Hansard -- Monday, October 27, 2003 a.m. -- Vol. 17, No. 8 (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

Private Members' Statements		7505
	Victoria's economy
	J. Bray
	Hon. G. Collins
	Access to Crown land
	B. Suffredine
	Hon. S. Hagen
	Mental health and addictions
	E. Brenzinger
	Hon. G. Cheema
	Safe streets
	L. Mayencourt
	Hon. R. Coleman

Motions on Notice		7514
	Role of resource industries in health and education infrastructure (Motion 2) (continued)
	Hon. S. Hagen
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	B. Belsey
	B. Bennett
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	W. McMahon

J. Bray: I have risen in this House before to talk about the Victoria economy, and I think now is a good time for me to update this Legislature on how we're doing. I believe it is important for us to take stock of our successes as well as work on areas of improvement. Victoria has a lot to be proud about, but there's another reason why I want to speak about the Victoria economy. I consider it critical that we link two significant ingredients in our society as being interdependent. A strong economy is a key to our excellent quality of life. I want to relay what I hear from my constituents about their desire to see a strong economy and their desire to see a good quality of life. A strong economy benefits everyone.

Victorians are justifiably proud of our quality of life. We are a caring, community-focused city. For an urban centre we are generally safe, clean and green, and our economy is also doing well. We continue to lead the province in many key areas. Our unemployment rate continues to be the lowest in B.C., and it's currently at 6.8 percent. This is below the national average, and it is a key sign that our economy is diversified enough to withstand global issues such as SARS, terrorism, BSE and softwood, to name just a few.

One of the buffers of these global issues has been the various tax reductions that have propelled consumer spending and helped small businesses keep more of their earnings to reinvest in their enterprises. Many small businesses state that they expect to hire more staff soon. The Retail Council expects a significant increase in retail sales in the upcoming Christmas season. Tax cuts do work.

Despite the impacts on tourism as result of the earlier-mentioned global issues, Victoria still had a comparably strong tourism season, and next year looks to be a record year. In fact, Condé Nast Traveler magazine has voted Victoria the best city in the Americas and Vancouver Island the top North American island at its recent award ceremony held in New York City. That is an amazing accomplishment.

This season we had 126 cruise ship visits. That was a 43 percent increase over the summer before, and next year we are looking to increase that to 146 visits. The new Marriott hotel, a $90 million investment in our downtown core, is expected to be completed soon.

The government's goal of doubling tourism by 2010 has energized tourism and energized tourism entrepreneurs to make the investments needed to fuel this growth. The Royal B.C. Museum is just finishing an extended display of its latest blockbuster event, Dragon Bones: When Dinosaurs Ruled China. This has again proved that Victoria can be a cultural tourism destination as well as a family vacation spot. With the passing of the Museum Act this spring, the Royal B.C. Museum is now a stand-alone entity, allowing it to generate more substantial dollars to enhance its presence and to further promote Victoria's cultural precinct.

Victoria continues to have a huge residential building boom, a sign that people have confidence in the Victoria economy. Our housing starts are up 62 percent over last year. Victoria is now, in fact, the most expensive real estate in Canada. That is a double-edged sword because, of course, it raises the cost of living. It also shows that Victoria is becoming a key economic centre in Canada. Victoria now has among the highest family median incomes in Canada, along with Calgary, Edmonton and London, Ontario. This is a key ingredient for allowing families to maximize their quality of life.

Victoria's high-tech centre continues to grow. Changes to the Small Business Venture Capital Act have spurred additional access to capital, which is critical to emerging small businesses and high-tech firms. The Ministry of Competition, Science and Enterprise provided the Island's high-tech community with an access-to-capital grant to facilitate small firms. The goal was to facilitate $1 million in new capital to emerging companies in a year. In the first eight months they've achieved over $800,000 in new capital, showing that strategic government actions improve the economy. Each new high-tech job requires two other jobs in the economy to support it.

High-tech jobs are also high-paying, family-supporting jobs, and the growing high-tech sector provides opportunities for our young people to complete their education in Victoria and stay here and raise their families.

Victoria's film industry is booming, clearly marking Victoria as B.C.'s secondary film centre. The Victoria Film Commission credits the 6 percent credit on film production labour as making B.C. more attractive to producers. Again, a tax reduction has led directly to more employment in a growth industry here in Victoria.

Small business people tell me that nothing complicates their businesses and affects their productivity more than excess government red tape. The reduction of needless regulations benefits businesses, their employees and their customers. Our goal of reducing red tape by one-third is making a real difference in our economy, but we cannot be complacent that this strong performance will continue unabated.

As we diversify our economy in Victoria, we must realize that we increasingly have to compete with other jurisdictions globally. Also, sustainable services and our enviable quality of life will require not just the maintenance of our tax base but also, in fact, increasing that tax base through sustainable economic develop-

ment in Victoria, in the harbour and in downtown. Our quality of life will not happen on its own. We must be willing to work and evolve in order to enhance services.

What must we do? We must market the advantages of Victoria and attract the world to invest, to live, to work and to play here. I have spoken before in this House about the need for Victoria to maintain its sense of community but develop a Calgary sense of attitude. We must market the Victoria advantages: our quality of life; our emerging version of a sustainable working harbour; a top North American tourism destination point; a high-tech growth centre; three world-class, post-secondary institutions; low unemployment; excellent proximity to Seattle and the Pacific coast high-tech corridor; excellent schools and health care; a natural setting for an urban centre; and world-class cultural amenities and activities.

Many in my community are looking to B.C. to diversify its economy and become less reliant on the natural resource sector. I support that aim, but it is my firm belief that it's we here in Victoria who must lead the province in that move. We have all the assets. We want clean, green, sustainable economic growth in the region, and we can have it if we are willing to embrace the challenge. No change means diminishing quality of life.

Hon. G. Collins: I want to thank the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill for his comments. I think it's fascinating, actually, to hear from the local MLAs in various parts of the province as they sit down now — two and a half years into this government's mandate — and look at the impacts of some of those economically driven decisions that government has put in place over the last number of years and start to see some of the benefits from those.

I recall when we first came to office and talked about reducing the size of government. I certainly remember that first phase of it as we were going through the core review and looking at downsizing government and getting our costs under control — some of the media coverage from right here in Victoria about some of the negative impacts that kind of a cost reduction would have on the local community, on housing sales, the value of residential real estate and commercial real estate, and some of the worries that people had.

I recall at the time thinking that perhaps people were getting a little overzealous about that. When you compared the size of the changes to the overall size of British Columbia's economy, they were pretty moderate. Certainly here in Victoria we've seen that some of the impacts of those changes have been exactly the opposite of what many people were saying. Housing starts are up; housing sales are up. I know people who are clamouring to get into the market here in Victoria for fear that it's only going to go higher.

My colleague talked about some of the changes that have happened here. The Marriott Hotel opening. I had the opportunity of meeting with the new general manager, I think it was, or somebody who was there before the general manager was hired — and their excitement at this marketplace as a marketplace for additional tourism. I think it's fascinating to know that in 2002, cruise ship traffic here in Victoria was up 43 percent. That's a massive increase. One statistic that I heard from the private sector was that every day a cruise ship spends in a community is about a million dollars injected into that community. That kind of an uptake in traffic certainly benefits the industry here in Victoria.

Some of the other changes that government has made with regard to the Royal B.C. Museum, which I think is one of the most creative, innovative and entrepreneurial organizations that has been in government…. If you look at some of the things they did with the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit and the Dragon Bones exhibit this year to attract people to Victoria from all around the surrounding area — from down in the United States and from the mainland — and other visitors who just happened to be here, I think it sends a very positive message back to their homes about the time they've spent here in Victoria. I'm very excited about that.

My colleague mentioned that high technology and its impact on the local economy, and some of the changes that have been made around venture capital and some of the tax changes we've brought into place, as well, and the impact they've had on the high-technology sector here in the south Island are all very, very positive. He also spoke about a couple of other industries. The film industry is one, as well, that has done very well here in Victoria and the lower Island.

There are some other things that government did that don't, perhaps, get a lot of attention but also relate to that underlying ability of businesses to compete. If you look at the tax changes that government brought in early on in its mandate…. The elimination of the corporate capital tax has a big positive message to investors, and we see private sector investment in British Columbia growing dramatically. In fact, from Statistics Canada this year — in July they released some figures — it showed that capital investment in British Columbia is expected to increase by 7.6 percent in this calendar year, 2003. That's the third-highest of all the provinces in the country. We used to be the last year after year. We're now the third-highest — we're not number one yet, but we're on our way — and it's almost double the national average of capital investment. Those are all really positive indicators.

You've also seen us make moves on the corporate income tax to lower it from 16.5 percent, which was among the highest in Canada, to 13.5 percent, which is among the lowest in Canada. I think we're tied with Ontario, and Ontario is actually boosting theirs up a little bit. Alberta is about where we are and is looking to go down, and we intend to be competitive in the years ahead as well.

We've also made some changes for small businesses. We raised the threshold at which businesses are

able to fall into the lower small business income tax rate of 4½ percent. So a whole series of other small and medium-sized businesses, instead of paying 16.5 percent in income tax when we came into office, are now paying 4½ percent and are able to put all that money back into their businesses, which is what small businesses do.

I think my colleague has highlighted a number of sectors and impacts. There are many more where you can see the benefits — personal income and the growth in family-supporting jobs — right here in the Victoria area, and we're seeing that repeated in other places around the province as well. We'll certainly be very excited about implementing any additional policy changes that might be able to contribute to that continued growth in the years ahead.

J. Bray: Mr. Speaker, through you, I want to thank the Minister of Finance both for his comments and also for continually being very receptive to the issues of the Victoria business community and small businesses in particular that I bring forward. It certainly reassures my community that the Minister of Finance is listening and taking action.

Victoria does have a lot to be proud about in its economy. I think government has also brought in many measures that have continued to strengthen our economy: tax cuts, reduced red tape and results-based regulations.

In meeting with various groups of constituents in my community, there are some things that government can look to support which can further strengthen our economy. I'm glad the Minister of Finance is right here to listen to a few of those. By supporting those additional activities, we can continue to sustain our quality of life in Victoria. An expanded conference centre will help propel our tourism economy. It will also ensure that Victoria can attract different groups to B.C. and not be in competition with other B.C. convention centres.

A key transportation and border infrastructure initiative is the upgraded Belleville Street terminal. This is vital, as Belleville is our gateway for our U.S. customers and is currently operating at maximum capacity. Also, in order to comply with new U.S. security regulations, a new facility is needed.

Supporting the Greater Victoria Art Gallery's bid to open a new 33,000-square-foot exhibition space downtown will be another feather in the cap of Victoria's cultural precinct. The 2010 Olympics provides a real opportunity for Victoria to be a second staging area for tourism, teams coming to train, and other cultural activities. But we must be bold. We must dare to look outside the box for opportunities for bringing the world to Victoria. We can attract the investment needed to grow our economy, enhance our services and make Victoria a leader in Canada.

Does Victoria need to change? No, but I believe we must develop an attitude that says "can do," an attitude that realizes development is inevitable and that controlling the development and leading it forward is what we need to do to enhance our number one asset — our quality of life.

B. Suffredine: Today I'd like to speak about the importance of access to Crown land. Since the days of the Magna Carta, the Crown has always respected the right of citizens to enjoy publicly owned lands. While there are reasonable limits to the rights of citizens to enter lands owned by the Crown, those limits are generally not applied to vacant Crown lands — that is, until more recent times.

There has been an unfortunate tendency developing to restrict the use of lands to a single use that has become controversial over the last 20 years or so. British Columbia has the unique characteristic that over 90 percent of the land base is under the ownership and control of the government. You might contrast that with provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba, where much of the land base is held privately and used according to the wishes of the owners.

In British Columbia the tourism recreation activities we can enjoy are legion, but let's consider just a few. Hunting, fishing, mountain biking, horseback riding, cross-country, helicopter, snowcat or Nordic skiing, wildlife-viewing opportunities, prospecting, placer mining, mushroom picking and hang-gliding are just a few of the opportunities we can have on a daily basis.

Many activities are recreation for some but can produce income for others. Part-time prospectors and placer miners, for example, can become professionals and wealthy with a single find. Other recreation activities can become the base of a business as enthusiasts build niche market tourism tours. All these activities depend on access to the land base. Whether it's for recreation or business, people must be able to access the land.

In the 1990s there was a process begun of closing existing roads, of deactivating them, which made it impossible to access those roads that existed in some cases for decades and some for close to a century. Excuses for this practice included such preposterous justifications as that they wanted to protect the environment from damage if the road should wash out or to protect government from potential liability for damages in the event that a citizen might have an accident on a road. Roads were deactivated either by total reclamation — taking them out — or by digging deep ditches in them that made them impassable. The money spent to create them was thrown away. Recognition that they had served well for years and that no damage from the environment had resulted was ignored.

The increasing population of B.C. naturally means more people wish to use the land base. In the Kootenays, we depend on the land base. Every community depends on forestry. The village of Slocan re-

cently had that emphasized when Slocan Forest Products announced the indefinite closure of its mill, which has fortunately since been changed. But Nelson noticed the difference during that time of closure, and it reaffirmed our need to recognize the land base in forestry. Mining was once and could be again as important as forestry, but mining also needs access to as much of the land base as possible. Mines are where you find the ore, and no amount of planning can change that.

Tourism also needs access to the back country for tourism activities. There's a society in the Kootenays called the Tourism Action Society of the Kootenays, which is currently working hard on developing niche marketing opportunities for tourism types of projects. We met with them on the weekend. If done right, significant incomes can be generated from these types of tourism activities. Recreation users also need access for activities that, for example, can't be done in parks, like snowmobiling. Snowmobile tours can and do create a significant amount of revenue in the Kootenays in places like Meadow Creek, where the spectacular and remote terrain is perfect for them.

For British Columbia to thrive and prosper, all of the needs for access must be accommodated and managed together. Competing demands must be reconciled and uses maximized. Whether we live in a large urban centre or a remote rural one, we depend on activities in the heartlands for our sustenance. Royalties and revenues from mining, logging, tourism or oil and gas are the fuel for the businesses that drive the economy. Without those activities, the material that manufacturers need and the high incomes paid by those industries are simply not available.

Communities like my home community of Nelson depend heavily on the forest sector, but many people don't see it in their daily lives. People shop in Nelson from around the region, spending incomes earned in forestry, tourism and even a little mining. Tourism users depend on the ability to access Crown land. The vast range of goods, services and restaurant facilities that make Nelson one of the most beautiful places to live, work or visit could not be sustained by one industry alone.

That was one of the problems Nelson experienced in the early 1980s when it diversified to reinvigorate its economy. Access to Crown land for diverse uses must be assured if a healthy economy for British Columbia is the goal, and I hope all of the members of the House will support that goal.

Hon. S. Hagen: Thank you to the hon. member for Nelson-Creston. You have indeed captured the passion and the great need and responsibility to find achievable balance in our communities throughout the province. You've touched on the heart of the working forest land use designation: clearly defined access to Crown land for all British Columbians.

The working forest is all about certainty — defining clearly, intelligently and in a timely manner what land can be used for what commercial purposes. Land use certainty is the key to restoring wealth and prosperity to British Columbians. That's the underlying objective of the working forest and every other initiative undertaken by my ministry: the sustainable management of our land and water resources.

The Premier created my ministry to manage the shift from uncertainty to certainty when dealing with our land and water resources. Access to land, the working forest, is one of five key steps to certainty. I know you've heard these steps before, but they are worth repeating, repeating and repeating. Why? Because these key steps are integral to a thriving and prosperous British Columbia. They are also integral to each other, and by understanding and committing to these steps, we ensure a brighter future for our children and our grandchildren. The five steps to achieving certainty about our land and water resources are these. First of all, access land, and I'm going to leave this one until the end.

Second, meaningful first nation consultation and accommodation. Restoring wealth to the land base means sharing the economy with all British Columbians. We need to build trust and respect and eliminate conflict by finding workable accommodations to mitigate their interests in land and resources. It means recognizing that treaties are not the only way to move forward. They are important, but government and first nations are getting more creative in British Columbia when it comes to resolving economic issues. We've made some significant achievements in the area. Looking forward, not back, is a significant shift to certainty for all British Columbians, and I'm proud of the trust that has been built to date.

The third step is tenure security, the kind that ensures that investors and businesses have enough land use certainty to invest in the future. We're committed to extending and improving the security of tenures, and we're offering certainty through the strategic sale of Crown land, which will be a catalyst for economic partnerships.

The fourth step to achieving certainty includes an improved business climate. Quite simply, we need to make it easier to do business in B.C., and we need to ensure that B.C. businesses are competitive in the world markets. Two years ago the backlog and delays in Crown land applications were at a 20-year high. The backlog cost over $1 billion in investment and 20,000 lost jobs. That backlog is gone, and Land and Water B.C. has cut decision times in half. We are now processing 90 percent of new applications in 140 days or less. To be honest, collectively within government we have a long way to go before we can champion this one. The important fact is that we are acknowledging and identifying the barriers, and we are making progress.

The Minister of State for Deregulation is leading the charge for new thinking in a new era. I'm certain that under his guidance, we will be adopting streamlined practices in the near future across government that will increase investment in British Columbia simply by making it easier. His target of a one-third reduction in regulations is also a big part of this.

The fifth step is access to markets. We work and live in a global economy, so we need to demonstrate our commitment to biodiversity and sustainable, ethical land and resource management. Key to those markets is meeting our environmental stewardship and first nations responsibilities. Without this level of integrity and transparency, we'll lose the confidence of our customers and the all-important access to their markets.

Most importantly, the very first step that determines the success of the other four is access to land. One part of that is the working forest. In simple terms, this means we need to determine what's to be permanently protected and what's open for businesses, communities and first nations to use for economic development and job creation. Considering the confusion surrounding the working forest, I have to agree that the title caused much of the misconception. I'm sorry for the discomfort many experienced, but I'm thankful too. I want you to know that when we are missing the mark, we need to be clearer in our communications.

It's important that we understand the working forest. It's important because the definition is critical to a brighter future full of promise for our communities. I will no doubt be repeating myself today, but, again, it's important that everyone here has the opportunity to understand the significance of the working forest and how it will play out throughout the province — what it means to each of you and to your constituents.

The objective of the working forest initiative is to maintain access to Crown land and to clearly and responsibly identify opportunities for investment. In order to attract investment, we must determine what economic activities can take place on the land — which ones, for how much and for how long. We're not selling off the province to the highest bidder or the loudest critic.

Certainty has to be accountable to the future, and our land use planning that is taking place all around the province is doing just that. Our land use planning is guided by user groups representing resource industries, tourism, agriculture, first nations, back-country recreation and conservation. It's also guided by science and resource evaluations to determine the highest and best uses in order to ensure sustainable resource management throughout British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time you've given me today to reply, and I look forward to the closing comments.

B. Suffredine: I know this is a topic that is near and dear to the heart of the minister and that he could go on and on about this. He had a lot more, I'm sure, he could have said today if given the time.

I want to thank the minister for recognizing the value to British Columbia of access for diverse uses of Crown land. I know that one of the most difficult tasks you face as a minister is to reconcile the competing demands by commercial, recreational, tourism and wildlife needs on Crown lands. Added to that is the complication of native claims, where we all see the opportunities for economic partnerships that could benefit both.

I have the impression, from many of those who oppose the concept of the working forest, that there is a failure to accept that sometimes wildlife habitat can be compatible with other uses. Occasionally that wildlife habitat need can even be enhanced by the activities of man if they're planned. Examples of that can be found — they're not hard to find if one looks — in places like the Columbia River south of Trail, where fish populations are remarkable. They have been enhanced substantially by nutrients added to the river from both Cominco and the Celgar pulp mill. If done carefully and managed, this actually helps the fish to survive better.

In open areas used for skiing…. I used to be one of the principals of the Whitewater ski area. You find that open areas are good feeding areas for bears and ungulates. Logging generally opens up areas for bears and elk to feed. Prescribed burns create habitat for mushrooms to grow and make room for new growth in the forests that won't feed a forest fire and may help prevent what we had last summer.

I know that the currently proposed legislation nicknamed "the working forest" is aimed at the goal of diverse use of the land base. I know it's widely misunderstood. On a fairly regular basis I hear from people who appear to have been given deliberate misinformation. Perhaps if we called it the working land base, the same confusion might not be possible, but I am pleased to report that when I refer people to the website of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management and invite them to read about it, their response is almost always favourable and they're then satisfied that their concerns have been addressed.

I want to thank the minister for moving in the direction that is necessary to ensure that access to Crown land is made available for as many uses as possibly can be accommodated. We may not think about it, but every one of us depends on the activities that take place on the land base to sustain either our job, directly, or the community in which we live. A lot of people who have jobs like I did, as a lawyer, and people who are doctors or accountants may not think that every day their job depends on logging or mining, but the fact is that the people we represent — the people we serve as a doctor, the people we serve as an accountant — all earn their living in a community that depends on those incomes to create the community.

None of our communities could survive without them, and many, like Nelson and Slocan, know all too well what it is like to become too dependent on only one. We have a great province that is full of opportunity. Years of attempts at land planning have failed to create certainty and open up the land use. If you can achieve this goal, all of British Columbia will win.

E. Brenzinger: I rise in the House today to speak to some of the issues that affect my constituency of Surrey-

Whalley. Specifically, Surrey-Whalley is facing the challenges of homelessness that, as pointed out by recent newspaper articles, are often complicated by mental health disorders and/or addition issues.

Mental health disorders or mental illness is not the same as being developmentally disabled. People who are developmentally challenged as a result of a genetic disorder, such as Down syndrome, are born with developmental delays that can affect a person's intellectual development and functioning in such areas as language. These are not issues I intend to address.

Rather, mental illness can affect anyone. In B.C., according to research by Health Canada and the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, one in five people will experience some form of mental illness that will affect their thinking, feeling, judgment and/or behaviour. Commonly known mental illnesses include, but are not limited to depression, bipolar disorder, postpartum depression, seasonal affective disorder, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Some are more commonly diagnosed than others. For instance, depression and anxiety account for eight out of ten of all psychiatric diagnoses in Canada. While mental illness does have a significant biological component, it cuts across age, gender, economic, ethnic and political boundaries. Symptoms can range from a depressive mood, a terror of flying or a fear of social interaction and crowds to unhealthy eating behaviours or responding to voices that no one else can hear.

With some mental illnesses, a person's thoughts and feelings may bounce around inside them, sometimes in disorganized and unpredictable ways. Some people lose interest in daily activities and may appear unwashed and unkempt, while other people with mental illnesses are able to hide most of their symptoms from others.

People with mental illness are unable to simply "snap out of it" by trying harder. They cannot stop their symptoms simply through an effort any more than someone with impaired hearing can hear better by trying harder to listen.

There is some evidence that reveals an increased risk for mental illness if a person (a) has experienced physical or sexual abuse as a child, (b) has parents who have or have had mental illness, (c) has not finished high school, (d) is unemployed, (e) or is receiving public assistance and/or lives in a low-income household. Having said that, the absence of these risk factors does not necessarily shield a person from mental illness.

Mental illness is nobody's fault. It is not the result of bad parenting, emotional weakness or personal failure. Most people with mental illness are productive members of society who have jobs, family, relationships and hobbies and are active members in their community. These illnesses can place enormous emotional and financial strains on the ill person as well as their family or friends.

While there are no cures for any of these forms of mental illness, there are treatments that can reduce the symptoms and help people lead productive, fulfilling lives. In order to offer caring support for people with mental illness, it is important to recognize that symptoms of these illnesses are often beyond their control.

In B.C. people with mental illness usually have access to treatment if they are able and willing to seek help, but diagnosing mental illness is further complicated when there are concurrent disorders — often referred to as dual diagnosis — that handcuff mental illness to substance use problems. People with concurrent disorders can more easily fall through the cracks in health care systems, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. Mental health services may refuse treatment to a person with an active drug or alcohol addiction, while addiction professionals could believe a person cannot recover from a problem of substance use until the mental disorder is treated.

The relationship is complex. Mental health problems can act as risk factors for substance use problems. For example, depressive symptoms could lead someone to self-medicate with alcohol for temporary relief from symptoms of depression, or it could be that someone with an anxiety disorder or depression has trouble sleeping and is given tranquillizers, which can then be misused.

Substance misuse may induce, worsen or diminish psychiatric symptoms, complicating the diagnostic process. Psychiatric symptoms may be covered up or masked by drug or alcohol use. Alternatively, alcohol or drug use or withdrawal from drugs or alcohol can mimic or give the appearance of some psychiatric illnesses. As a result, people with concurrent disorders can sometimes be bounced back and forth between mental health care and addiction services, or they may be refused treatment by each of them.

Mental illness can lead to family crisis, separation, isolation and even homelessness. I would like to ask the hon. Minister of State for Mental Health if he could provide the House with additional information.

Hon. G. Cheema: I would like to thank the member for Surrey-Whalley for addressing an issue that's very important and an issue that I believe our government has made significant progress in. Our government has four main strategies to revitalize mental health services in B.C. These include strengthening community mental health services, creating a network of care, building modern facilities and implementing best practices.

We believe it's most effective to provide mental health services in the community rather than in hospitals or institutions. Our government has provided new funding to strengthen community mental health services, and we have given health authorities the tools to ensure that the community services are strengthened. The restructured health authorities are now more able to plan for a system of mental health services across the province.

I would like to concentrate on one area where we have made a significant and beneficial change to meet

the needs of people with mental illness. Specifically, the change I would like to address is the integration of mental health and addiction services. When we formed the office, there was a fragmented addiction service system that had been repeatedly shifted from ministry to ministry for many years. Addictions services had not had any serious attention or direction from the government. There were good people involved, but they were faced with too many barriers and they lacked support. The fact that alarmed me the most was that the addiction services were external to the health care delivery system.

We did our homework to find out that 70 percent of the people who were using addiction services were also clients of the mental health system. This meant that the majority of people receiving addiction services were dually diagnosed, which means having both a substance use disorder and a mental illness at the same time. In fact, just last month we received some feedback from a community group in Vernon that indicated they found an overlap of 90 percent. We knew that far too often a person with a dual diagnosis of a mental illness and an addiction would be excluded from receiving services from either system as a result of either diagnosis.

For example, a diagnosis of schizophrenia would often preclude an individual from being eligible for heroin addiction treatment, or when an individual tried to access addiction treatment, they were quite often rejected because they were taking medication to manage mental illness. Often a diagnosis of alcohol addiction would prevent individuals from receiving treatment services for a serious mental illness like major depression. So in many cases, it was an endless cycle of dead ends and wrong doors that failed to meet the needs of the patient. Unfortunately, this failure affected some of the most vulnerable people in this province.

Our government strongly believes that addiction and substance use disorders are health issues. Addictions are not a legal issue; they are not a moral issue; they are not the result of a character flaw or an improper upbringing. An addiction is an illness that needs to be treated like an illness.

Keeping that in mind, as a part of our health care restructuring, we moved addiction services directly into the regional health care delivery system. As of April 2002, the health authorities have been given the responsibility to deliver addiction services. As I have mentioned, the majority of people with addictions also have a mental illness. When addiction services were moved to the health authorities, we integrated mental health and addiction at the ministry level, and the health authorities began to integrate their systems too. All the health authorities across the province are integrating these two systems. This integration should have occurred many years ago.

This significant undertaking will make services more effective for people with addiction who also have a mental illness. This will benefit patients greatly. The changes we have made will result in a significant improvement over time. It will not happen overnight, but we have created a strong foundation, and it will happen.

I would like to mention that the Ministry of Health Services has been working on a provincial addiction framework that will help the health authorities to determine the appropriate type of services that are needed to have an effective, integrated system of addiction services that will meet the needs of the most vulnerable citizens in our province. Consultations on this framework are continuing, and we expect the final product to be completed by the early spring.

There is a website address for the provincial consultation and an on-line feedback survey for the development of this planning framework for B.C. The Internet address is www.mheccu.ubc.ca/addictionframework. I would encourage all members of this House to visit this site.

In the past year we have seen each health authority review and restructure their existing addiction services to ensure that they provide evidence-based treatment for individuals that have the greatest need. The provincial framework will aid the health authorities in planning for the most effective addiction services in this province, and this, with the integration of mental health, will go a long way to meeting the needs of some of the most vulnerable citizens of our province.

E. Brenzinger: Thank you, minister, for that information. It is reassuring to see that this government is taking concrete steps to address the issues that exist in diagnosing patients who deal with dual diagnosis of mental health disorders and addiction.

I can also say that it is beneficial to my constituents in Surrey-Whalley that this government is committed to addressing the issues of homelessness, which is often exacerbated by mental health and addiction issues. Homelessness can often become an outcome of mental health and addiction problems.

British Columbians should know that B.C. leads the country in the development of social housing. Through various federal, federal-provincial and solely provincial housing programs over the past years, the number of subsidized units around the province is about 65,000 units. Since taking office, the provincial government has increased the budget for housing programs to over $153 million — more than ever before in B.C. B.C.'s housing budget has increased by 12.5 percent, from $136 million to $153 million. Since June 2001 the province has committed funding to build 3,400 units, and to date about 2,600 units have been completed with another 800 units in various stages of construction and development. In addition, through the Independent Living B.C. program, more than 3,500 units will be delivered over the next four years, which will target seniors and people with disabilities who require assistance with activities of daily living.

There are about 20,000 subsidized social housing units in the city of Vancouver, of which 5,000 are in the downtown east side. The province, through B.C. Housing, provides more than $16 million a year to subsidize about 3,000 of those. There are approximately 42,421

units of subsidized housing in the greater Vancouver area that are targeted toward low- to moderate-income families, seniors, single mothers fleeing abusive relationships and people with mental and physical disabilities. Both the federal and provincial governments fund these housing units. Every year B.C. taxpayers, through the Ministry of Human Resources, fund 700 beds year-round for about $12 million. The ministry also spends $750,000 on approximately 200 extra beds during the cold, wet weather months. Such a shelter exists blocks from my constituency office as well as elsewhere in other lower mainland areas.

I thank the minister for taking the time to address these issues that are so important to my constituents.

L. Mayencourt: I have the privilege of representing constituents that call home one of the most remarkable cities in the world. The downtown Vancouver peninsula, with its shimmering skyscrapers and breathtaking green spaces nestled between the sea and mountains, is truly a jewel in British Columbia's crown.

Vancouver-Burrard is home to one of the most densely populated urban neighbourhoods not only in the British Commonwealth but in the world. It is home to the largest central business district in British Columbia and to some 80,000 residents. Vancouver residents live in a rich cultural mosaic — a city with a rich history, a vibrant arts community — and they enjoy the highest quality of life in the world.

I have called this neighbourhood home for over 20 years. In these two decades I have seen much change in our city, some for the good and some for the bad. Things are getting a little out of hand in Vancouver-Burrard. Petty crime, aggressive panhandling, drug dealing, prostitution, graffiti, vandalism, tent cities and squatters, random acts of violence — all these terrible things are on the rise. I can assure you that my constituents are telling me that they've had enough.

On August 21, I hosted a community safety forum in the West End Community Centre. With five days' notice the auditorium was packed to capacity with over 300 concerned residents who care about their neighbourhood. They're concerned for their safety, for the safety of children, for the safety of seniors. My constituents are fearful that we are losing our quality of life as we know it in Vancouver.

I have heard the cries of my constituents. Young, hard-working families in Vancouver-Burrard are coming to me shocked that their children do not know the name of Nelson Park. It's a sad state of affairs when six-year-olds refer to Nelson Park as a drug dealers' park. The old adage, "out of the mouths of babes," hardly seems fit when in reality these young children are now exposed every day to squatters, drug dealers, dirty syringes, broken glass and used condoms.

Similarly, seniors are now feeling unsafe in their own homes. Recently a constituent, a senior citizen, spoke to me about an assault she suffered at the hands of a young woman who followed her into her hallway and confronted her in her building elevator. This woman, Christina, is a feisty individual. She attempted to fight off her young attacker, but she was pushed up against the wall of the elevator, and her soaring heart rate convinced her to give up her fight and her wallet. Christina is 100 years old. In this instance I can report happily that Christina escaped relatively unharmed, but the results very easily could have been deadly.

Seniors and people of all ages should not feel this unsafe in our community. There are hard-working taxpayers of this beautiful province who trip over campers blocking their car parks as they make their way to work every morning. I am sure there is not one member in this chamber who would disagree with me when I say that we deserve better.

Any members of this chamber who have walked the streets of Vancouver in the past several months know it's difficult to walk even one block without being harassed, verbally abused and, yes, sometimes even accosted by aggressive panhandlers. My experience on the safe schools task force and the community and safety program here in this House and hearing stories like the one I have shared prompt me to return to comments I have made in this House before.

B.C. is in need of stronger legislation to protect public safety. As a community, we need to protect the children on the way to school and protect people as they walk on our streets, whether that's day or night. We need to protect the shop owners who try to run their small businesses. Ontario has legislation that meets this goal. B.C. needs legislation to protect our people from aggressive panhandling and squatters imposing themselves on us all.

Dirty syringes, broken glass and used condoms should be considered dangerous paraphernalia, and their disposal should require extra attention. Aggressive panhandling should not be tolerated. As a community, we have never before given up and accepted forms of intimidating behaviour from others. We need to address the issues of aggressive panhandling and squatting with compassion and with respect, but we also need to send a clear message that there are consequences for bad behaviour in our society. We cannot sacrifice our world-class city and our way of life to an eroding standard of behaviour.

The city is made up of people, not just buildings and streets. It's the people in Vancouver who make our city vibrant and welcoming. We need to reassert the values shared by the people of Vancouver — compassion and respect — and to impress upon all of Vancouver's citizens that these values go both ways. The Trespass Act in British Columbia is insufficient for application in densely populated urban areas, and it makes it difficult for the public, city officials and the police to prevent things like repeat shoplifting, squatting and urban camping.

This government has a commitment to my neighbourhood and to neighbourhoods across British Columbia. We have a commitment to each other to establish positive social connections that people can have on a day-to-day basis both to enable those who

are not in the social network to regain a place there and to ensure the place of those who are. This government should pursue an objective of safe, integrated communities by amendments to the Trespass Act and by creating legislation like the Safe Streets Act.

We believe in the people of B.C. We believe that we need to help them create safe communities, and we are also committed to helping the truly needy. We must not abandon our neighbourhoods, our schools, our parks, our families, our seniors and our children to those unwilling to live in a civil society.

Hon. R. Coleman: Thank you to the member for Vancouver-Burrard. You know, everyone is affected in every community when we deal with issues in and around crime and intimidation. It is not acceptable to any of us, and I say everyone's affected. It's not just the law enforcement community that are out there every day trying to do their job in the law or the judges or prosecutors who have to deal with the charges that come before them or the communities that now have to deal with the people who have been convicted — how are we going to deal with them so we can push back at having this behaviour not go on? — or the service clubs or chambers of commerce or the Vancouver Board of Trade, who released a report on Friday, or anyone who is living in a community.

It's just not acceptable. So how do you address it? You actually need, in the city of Vancouver, a council that wants to stand up and back its law enforcement community in order to have the proper community standards as far as enforcement is concerned, the resources put in place so they can do their job, and then back them up with the other programs in crime prevention that might actually assist that community.

There are times when I wonder, looking at how things are progressing in that particular city, how frustrating it must be for people in law enforcement to do their jobs and the fact that they feel the very people who could do legislation locally don't seem to be joining in the discussion to actually back up law enforcement. That's a concern to me. I think the council in the city has to get a grip on the fact that there can't be a continuation of intimidation. There can't be a continuation of the threat or the discomfort of their law-abiding citizens to walk safely in their community. They have to make that commitment as a council to the community in cooperation with my ministry.

We can get there. We promised safer communities and safer streets for British Columbians. That's a commitment we made in New Era. We're sensitive to these unique urban safety issues. We're reviewing all existing legislation so we can find tools for police, and we do that in discussion and consultation with the police to see what they can do.

I agree with the member that the Trespass Act is not particularly relevant in urban British Columbia and that we should have a look at it. Historically, issues like panhandling and those sorts of things have been under municipal bylaws. In actual fact, if you look at the historical perspective with regard to the city of New York, they actually dealt with it from a municipal bylaw perspective when they pushed back at some of the issues that dealt with that, if you read the books and the experience there. But when they did push back, they also had the tools to actually move it down the road, again, further — as far as the ability to charge, prosecute and get relevant penalties, fines or whatever from our system — so that they could actually get the deterrence into the system to stop the behaviour.

Our approach so far includes all kinds of issues with regard to the integration and interaction of policing. Our approach has been that we want law enforcement to be able to have a good working relationship with the court system so that we can actually get the ability for our system to understand the pressures that communities are actually under, because our system is to be reflective of the value of the standards of the communities that we live in and what we believe in.

Our system is supposed to actually allow us to create a criminal justice system where the balance is struck that we push back on crime and we keep our communities safe. That's not that easy to accomplish, because it takes the will of governments at the municipal, the provincial and the federal levels to accomplish it. It takes the will to be able to stand up and say that we will invest resources in order to push back on a problem. We should do that, but we have to do it together in a plan that works for everybody, and we can do that as long as the people involved are prepared to get to the table and work out those solutions, deal with the laws that are necessary and get the penalties that are necessary to push back at the problem.

If the system lets you down at the front end, all the work being done by the great law enforcement community in the city of Vancouver can actually fall on the deaf ears of success. Together we have to have the support of governments, the support of police, the ability to do their jobs and the ability to have success at the other end. That means all of us are going to have to change how we do business a little bit. We're actually going to have to change our approach.

We know, as we go through this, we will find challenges and we will find criticisms and we will have people deciding that maybe we're not on the right path. Maybe sometimes we have to adjust that path, because the historical perspective of law enforcement and crime-fighting has always had to adjust its path by society and by standards and by success. We'll get there. We can only get there together, and we need the help of all the partners at the table to accomplish it.

L. Mayencourt: I want to thank the Solicitor General for his comments. The issues that we face in Vancouver are indeed complex, and all parties and all three levels of government need to work together to find these solutions. We know there are no silver bullets here.

I'm also conscious of some of the other comments that the Solicitor General made. I lived in New York for a short while. A little while ago I had the opportunity to visit the city and to notice the stark difference between the city of New York from the late 1980s and today — to find, in a way, that they have created a more civil society because of the efforts of a city council and a mayor that decided to tackle these same problems head-on.

As the minister has said, there have been some very strange goings-on with city council the last little while. I know they recently debated the Star Wars defence plan. I know they recently allowed for a live-work space to include sex-trade workers in Yaletown. There are a lot of things that city council can spend its time on, but what we really need is to get the three levels of government together around the table and deal with these problems, deal with the issues of crime. These are important things. These are things that make our city safe and livable, and it makes it so much better when we can drop the political rhetoric and sit down and work together to find solutions that will create a safer community not only for Vancouver but for other communities in British Columbia.

I believe that changes to the Trespass Act are our responsibility and that we should take those on and work with the communities affected by that. The Trespass Act right now is great if you're trying to protect your fields from somebody poaching your crops or what have you, but we're talking about dealing in an urban area and protecting the rights of individuals that own property.

As for safe streets, I remain committed to providing legislation in this province that would create an offence for aggressive panhandling, would make sure squeegeeing on our highways was not acceptable any longer, and would make sure that dangerous paraphernalia such as syringes and used condoms and all of that are safely disposed of. I think that's our job here as legislators, and I eagerly await the ability to bring forward solutions for these problems.

I will continue to work with those members of city council who want to bring together a community safety forum that includes all of the MPs from Vancouver, all of the MLAs from Vancouver and all of the city councillors from Vancouver so that we can join together and create a safer city in Vancouver.

Hon. G. Bruce: I would call that we move to private members' motions and would call Motion 2 in the name of the member for Yale-Lillooet.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, pursuant to standing orders, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 2 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.

ROLE OF RESOURCE INDUSTRIES IN
HEALTH AND EDUCATION INFRASTRUCTURE
(continued)

Hon. S. Hagen: Mr. Speaker, as you know, the motion is: "Be it resolved that this House recognize the contribution of resource development in rural British Columbia to the health and education infrastructure of all communities." And I've got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, nothing could emphasize this more importantly than a bill that is before the House and being debated presently. That is Bill 46, known as the working forest bill.

What the working forest bill relates to is certainty on the land base. We need to have certainty on the land base so that industry can come in and invest, and that will provide the money that's necessary for our top priorities, which are health care and education. Land use and the working forest certainty will bring investor confidence that will revitalize not just the forest industry but also mining and exploration, agriculture, tourism, conservation — all of the activities that take place on the land base.

It's working. In areas of the province where land use plans have been completed, where decisions have been made at land use planning tables that bring all of the different parts of the community together, new industries are appearing and flourishing. I know the Minister of Energy and Mines is going to want to talk about the great work that's being done in oil and gas. Certainly, one of the objectives of the working forest is to bring mining back to B.C. As we know, mining was chased out of B.C. in the nineties, and we want to bring it back.

I'm going to make a comment about the Muskwa-Kechika; then the Minister of Energy and Mines can reinforce it when he speaks. This is the new frontier of oil and gas, and the Muskwa-Kechika land and resource management plan is now complete. It's designed to protect the international wildlife and recreation values in this area, just as it also allows for resource development. The potential is incredible, and now we are recognizing some of those tremendous potentials. I'm going to let the Minister of Energy and Mines talk about all of the sales that were generated in September and the increase that it means.

The other thing that has happened is new gas wells. The forecast for 2004 is 1,200 new wells, and I know the minister is going to want to speak about this as well — the fact that there are 8.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in place. Each trillion cubic feet is worth about $4 billion, including a billion dollars to the provincial treasury.

People know they can actually go in and work on this land base because of the land use plans that have been completed and the work that's also being done. Whether it's agriculture, oil and gas, tourism, back-country recreation, mining and exploration or forestry, the working forest indeed recognizes all of those uses.

We need to build mining back up in this province so that we can, in fact, continue to afford the great health care and education systems we've got.

To be clear again, as well, the working forest is not just about industrial activity, as the member for Nelson-Creston pointed out so clearly this morning. There are other uses that take place on the land, which British Columbians enjoy. It's important for us to make sure that those uses, the conservation uses and back-country uses, continue to be protected and that we continue to work to make sure all users of the land base have access to the land base. This is done by making decisions to determine the highest and best use options for the land, based on a comprehensive land management policy framework.

I want to say again that the working forest is not about privatization of the Crown forest lands or resources. As most people in this House know, section 23 of the Land Act outlaws the sale of Crown land for forestry purposes. The working forest will be maintained as Crown land and will guarantee public access.

The working forest also lays out targets for subsurface and surface users. To protect biodiversity and ensure sustainability, we will set access targets for resource uses in forestry, tourism and agriculture as well as conservation.

I would like to support this motion, because I think most people in British Columbia really do understand that the development and use in a sustainable way of the natural resources we have in this great province are key to the ability to continue to fund health care and education.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's certainly a pleasure for me to be able to stand and support the member for Yale-Lillooet's motion in regard to the natural resource industries in the province. I think most people in the province know how fortunate we are to be blessed with what we have in British Columbia, including huge natural resource opportunities — whether that's in mining in hard rock or coal, or oil and gas in the province.

We've seen a remarkable increase in the activity across the province as it relates to oil and gas and, in fact, an increase in activity in the mining industry. The member previous spoke briefly about mining and how we have to bring it back in British Columbia. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My ministry commissioned a group of MLAs to go out and bring back a report to the minister to see what we can do to further enhance the mining industry in the province. Many people don't know how important the mining industry is to us not just in the case of jobs and the economic activity it produces but in our everyday lives. I think that's a message we have to try to get out more to the general public. We need those items that are mined, whether it's coal, copper, lead, zinc, silver or gold. All of those minerals are in vast use across a whole cross-section of things we use in our daily life. Take, for instance, just the computers. You'll see some people working here with laptops.

Hon. R. Neufeld: That's fine. It's the new world we live in — to the member. But we do need the products we have here in British Columbia to actually make those kinds of instruments so that we can live better in this great province of ours.

Oil and gas revenue is up substantially in the province. In September we had the largest sale of natural gas and oil drilling rights ever held in the Dominion of Canada — in one month. British Columbia continues to lead North America in all kinds of issues as they relate to oil and gas, whether it's the Ladyfern discovery — which was the largest discovery of natural gas in North America — or the largest land sale.

It's kind of nice to brag about it a little bit for the province, and not just for the ministry but for the province. For the first time in land sales we have superseded anything that Alberta, which is always referred to as the large oil and gas industry province, has ever done. It's three times larger than has ever happened in a single month in Alberta. I think that's good news for the people in British Columbia. That creates jobs. We have….

Hon. R. Neufeld: Well, because you get the entrepreneur out there. You actually set the table right; you get the taxation right; you get the regulations right; you get the incentives right. The entrepreneur will go out there and invest billions and billions of dollars and create thousands of jobs in British Columbia, which is good for all of us. It's good for health care, and it's good for education.

The Canadian Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors says that British Columbia will see over a 40 percent increase in drilling activity in the next year. Alberta will be coming in second, again, at about 14 percent. Is that hard to believe — 14 percent? Saskatchewan is behind at 10 percent. I think those are good jobs. I mean, they have confidence in the province of British Columbia. That's good news for the province of British Columbia.

This year alone, this summer, we have seen an increase of 126 percent in drilling activity in northeastern British Columbia. We're bringing forward other programs that we want to develop — the other basins in the province onshore. Those are the Nechako and the Bowser basins. We want to get the industry in there and get them excited about that part of the province. What's happening in the northeast certainly will lead us to that. That creates jobs.

Mining permits are up in the province. We're seeing more people going out there who want to start looking for minerals in British Columbia. Obviously, the price of gold has a part to play in that, but they're seeing a government that really wants to see the mining industry produce the good-paying jobs that we're used to having from that industry. In fact, I was in

London with some investors just recently, and they had some very good perceptions about British Columbia. While we were in London talking to the financiers, they talked about some very good things that could happen in the province. In fact, we've put together a Rocks to Riches program of over $2 million to encourage more investment in mining in the province and get people out there creating the jobs that British Columbia so desperately needs.

Another good-news story surrounds electricity, and that's independent power producers. We just had B.C. Hydro accept $800 million worth of construction across British Columbia of independent power producers who will generate electricity and sell it into the grid, with contracts set at ten to 20 years — some of them 15 years. Those are hundreds and hundreds and probably thousands of jobs well into the future. We have huge opportunity. You should also know that that's clean energy. When we talk about things in British Columbia, we're concerned about the environment just the same as anyone else is. All that energy — that 1,800 gigawatts — is clean energy for the province.

While I was in London I also had the opportunity to go to the World Hydrogen Energy Conference. It's held every two years. British Columbia was there full centre, right in the centre of the room. We're recognized the world around for hydrogen leadership, whether it's through Ballard or General Hydrogen or through Powertech, a division of B.C. Hydro. People around the world recognize British Columbia as a world leader in hydrogen development. That creates jobs well into the future, jobs that are needed by all kinds of individuals. It will help us with cleaning up our environment to a degree, and we should be proud of the hydrogen industry that we have in the province.

We should not lose sight, either, of the ability for coal in the province. The member for East Kootenay talks about it often, and I agree with him. There are huge opportunities for coal in the province in developing hydrogen. Remember, hydrogen doesn't just come out of a pipe someplace. You actually have to develop it with some kind of energy. We have an abundance of coal in the province, which can generate an awful lot of hydrogen for use — not only in British Columbia but across Canada and the U.S. — to start cleaning up our environment.

Those are just four topics that are near and dear to my heart because of the ministry I represent. It creates thousands of jobs. It creates revenue for the province. It enables the province to continue to provide the good health care and the good education that we now have in the province and that we want to keep.

B. Belsey: It's a privilege to stand in the House today and support the member for Yale-Lillooet's motion.

Like so many of us in government that represent heartlands communities across this riding, natural resources are very important. The motion brought forward has a special meaning to all MLAs, especially those in communities that are resource dependent. Many of our fathers and our forefathers pioneered heartland communities, communities founded on natural resources — those very same resources that provide capital for the infrastructure and the development we enjoy today — and communities that were established and flourish from the development of resources like fishing, logging, mining and agriculture. As those communities grew, so did their local demands and their needs — needs for grocery stores for sustenance, hardware stores for supplies, churches for the inner strength of man and, eventually, schools to educate and medical services for nursing stations and hospitals.

Resource development, including extraction and processing, has led to thriving communities. Thriving communities have led to the demand for education and health care. Today schools provide education and hospitals provide health care. They form an integral part of resource-based communities around this province. My point is simple: today, without the revenue from resource development, we may not have heartland communities that provide the highly sought-after style of living that supports education and health care.

However, today there seems to be a disconnect between resource development in the heartlands and the funding of education and health care around this province — a disconnect evidenced in the misconception that logging and mining have destroyed British Columbia. It's taught in some of our classrooms. It's advocated by some of the environmental organizations. It's splashed over the headlines of the media in the form of print media, radio media and TV.

Some even have gone so far as to think the great unwashed who live in the heartlands — they've chosen that style of living — should not expect the same level of education and health care that is enjoyed by those who may be living in the major centres of our province. The resource industries have — through taxes, grants and scholarships — supported people and services in communities in which they carry out their business and in the major centres where they maintain their corporate offices.

Let me share with you some of the examples of just two of the industries that I mentioned earlier, which contribute consistently to my riding. These are the mining and the forest industries. The mining industry in B.C. generates over $3 billion in revenue and $89 million in government taxes per year. As a leading employer in B.C., mining provides approximately 10,000 direct jobs and roughly 20,000 indirect jobs. It pays the highest wages and benefits of any industry, estimated at $81,000 per year per person.

The Mining Association of British Columbia has an education program, which is a partnership with classroom teachers, and since 1991 the mining industry in British Columbia has maintained this partnership. The program is teacher driven, and all the classroom resources are teacher written.

Let me share with you some of the facts about the B.C. forest industry. British Columbia is internationally

renowned for its rich, abundant forests. British Columbia encompasses 95 million hectares, or 234 million acres, which is about double the size of California or Sweden. Forests cover about two-thirds of the province. These forests are central to British Columbia's way of life. They are vital to the province's economy; they provide jobs for the many who live here.

The forest sector's contribution to the government is almost equivalent to the Minister of Education's annual budget for kindergarten through grade 12. Forest activities contribute approximately $17 billion to the province's gross domestic product. In 31 local areas containing 270 communities, forest activity accounts for more than 20 percent of the area's income. Forestry activities in British Columbia generate approximately $4 billion in government revenues annually. In metro Vancouver — not where we carry out forestry, but where we have the corporate offices — forestry accounts for approximately 120,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Some seem to have forgotten that the basic services government offers cost money and that since British Columbia joined confederation, the vast majority of this money has come from our resources. I support the motion because the communities that I represent know where the tax dollars come from for education and health care. Those much-needed tax dollars come from the resource sectors developed throughout and around our province.

B. Bennett: It's also my pleasure to rise this morning and speak in favour of this motion. The contribution that natural resources have made to British Columbia is such that over the past two and a half years in this House, myself and my colleagues — not only from rural B.C. but from around the province — have spoken about it so much that it's almost become a cliché. But I don't think we can remind folks in the province — all over the province but particularly in the lower mainland — too often that the services they have come to depend on — whether it be education and health care or whether it be highways and bridges and ferries and so forth — come from the revenue that is generated largely from the resource industries in the province. Not that they are the only industries that contribute to our provincial economy, and no one here is suggesting that. But as some of my colleagues, I think, have already pointed out, there have been a number of fairly recent — within the last year — studies that have shown that B.C. still gets the vast majority of its economic sustenance from the heartlands of this province. I would hope that no one would dispute that.

It's interesting. When this government has done some of the things that we've had to do, which are characterized as being tough things…. We've had to reduce the number of people working in the various ministries. We've had to even, I think, in some cases reduce programs. Whenever you do that, anyone who is impacted — whether they're receiving the program or perhaps delivering the program, and they've discovered that they're no longer employed by the public — they're not very happy about that. Of course, who would be happy about that?

What we all have to recognize in this province — and perhaps we are starting to recognize it after the last two and a half years — is that there is not an endless supply of money to pay for public services. There is no money tree outside the Premier's office. We have to find ways to deliver public services for less money and maintain the same high level of service. I think we are doing that, but we can always use more money. Any government can always use more money, and the best way to get more money into provincial government coffers, in my view, is to make sure we have a strong forest industry and a strong mining industry.

I wanted to make a few comments this morning specifically about the forest industry and the mining industry and some of the things we have done and some of the things we should do for the reasons that we're all standing up here this morning in the House — that is, to generate more revenue for the government and to create more jobs for the people of B.C. so we can have the high standard of living with the high level of public services that we all want.

With respect to the forest industry, the industry continues to suffer, and the softwood lumber issue is obviously something that will have to be resolved ultimately one way or the other before the industry can be as strong as it once was. That's not the only issue affecting the forest industry. Even when we had a deal with the U.S., the forest industry in British Columbia was losing mills. Mills were closing; people were losing their jobs.

In recognition of that, when we were first elected, this government began to make changes to forest policy under the leadership of the Premier and the Minister of Forests. I'm not going to go over all of them, because there have been several, but I wanted to hit the high points. The first one I wanted to mention was the creation of the working forest, which is a topic of discussion and interest in this House this week.

Creating an area of land in the province that our forest industry, its workers and the companies can know they have access to is something they've asked for, for decades. As with the mining industry, it takes huge levels of investment to be successful in the forest industry. I suggest that no industry, no business person, is going to be prepared to invest the level of dollars required to be successful in the forest industry or any other industry unless they know they have certainty for their investment. To have certainty for investment in the forest industry and in the mining industry, they need certainty of access to the land.

So the working forest land base is an important step forward to creating the kind of certainty that we need in the forest industry. The new Forest and Range Practices Amendment Act, 2003 is another positive step forward, and I certainly commend our government for taking that step. I've been out there myself in the East Kootenay and have seen loggers attempting to work within the old Forest Practices Code. A lot of times the

rules we had under that code conflicted with each other, and it was difficult for the industry to contend with it.

These folks that are out there — the loggers and the forest companies — are professional people with experience, education and knowledge. If the objectives that are created for the new forest and range practices code are clear, those people with their experience, knowledge and education will find the most efficient and sensible ways to meet those objectives and standards.

I wanted to mention something specific to my region, the Kootenay-Boundary region. The Kootenay-Boundary land use plan probably had the single biggest impact on our region when it was announced in 1995 and then implemented in 1997. There are 15,000 families in the Kootenay-Boundary region in 28 different communities that depend on forestry. The government that used to be here prior to two and a half years ago had refused to listen to those 15,000 families and those 28 communities, and they created the Kootenay-Boundary land use plan without doing the economic impact necessary with any good land use plan.

I recall the opposition Forests critic at the time pleading with the former government not to implement that plan the way it was designed at the time. I also recall the now Premier promising the people of my region, the Kootenay-Boundary region, that if we were elected we would listen to the people of the Kootenay-Boundary. We would take a look at the Kootenay-Boundary land use plan and try to find some ways that we could keep the protections that exist within that plan but, at the same time, keep people working.

The government did that. Through the efforts of the Minister of Sustainable Resource Management, the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection and the Premier's support, we were able to make some changes to that plan, which saved 1,300 family-supporting forestry jobs. Those are jobs that support families. I want to reiterate that, because I think one of the purposes of my colleague's motion is to point out that the jobs that come from the resource industries are not $7-an-hour jobs. They are jobs that pay fairly high wages, and they come with benefits, pensions and medical coverage. Those are the kinds of jobs that people need to sustain their families.

The other resource industry that I'm just going to touch on this morning is…. I see the Speaker looking at his watch. I'm going to touch on the coal industry, because I can't resist. There are five coalmines in the East Kootenay, just in my riding. They're so close to Alberta, and they're so hidden away in the beautiful Rocky Mountains that I think sometimes the province — and frankly, even people in my own riding, in the city of Cranbrook, which is only an hour and a half away from these mines — forget the benefits that that industry brings to this province. There are 2,800 people working in those five mines, and the average salary, if you include the benefits, is $82,000 a year.

I would think that any MLA would love to have 2,800 jobs with an average salary of $82,000, regardless of where you live and whether you have natural resource industries there or not. Certainly, in the rural areas of the province where the economy is challenging, to say the least, we don't have the same real estate booms and the same house sale rates and so forth that we have in the lower mainland. In those areas, to have $82,000-a-year jobs is just a dream for a lot of folks. Anything that we can do to encourage investment in the mining industry —not just the coal industry but the mining industry — we should be doing.

We obviously have to create public policy that is respectful of our natural environment. Our natural environment is why a lot of us live in British Columbia. We live here because it's so beautiful and it's so clean. Mining has proven, over the past 20 years, that in fact their footprint is minuscule on the land base. Mining takes up less than 0.5 percent of the total land base in the province. It takes up less of the land base in the province than the parking lots in our malls do. From that, we get billions of dollars of revenue that we can use to pay for health care and education. We also get these jobs like the ones that I just spoke of — the 2,800 jobs in the coal industry at $82,000 apiece. Why wouldn't we want to encourage investment in the mining industry?

I wanted to speak very briefly about the use of coal and the opportunity that we have. My colleague the Minister of Energy and Mines referenced the use of coal to generate electricity in his remarks this morning, and I just wanted to support what the minister had to say.

In the United States they generate roughly 60 percent of their electricity with coal. In Alberta they generate roughly 80 percent of their electricity with coal. In British Columbia we generate zero percent of our electricity with coal, despite the fact that when you look at the fossil fuels that are available, the hydrocarbon reserves in this province, well over 90 percent of the total hydrocarbon reserves consist of coal — not gas, not oil, but coal — so we have an abundance of it.

The coal in my region, in the East Kootenay, is very low sulphur. It is high-quality metallurgical coal. This government, under the leadership of the Premier and with the hard work of the Minister of Energy and Mines, created an energy policy for this province that includes coal. I can tell you that the people of the East Kootenay were very pleased about that. We can now use coal to generate electricity in British Columbia. We have not done that yet, but I believe that we will. I would suggest that coal ought to be part of the portfolio of electricity production in this province.

We just announced a while ago — I don't know if I can get the number right — a few hundred million dollars' worth of green energy projects. I totally support that. I know the people in my region of the province totally support that type of energy production, the run-of-the-river projects and the tidal projects. Green

energy is an important part of the future of this province, and I totally support that.

However, with all the abundance of coal that we have and considering the development of clean coal technology that is getting better and better every year, we should have a component of coal-generated electricity in this province. I intend to continue to work with this government and with some companies that are interested in developing some coal-fired power plants in the province, and some day we'll have a few of them.

The coal-fired power will probably not constitute a large percentage of the electricity that's generated in this province. It will probably always be a small percentage of what electricity is produced, but there should be a contribution by coal — not only because we have lots of it and not only because the technology is improving, but because industry requires a constant, uninterrupted source of electricity. Coal-fired power plants can provide that. There are very few other electricity producers that provide the uninterrupted power source that coal does. That's another reason why we should be looking at it and we are looking at it, and I'm happy that we are.

Just in summarizing what I want to say about my colleague's motion, all of us who come from the heartlands of the province down here to Victoria to represent our constituents are sent with several messages, and our constituents make sure that we understand what they think is important. I know that from my perspective — and I think my rural colleagues share this — the one overriding message that I was sent here with is that Victoria and the lower mainland folks, who don't necessarily understand rural B.C., need to understand that we support the resource industries. We like working in the resource industries. We like being loggers, we like being truck drivers, and we like being miners. They pay good wages, and there are good benefits. We believe in accessing the land. We believe in conservation, which is the judicious use of surplus plants and animals. We believe in that.

We don't believe that we need to lock up any more land in British Columbia. We believe that we have some wonderful parks and protected areas already in this province that we're proud of and that we can brag about to the rest of the world, and we do that. We believe that we should be able to access the land outside those parks and those protected areas for the benefit of the people who live in those rural areas and their families but also for the benefit of the people who live here and who don't always understand. My colleagues understand, but folks who live in Vancouver don't always get all the information they need to understand the connection between their standard of living and the mining and the forestry and the agriculture and the fishing and the tourism that take place out on that land base.

I want to thank my colleague for bringing forward the motion. It's a great soapbox for those of us from the heartlands, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I wish to speak this morning on the motion by the member for Yale-Lillooet — that is, the contribution of our resource industries to the development of rural British Columbia and to the infrastructure for health and education. I think this is a very important discussion, because it's really in the generation of new wealth and in the generation of employment and economic activity that we are able to pay for important social programs such as provided by health and education.

The agriculture, food and fisheries sector is certainly a major contributor to employment in the heartlands, and in turn, that employment creates a lot of tax revenue — particularly in the way of income tax and sales tax revenue — to the provincial government. A few characteristics of the B.C. agriculture and the seafood sectors are that we have a climate in British Columbia that provides opportunity for a diversified industry. We have a real varied climate on a regional basis, and so we have a diversified agricultural sector. We have a diversified fisheries sector. We promote that as a strength in these two sectors.

Very often you'll see one commodity is having some difficulty, may have some weather or market difficulties, and other commodities are doing better in the same time frame. We find that our agricultural sector, for example, does not suffer right across the board compared to provinces where you have all of your agricultural sector in a couple of industries. I mentioned that it's an employment generator. In agriculture, if you compare the agriculture industry with other resource industries, one of its characteristics is that it creates a lot of jobs not only in the primary sector but also in the processing sector and the agribusiness supply and service sector.

Similarly, on the fisheries side, we have about 200 processing plants throughout British Columbia — something we don't often realize. Some of them aren't very big, but they all create additional jobs — very often for first nations people in our coastal communities. Similarly, the service and supply sector. If you look at our aquaculture sector, for example, some of the biggest numbers of jobs are in the supply and service industries.

These industries are sustainable. They make use of our B.C. resources. They do so in a sustainable way. The other really important point is that they are renewable. We grow crops on an annual basis. We produce livestock over various life cycles, but these are renewable industries that go on, on an ongoing basis.

I wanted to just mention a few statistics. Agriculture is $2.2 billion a year at the primary level that it generates for the economy, and that is an ongoing growth pattern that agriculture is in. We've seen, in the last 20 years, that every year there has been an increase in the activity generated by agriculture, which is quite a remarkable feat. We have 26,000 jobs at the primary level. The food-processing sector is a $5.5 billion industry, and we have another 26,000 jobs at that level. The food-service industry is a very major industry. We're talking the food service and the grocery industry. Sales

As I said, I think that the key characteristic of the agrifood industry is the jobs it generates. A few growth areas that I'm looking at in some statistics here…. Growth over the last ten years: sweet cherries, 951 percent. The cherry industry in the Okanagan and the Creston Valley has been doing very, very well — a major, quality-focused export industry. Similarly tomatoes, mainly centred in Delta where we have an extremely advantageous microclimate for the greenhouse sector — a 417 percent growth in tomato production in British Columbia. Grapes, 340 percent increase. We've seen major plantings of grapes in the Okanagan. This is an industry that has done a remarkable redirection in the last 20 years.

I could go on. Nurseries, 128 percent increase; potatoes, 110; floriculture, 103; chickens, 90 percent. Blueberries are another great growth industry in the Fraser Valley, up 63 percent. So it goes — tremendous growth rates in the agriculture sector creating employment and, in turn, generating new dollars to pay for health and education.

Just a couple of other quick figures, and then I will give way to one of the other members. Seafood products, $1.1 billion in wholesale value in our seafood sector. That's a 10 percent increase over the previous year. The figure I'm quoting is for 2002. More than 80 species of fish, shellfish and marine plants are produced in British Columbia. I think we often don't recognize the really diversified fishery we have. The wild salmon industry wholesale value is about $200 million. Farmed salmon, $360 million; herring, $128 million; groundfish, a very active sector, $226 million; shellfish, about $26 million at the farm level and growing. So it goes — $1.1 billion in economic activity in the seafood industry.

Finally, I should also mention the sport fishing sector, the recreational sector. If you include tidal and inland waters, another billion dollars in economic activity. A lot of those dollars are dollars that come from outside British Columbia and outside Canada. All of those people are coming in, using our resources, doing so in a sustainable way, providing employment and, again, generating new revenue for the provincial government to pay for health and education services to our citizens.

With that, I certainly want to strongly support and endorse the member's motion. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on agriculture, food and fisheries.

W. McMahon: It gives me great pleasure to be able to stand up and support this motion, recognizing the importance of resource-based communities and their development to the health care and education systems of British Columbia.

I come from a region that contributes greatly to the provincial economy. Communities such as Invermere, Golden, Revelstoke and Kimberley are made up of hard-working individuals who for decades have been the backbone of our key industries — namely, forestry and mining. This region is motivated to explore new opportunities and generate wealth through newer land-based industries such as tourism. It is very important that we recognize how much our resource-based communities contribute to the provincial economy and recognize that this wealth enables us to have the best health care and education system in the world.

The B.C. Progress Board recently pointed out that 60 percent of B.C.'s export base comes from region 250 and that 75 percent of the value of B.C.'s international goods exports are produced in this region. The wealth of this province, which determines the quality of our health and education systems, comes from the land base. Industries such as forestry, mining and agriculture are key to our past but are also vital for our future.

We must continue working hard, developing policies that will see these industries grow and create jobs. The growth of these key industries will make our small towns stronger, and making those small towns stronger will make our entire province stronger. Without the contribution of resource-based communities, the services we are able to provide would be severely diminished.

We have done a great deal to support forestry and mining through our reforms, but we have a lot of work ahead of us. There are more opportunities to create jobs in rural B.C., and there are more opportunities to increase the wealth necessary to support health care and education. In creating these jobs, we also support jobs in the lower mainland.

We must continue to establish land use certainty so that industries and investors have confidence in our heartlands and develop job-creating projects. I'm very pleased to see us move forward with the Land Amendment Act, also known as the working forest initiative. It will provide the certainty needed to grow our rural economies and create jobs. People will soon know what land can and cannot be used for. That certainty is critical for my region, because they're great people with new ideas, and they want to know where they can explore these ideas. It is also vital that we support those major industries and those secondary industries such as tourism, which is a growing part of my region.

A major part of the economy in the heartlands and the entire province is the Trans-Canada Highway. That must be the top transportation priority in this province. It is a major corridor to move our goods and services from the interior of B.C. all the way to Vancouver and the Vancouver ports. This is one of the reasons we are upgrading that highway, because without it, our economy would suffer greatly.

In closing, I would like to thank the member for Yale-Lillooet for bringing this motion to the House. I would also like to pay tribute to the men and women in Columbia River–Revelstoke who are out working long, hard hours today to support their families and their communities. It is they who are the real wealth of this province, and this motion recognizes their contributions.

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