mr. Speaker: Address in Reply continues. The member for Chilliwack-Kent adjourned the debate. [Applause.]

B. Penner: Thank you all for that rousing applause — a great way to start the day.

When we left off yesterday, just before the House adjourned at 6 p.m., I was touching on an idea that my colleague from Chilliwack-Sumas and I have been talking about lately. That's the idea of perhaps someday constructing a highway along the western shores of Harrison Lake, which would allow people in the Fraser Valley and the lower mainland to more easily access the interior of British Columbia by travelling north through the Harrison Lake area, through the Lillooet valley, to an area just east of Pemberton on Highway 99.

Especially with talk of a new ski resort at Cayoosh Pass, this new route would certainly open up the province to more tourism and economic development. In fact, the roadbed already exists. It's been a right-of-way for many years and used by B.C. Hydro to maintain a transmission grid, a 360-kilovolt line that runs on the western side of Harrison Lake to bring much-needed electricity to the lower mainland.

The road passes through two very remote communities of Tipella and Port Douglas on the northern end of Harrison Lake. These two first nations communities have been quite isolated from the rest of society and haven't enjoyed all the benefits that the rest of us take for granted — for example, telephone service and electricity from B.C. Hydro's grid. In fact, there are now a couple of proposals from independent power producers to develop small hydroelectric projects right in that area. If a new road could be developed, that would certainly assist in the development of those small hydroelectric projects.

I had an opportunity about ten days ago to have an aerial look at three of the proposed projects and the creeks that they would develop to harness additional electricity for the communities on the northern end of Harrison Lake but also for British Columbia. Those

projects would tie into that 360-kilovolt transmission line and, therefore, have access to the transmission grid throughout British Columbia.

That brings me to the topic of B.C.'s new energy policy. Many people here will know that the province of British Columbia announced the new energy policy back in November. It's already had a very salutary effect on the investment climate here in B.C. Already we're seeing the dividends paid due to the government's new approach to developing electricity here in the province. For example, there are those projects I talked about at the north end of Harrison Lake. If they go ahead, those three projects would represent about $120 million in new infrastructure and new investment into creating jobs and electricity that our province needs.

Those aren't the only projects that are moving ahead. In fact, last year B.C. Hydro signed agreements with 22 independent power producers to supply new electricity for British Columbia. Twenty of those 22 projects are small hydro. In January, B.C. Hydro received an additional 70 proposals to develop more electricity, again, from independent power producers.

What's interesting to note here is that B.C. Hydro has set itself a goal of obtaining an additional 800 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. In that first call for new proposals they signed agreements totalling 930 gigawatt-hours per year, so they exceeded their goal. In January, when the deadline closed for the new proposals for electricity, again with a target of obtaining 800 gigawatt-hours per year, the total amount proposed was 5,500 gigawatt-hours per year — seven times the goal that B.C. Hydro set for themselves.

Clearly, there are many opportunities that the private sector has identified. There's a lot of creativity and imagination being applied. This is all to the good, because most of these projects are very green, very environmentally responsible. I'll just pause here to note that during the NDP's reign of terror in British Columbia, not one of these projects got approved. In fact, they talked the talk, but they could not walk the walk.

I'm very proud to stand here as a member of the B.C. Liberal government to salute the fact that we're moving ahead with these projects. In addition to any environmental benefits, the fact is that we need the jobs, we need the investment, and government needs the revenue, through taxes, to pay for all the services that so many people depend upon.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Last year I had a chance to go look at a project currently under construction called Miller Creek, near Pemberton. That project, in the ballpark of a $40 million to $50 million investment, will return to the province about $600,000 a year in water rental rates, property taxes and other taxes through income tax. That's $600,000 a year that our province needs to help pay for all the things that people want in the form of government services.

There are many other projects going ahead. Already two are completed since the change in government: one in Valemount, in eastern British Columbia — a six-megawatt plant on Hystad Creek; and another one, where electricity's really badly needed, on Vancouver Island near Port Alice, where the Raging River small hydro project has come on line. That's a two-megawatt plant.

The other benefit to these smaller projects is that they distribute the jobs and economic benefit to rural communities throughout the heartlands of our province, where the jobs are really badly needed. Again, our new energy policy is making all of this possible, and it stands in stark contrast to the actions of the previous NDP government that did very little for the communities in B.C.'s heartlands.

The other benefit, of course, with the IPPs, or independent power producers, is that it does not involved risking public money, or taxpayers' money. It is the individual investors that take a risk. They sign a long-term contract to B.C. Hydro guaranteeing the price at which they can sell their electricity, but if something goes wrong in the engineering, if they haven't quite thought anything out completely, if there's a dry water year, it is the individual investors — the private investors — that bear the risk. It's not taxpayers' dollars that are at risk. That's a key difference as well, and it's, again, something I hope the public will recognize.

Speaking of our new energy policy, there was a lot of fearmongering that went on about what would happen to B.C. Hydro. In fact, one member of this Legislature seemed to be under some misapprehension about what was going to happen. The fact is that B.C. Hydro is not for sale. The fact is that B.C. Hydro was not privatized, and it never was going to be privatized. In fact, we made an explicit campaign promise that B.C. Hydro would not be privatized in terms of its core assets like dams, transmission lines and distribution.

What we are doing, as I've mentioned about independent power producers having access to the grid and selling electricity under long-term contracts to B.C. Hydro, is exploring what I would define as a third way. It's not privatization; it's not deregulation. It's a third way, to quote British Prime Minister Tony Blair. We're maintaining B.C. Hydro in public ownership. B.C. Hydro will continue to be the distributor of electricity for residential users, but they will be acquiring additional sources of electricity to resell to residential users by accessing the investment and creativity that the private sector can bring to bear in terms of developing these smaller projects. That way, we're not risking taxpayers' money, we're encouraging more jobs and investment to come into the province, and yet we're maintaining public ownership over the fundamental aspects of B.C. Hydro. That is the right way, it's the third way, and it's a far cry from what the critics of government have attempted to scare the public with.

I would be remiss if I didn't also comment on the changes that have been happening to health care. I know that health care is an issue of considerable concern to pretty well every constituent of mine in Chilliwack-Kent and probably to all the people in the province. There are times when we need health care, and it's important to know that the system's there to depend on when we

need it. Contrary, again, to what certain public sector unions will have people believe, the health care budget has not been cut. In fact, the health care budget has been increased by $1.1 billion per year since the B.C. Liberal government was elected. Now, that's a dramatic increase. In fact, since I was first elected as an MLA, the health care budget's gone from about $6 billion per year to $10.4 billion per year — the fastest-growing expenditure in government. It now consumes 41 percent of the total provincial budget, which is a huge amount of money. Yet the critics — that is, the public sector health care unions — will have you believe that the health care budget is dropping. It's simply not the case. It's misinformation. One wonders what their real motives might be in trying to convey that message to the public.

It is a difficult issue for government, especially in times when the previous government left us in a position with one of the weakest economies in the country. Our rate of investment had declined. We were behind all the other major provinces in Canada in terms of new capital spending, investment in jobs and equipment here. Nevertheless, shortly after taking office, our government did see fit to increase the health care budget by $1.1 billion every year. That's a big challenge. That means it's putting the squeeze on other aspects of government, but that's what the public tells us — that health care is a priority — and we are making it a priority. That doesn't mean, though, that changes aren't needed in the way health care services are delivered so we can maximize the benefit of those dollars to the patients who are depending on the care.

Let's remember one thing: the reason we have a public health care system isn't to provide jobs to people who are working in the system. We need those people working in the system, but the reason the system is there is not to provide high-paying jobs. The reason the system is there is to provide good-quality health care to people who need it. We have to never lose sight of that focus — that the real reason we have a health care system is to look after patients when they're sick. It's not to look after people who are interested in furthering their job prospects. We need those people in the system; they do valuable work. But the fact is that the number one reason for that system is to look after patients.

I'll just pause here to also comment on a local issue that's been quite challenging. I acknowledge some of the stresses around the impending closure of the Parkholm Lodge for seniors in Chilliwack. I've visited that facility several times prior to my election. I've been back there since the closure announcement, and I've met with a number of the residents there. I know for many of them it's been a tremendous challenge. My message to the health authority has been to make sure that they treat the people with the utmost respect and to make sure that they find suitable accommodation as quickly as possible for the people involved. For the most part that has been done. There have been a few bumps along the road, but I'm told that for the most part, things are moving relatively smoothly, and people are being accommodated in most cases according to their first request in terms of other facilities they'd like to be in. So that's moving along about as well as anyone could expect. I know it's still a serious issue for the families, and I acknowledge that.

The good news is that the health authority has recently announced they will be starting a process asking for proposals to open 200 new independent housing and support services with assisted-living apartments for seniors in the Fraser health authority. I'm hopeful that some of these new spaces will become available in the eastern Fraser Valley, and this will help to alleviate some of the pressure that facilities are facing in looking after the growing need for seniors' care.

In fact, our government has made a commitment to develop an additional 5,000 seniors beds, long-term care beds, for people in the province of British Columbia. That's a big challenge, especially given what I noted earlier about the budget already being stretched for health care, despite the $1.1 billion increase. But that is a commitment the government has made, and we're working to find creative solutions so we can stretch that tax dollar to get the maximum bang for the buck and make sure we're doing what we need to do to look after seniors in our communities.

I'll also pause here to note that in terms of education, the education budget has also been increased. We made a commitment in the election that we would not cut health care funding or education funding, and that commitment has been kept. [Applause.] Thank you.

We've gone beyond that commitment, in fact, to increase the education budget. Last year it was increased by a modest $20 million per year in the base budget, and we went better than that. There was a one-time grant in that year due to savings realized, due to good management in the ministry.

This year we've repeated that practice, returning to the ministry about $50 million in cost savings that were achieved. That money directly benefits students. That's a real positive indicator that, again, stands in stark contrast to some of the comments by the leaders in the BCTF who would have the public believe that somehow the education budget's been going down. In fact, on a per-student basis, funding for education has been going up. As I've just noted, the education budget has actually been increased modestly, while the number of students in the system has been dropping over the last number of years. So when you factor in the number of students compared to the total budget, the per-student funding has been increasing. That's something you won't hear from the BCTF.

There are many other good things happening in the province, including right in my constituency of Chilliwack-Kent. A few short weeks ago Rogers Foods announced what is the biggest industrial investment in the history of Chilliwack. More than $20 million will be invested to build a new flour-processing mill, bringing with it somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 to 25 full-time jobs. We believe that this is the start of more than just those 20 or 25 jobs. A lot of credit has to go to

the hard-working Chilliwack council and the mayor and their economic development arm, the Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation, who I know worked many long hours to meet with Rogers Foods representatives and to put together a deal in order to bring this investment to our province and our community. Again, I believe that this is the start of better things to come. I believe there is an opportunity for other processing to be located adjacent to the flour mill and developing value-added products as a result of the flour that's milled there. We're all awaiting even more good news to come.

I would be remiss if I didn't also comment on the fact that Stream International, which opened in our community about a year and a half ago, continues to grow. When that company first announced its plans to come to Chilliwack just around the time of the last election, their stated commitment was to hire between 600 and 700 full-time employees. People like myself were, I have to admit, just a little bit skeptical that we'd actually see that many jobs just in one place, in one building. But in fact, they've more than surpassed their commitment. That's because they have found Chilliwack and the province of British Columbia to be a very good place in which to do business. As of about six months ago they were up to 1,200 full-time employees, and as of a week ago they're now at more than 1,500 employees, about 80 to 85 percent of whom are full-time. This is a very positive development in my community. It's a huge payroll. It's Chilliwack's largest private sector employer, employing a significant number of young people to open up all kinds of opportunities for young people that weren't there before. Again, it's had a huge positive benefit for people in my community, including the local city government because, of course, it contributes to the tax base.

One of our goals as a community is to try and grow from the Stream experience and attract businesses that might, in some way, have a symbiotic relationship with Stream. Stream International does basically call centre work for high-tech companies, providing servicing for the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and others. Those 1,500 employees have become very thoroughly trained on the operation of that kind of equipment. It's our hope that one of those companies I've just mentioned may decide to locate either a manufacturing or some kind of equipment repair facility in the Chilliwack area to benefit from the employees' knowledge, who are already working at Stream. We'd have this continuum of job training and providing more advanced employment opportunities for the employees now working at Stream. That's a long-term goal, and we're working hard towards it, but I can tell you something. The tax changes and the labour code changes this government has introduced to bring more stability to the investment regime and more rights to workers have made our job a lot easier in attracting that additional investment.

I think I can also safely offer this insight: Stream International has made it clear, at least to me, that if it were not for their conviction that this government would be different than the previous government, that job investment in Chilliwack would not have taken place. Those 1,500 jobs would not have materialized in our community if not for a change in government. There is a very, very tangible benefit to this new government, our new way of doing things and our new approach to reducing taxes and attracting investment and jobs to our province.

A couple of other things to talk about. I know that in the weeks and months ahead, people living at Cultus Lake, which is a beautiful part of the constituency I represent, will be grappling with their own future as a local government. Currently, they operate under what's called the Cultus Lake Park Act. It was a statute passed by this Legislature in 1931. It really represents something of an anomaly in terms of local governance in the province. There is considerable talk in my constituency about reforming the governance structure at Cultus Lake, and I make a commitment to the people at Cultus Lake to work with them to try and satisfy their concerns and their interests in moving towards a more modern style of government for Cultus Lake.

There was recently a community meeting held about ten days ago, on a Saturday afternoon, that I had a chance to attend at Cultus Lake. There were, I would say, safely 300 or maybe 400 or 500 people packed into the elementary school gymnasium to hear about the various options they might have as a community to plan for their future. That shows that there is tremendous community interest in their own future. That's something I salute: that people are taking an interest in their own governance. Certainly, I again make this commitment, as I did at the meeting, that I will work hard to represent their interests and their concerns and to convey whatever message they would like me to, to our Minister of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services as we try to assist that community in planning for their future. I know that the city of Chilliwack also has an important role to play there, and Mayor Hames and I have been working on this issue together.

Although from a legal perspective it's a very difficult challenge because of the various roles of the federal, provincial and municipal governments in Chilliwack in terms of the current governance structure at Cultus Lake, I think we can and will find some way to sort this thing out and introduce a more modern governance structure for Cultus Lake.

With that, I note that my time is running short. I know there are other speakers who would like the opportunity to speak about the throne speech. I will yield the floor at this time and give them that opportunity.

R. Hawes: It is a pleasure to stand today and give a response to the throne speech that I think was very, very good news for this province. The throne speech really provides a direction for where the government wants to go. In effect, it is a road map.

The other day the Premier, in his address to the province, I think quite correctly said that all of us — no

matter which side of the political spectrum we're from — want the same things and want the same goal for the province and for our families. Where we differ is in the route that we're going to take to get to that goal, to that place where we want this province to be.

It's appropriate, when looking ahead at where we're going, to first take a look back and see where we've been. It's very clear, when one looks back, that the route that was taken by the previous government was the wrong route. Before I talk about where we're going, I would like to just touch on where we've been and what we inherited as a government when we took over just over a year and a half ago.

When we took government, we were supposedly inheriting a balanced budget. We've heard that from many supporters of the opposite party. They believe that there was a balanced budget and that somehow our government destroyed that. The facts are — and it's been established by independent boards — that the budget was balanced on the backs of high gas taxes, a stock market that was booming and actually the stripping of many of the assets of this province in order to balance a budget that was artificially balanced and only balanced one time. In fact, there was a structural deficit of over $3 billion once the one-time things like pension adjustments that were over $1 billion were factored in.

If one looks, then, at what was actually there and what that last decade of misgovernment provided for the people of this province…. I call them time bombs. The ticking time bombs that were not apparent when this government took the reins of power have now become very apparent. I just want to touch on a couple of what I call time bombs. First, there were the government union contracts and the labour legislation that crippled workplaces all over this province and drove investment and employers away from British Columbia. The government union contracts, if one were to examine them and how rich they are, were actually bankrupting the systems that we all rely on as British Columbians. There are so many clauses buried in those contracts, which are basically unheard of by the people in this province. The people that I represent have never heard of these. Frankly, there are benefits there, and I know that when I mention them to folks in my own riding, they see red. They just get very, very angry.

I have to tell you that I have children who are members of trade unions. I have one who is a tradesman, and when I mention some of the benefits in the government union contracts, he gets very angry thinking about the benefits in his own contract as a union tradesman working in this province. There are benefits in those contracts that he couldn't even dream of having. I'll touch on those a little bit shortly.

We have embarked on a system, and we've been forced to look at highway repairs in this province that are highly expensive — very expensive. In my previous life as a mayor, one of the things I learned was that when you do road maintenance on an annual basis, it's the cheapest way to go. If you ignore maintenance, if you divert the money that should go into maintenance into some other spending program, it comes back to kill you because you've got to then reconstruct highways, which is orders of magnitude more expensive.

For the last decade highway maintenance in this province has been neglected, particularly in the heartlands. In the northern part of this province where the wealth actually springs from, the resource-rich sectors of this province have had their roads completely collapse. There's $600 million in both resource road construction and in highway repair and reconstruction necessary. The cupboards were left bare by the previous government. There is no money to fix those roads. This has necessitated the gas tax that I know many don't like but I think will grow to realize is very necessary and, in fact, is very, very good government. I'll touch on that again in a moment.

If you look at health care, the purchase of equipment in our hospitals has been neglected. We're hundreds of millions of dollars behind in the purchase of equipment. In fact, I am aware of Third World countries that have more up-to-date and modern hospital equipment than we have in some areas of this province. The neglect has been total.

Where did the money go? We spent into a deficit under the previous government — into huge deficits. The debt load has skyrocketed. Where has this money gone? Really, one needs to look first at things like the government union contracts and huge, huge increases in spending. When you add billions in the cost of government employees and you don't add any employees or services, frankly, the province isn't really getting better off.

I'm hearing from a lot of people. They say that at the present time if we look at contracting out HEU employees, as an example, somehow we're really doing a disservice in our communities because these are people who will not be able to afford to support their families because they'll have lower wages if they work in the private sector, etc.

Yet I keep thinking about the people who are working now in the private sector. I keep thinking about the people who are working at McDonald's or as retail sales clerks or in restaurants or housekeeping. Those are people who are earning $10 or $12 an hour and frequently have no benefits at all. They have money taken off of their cheques for taxes that are going to pay the wages of people doing similar work at sometimes double the pay scale but, more importantly, with benefit packages that are just unheard of.

In fact, I know that in many cases there are employees in the health employees union, HEU, who are in what I would have called entry-level jobs and whose husbands or wives, the spouses, are really the primary wage earners. The primary wage earner drops the benefits they were getting in their job to hook onto the benefits provided by the secondary wage earner, the spouse, because the government benefits are better than anything offered anywhere in the private sector.

I don't want to denigrate the people who are working for the HEU. They're wonderful people. Many of

them are friends of mine. They live in my community and all the communities across this province. This has nothing to do with the employees. It has everything to do with the union management and a government led by the two members opposite that sold this province down the drain over the last decade to their friends in the labour industry.

Every day in this House we hear about how this government somehow is in bed with and friends with the corporate world. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were donated by the labour sector to those members opposite over the last decade — hundreds of thousands of dollars. The result was that the labour sector, particularly the government unions, were given anything they wanted.

Often I've heard that the head of the HEABC, the Health Employers Association of British Columbia, who are actually the folks who negotiate on behalf of the government and the taxpayers with the unions — the head negotiator, Mr. Gary Moser, I've heard them say — has never, ever been able to successfully negotiate a contract. I don't know if that's really true, but I do know that often contracts were signed in a back room here in this building with government directly and then handed over to Mr. Moser and the HEABC. I call them sweetheart deals, and we'll touch again on those in a few moments. That's part of what has really, really cost us in this province over the last decade.

We take government, and we are then forced to first deal with these ticking time bombs, some of which have yet to be dealt with, and immediately the power struggle starts in this province. The power struggle is: should it be the government unions that lead the province and actually dictate how things will run, or should it be the government that was elected by the people of British Columbia? That's what's going on with the protests. Generally speaking, that's what this is about. It is a huge power struggle, and there are groups that are hearing the misinformation and fearmongering that generally springs from the leadership of these unions.

We as a government made a decision when we took office that we would no longer spend the kind of money the previous government did on advertising. What really was annoying with the previous government was the self-aggrandizement, the glossy brochures that arrived on your doorstep weekly telling everyone what a wonderful job they were doing. All of us knew that was fiction. That's why they wound up where they are, with two left. Frankly, I'm surprised that there are two. Probably we'd be better off if there weren't two.

We said we weren't going to do that. We have tried to go without spending money on getting information out to people. There's a huge difference between giving people factual information and self-aggrandizing advertising.

In the absence of the expenditure of funds to get information to people, we have a void that has been filled with huge spending by the government unions, the BCTF, the HEU, etc., to give false information to people and to scare people, particularly groups like seniors and parents, about where the education system is going. Today I just want to touch on some of that, as well, and clear up what I think is some of the huge, huge fearmongering and misinformation.

I want to also say how proud I am of my colleagues here. I read in the paper all the time how somehow we're under the whip or something, and we're all clones, and we're all — you know — automatons that vote the way we're told. It couldn't be further from the truth. The fact is that the reforms that have already been put in place by this government to allow free votes in the House, to create things like caucus committees where discussion can take place on important matters, where private members have an opportunity to put their input into cabinet and to help shape decisions in this province…. The kind of debate that goes on is often very heated. There is a very good exchange of ideas between all of us. The thing I'm the most proud of is that we are able to come to a consensus because every single one of us understands the goal. We share that goal, and we also know the road map is the one that we agree on.

Sometimes we have disagreements on small parts. We've had members here that have voted against legislation that's brought forward. That's an innovation that has been brought in by our Premier. Free votes are allowed in this House. All of us are free to vote the way that we feel is in the best interests of the province and in the best interest of our constituents, and the fact that often we all vote the same way has absolutely nothing to do with being sheep or clones. It has everything to do with voting for legislation that makes sense. That's what we've been bringing forward — legislation that corrects the devastation wreaked by those two and their cohorts over the last decade.

It's a tough job. Every day in our ridings each and every one of us goes home, and we see the dissenters. We hear the voices of special interests that are spurring others on with misinformation and that are in our faces. Every day that kind of pressure is being exerted on all of us. I'm very proud of every single one of us, because we are standing up to that pressure for one simple reason: we're right. We are doing the right thing. Political expediency is not in our vocabulary. We are doing what's right.

Yesterday, I think, one of my colleagues mentioned in his address that we are legislating a future inheritance, not a future election. I think that's a very appropriate thing for him to have said. That's exactly what we're doing. We are working — all of us — for the future of our families, the families of all British Columbians, and we're putting political expediency…. We're not just doing what's politically expedient.

The easy thing would be to say yes. That's what the last government tried to do. They tried to be all things to all people, particularly their friends in the labour sector, and that became very, very apparent. The kind of misinformation that's being spread, things like that we ripped up a contract…. Well, the fact is we didn't

rip up a labour contract. Yes, we made some adjustments to a labour contract, but we didn't rip it up.

Bill 29 removed some of what I consider to be odious, terrible, unconscionable parts of a contract made in a back room with no thought of the best interests of the people of this province. Bill 29 eliminated such things as the Healthcare Labour Adjustment Agency. The Healthcare Labour Adjustment Agency was a part of what was called the health labour accord, which basically said you have a job for life if you ever get a job — if you're lucky enough to land a job. Frankly, I've never understood who gets to pick who are the lucky ones that get jobs in the service sector, in our health sector, but if you got there, you'd have a job for life.

If for some reason there was a disruption in your employment, you would go into what's called the Healthcare Labour Adjustment Agency, which is sort of comparable to a union hiring hall. You would go home and wait for a placement in a comparable job somewhere else, but when you went home, you would be paid your full salary for 18 months while you sat at home waiting. I know of no other contract — I know of nowhere in the private sector; for that matter, I know of no union contract — that offers 18 months to sit at home when you're between jobs. It's unconscionable. So we removed that, and we removed the job for life. No one should have a job for life guaranteed. That makes no sense.

The other thing that was built into those contracts was a rigid inflexibility that didn't allow any of the management in our health system to schedule a workable flow, and that was removed. What remained were all of the benefits, all of the wages. The entire union contract remains intact. In fact, the severance provisions if an employee is severed remain completely intact, although some from the unions went around saying that we've ripped everything up, that there's no severance, that there's nothing.

That is just an abject falsehood. We did nothing of the kind. We removed some pages from a contract that were unconscionable and were destroying our health system, and we knew we had to get money back closer to the patient. The only way to do that was to make sure the health providers that are essential to our health system were the ones that were protected, so we have allowed our health institutions to contract out some of the service part of working within the health sector.

It's very interesting when I listen to the secretary of the Hospital Employees Union, Mr. Alnutt, speak about how essential these people are to health care and that if somehow they weren't there, the entire system is going to crumble. I think we've all seen the ads on TV. You know, if you have private service provision, you might get a thumb in your sandwich and this sort of thing. Total lunacy. K-Bro is a laundry company from Alberta that took over doing the laundry in a number of hospitals in the Fraser Valley health region and in the community I live in, and I was really sorry to see the laundry workers in my hospital displaced.

K-Bro, being an Alberta company, tendered and had the lowest price. Frankly, for taxpayers, that was the best deal. What I've heard continually, though, is that we're shipping laundry to Alberta. That's what they say in my riding. The fact is that the contract says K-Bro will build a $4 million laundry facility in the lower mainland — in fact, I think it's now going to be in Burnaby — within 12 months of getting the contract.

During that 12-month period, the cost of sending laundry to Alberta is their cost. They're losing money, actually, every day that this contract carries on until they get located here, so there is a real incentive for them to build a laundry here. But we don't hear about that from the labour side. We only hear the terrible thing that we're somehow sending laundry to Alberta and the health risks associated with that — which, of course, is lunacy because there are none.

Through the BCTF we've heard a lot of stuff about how they are the protector of students, and things like class size are somehow going to skyrocket with the cuts — as they call it — to education, which, as my colleague from Chilliwack said earlier, is just a falsehood. In fact, the school budgets have increased.

Within the last few weeks the teachers union in my community, Mission, put a full-page ad in the paper, a graph that displayed all of the school sizes that have increased within the Mission school district. You know, probably about 15 percent of the classrooms in my community have some increase in student count. So 85 percent have either fewer students or the same number of students, which I think is very commendable. In fact, I think the school board deserves a huge accolade for the way they have controlled class sizes.

When I looked at what the class-size adjustments were…. For example, a small rural school some 30 kilometres out of the city had one classroom that increased by two students. It went from 27 to 29. I know what the union was intimating in their graph: that somehow they should either have split that class and perhaps had a class of 14 and one of 15 and hired another teacher — which, of course, is what the real aim is — and maybe put them in a portable. Then that would have contained the classes, or perhaps put them on a school bus — two kids. I don't know how we would select which two; maybe it was the two the teachers didn't like. I don't know. But somehow we should ship two kids out of their community, and that's just not right. I'm proud of the way that the school board has looked after classrooms in the community in which I live.

One of the other things that was on it was that the concert band class size went from 29 to something over 50. Gosh, I would have thought it was a good thing to have a bigger concert band. The choir class went from about 30 to just about double — 60. Gosh, a bigger choir — how terrible.

The teachers union in my community has a union contract that's much different from the contracts in other communities. Each school district has its own contract. The only common thing is the increase that

was given to teachers. In my community the union contract says that if a teacher is severed — laid off — for any reason, the teacher with the least local seniority will be the first teacher to go. But when that teacher is laid off, he or she will be paid severance based on their global seniority.

Last year two teachers were laid off. The first one had 18 months' service with the Mission school district. He had 28 years' service, though, provincially. He had to be, under the collective agreement, the first one to go in the layoff, but his severance was $94,000. The school district had to take $94,000 out of classroom money and pay it to this teacher who, I'm quite sure, got a job somewhere else quickly.

That union contract tells the Mission school district they should never hire experienced teachers. This is not in the best interest of students. This is not in the best interest of anyone but teachers, and there is no way that this sort of thing can be justified. If the Mission Teachers Union and the BCTF were really true about what they constantly harp about, "We are the ones who are the watchdogs for kids," they would rip out clauses like that, which actually hurt kids. I think it's odious that that sort of thing continues to exist.

The other one I keep looking at…. I've got three kids that went through the school system, and I've talked to many, many parents. Almost everyone has run into a teacher at some time or another who shouldn't be anywhere near kids, who's completely incompetent. The vast majority of teachers are excellent. They're there because they love kids, and they're very good teachers. But it doesn't take very many to really hurt a child. One or two bad teachers…. If a child runs into one bad teacher at the wrong time in his life, it can destroy his entire educational experience.

These people have been protected for over 25 years. I don't believe there's been a teacher discharged for incompetence in this province, and that's shameful. The BCTF ought to be ashamed of themselves. The BCTF ought to have the same goal that we as parents have, and that would be to make sure that 100 percent of teachers are competent. They don't have that goal. Their goal is to protect the teachers, and that's fine. That's what they are there to do. But I think they need to stop, then, with the rhetoric and the advertising and the misinformation and the fearmongering that somehow it's they who are the protectors of children, when all of the evidence shows that the converse is true. They are not the protectors of children. They are the protectors of teachers and sometimes incompetent teachers. I am a big fan and a big booster of teachers, the good ones, but I personally have run into some bad ones. Many of my friends have as well. That's something that needs to be corrected and that the BCTF needs to stand up and take some responsibility for. But over the last decade the two members opposite and that gang they had around them supported the kind of behaviour that we see from these unions.

I do want to touch, too, on tax cuts because, again, the rhetoric keeps going. We gave tax cuts to the rich. We promised to make the lowest two tax brackets the lowest in this country within our first term, and we delivered within the first few days. The tax cut extended across the entire spectrum. But you don't hear us saying that the highest tax brackets in British Columbia are now the lowest in the country, because they're not. Imagine how high those were compared to other provinces before the tax cut went in.

Now, who are these people, these so-called rich people that got this great tax break? Many of them are the professionals that are in such short supply around the world that everyone is fighting to get them and is clamouring to get things like internists, anaesthetists, many of the medical specialists and some of the high-tech people. These are people who command high salaries, and who can go anywhere in the world they want. They're very mobile people, and we are losing them. We're churning them out of our universities, and thanks to our Minister of Advanced Education we've been able to put more seats in universities for medical students. Yet a huge percentage of these students, when they graduate as doctors, are leaving, paid for at huge expense to the taxpayer to turn them out of the university. They're going to other parts of the world. Part of the reason they're going to other parts of the world is, again, back to the lack of first-class medical equipment in this province — thanks to the members opposite over the last decade — but also because other areas of the world are friendlier tax environments. These people aren't working for charity. No one out there is working for charity. They want to keep the money they earn.

We've made sure that we're at least competitive so that we can attract these people back, so that the entrepreneurs who invest money and create employment can live here, open their businesses here, keep more of the money they earn for that risk they take — which, of course, means that the risk is somewhat lower. That helps attract investment. This is a concept completely foreign to that last government. They have absolutely no concept of that.

I just want to very quickly touch on a couple of things. Health care on the local level in my own community. Our hospital has seen some very severe loss of service. It's moved across the river to the hospital in Abbotsford. I'm very upset with that change, but I do have to say that it's a change that wasn't made by politicians. What has happened in this province now with the provision of medical services is that, actually, care providers have been brought together. The health authority brought together advisory groups of specialists who looked at how service should be provided. Those specialists made the decisions that have been implemented, not politicians.

I know there's a huge amount of good news in this budget, and I know that we're going in the right direction. There are so many others who want to get up and spread the good news that I'm now going to yield the floor to my friend from Kamloops.

L. Mayencourt: Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to be back in the chamber and be back in the House. I'm delighted to be able to respond to the Speech from the Throne. It's a very important document. It lays out our government's vision of creating an economically vibrant, compassionate and just society for all British Columbians. It's important that we articulate our vision and the initiatives that we are going to take as of today. It's also a vision that guides us well into the future.

It's most appropriate for me to highlight the challenges and opportunities that this vision offers to the residents of my own riding, Vancouver-Burrard. As I've shared in this House before, my riding is one of the smallest geographic ridings in the province. In just eight square kilometres we house almost 75,000 residents in several unique neighbourhoods. Our neighbourhood is often portrayed as the West End, a tightly compacted urban oasis. But Vancouver-Burrard is much more than this. I've stood in this House on many occasions and spoken about the emergence of three brand-new communities developing in my neighbourhood. Many British Columbians are aware of the growth in the old Expo lands known as Concord Pacific and Yaletown. You know, this is formerly an industrial wasteland, and the northern shores of False Creek are being dramatically transformed into a shining example of a sustainable community.

Likewise, the downtown south is undergoing a bit of a renaissance itself, with virtually every square of the Seymour, Richards and Homer Street corridors becoming a new and exciting village. The massive reclamation that is occurring on the banks of Coal Harbour in Burrard Inlet is equally dramatic. These impressive developments are not just homes for the wealthy but also a range of non-profit housing, schools, child care and community centres and, with today's announcement, an expanded trade and convention centre.

In fact, throughout my riding we have created some of the most progressive and forward-thinking communities. We have some of the finest child care facilities in this province. I had the great pleasure of working with people like Sandra Menzer of the Vancouver Society of Children's Centres, Susan Low from the YMCA, Kimberley Johnson of Gordon Neighbourhood House and the folks at Little Rae's to ensure that we continue to expand child care options for families in the downtown peninsula.

I am very proud that our government has worked closely with civic planners to dedicate as much as 15 percent of Burrard's new neighbourhoods to house our most vulnerable citizens — seniors, the frail elderly, people with disabilities, the mentally ill and street-entrenched youth. All have a place in Vancouver-Burrard. All are welcomed; all are respected and honoured in this wonderful little piece of British Columbia.

I am very proud to have been able to represent our government recently at celebrations for the opening of Candela Place on Granville Street. Candela Place is just one of the many new initiatives put forward by B.C. Housing. This impressive new building houses many people living with mental illness in my community. They're not alone. MCC brought this development on stream earlier this year, and they are joined by people from the Coast Foundation on Seymour Street, Coopers House at the corner of Bute and Pendrell and many others that are putting real dollars in supporting this most vulnerable group with their housing needs.

Seniors in my community are also being supported through supported living programs. Already we're clearing the land at Jervis and Davie to house over 100 new homes for the frail elderly. We're nearing completion at Mole Hill, which is providing 100 subsidized units for working families, and work continues at the Dr. Peter Centre at Thurlow and Comox, which will provide excellent care, housing and respite for people living with AIDS. Keep in mind that this is just around the corner from another project, run by McLaren Housing Society, that also supports people with HIV.

When I look at the record of B.C. Housing and this government's initiatives, I reflect back on the previous government. The previous government, on average, over the past ten years built 700 units of social housing. We've been in government for 21 months. In that time we have built 2,100 new housing units for low-income families in British Columbia. That's averaging a hundred a month. I'm proud that this government recognizes the importance of and need for balanced communities. We don't believe that we should shuffle our poor, our disabled, our weak, our frail and our elderly out of our community. We embrace them, we welcome them, and we share with them the commitment to affordable housing options. We've also had spectacular success with housing initiatives for families — places like C-Side, where low-income families access million-dollar views and world-class amenities in Coal Harbour.

I am delighted to be working on further projects to ensure those that built our community always know they are welcome to stay here as long as they choose and are able. But while condominiums are springing up in the new neighbourhoods of Coal Harbour, the downtown south, Yaletown and Concord Pacific, the core of the West End remain largely a renters' community. I am fighting to preserve that for those families, those seniors, those vulnerable citizens that are not able to buy their own homes. These are the very folks that are protected under the new Residential Tenancy Act.

In order to retain a stable and affordable rental market, I fought long and hard with my colleagues to ensure we had rent fairness in British Columbia. In the past decade we lost way too much of our affordable rental stock in the West End, because landlords could not afford to maintain their buildings as property values increased and maintenance costs escalated. So together with legitimate tenant and landlord organizations, we're working right now to find the proper balance to ensure that rent increases are fair and tied to the true cost of keeping these buildings as rentals, because I don't want them all converted to condos. I want a vibrant, safe, affordable, inclusive and sustainable

community, and I won't settle for anything less. That's why I will continue to fight to protect renters with regulations limiting excessive rent increases.

In years gone by, downtown residents were mostly singles. Today more and more families are staying downtown. They're enjoying the benefits of our well-planned neighbourhoods. So I've worked hard with my local schools to ensure we have adequate facilities to provide for our growing enrolments. Nowhere is the need greater than at Lord Roberts Elementary, a school run by one of my favourite principals in Vancouver, Patti Lefkos. That school is literally busting at the seams. That's why I've worked so hard to ensure we get a new school at False Creek North, and we're going to do that. But I also believe it is time for us to start looking at creating a new school in Coal Harbour for the new families in the area.

We're also home to many diverse ethnic communities as well. Many eastern Europeans call Vancouver-Burrard their home. We have the Persian community; we have Indo-Canadians, people from Southeast and Central Asia. We welcome each of these communities to our part of the world. We're inspired by their energy, their hopes and dreams for a better life in British Columbia, their commitment to creating a safe and peaceful community.

Vancouver-Burrard is also an exciting and dynamic centre of commerce in our province. It is, in fact, home to 80 of British Columbia's top 100 companies and the centre of our forest and mining interests. We face challenges in Burrard, but we do so bravely.

Many of my constituents have spoken of the need to address safety concerns. Over many years we have earned a reputation as a safe and caring place. This is reflected in the beauty of our city, the balance in our neighbourhoods and the services to care for those less fortunate, but we're seeing the emergence of a serious threat to our public safety. In the first year of our government I attended two vigils for victims of violent crime. In November of 2001, Aaron Webster was beaten to death in Stanley Park. He was the apparent victim of a gay bashing, and Aaron was in his early forties — much, much too young to die. Only this past week the Vancouver police department offered up hope for my community to find closure with the arrest of a young teen. Others continue to be under investigation.

The second vigil was for Ji-Won Park, a young Korean student who was one of thousands that came to Vancouver to study English. Ji-Won was an avid jogger, and it was on one of her runs in late May last year that she was savagely beaten and left for dead, also in Stanley Park. Our community was shocked and outraged by these senseless and brutal acts.

The impact of what happened to Ji-Won touched our entire community, and people poured their hearts out to her. Initially, doctors didn't have much hope for her because she was severely brain-injured and lying in a coma. However, with strength and determination, she's made amazing progress, and I count her as one of my friends. It's been very humbling to get to know Ji-Won and her family and to be a part of her story, but her story and that of Aaron have broader implications for all of us.

With this in mind, we created the international students safety forum, a group of English-as-a-second-language schools, police, civic and provincial ministries who are dedicated to protecting those thousands of students who choose to come to Vancouver as a place to advance their knowledge of English. These students come to our community, they invest in their education, and they contribute to our society. When they return to their home country, they are forever ambassadors for Canada, for British Columbia and for Vancouver. We owe them a safe community. In fact, we owe each other a safe community.

Citizens of all ages have the right to know that they are safe in their homes, in their schools and on our streets. It's time for all three levels of government to come together and help our community. We cannot work in isolation. I pledge to continue to work with our federal Member of Parliament and with our city council to protect our city. We must find a way to create and preserve our safe streets. We must address the growing illicit drug trade. We must deal with the issue of the urban-camping phenomenon. We must deal with the issues of aggressive and harassing panhandling. We must protect our kids and our seniors from the crime that follows the drug and prostitution scene.

For me, it's not simply a moral issue. It's about creating the kind of community that we need and we deserve. For me, it is about respecting ourselves, respecting others and respecting our communities. I have been meeting with many members of my community to find forums that open up the discussion of these important matters, and I am delighted that our government will convene a provincial dialogue on crime. It's time. It's too important to leave at the feet of one government, though. This initiative must include all levels of government, and it must include the people of British Columbia. Only then can we create the kind of province that we envision — a place where all are welcome, respected and honoured.

The Speech from the Throne included an important acknowledgment. It was something that needed to be said. Through many generations, the injustices visited upon first nations is undeniable. As painful as it may be, we should never attempt to gloss over that fact. Clearly and unequivocally, our government, in this Speech from the Throne, has apologized to the first people of this land not merely for our time in government but indeed for all previous governments and for all generations of British Columbians. It is time to heal those bitter wounds. What better way to begin than with a simple expression of sorrow and regret?

We need to start afresh and build the kind of relationships that bring honour, respect and trust between our peoples. At the end of the day, we need to come together, and I am confident that we are on the right path. This apology delivered with sincerity is the first of many steps to reconciliation. Beyond that, we have

committed $30 million to the first nations economic fund, funding that will ensure that first nations will have involvement in oil and gas exploration, tourism, forestry, aquaculture and the Olympic bid. We'll work with the first nations on creating a sustainable resource management plan and seek ways to expand their involvement in comanaging our parks and recreational services. Revenue-sharing agreements will also be made this year with first nations that are committed to revitalizing forestry in their traditional territories.

When I reflect on the Speech from the Throne, I am deeply proud of the contribution each member of this House has made. This year I had the honour of chairing the safe schools task force, and together with the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke and the member for Surrey–Green Timbers we travelled the province, at the request of our caucus, to consult with British Columbians.

Like many British Columbians, I was deeply touched by the tragic death of Dawn-Marie Wesley, Hamed Nastoh, Reena Virk and others. These B.C. students made it to the front page of our lives, to the 6 o'clock news, but I know there are literally thousands of others that suffer from bullying, harassment and intimidation in silent anonymity. One in five children in our school system does not feel safe in their school. That is a crime, something we cannot and will not ignore any longer.

The safe schools task force met with students, with parents, with school administrators, with community groups across British Columbia. For many it was the very first time they had shared their stories, and for many it seemed as if it was the first time they had been heard. Our task force will report out to caucus in the coming months, and we will make our recommendations based on those hearings and based on the recommendations that ordinary British Columbians gave to us as a way of improving student safety.

I have also been a member of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, and it's been my opportunity to visit many parts of British Columbia with this committee to hear from the people of this province about their hopes, their visions, their ideals, and to report back to this House and to the Minister of Finance on their recommendations. Over and over, I heard from people that we need to stay the course. They wanted us to know in this chamber that our plan is working, and they wanted to share with us ideas that we should incorporate into our budget. The people of this province challenged us to address the growing transportation infrastructure deficit. We're doing that in a bold and dramatic way that touches every corner of this province. The Minister of Transportation will articulate this effort in the coming weeks in this House.

All members of this House are keenly aware of the challenges we face in health care. Chronic underfunding by the federal government has resulted in unbelievable pressures on our health care system. It's shocking when you consider that 41 percent or 41 cents of every dollar we collect in our budget is consumed by just one goal: the health of our people.

One area of note in the Speech from the Throne is the creation of the Fair Pharmacare program. As we anticipate announcements around this initiative, we recommit ourselves to the principle of protecting our most vulnerable citizens. The vast majority of British Columbians will pay the same or less than they currently pay for prescription drugs. In fact, 28,000 low-income families across this province will actually pay less than they do now, and for the very first time in B.C. history young families will be supported in meeting their drug costs.

A few days ago the Leader of the Opposition spoke about our record on seniors care and moving seniors from care home to care home in what is "…a botched and dishonest effort to build cheap and unsatisfactory assisted-living beds." For ten years her government ignored the fact that they weren't looking after seniors. I know countless examples of seniors that were actually moved out of our neighbourhood, out of Vancouver-Burrard, to communities that they didn't belong in, to communities where they didn't have support systems in place. I thought that was a crime.

That's why I am so glad that our government has committed to creating 5,000 new intermediate and long-term care spaces by 2006. We're going to deliver on that promise. We've made it absolutely clear to each and every senior that they will get the appropriate level of care they need based on their particular needs and following a needs assessment.

Our Minister of Human Resources has had great success with the new Employment and Assistance Act. I'm very proud of the fact that our government has invested over $300 million in employment programs that lead to jobs and greater independence. That's because we believe firmly that the best way to help someone in this province is for them to be able to have a job, to fulfil their dreams.

Last week I had the honour to officially open the expanded offices of Destinations. Destinations is one of many groups that works with people, helping them leave welfare for jobs that help them fulfil their potential, fulfil their dreams and provide them with the skills to succeed and to contribute to the success of this great province. With the help of partners like Destinations, we have helped 55,000 British Columbians get jobs. We've helped them leave welfare, and they have helped us save millions of dollars in benefit payouts. Today we're sharing that saving by increasing the earning threshold for people living on disabilities. Last year we increased it by $100 and this year by another $100 per month. That is double the exemption under the previous government.

The people of British Columbia, in our consultation on the Select Standing Committee on Finance, asked us to find a little bit more cash for education. We've done that too. The Minister of Education, with careful and prudent use of the precious resources provided by the budget, found a savings of $42 million last year and $50 million from this year's budget. Last Monday our Premier declared that every penny of that would go

back into the classrooms, and I salute him for that. My district will share in the $92 million, but it will also share in an additional funding of $100 million announced by the Premier last week. I think that's very impressive. I think that's important.

The member for Vancouver-Hastings said that affordable day care is out of reach for thousands of working people. Well, she's just plain wrong. We put in place a day care program that will see the number of subsidized spaces go from 45,000 to 70,000. That's impressive. We didn't just announce a day care program, as they did in 1999; we actually funded it and delivered on it. Last Wednesday we increased the day care subsidy threshold by $100, giving more people in British Columbia — more families — access to quality day care. Together with partners, we are creating a foundation to research and build upon our knowledge about the early years in a child's life. We're doing that so we can create the best programs and services for infants, toddlers and their families.

Repeatedly I have heard that the people of this province want us to protect the social equity funding for schools. I pledge to continue my efforts to protect and preserve vitally important services in our inner-city and community schools. I want to tell the people of British Columbia that I'm not alone in that commitment. As a matter of fact, my colleague from Powell River–Sunshine Coast received a letter recently from the Sunshine Coast Teachers Association applauding his efforts on behalf of their association in talking to the issue of community school funding. There are many other members — the member for Surrey–Green Timbers, the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill. All of us have recognized how important this is, and we are willing to commit to work to find a way to support these programs.

It is indeed exciting to be part of this government, because we are seeing the benefits of the hard work of ordinary British Columbians and of the dedication of the members of this Legislature. The Leader of the Opposition said a few days ago that British Columbia is not the province it was a few short years ago. On this point she is absolutely correct.

You know, we finally have a government that's willing to face up to the challenges and the opportunities that are presented in this province. We have a government that's committed to balancing its budget — real balance — and we have a forest policy that's going to return our industry to a sunrise, sustainable industry. We finally and forever have an energy policy. We have ministers who are willing to put a part of their salary on the line to prove that they're going to do the very best they can for British Columbians, that they will meet their budget targets, that they will fulfil their service plans.

Clearly, we face a new era in British Columbia, a new era that is only possible because we as a government faced the tough choices early in our mandate. Without the tough choices, without the sacrifice, without the pain of this past 21 months, we would not be able to deliver on this bold new vision of hope and prosperity. I look forward to continued debate as we shape an economically vibrant, compassionate and just society for all British Columbians.

K. Krueger: I very much appreciate the remarks of my colleague who went before me — all of them, actually. Like a previous member, I'm tremendously proud of the people in our caucus and of the accomplishments of our government and of a Premier who is in tune with the heartlands of British Columbia. I come from the heartlands. That's where I grew up, and I've noted over the years that there is a profound lack of understanding of the heartlands of B.C. by a lot of urban people and certainly by the Premiers who have come from urban centres in the past.

There's been a little kibitzing going on in the media about where the heartlands are, and I would like to define that for people. The term "heartlands," of course, comes from the word "heart." And what does the heart do for your body? It pumps your life's blood around the rest of the body. The heartlands have always provided the life's blood of British Columbia's economy, whether it's the mines, the forests, the fisheries or the aquaculture industry in our day and age. People of the heartlands have always been happy to be robust harvesters of resources, innovative people in many areas, be it communications, transportation — right across the economic spectrum — and have been relatively uncomplaining about sending the wealth that they create down to Victoria, down to Vancouver, down to the urban centres where it gets spent. Still, in spite of the way the NDP beggared the heartlands over their ten years in office, 70 percent of the revenue of this province comes from the heartlands of B.C.

I suggest to the pundits who say they don't know where the heartlands are that they trace the money — that is, check out where the money came from…. I don't say, "Follow the money," because that's what representatives of the heartlands have had to do down through the decades in British Columbia. In order to get any money spent in the heartlands, representatives — MLAs from around this province — have had to come down to Victoria and wheedle and twist arms and practically beg to bring back a little bit to be spent in the heartlands themselves.

That was particularly the case over the last ten years, the sad decade of the nineties, when North America was booming and when we should have been making great leaps forward economically. We should have paid off the provincial debt. Instead, the NDP governments of the day blew the money like drunken sailors — threw it right, left and centre. A Premier bragged about shovelling the money off the back of trucks. The result, of course, was a provincial debt that more than doubled. After 125 years of previous governments accumulating a debt of about $16.5 billion, the NDP left us with a debt pushing $40 billion. What a shameful thing for the people of British Columbia.

The heartlands are where the resources are harvested, where the money comes from, the places that fuel the economy of B.C., and the heartlands are hurt-

ing. They have not experienced the economic recovery as quickly as the urban centres as our government keeps its commitments and brings the economy of British Columbia back to the position of leadership in Canada that it rightfully held and will hold again.

Some of the places in the heartlands that are hurting include places in my constituency. There's a little community called Vavenby north of Clearwater in the North Thompson Valley. A couple of months ago they got the terrible news that Weyerhaeuser is closing its sawmill in Vavenby — 184 of the best paycheques in the North Thompson Valley. That's roughly equivalent to 100,000 or more of the best paycheques in the lower mainland disappearing over a five- or six-month period, because that mill is scheduled to be shut down March 27.

Of course, news like that has struck the valley like a bombshell. The reverberations are felt everywhere. Many people consider their homes their retirement package, and they're counting on the value of their homes being maintained. When you lose that kind of a payroll out of a community and people have to move away to continue making a living for their families, it is absolutely devastating to the people in a small community like that, as it would be in the lower mainland if 100,000 jobs were lost.

These are sturdy people, and they're rallying, and I'm doing my best to help them. There are many good ideas for economic diversification. I'm working with ministers throughout this government to bring those economic generation ideas to fruition. I'm absolutely delighted with the Premier, who realizes the importance of initiatives like these and has commissioned the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise to develop regional economic strategies to help the heartlands of British Columbia come back to the position of prosperity that is rightfully theirs. I know the ministers are going to help me. I've spoken with, for example, the Minister of Forests about the input I've had from my constituents.

Weyerhaeuser is being a very good corporate citizen about how they're handling this mill closure. They are seriously considering many different proposals for value-added enterprises that may well take over their site with their full agreement. They're even considering allowing some of their annual allowable cut to pass to some of those companies in order that a non-competitor can step up to the plate and employ some of those people who are being displaced.

I honestly believe that our industry, provincewide, should take a really hard look at whether we want to compete head-to-head with Third World countries from around the world who are now into the primary wood products manufacturing business or whether we ought not to be taking advantage of the fact that we have a more educated workforce, people who are sophisticated, and wonderful technology — we actually build some of the most modern sawmill machines in the world in the heartlands, right in Salmon Arm, for example — and whether our industry should not retool and move on to that next generation of wood processing so that we no longer send our best lumber to Japan to be manufactured into staircase railings and spindles and the many things done with it. Instead, we use our workforce to keep those jobs right here.

Those are some of the ideas I've been discussing with the minister, but there are many others as well. My constituents, for example, are very successful in woodlots. There's a very active woodlot association up in the North Thompson Valley who tell me that in Finland there are 35,000 woodlots, some as small as four hectares. In fact, the size of woodlots that we have here in British Columbia is almost unheard of in Scandinavian countries. They farm their forests so successfully that they practically have assigned a name to every tree in the woodlot. It's a very, very intensive approach and one that's been very successful for Scandinavian countries.

I'd like to see more woodlots in the North Thompson Valley. I'd like to see a community forest for the community of Clearwater. I'd surely like to see the federal government at last come through with its long-awaited softwood assistance program which, as I understand it, may allow for applications by communities in order that they can retool their economies and launch some of these economic diversification initiatives that many people have in mind and just need some seed money to get going on.

As I say, I'm absolutely delighted with the heartlands strategy. I think it is going to reap tremendous rewards for British Columbians.

Up in Blue River, north of Vavenby, there's a tremendously successful heliskiing operation called Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing. It's been extremely beneficial to the people of Blue River. For a long time Blue River's economy was floundering. Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing has 200 people on the payroll. Mr. Wiegele has told me he would be ashamed to pay anybody minimum wage. He likes people to make a salary that enables them to build a home that they'll live in, in retirement, in Blue River itself. He has a program where he brings high school students out, and they heli-ski for free in order that they can have the experience. He is developing a school for ski guides so that some of those young people can go on to make a living in his industry.

There's lots happening up in the North Thompson Valley, but it needs the help of good government, and it has had very poor government in the past. We have the first nations people in the North Thompson Valley who are already tremendous partners in the economy, and I hope they are as thrilled as I am with the heavy emphasis in this throne speech on reconciliation with first nations people, on getting past the wrongs of the past and moving forward with full partnership in the economy — no longer attempting to insist that everything be settled before we move ahead but, rather, partnering together so that from a position of being economic equals, we can move forward on the issues that have too often divided us in the past.

The chief of the North Thompson Indian band, Nathan Matthew, is a person I respect tremendously. He

has a master's degree in education. He is a leader in every way. He was appointed by the Secwepemc chiefs of the area to be the chair of the Shuswap nation tribal council, and he's a man that I believe will deliver tremendous results, particularly now that he's working with a government who really wants to achieve those results. We're not going to insist on full treaties before we provide the resources to help first nations move forward, and there is so much that can be done in that area.

Wells Gray Park is a jewel in British Columbia — a pretty much undiscovered jewel, except for those of us who live near it and the Europeans who love to come and visit it. I urge every member of this House to include Wells Gray Park in their vacation plans. Bring your families up and see what it has to offer. It's a pristine park, relatively untouched by commercial development compared to the national parks, and it's an experience that those who visit it never forget.

I met an individual recently who has been vacationing there for years and who has now made a decision that to help the people of the North Thompson Valley, he wants to locate a division of his business in Clearwater. His business is call-centring through people's homes, where he can have remote operators in his call centre. He's going to create 35 jobs, essentially entrepreneurial jobs in the North Thompson Valley, through that approach. He came to my attention because of the hard work of the regional district director up there, Bert Walker, and the many tremendous people of Clearwater who are working to bring on these new economic initiatives.

There is room for a whole lot of development in the heartlands of B.C. What's been holding them back is this failure of past governments to keep up with the infrastructure, to facilitate them implementing their ideas and to get rid of the roadblocks that governments of the past continually put in the way with their one-size-fits-all approaches.

I'm tremendously pleased with the first nations emphasis that the government has included in the throne speech. Whether it's Chief Bonnie Leonard of the Kamloops Indian band, Chief Richard LeBourdais of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian band, Chief Ron Jules of the Adams Lake Indian band, Chief Felix Arnouse of the Little Shuswap Indian band or new chiefs that I haven't met yet of the Skeetchestn and Neskonlith bands, all of these people need economic development opportunities for their people. They're going to be able to find them through the types of activities allowed for by this throne speech and the things it has presented to British Columbia.

Sun Peaks Resort Corp., which purchased Tod Mountain and has now become the second-largest ski area in British Columbia, has already entered into a number of very successful joint ventures with first nations people. Recently I was at Sun Peaks for the opening of the chairlifts to its third mountain, Mount Morrissey. Once again, I would encourage every member of this House to come on up to Sun Peaks and have a look at what's going on. Meet Nancy Greene Raine, who is tremendously excited about the Olympic opportunity.

K. Krueger: The member for Chilliwack-Kent asked if he could have leave to go skiing tomorrow. I would be glad to facilitate that for the member, since he's already contributed his part to the throne speech and as further incentive to the rest. I would love for every member of this House to visit Sun Peaks and hear from Nancy Greene Raine and others there about what a wonderful opportunity the 2010 Olympics present for British Columbia — absolutely fantastic.

I think about this plebiscite that they're holding next week in Vancouver, and what a preposterous tragedy it would be for British Columbia if, in any way, that plebiscite served to cause the bid approval process to choose somebody else. What an embarrassment it would be. Calgary would have loved to have the Olympics again, because they are such a good thing for the host community. Way out there in the heartlands all around British Columbia, people understand why the Olympics would be a tremendous thing for British Columbia, and it confounds people that anybody in Vancouver would have such blinders on that they didn't understand that. I'd like them to talk to Nancy Greene Raine, a woman whose life has been built on her successes as a very young person in the Olympics when she was a gold medallist for Canada.

Sun Peaks is bringing on a proposal to be a training run for the Olympians. They're willing to dedicate one of the ski runs full-time leading up to the Olympics to training by the Olympic champions. I encourage British Columbians all around this great province to be thinking about how their communities can benefit from the Olympics, because certainly we've got ideas.

The Premier has got tremendous ideas. He is bringing on the opportunities through the Legacy Now program, but everybody in B.C. should be thinking about how they're going to benefit from this fantastic opportunity.

I want to really express appreciation to the Premier and to the government for both the emphasis on partnering with first nations people, reconciling with them, and this tremendous emphasis on the heartlands of British Columbia. You know, there hasn't been a Premier since W.A.C. Bennett, I would submit, who has had the heart for the heartlands that our Premier has. When he was in opposition, I used to look at his schedule and wonder how he did it. I would see that he had been in 40 different communities over the course of a quarter of a year — three months, 40 communities. He endlessly travelled, ceaselessly listened to people and incorporated the input that he got in his thought processes and in his planning, and did he ever hit the ground running when we were elected government.

And yet there's been no Premier, I would suggest, who has been so abused and denigrated by his critics, ruthlessly abused by his critics, as this Premier. Here's a man who has devoted 18 years of his life to public service. He works harder than anybody I've ever met, and he delivers results that everyone has to be impressed with, whether they're willing to say so or not. But he's a guy who at every turn meets criticism even from the likes of people like Vaughn Palmer, somebody I used to respect.

On January 12, 2003, my respect for Vaughn Palmer was shattered at the press conference where he shouted from his seat of judgment: "Why is Mrs. Campbell with you? Will she take questions?" I couldn't believe that a journalist of some stature would stoop to such a level, kicking a good man when he was down. I tell you, I have lived in the heartlands all my life, and we don't put up with that sort of nonsense in the heartlands. If somebody kicks a good man when he's down, he can expect to get beaked by a bystander. I say that was wrong, and I rebuke that journalist in this House. His ego has taken over. He considers himself the real opposition. Between him and Mr. Mair and his bizarre unending attack on the aquaculture industry, you really wonder how people can get so far off track.

I toured the aquaculture industry last summer, because I wanted to see for myself. I listened to these rantings of Mr. Mair. I found it to be impeccably clean. These people are fish farmers. My dad was a farmer all his life. Farmers don't do anything that's going to damage their crops. They introduce fish to the water that are so carefully processed, so carefully screened, so well looked after, they know for certain they are free from disease. Wild salmon swim by and bring diseases to the fish in the fish farms. When that happens and the fish die, divers take them out. Every day divers take the deceased fish out of the pen, right out of the water, and put them in compost bins that are taken away to dry land.

The industry is scrupulously careful. You have to step through a footbath every time you get off a boat and onto one of their stations. In spite of Mr. Mair's continual fearmongering about the aquaculture industry, I can tell you the sockeye salmon are constituents of mine. They swim all the way through my constituency on their way back to Adams Lake. The Adams Lake run is the largest wild salmon run in the world, and this year there were more Adams Lake sockeye that came back and spawned than in recorded history, which goes back to the 1930s.

Millions and millions of fish — way too many fish. They were spawning up little tributaries they had never been seen to spawn up before. They were spawning on beaches. There were far more fish than the spawning grounds could allow. This is in spite of the aquaculture industry that Mr. Mair is continually abusing and denigrating. It is an industry that's vitally important to people of the heartlands up and down this coast. Thousands of people are employed there, and thousands more could be, and they should be. It's the same with the shellfish industry.

Really, it is so tiresome to hear these uninformed critics continually abusing the industries and the people who work in them, who can and do bring prosperity back to the heartlands. I want to encourage the aquaculture industry that we, members of this government, and certainly I, as a member from the interior, want to see them do well and want to see them prosper. We know that our government has instituted the toughest regulations in the world for the aquaculture industry. In fact, we haven't had any new fish farms open since this government has been in power. The people from the opposition side, the NDP, who criticize the industry, did nothing to bring the industry to a point where they felt certain that they could be comfortable with it. We've done a lot, and we are comfortable that that is a very principled industry, an industry we're proud to have in British Columbia and one we want to see thrive.

I think about our Premier and his commitments, his 200 commitments that he made in the new-era platform document and how Mr. Palmer and his like back in the days that we were in opposition were suggesting that we were foolish to make so many commitments. They suggested we were going to come to power anyway, and we were tying our hands by committing ourselves to so many things that we were going to do. Everybody was telling us we were going to come to power. We never quite expected the people of British Columbia to sweep us to power in the way that they did, where they virtually washed out every other candidate in the province except for two tiny constituencies in Vancouver and put the B.C. Liberals in power. But we wanted to say up front what we were going to do. We wanted to say what we were going to pursue. We said very clearly that we were going to support the 2010 bid and that we were going after it for all we were worth. In doing that, we were endorsing a position that the previous government had already taken. Nevertheless, they've been desperately looking for a way to change courses ever since. But we've stuck with our guns as we do across the board, and we're going to deliver on our commitments to win the 2010 bid.

Similarly, the Premier made many commitments about parliamentary reforms he intended to bring in. I remember reading Mr. Palmer and listening to Mr. Mair and others, because I've always paid attention to these people — more than I'll be paying in the future, actually. Back then, they were saying that all governments of the past — it didn't matter who they were — once they were elected, only the Premier really had power — maybe the cabinet, certainly not what they sneeringly referred to as the back benches. They said that people who weren't in cabinet didn't have any power at all. I know from my colleagues, some of whom were in place back in those days, that that often was the case. Premiers didn't show respect to people who weren't in cabinet, but who had been elected, and thereby didn't show respect to their constituents.

Our Premier is totally different. He said to us from the beginning, when we ran as candidates, "If you're

elected to a government that I am Premier of, you will have free voice and a free vote, and you will have power to represent your constituents and bring their views into the heart of government," and that's exactly what he's done. We're proud of that. We're proud of the fact that when constituents come to us and tell us they don't like the direction they hear we're going to go — often we have no such intentions; it's the fearmongering of our adversaries — and it is something we're thinking about, we take that advice to the heart of government and bring about change in policy before the legislation hits the floor. If we can't convince people but we remain convinced, we have the right to stand up in this chamber and say so, and nobody's going to beat up on us for it. We have the right to vote against that legislation, and the ministers all know that if they bring in legislation that enough private members are opposed to, it isn't going to happen, and they don't want to see that occur. There is a lot of input, a lot of negotiation behind the scenes, and we try hard to bring in legislation that is not only good for the people of British Columbia, but that the people of British Columbia know is going to be good for them.

I submit that we have been very successful in that, and we are going to be even more successful in the years ahead. Here we have a government where, lo and behold, everybody has genuine input into what goes on. Everybody, every private member in the B.C. Liberal caucus, has the ability to shape the course the cabinet ministers are going to take. When Mr. Palmer finally cottoned on to that, he wrote a column that said how preposterous it was that we seem to have 75 cabinet ministers in British Columbia these days. You just can't win when you deal with critics like that. If they can't denigrate you for being what they call backbenchers, then they're going to denigrate you for having, in their mind, the power of a cabinet minister. As I say, I won't be paying as much attention to those opinions in future as I have in the past, and I don't know that anybody should. We have a job to do; we were elected to do this job. We were elected with very specific commitments about how we're going to do it. We're very busy people working on doing that, and we are delivering.

Of course, one of the most vociferous critics of the Premier and the cabinet — our whole government, in fact — is the health employees union. I want to touch on them for a minute, because they've been tremendously unfair in the fearmongering that they've done, in the way that they have attacked the Premier and the government. The member from Mission talked about their repeated allegation that we tore up contracts. We did no such thing. We did some very necessary surgery on commitments that the previous government had made with them.

In those negotiations between public sector unions and the NDP government, I submit there was nobody representing the taxpayers of British Columbia. There was nobody representing the patients; there was nobody representing the students. The NDP and the public sector unions and the B.C. Federation of Labour all sat on the same side of the table, and the B.C. taxpayer was unrepresented on the other side. They not only committed to unaffordable collective agreements…. Behind the veil, behind the scenes, under the table, later in the back rooms of this building and elsewhere, they agreed to what they called public sector policy accords. They interlaced arrangements which were totally unaffordable for the people of British Columbia, and that's why an independent fiscal panel of experts had to tell this government when we came to power that we were facing a structural deficit of $3.8 billion per year.

When you have people who are doing work in the health services area of this government — and it's meaningful work, it's important work, it's vital work, but it is work that is done all around the world and across the economy, in other sectors of the economy — such as housecleaning, such as food preparation, such as laundry…. When you have people who are doing that kind of work and they're being paid 30 percent more than people who are doing it right across the economy — the same work — it is totally unaffordable. It is wrong to refer to the change of overpayment of health care dollars to those people as ripping up contracts. It was absolutely necessary that the money be rediverted to patient care, to looking after the people who need the care of our health care system.

A number of my colleagues have talked about the tremendous challenges that come with that responsibility — the fact that we have an aging population, the fact that we have wonderful technology and new medications coming on stream almost daily, which are very expensive and prolonging people's lives. That's a good thing as long as there is an enjoyment of life, a quality of life. People are living longer. We want them to enjoy it. We want to pay for it. We want to look after those people. We can't afford to waste a nickel, and that's why the Minister of Health Services has reduced his administrative costs 43 percent and has channelled every penny into care of patients in British Columbia. That's the approach that we're taking across the board.

I want to rebuke the health employees union for their little wildcat walkout, childish protest, that actually caused people not to have surgeries a little over a week ago. Imagine that they would put their selfish, silly little old-fashioned union tactics ahead of the interests of patients of British Columbia. I think those people should be fired. I think that if you ever walk off your job in a health care institution in British Columbia and you don't show up for work, we just don't need you anymore. If you thought you were unnecessary that day, we think you're unnecessary forever. I think that the public sector unions have been in the driver seat for far too long in this province and that we've got to put a stop to their selfishness and to tactics like that.

I want to touch on the CCPA, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, as well. What a joke they are. A $200,000 grant from the NDP just before the people of B.C. booted them out of office, and they used that

money to attack us. They do this silly report recently saying the tax cuts helped people in the urban areas more than they helped people in the rural areas. Well, I submit that is because their cronies, the NDP, beggared the heartlands. They pretty near shut down mining. They kneecapped forestry. They worked against agriculture. They did everything they could to keep the heartlands from promising. As a result, people don't enjoy the incomes that they used to or that they should in the heartlands, and this government is bringing about change. That change is very welcome.

Highland Valley copper mine near my constituency, approaching the end of its working life, is delivering over $80,000 on average into the pockets of the people that work there — over $80,000 apiece. You bet they like the tax cuts. You bet they're up there with the incomes of people in the urban areas. But the NDP was opposed to mining, and they shut it down. They turned the thumbscrews. They eliminated exploration everywhere they could. Even at the last minute, again, before they were booted out of office, they made a move to try and control what happened with the Lillooet LRMP.

I urge this government to take a very hard look at that and to allow mining exploration in those areas. British Columbia needs the money from the heartlands, and I'm so proud of a government that is opening up the heartlands of British Columbia, once again bringing hope, economic opportunity and prosperity back to all of us.

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