Hansard -- Wednesday, November 5, 2003 p.m. -- Vol. 18, No. 3 (HTML)


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page

Introductions by Members		7809

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		7809
	Flooding in Nass Valley and role of provincial emergency program
	B. Belsey
	Houston sawmill
	D. MacKay
	Political leadership
	R. Masi

Oral Questions		7810
	Privatization and viability of B.C. Rail
	J. MacPhail
	Hon. J. Reid
	B.C. Rail services
	J. Kwan
	Hon. J. Reid
	Dispute resolution for strata councils and property owners
	T. Bhullar
	Hon. G. Collins
	Skilled trades training
	W. McMahon
	Hon. S. Bond

Petitions		7813
	J. MacPhail

Reports from Committees		7813
	Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills
	B. Lekstrom

Committee of the Whole House		7813
	Youth Justice Act (Bill 63) (continued)
	L. Mayencourt
	Hon. G. Hogg
	J. Kwan

Reporting of Bills		7818
	Youth Justice Act (Bill 63)

Third Reading of Bills		7818
	Youth Justice Act (Bill 63)


Second Reading of Bills		7818
	BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act (Bill 85)
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	P. Nettleton
	B. Kerr
	J. MacPhail
	Hon. S. Bond
	L. Mayencourt
	J. Bray
	K. Stewart
	D. MacKay
	R. Hawes
	R. Sultan
	W. Cobb
	R. Visser
	B. Suffredine
	B. Lekstrom
	V. Roddick
	M. Hunter
	Hon. R. Thorpe
	R. Harris
	B. Belsey
	P. Bell

A. Hamilton: Entertained for lunch today from the navy were Commodore Roger Girouard, Lt. Commander Scott McVicar, Hon. Captain Cedric Steele, retired Commander Lloyd Barnes and Lt. Paul Lehay. Joining us for question period are the Hon. Captain Cedric Steele and retired Commander Lloyd Barnes. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.

J. MacPhail: It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the Legislature today people from Prince George: Councillor Dan Rogers; and people who work in Prince George for B.C. Rail, Kevin Anderson, Lance Yearley, Bob Sharp and Erik Lonne. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. C. Hansen: I had a great discussion this morning with a grade 9 student from Prince of Wales Secondary School, which is located in my riding. We had a great chat about some of the great programs that are offered at that school. I hope the House will join me in welcoming Bryan Wong to the Legislature today.

L. Mayencourt: I note that the former member of the Legislature for Vancouver-Burrard is here in the chamber with us. I'd ask the House to please make Councillor Tim Stevenson welcome.

P. Bell: Along with Councillor Dan Rogers, who is here to watch question period today, is another friend and colleague from Prince George: Kevin Brown. I would ask that the House please make him very welcome as well.

J. MacPhail: I join the current member for Vancouver-Burrard in welcoming the former member for Vancouver-Burrard sitting behind us. My colleague and I welcome him. I would also just note, Mr. Speaker, that he was a former Deputy Speaker as well, which is a very highfalutin position, as I understand it.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce 25 public servants seated in the west gallery, who are participating in a full-day parliamentary procedures workshop. This workshop, offered by the Legislative Assembly, provides a firsthand opportunity for the public service to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between the work of the ministries and how that work affects the Legislature. Would the House please make them welcome.

B. Belsey: Recently two communities in my riding, Kincolith and Greenville, were cut off from the rest of the Nass Valley when flooding washed out a bridge. Heavy rains — the Pineapple Express, as we often refer to it — left the Pemberton area and moved north to the Nass Valley. These rains caused a rapid swelling of creeks and rivers — in particular, the Nass and the Kalum Rivers. The men and women of the provincial emergency program were called upon, once again, to serve the public.

Coming out of an emergency like this are stories of bravery and determination and heroism. More often they include the heroics of the front-line workers, those in the trenches — rightfully so. They often risk life and limb. However, there's another group that works tirelessly behind the scenes. They are the men and women that work for the provincial emergency program. They're not the ones that we see standing in the middle of the flooded fields with water running over the tops of their boots, trying to fill dam bags. No, Mr. Speaker. They're the ones that are calling in the extra help, finding the dam bags, looking for the fill for the bags, searching for pumps and ultimately faced with the logistics of moving men and material and emergency equipment to where it's needed. They are often called upon to make the decisions that have profound effects on people's lives. These decisions are sometimes made with limited information and often after long hours of work.

I have nothing but praise for these men and women of PEP. They, too, are heroes. I would just like to point out that PEP has a website, and I encourage people to take a look at it: www.pep.bc.ca. You can find information on everything from emergency management to disaster financial assistance and from hazard preparedness to information and volunteering. So I encourage you. Give that website an opportunity; have a look at it: www.pep.bc.ca.

D. MacKay: This is going to be a two-minute quiz. I'm going to talk about the world's largest sawmill — the world's largest sawmill under one roof and with the largest milling capacity. I wonder how many members in this chamber or how many people in the province of British Columbia know where this facility is located. The fact that I am the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine and that I am speaking to this issue should be the first clue.

A sawmill that presently consumes 1.55 million cubic metres of wood and will consume 2.54 million cubic metres of wood when it is finished with the upgrade. This facility will be producing 13.3 million

board feet per day when completed. That's a 30 percent increase from today's production. This capital upgrade will also benefit the community with additional value-added facilities. As well, the increase in the logging industry needed to deliver wood to the mill will increase by approximately 30 percent.

During the capital expansion, estimated at $34 million, 175 tradespeople per weekend will live and spend money in this community. This will have a positive direct impact on hotels and restaurants.

The final clue to this quiz is that the community is the forest capital of British Columbia in 2003.

I would like to close by telling you that this sawmill is located in the community of Houston, British Columbia. For those who don't know, Houston is a vibrant, forest-dependent community on Highway 16. The sawmill is owned by Canadian Forest Products.

R. Masi: I would like to make a few comments on technology as political leadership. British Columbia's success will be measured by a gradual amelioration of a wide variety of political, economic, strategic and social problems. We must be careful to distinguish between what we must do, what we would like to do and what is beyond our capacities.

The startling advance of communications technology suggests that our age is at the beginning of intellectual and political transformations likely to prove more sweeping than those produced by the invention of printing and certain to evolve more rapidly. However, there is a significant and fundamental difference between information and knowledge. While the processing of information has undergone extraordinary advancement, the successful conduct of government requires the intuition and the ability to sense the future and thereby master it. Leadership is the art of bridging the gap between experience and vision.

While a computer does an excellent job of storing information and data, at the same time it encourages a shrinking perspective, especially in dealing with future policy. The study of history and philosophy, the disciplines most important to the art of political leadership, are unfortunately neglected. Today most political leaders gain prominence by exploiting and manipulating the mood of the moment. Focus groups have replaced the following of one's own perceptions and intuition. Many leaders view the future as simply a projection of the status quo. Understandably, choices are not simplistic. Excessive realism can produce stagnation, while excessive idealism can cause disillusionment.

In British Columbia during the last decade, we experienced roughly five years of excessive idealism followed by, unfortunately, five years of distorted realism. Now as we seek to build a new future, a new era of politics in British Columbia, we must build a future based not only upon an economic philosophy but also upon social and humanitarian values.

It is with great confidence that we look forward to a continuing era of enlightened leadership — leadership based on our unique historical and social values — as well as a full awareness of how to build a dynamic and prosperous economic future.

Mr. Speaker: I think the sound effects signal the end of members' statements.

J. MacPhail: It seems that every day the government changes its story about why it's breaking the new-era promise on B.C. Rail. When we brought to light internal government documents showing that B.C. Rail is one of the most profitable rail companies in North America, the minister responsible said yes, but the debt is too high.

To the minister responsible for selling B.C. Rail: can she tell the House how B.C. Rail's debt compares to CN Rail and CP Rail, the leading candidates to take over the line?

Hon. J. Reid: B.C. Rail is vital to the transportation links across British Columbia and in the north. B.C. Rail needs to be a business that grows and that is able to meet the needs of the industries in the future.

This member still doesn't seem to grasp what is going on in the lumber industry in the north and the productivity that is coming out of that industry at this time in a response to softwood lumber. That is creating an unusual situation in the marketplace that is leading to increased traffic on B.C. Rail. That is not sustainable in the long term; that is not sustainable in the long-term forecasts. We have to make sure that B.C. Rail is there for the long term for the people, for the communities and for the industries of this province. For that reason, we're taking on an operating partner.

J. MacPhail: I really can't believe what I just heard the minister say. She said we're expecting the forest industry to get a lot worse, and therefore we need to sell B.C. Rail. What a backer of a strong economy. The forest industry is going to go down, so we need to sell off B.C. Rail.

J. MacPhail: That's just more evasion. It's all evasion in an attempt to sell B.C. Rail through misinformation.

The opposition has obtained the B.C. Rail senior management team monthly report for September 2003,

and that paints a very clear picture about B.C. Rail in comparison to these other companies that this government wants to sell the rail line to. Remember, Mr. Speaker, this is all about price competitiveness for their customers. Here's what the report showed: the debt-to-equity ratio for B.C. Rail, as reported to management, is at 1.2. That compares absolutely favourably to CN, and it's exactly the same as CP's debt ratio. If B.C. Rail's debt ratio is out of control, as the minister maintains in this House, why is she being contradicted by internal documents prepared by B.C. Rail's top management?

Hon. J. Reid: It is so important, with this integral piece of transportation infrastructure, that we look at the longer picture, the history and the future. Again, this member wants to take out a small piece of the business case instead of looking at the larger picture and being willing to invest in B.C.'s future and being willing to invest in an ongoing, sustainable rail network.

We listened to the communities. We listened to the industry that said the status quo was not acceptable. In pursuing that — in looking for a way of improving service to the industries to make sure the investment was going to be there for the long term — we've taken the advice of communities, and we are proceeding in finding a rail operating partner for the freight rail division.

J. MacPhail: Well, we once again have a new message box — what is it, Wednesday? — the third message box this week, and that is that the forest industry is going into the tank. Isn't that good news for the north?

This is about doing what's right for the customers of B.C. Rail, and this minister is trying to say that B.C. Rail can't serve the customers best. The truth is that the debt load at B.C. Rail is not out of control. It's exactly the same as that of the major companies bidding to take over the service. Yet the minister and government don't want to hear that because it destroys the rationale for breaking their new-era promise.

The internal document from B.C. Rail also confirms that the B.C. Rail profit was $72 million last year, and it's going to make even more this year. We have a profitable company, manageable debt, reliable service and competitive prices.

J. MacPhail: …that they have an opportunity to vote with their city council and against the sale on the 17th, when my bill comes up for debate.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order. Would the member now please put her question.

J. MacPhail: I want them to know they can vote in favour of their community on the 17th.

J. MacPhail: Can the minister explain again why she's sacrificing the political futures of her northern colleagues to break the Premier's promise to not sell B.C. Rail?

Hon. J. Reid: It's unfortunate that this member doesn't keep up to date with the information that's available and then takes it out of context. In fact, in working with the communities, who know the north and whose industries are located there, last September — a year ago this past September, September of 2002 — there were 27 communities that got together and five regional districts that presented a symposium that put together….

The recommendation that they passed to me was this: "A balanced solution to B.C. Rail's financial difficulties could be a public-private partnership, with the provincial government as a partner. This would resolve some of B.C. Rail's financial challenges and provide necessary infrastructure investment while preserving the regional integrity of the railway." That was the advice of 27 communities. That is what I've been working on to deliver, because those communities know what they need.

J. Kwan: B.C. Rail's financial difficulty that she talks about means that B.C. Rail is profitable, that they're competitive and that they have a debt ratio that's manageable.

Here's another area that perhaps the minister should turn her attention to. The opposition has obtained B.C. Rail's internal customer survey, the survey results from May of this year. Let me quote from the survey. Here's what Janet Mitchell of Slocan Forest Products had to say: "I'm in an area where B.C. Rail is the only rail service, so I'm solely dependent upon them. I would have to say that B.C. Rail is very important to our community's economy and livelihood." Can the minister responsible for B.C. Rail tell Ms. Mitchell…?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order, please. Member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has the floor.

J. Kwan: If the members from the government side know that B.C. Rail is actually doing a great service for the community, then can the minister responsible for B.C. Rail tell Ms. Mitchell and British Columbians why she is breaking her party's promise to not sell a profitable company that provides a valuable service for her community?

Hon. J. Reid: I'm not sure if these members actually talk to shippers at all, but I have been talking to shippers. For the last two years I've been talking to the customers that are dependent on B.C. Rail, which are dependent because transportation is their highest cost after raw materials. It is absolutely integral to them that they have a sustainable rail network. They are shipping product by road that they'd prefer to ship by rail if the cars were available, if the rates were competitive, if the service was available. That's what needs to be there for the shippers. It is the shippers that we've been working with for the last year on a shippers council, and they have been saying that these are the improvements they need to keep their industries competitive.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has a supplementary question.

J. Kwan: If the minister doesn't want to listen to what Slocan is telling B.C. Rail, maybe she'll listen to…

J. Kwan: …Perry Pellerin of Louis Dreyfus Canada, a major customer of B.C. Rail. Asked for one recommendation Louis Dreyfus would make to B.C. Rail, Mr. Pellerin said: "Remain on present course. B.C. Rail is becoming a force in price, service and overall reliability." Terry Lynchfield from Nexen, a global energy company says: "Avoid letting CN buy you." These are the comments of B.C. Rail customers.

We have a profitable company with a manageable debt load getting good reviews from its customers. Why will the minister not listen to the customers? Why won't the minister just admit that the only reason she's selling B.C. Rail and breaking her party's promise is to help get the Minister of Finance out of the fiscal jam he has put himself into?

Hon. J. Reid: It's unfortunate these members are not remembering their own actions from the past, the actions that created a greater debt load for B.C. Rail — that took on other aspects of business that had been bringing B.C. Rail down.

It's over this last year that we have focused the business of B.C. Rail on the freight side, that we have been focusing the attention on delivering the freight service with the understanding and the knowledge that the customers needed improved service. If the member actually wanted a quote from that survey, the vast majority of respondents said they wanted improved service in a number of areas. They needed the competitive rates; they needed more cars; they need better response time. That is, indeed, what we believe needs to be delivered.

T. Bhullar: My question is to the minister responsible for residential strata councils. While in the private practice of law, I had several individuals who were strata owners meet with me regarding disputes with their strata councils. In fact, one is a member of this House. I'm not, because of client confidentiality, going to reveal that it was the Minister for Deregulation.

Recently I had two separate constituents approach my office over similar disputes. Strata councils can be overbearing and vexing at times. The only remedy now in the legislation is to appeal to the superior courts of the province, an expensive route. Has the minister given any thought to creating a quasi-judicial body to deal with the disputes between strata owners and strata councils?

Hon. G. Collins: As part of the ministry's deregulation initiative, as well as just updating our legislation, we have a workplan in the ministry to review virtually all the legislation that the ministry is responsible for. We've completed a certain amount of that. One of the pieces of legislation that is on the workplan to be reviewed is the Strata Property Act. We will be reviewing that in the not too distant future.

I've received lots of written submissions, generally from constituents right across the province, with regard to positive but mostly negative implications of their experiences with the Strata Property Act and in some cases their strata councils. If the member has any ideas or input on how we might improve the legislation and how that works for people, we'd be glad to hear it, as we are glad to hear it from anyone who wants to contribute to that effort.

W. McMahon: My question today is to the Minister of Advanced Education. With the looming skills shortage in B.C. trades and an increasing demand for skilled workers, we are faced with the difficult task of bridging this gap. Students who would like to become certified in a trade are having to wait too long to receive the appropriate trades training. Can the Minister of Advanced Education tell trade workers and prospective students in my constituency what she's doing to address this issue?

Hon. S. Bond: We certainly recognize that there is a challenge as we provide enough skilled and trained workers in the province. We have an aggressive strategy in place which recently saw the passing of the Industry Training Authority Act and the creation of the Industry Training Authority, where nine very skilled people from across the province will look at a 30 percent increase in training skilled workers in the province over the next three years.

In preparation for looking at a new system, we've just started a series of pilot projects around the province. That includes one in the Kootenay region, with centres in Cranbrook, Kimberley and Creston. In this very exciting and innovative program, we're going to look at an opportunity for students to look at training in two skill areas: mechanics and carpentry. They'll be able to gain dual credit both for secondary school and for college credits as well.

It's a great way to look at new training models, and we're awaiting the results as we create a new training system in British Columbia.

J. MacPhail: I don't think you're big enough. I'm just kidding. Come on. [Laughter.]

J. MacPhail: I don't want you to hurt yourself — fall on your head or anything.

I rise to table a petition by over 32,000 British Columbians. It's entitled Stop the sale of B.C. Rail! It's addressed to the hon. Members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The petitioners note that B.C. Rail is a profitable business, vital to the future economic prosperity of resource-dependent communities.

J. MacPhail: One prominent business person, and a signatory, says: "A lie is a lie is a lie."

B. Lekstrom: I have the honour to present a report from the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

"Your Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows: that the preamble to Bill Pr409, intituled Western Pentecostal Bible College Amendment Act, 2003, has been proved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading.

Bill Pr409 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. G. Collins: I call Committee of the Whole for consideration of Bill 63.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 63; J. Weisbeck in the chair.

L. Mayencourt: Section 32(1) allows the minister to enter into an agreement with the municipalities — like Surrey or Vancouver or what have you — for detention in a youth custody centre, and that detention is "chargeable to the municipality, on terms for reimbursement of expenses as may be mutually agreeable."

Hon. G. Hogg: This is a matter of when youths are picked up — late at night perhaps or at any point in

time — and for some reason the police believe they have to be held or retained in custody. This section refers to the Vancouver and Victoria areas, where we have facilities to hold those youths overnight. It is a municipal responsibility; however, the province provides the service and does not charge back to municipalities in those instances to do that.

So in Victoria, where we have a youth detention centre, we can actually hold the predetention. This is prior to the charge being laid but before being heard. The same applies to Vancouver, where we are able to provide pretrial detention for youths and on behalf of the municipalities in those areas.

L. Mayencourt: That's one of the concerns that would come up for the city of Vancouver with respect to who's going to pay the bill on this one, so I thank you very much for your answer.

J. Kwan: On section 32, I have one last question for the minister, and that is with regard to the detention agreements with municipalities. Is there any requirement under this act that these municipality centres, the lockups, be exclusively for youth?

Hon. G. Hogg: I'm assuming that's subsection (2). We just dealt with subsection (1). In subsection (2), where they're being held in local or municipal lockups, is there any requirement in this legislation that they be kept distinct and separate? That does not exist in this legislation, but that is part of the federal legislation, so it is covered within the federal legislation requiring the separation of youth from adults.

J. Kwan: Will the municipal detention centres be expected, under section 32, to provide addiction services? I know we're debating 33, and 33 establishes that it is an offence to possess contraband in a custody centre. With municipal centres, would they be expected to provide addiction services for youth that are detained there?

Hon. G. Hogg: This, again, is a municipal responsibility. The amount of time they're held in local lockup is usually six or eight or maybe ten hours — so it's very, very brief — before they go before a court and then are remanded. This is all pretrial detention, so this is detention prior to them proceeding with this. Once they've been to court and remanded, then they go into a provincial facility, which would be for a longer period of time. These would be very brief periods of time.

J. Kwan: If a drug-addicted youth who's been ordered by the courts to go through treatment is brought to the centre…. In that instance, even for that brief period of time, would that youth be brought into the municipal detention centres, or would the youth be brought into provincial custody centres and go through the treatment available to the individual?

Hon. G. Hogg: The only time I could envision them being held in that local lockup after appearing before the courts would be while they await pickup from the sheriffs to be moved to a youth facility. That again would be a very brief period of time, a matter of a few hours. Once they move to the provincial facility, if they're on remand and coming back before the courts quite regularly, they'd probably be involved in a general program of some sort.

It's once they get sentenced that the state has authority and responsibility for developing programs for them. Prior to them being found guilty, on a remand status, it would primarily be voluntary programs that they chose to be a part of, because they're assumed to be innocent at that point.

J. Kwan: Section 34 deals with the powers of seizure and disposition of things seized. Are these broader powers or narrower powers or the same as under the previous provincial statutes?

Hon. G. Hogg: Previously the powers of seizure were contained in regulation rather than in statute, so we've actually just taken exactly the same provisions which were in the statute and moved them into the legislation so they're more explicit.

J. Kwan: Section 34(7) indicates that if the material seized is actually legal outside the centre, the director may keep it in a secure place to be returned upon release or may allow for the youth to make arrangements for disposal or safekeeping. The material envisioned would be, perhaps, things like cigarettes or liquor, for example. Could the minister please advise what other options exist for the staff to do with this material?

Hon. G. Hogg: I understand the question to be: what other options does a staff member have if they have an object or item which may be legal? Rather than returning it to the individual or an accomplice or a friend of the individual, what other options do they have? Am I correct in interpreting the question?

Well, any items such as that would have to be covered by policy of the institution. An example of that may be a knife. The policy might dictate that rather than returning the knife to the individual, after consultation with the individual's probation officer or social worker, there would be a determination that it would not be returned. It may be returned to the social worker or probation officer to make some provisions for that to occur in the future.

J. Kwan: What about things like cigarettes or liquor, as an example? What would happen to items like that?

Hon. G. Hogg: As a matter of course, cigarettes are returned, but liquor would be unlawful, as these individuals are under the age of 19 — so not legal to drink.

J. Kwan: When the term "legal" is used, we're not necessarily talking about illegal substances. We're just talking about any item the individual may have that might be deemed to be not legal, such as liquor, because of the age parameter. Those items would be seized. Am I correct?

J. Kwan: Section 35 deals with the reintegration of leave and day absences. This is, as I understand, a reworked version of the language from section 30 of the Correction Act. Am I correct in understanding that? If so, is there anything substantive in terms of changes in comparison to the Correction Act?

J. Kwan: Section 36 deals with the wages for employment. This section establishes how a youth's wages are to be managed. There are similar provisions under the Correction Act. Can the minister outline if there are any changes in this bill with respect to this provision?

Hon. G. Hogg: There are only minor changes here — a change in reference from minister to provincial director, changes in decision-making authority that are consistent with other decision-making authorities which are under the act. They are inconsequential changes.

J. Kwan: Section 37 deals with the inspection of youth custody centres. This section appears to be expanded from the Correction Act provisions. What changes will there be from the manner in which inspections are currently carried out under Bill 63?

Hon. G. Hogg: The inspections of youth custody centres now are carried out under the Ministry of Solicitor General. When the last government transferred youth custody and created the Ministry for Children and Families, they left the inspection division for youth custody facilities with the Solicitor General's ministry. This will now be moving it into the Ministry of Children and Family Development so that it can have a consistent, coordinated, integrated focus on the best interests of children. That will also allow us to move into accreditation processes. It is our intent to have our youth custody facilities accredited by international accrediting agencies. In fact, we will be the first youth custody centres in North America to go through this process of accreditation.

By having the inspection of standards division as part of the ministry, we're able to have them focus specifically on the differences that exist between a youth facility and an adult facility, and be cognizant of and sensitive to those appropriate differences in the operation of a facility.

J. Kwan: The key change, it would appear to me, would involve the people who carry out the inspections. Yet the procedures and the manner in which the inspections are conducted…. Is it safe to assume that the procedures would remain the same? Could the minister please advise.

Hon. G. Hogg: They'll be very similar but not exactly the same. We'll also be moving some focus to key outcome measures so we can start looking at outcomes as youths move out of the facilities. Those are not part of the criteria that are generally looked at currently in the model handled under the Solicitor General's ministry. We think there are some different foci that should exist with youth. The inspection or the technical part of that will remain largely the same. However, we'll also be adding to that and augmenting it with such things as outcomes for youth.

J. Kwan: Could the minister give some examples of what key outcome measures might involve?

Hon. G. Hogg: Some examples would be the injuries that occur within the facility, safety of youth, safety of staff, WCB claims and those types of initiatives that are collected now but not included in an inspection part. Those are things we would include in part of the inspections and standards responsibilities so that we would be able to get a broader picture of what measures there are that look at the outcomes of the safety of staff and residents within these facilities.

J. Kwan: So these outcome measures centre on safety issues for staff and for the youth who are staying at the centre. Am I correct in understanding that, then, or are there other areas these outcome measures would include?

Hon. G. Hogg: They would also include the safety of the public, so one of the outcome measures would be escapes. We would be looking at the residents, the staff and the public — our community at large.

J. Kwan: On section 38, which deals with investigations, what about the way in which investigations are carried out? Do they differ under this act versus what was in place previously?

Hon. G. Hogg: No, they're essentially the same. There's a little more flexibility that exists in that, but the structure and format is basically the same.

J. Kwan: When the minister says there is a little more flexibility, could he explain flexibility in that context?

Hon. G. Hogg: Currently the investigation, inspection and standards office does those investigations. The flexibility is now that under these provisions, the minister can ask anyone to do that investigation. You can have an independent person come in. It gives us that type of flexibility in terms of contracting for an investigation.

J. Kwan: But the premise for conducting the investigation in terms of protections of rights, etc., will remain in place, and those remain unchanged.

J. Kwan: Section 39, "Offence of obstructing inspections and investigations" — is this a new offence?

J. Kwan: Could the minister explain how this new offence came about? Were there concrete examples where there were concerns raised — therefore the creation of this new offence?

Hon. G. Hogg: This is based on legal advice. As an example, if there was a staff member in a facility, an inspection were to take place and the employee was found to be at fault in some measure, then as the employer we could take action against that employee through the processes of progressive discipline. However, if we have a contractor coming into the facility, we don't have the same flexibility. This section gives us an opportunity to actually do investigations of a contractor who will be providing services within a facility and to take some actions with respect to that.

It in fact also relates back to the previous question the member asked around if we were to contract with an inspector to come in, if the inspector had done under contract something that was inappropriate in the institution, we need to have the ability to follow up and hold them accountable for their actions within the institution.

J. Kwan: I thought I heard earlier that the inspections would be done by the Ministry of Children and Family Development staff. I don't think I heard the minister say that the inspections would be done by contracted agencies. Am I wrong in understanding that? Would the minister clarify?

Hon. G. Hogg: These apply to investigations rather than specifically to inspections, but they may also apply to community facilities and community services as well. It's not necessarily limited to just institutional inspections. We also review and look at standards as they apply to community-based services.

J. Kwan: Have there been problems before? The question is: have there been problems before with respect to employees conducting their work and perhaps violating or misconducting themselves in some way that would therefore require a look at imposing a measure of an offence or disciplinary actions? Have there been problems before?

Hon. G. Hogg: We do not know of any specific example where a person has obstructed, impeded or refused to participate in that. It is simply a safeguard and a measure which has been recommended to us by legal counsel as we've reviewed this.

J. Kwan: Section 40 deals with when a person is at large without lawful excuse. Could the minister please advise on the language for this section — where the language came from and, in comparison to current practices, if there are any changes in terms of that comparison.

Hon. G. Hogg: The changes are substantially the same. The section adds a provision to clarify the authority to apprehend without warrant a youth who escapes from a youth custody centre. The amendment reinforces that police have the authority to apprehend a youth who escapes from a centre. It's substantially the same as it exists today. It's minor.

J. Kwan: So the provision to apprehend without a warrant has always been in place?

J. Kwan: Section 57 repeals the provisions from the Correction Act concerning contraband and trespassing. Could the minister please advise: what is the reason for these changes, and what are the effects?

Hon. G. Hogg: The sections of the Correction Act that were repealed are substituted by a section that

clarifies the provisions by relating to the possession of contraband and transmitting contraband in a correctional centre. It also is designed to clarify, and it makes the possession, delivery or receipt of contraband — as well as trespass on the grounds of a correctional centre — offences. This also clarifies and includes similar provisions found in section 18 of Correctional Centre Rules and Regulations. This, again, came as legal advice that this appear in this form.

J. Kwan: Section 78 references the Parental Responsibility Act. Could the minister please advise: how will Bill 63 affect that legislation?

Hon. G. Hogg: It has no substantive change at all. It is simply changing the wording to be consistent with the Parental Responsibility Act.

J. Kwan: Section 85 deals with the Victims of Crime Act, which changes the definition of justice personnel in the Victims of Crime Act to "persons working in positions designated by the Attorney General…." Could the minister please advise: why is the language so broad in this section?

Hon. G. Hogg: As the member points out, the section reads: "… striking out 'and personnel in the Court Services Branch, Criminal Justice Branch and Corrections Branch of the Ministry of Attorney General.'" Therefore, we are not currently, under the current legislation, including those youth justice workers who work within the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

So by adding: "…and substituting 'and persons working in positions designated by the Attorney General,'" we're able to have, through the Attorney General's designation, the appropriate appointment for those staff members who are within this ministry. So the creation of this ministry was not…. When it was created, they didn't have the appropriate pieces of legislation in place to support the staff working within these facilities. This corrects that.

J. Kwan: Section 87 deals with the Wildlife Act. Could the minister please advise how Bill 63 affects the Wildlife Act?

Hon. G. Hogg: This does not change any of the substantive activities or actions which were previously contained. It's simply an updating of the wording to make sure that the words now reflect the changes in the federal and the provincial legislation.

J. Kwan: Are there implications in this section that impact aboriginal youth, as an example? The reason why I ask specifically about aboriginal youth…. As the minister knows, Mr. Chair, many of the aboriginal youth would have wildlife hunting licences, etc. What are the implications there?

Hon. G. Hogg: This also applies to the recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions with respect to the Métis people. Subsection (13), which makes reference to a person who "does not hold a licence or limited entry hunting authorization or is exempted from holding one." So the same applications that would apply to adults, and the exemptions which were seen and granted under the Supreme Court of Canada decisions, apply in these as well. So youth are exempted just as adults would be in terms of the need for licences or any other provisions which adult aboriginal people would receive. It also flows to youth.

J. Kwan: In the case where there's a dispute…. Let me first ask this question: does the minister anticipate situations arising where there would be a dispute on the authority for the youth to continue his or her activities under the provisions of the Wildlife Act? Has the minister seen situations or does he foresee situations where there might be a conflict with respect to the allowance for that youth to continue to participate in their activities under the Wildlife Act?

Hon. G. Hogg: No, we're not aware of any situations of conflict that have arisen or that we're anticipating.

J. Kwan: In the event that there is, is there an appeal mechanism to resolve that conflict? What is the process?

Hon. G. Hogg: A possible scenario, I think, would be if an aboriginal youth charged under this section claimed to have the rights for exemption, yet there was a conflict because the arresting or enforcement officer said: "You do not have rights and have not established the aboriginal rights." The youth would then appear before a youth court, be represented by legal counsel in the youth court, would put that position forward to the youth court judge and would have all the rights that exist within due process of law to appeal that up the appellant process. They would have the jurisdiction and protection of the court system and representation for that at that point in time.

Hon. G. Hogg: I move that the committee rise and report conclusion of Bill 63 with amendment.

The purpose of this enabling legislation is to create the regulatory framework for the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to establish the heritage contract. Government's new energy plan promised a heritage contract to lock in the value of B.C. Hydro's existing generation assets for an extended period. The heritage contract will ensure that B.C. residents continue to enjoy among the lowest electricity rates in North America, which are regulated by the B.C. Utilities Commission and are cost-based.

The BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act also strengthens and secures continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and distribution assets. The act also has provisions to allow B.C. Hydro to carry on normal business in a lawful fashion. The government is committed to protecting the core assets of B.C. Hydro.

The desire of British Columbians to continue to benefit from the historic investments they have made in B.C. Hydro's core assets is enshrined in this legislation. B.C. has one of the lowest electricity rates in North America, and we consider that to be one of our economic advantages in attracting businesses and residents. This act enables government to establish through regulation a new structure for the cost of heritage electricity that recognizes the value of B.C. Hydro's existing assets.

In December, B.C. Hydro is expected to submit a rate application to the B.C. Utilities Commission. The heritage contract will form part of an integral part of the application to keep the rates as low as possible. The independent B.C. Utilities Commission will review B.C. Hydro's application and set electricity rates.

Included in Bill 85 is the repeal of the Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act, which dates from the mid-1980s. Some history is in order here. The act, with its restrictions, was imposed on B.C. Terasen arising from the sale in the 1980s of B.C. Hydro's lower mainland gas division to Inland Gas — then B.C. Gas and now Terasen. When B.C. Gas, now known as Terasen, was created in the 1980s, the government of the day designated the utility a special company under the Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act, part 2.

Under the act, a special company is subject to restrictions on certain corporate matters, including share ownership, composition of the board of directors and reporting requirements.

Terasen Inc. is the only B.C. company subject to these outdated restrictions. The original purpose of the designation was to ensure that ownership of the then newly created B.C. Gas utility was widely held and that it was not taken over by another company soon after it was created.

Fifteen years have passed. This is 2003, and none of those issues is of particular concern. Today, Terasen is fully established and a very successful company. The repeal will increase Terasen's access to investment dollars. All potential transactions of share ownership of more than 20 percent will remain subject to B.C. Utilities Commission approval. The change encourages utility investment through enhanced private sector participation in the energy sector. It supports government's ongoing commitment to streamlining regulations and cutting red tape. The repeal results in the elimination of 134 unnecessary regulatory requirements.

A point I want to stress is that the repeal in no way weakens government's commitment to continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and distribution assets. The purpose of the new BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act is to further strengthen and secure continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's core assets.

This government has explicitly repeated its commitment to protect the core assets of B.C. Hydro. This was a new-era promise, and we have followed through on our commitment. From before the election through the development of B.C.'s energy plan and including recent legislation, we have taken extraordinary steps to protect the assets that with Bill 85 continue — and I stress continue — to be owned by British Columbians. I look forward to passing this legislation and demonstrating our government's firm commitment to continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's core assets and a legacy of low-cost electricity.

I can only stress too much that this government, under the leadership of our Premier, has said from

long before the election and through the election…. I travelled this province when I released the energy plan in November 2002 to just about every community that asked me to come to their community and talk to them about it. We've written letters to almost every community. Every community in the province had the opportunity for input into the energy plan, and that input was respected and used. We had hundreds of people put into the energy plan their views on how B.C. Hydro should be understood in the province. We have done that.

I want to stress again that there are those out there who for their own frivolous reasons, their own political reasons and their own reasons to make people uneasy in British Columbia…. I find it rather reprehensible, actually, that people would go out there and say things like we're selling B.C. Hydro when we have — in every act that we've passed in this House since we came into office — put into place that the core assets remain with the public, with the people of B.C.

We want to maintain the lowest rates possible that we can in all of North America. Today we enjoy some of the lowest, and we want to continue that process. This act is to enable us to continue with the process of setting up this heritage act, which will protect those assets that B.C. Hydro has today, that we'll have in the future and that we'll have forever, as far as this government is concerned.

For the life of me, Mr. Speaker, and for you also…. I'm sure you wonder some days, after sitting in this House and listening to how many times we've said we would protect the core assets of B.C. Hydro, how many times we put it in legislation, how many times we've said it time and time again…. But there are those that want to fearmonger. There are those that want to misrepresent. There are those that want to dream in Technicolor. There are those that are so far out there it's unbelievable. There are those out there with a pedigree who are very much attached to the NDP, called Citizens for Public Power, that actually want to destroy British Columbia, I assume. That's shameful.

This government, I'm going to stress again, wants to maintain the lowest possible energy costs for every British Columbian. I can't say it strongly enough. How we do that is: we maintain the core assets of B.C. Hydro in public ownership. That means Fred and Martha in British Columbia own B.C. Hydro lock, stock and barrel. They will continue to own B.C. Hydro lock, stock and barrel as we move into the future.

B.C. Hydro also has to be allowed to do the business that a corporation its size should be able to do. The largest business in British Columbia by revenue, the third-largest utility in all of Canada has to be able to carry on its business in a businesslike fashion. This bill allows B.C. Hydro to carry on that business. We have made steps to ensure that we can continue trade into the Pacific Northwest so that $150 million to $200 million every year, which comes in from that lucrative trade, actually goes to the bottom line and actually keeps rates low in the province — contrary to what some people might want to say.

It will be interesting to listen — and I intend to listen intently — to what's said today and possibly tomorrow by members of this House about how they feel about the largest utility in British Columbia that's publicly owned and will continue to be publicly owned for the benefit of all British Columbians as we move forward. I will listen intently to what people have to say, and I'm going to criticize those that are way out in left field when they stand up and talk about B.C. Hydro.

P. Nettleton: Thanks for this opportunity to respond to Bill 85 in second reading.

I would really like to believe him when the Minister of Energy says the government is not privatizing B.C. Hydro. I hate to be the bogeyman or the scaremonger, as the minister refers to me. After all, I don't want to be going after something that's not there if what he says is true. I truly want to believe him. Perhaps the Minister of Energy and I got off on the wrong foot at the beginning of this issue. I wouldn't mind starting all over again.

I want to begin by assuring the minister that my bark is worse than my bite. I say: let bygones be bygones, and let's start afresh. In the words of the immortal Joan Rivers, I ask: "Can we talk?" Now that I've got that off my chest, where do we begin? It takes two to tango, but we seem to be dancing around each other. One of us appears to be doing the waltz. Can we talk?

This is the way I see it. Correct me if I'm wrong. In question period I ask the minister a question. He invariably responds with an evasive and unrelated answer. I always keep my question straightforward and relatively simple, so what is the problem here? It is either (a) that the minister is being evasive, or (b) I'm not making myself clear. I tossed a coin, and lo and behold, the answer is (a) — heads. It is the minister who is being evasive — no surprise.

In the face of such scientific evidence I am left with no other option except to ask myself: why is he being so evasive? Is everyone following this train of thought, or should I speak slower? Good, I'll continue. The minister being evasive can only mean one thing. What do you think that can be, boys or girls? By George, you've got it. The minister has something to hide. Perish the thought that he doesn't know the answer — that he's merely the messenger.

Now that we've established that the minister has something to hide on Hydro, what could that something be? The minister could stop all this speculation by offering up the evidence that will put the lie to the innuendo that there is a secret plot afoot to privatize B.C. Hydro. Know the truth and the truth shall set you free, Mr. Minister. Say the truth. Blurt it out, and it will be good for your soul. The same goes for me. A good heart-to-heart talk is what we need. That's all we've been asking — honest communication, for me and four million other British Columbians.

But the minister keeps us guessing, and I'm guessing that there is more to Bill 85 than meets the eye. But

are you going to tell us? No. So we have to figure that everything is the opposite of what you say. Is that fair? No, it's not fair. Is that right? You bet it's right. Convince me otherwise by telling me why Bill 85 repeals the Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act. Could it be that the privatization act did not go far enough? It was too restrictive for this government's plans in some areas, so they decided the least controversial way to change it was to repeal it altogether. Also, could it be that by adding the following proviso to Bill 85 — that the generation, storage, transmission and distribution assets of B.C. Hydro are not to be sold or disposed of unless — and I repeat this proviso: unless…? Those assets are no longer fit for purpose, are no longer used or useful, or are to be replaced with assets that fulfil a similar function…? That's a strange new twist.

The minister, when asked, "What is the intention of this proviso?" glibly answered that the exceptions had been included to ensure that Hydro can sell off outdated equipment. Since when, in the history of our province, has a clause been deemed necessary to enable the government to sell off B.C. Hydro core generation, storage, transmission and distribution assets? This government thinks it needs it, I guess.

What else did the minister tell us about this proviso, this clause? Well, he repeated his timeworn mantra that core assets can't be sold. All the dams and generation facilities will be listed, and they will not be sold. That would be encouraging if that weren't just half of the sentence in Bill 85.

The minister continues his answer as if the clause is separate from the list of now-endangered core assets. That other clause, he says, is only for Hydro to be able to carry on the business. Yes, Mr. Minister, someone is giving British Columbians the business. Excuse me; I digress. Back to the minister's answer. That other clause is only for Hydro to be able to carry on the business. If we don't do that, he continued, they — that is, Hydro — would be stuck with a 2003 truck forever and would have to come back to cabinet for approval to sell it. That's all the clause is there for. Wow. We wouldn't want cabinet to have to handle that. They are not used car salesmen, for gosh sakes.

Mr. Minister, since when has Hydro operated grid capacity power generation, storage transmission and distribution out of the back of a truck, even a 2003 model? Ever? Never? Since we are on the subject of giving the people of B.C. the business, I note that the Minister of Energy states in Monday's news release that under this contract, Bill 85, British Columbians will continue to enjoy electricity rates that are the lowest in North America.

I'm glad he acknowledges that the rates were low — past tense — but we are all unsure about the future, especially since new Hydro CEO Bob Elton and former CEO Larry Bell have already announced rate increases of up to 21 percent over four years or 65 percent over ten years, and that doesn't factor in the prospect of unforeseen circumstances or the looming precipice of the government's present action to officially join the western U.S. electric grid through RTO West and become a part of the American deregulated system.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but could it be that much of what is in Bill 85 greases the wheels in British Columbia for a smoother deregulated slide into RTO West?

There I go again, supplying possible answers for the secretive minister — or rather, the skulking and secretive government. The minister's news release on Bill 85 further states that this legislation before us also removes outdated restrictions that have acted as a deterrent to investment in Terasen Inc. and Terasen Gas Inc.

Such all-encompassing and unexplained phrases as "outdated restrictions" are very problematic to fly-on-the-wall fearmongers and whistle-blowers such as myself. I'm not proud of the fact that some call me a whistle-blower, but this government has had a part in making me what I am. I guess it's that old nature-or-nurture thing.

Back to the topic at hand: is the government privatizing B.C. Hydro or not? And if so, is Bill 85 part of that ongoing process or not? I strongly believe it is on both counts, but I do invite the Minister of Energy or the Premier to prove me wrong, if they have real evidence to the contrary. I'm willing to hear what they have to say, but it has to correspond to the questions asked as well as make sense to the average British Columbian. Until that time, I will continue on in my role as the official bogeymen on the B.C. Hydro privatization issue.

B. Kerr: I'm going to rise in the House to support this bill. I'm not going to speak too long, because I know there are a number of people that also want to support it.

I can tell you that if I had a dollar for every e-mail I got from people telling me to not privatize B.C. Hydro, I could retire from politics a wealthy person. It's sad that this group, concerned citizens for public hydro, the proxy of the NDP, are putting this scaremongering tactic out there. We have said on numerous occasions that we're not going to privatize B.C. Hydro. We have it in our New Era document. The minister said it over and over and over again, and I don't know how many times we have to stress that we are not selling B.C. Hydro.

The member for Prince George–Omineca mentioned: why would we put a section in the act that says we may have to sell some of the assets? Probably we have to do that — and again, I'm speculating — just to overcome the arguments they're placing that we are going to sell the assets. We have to have something in there, because people are coming at us and saying: "You can't sell a truck; you can't sell this asset; you can't sell that asset." Assets do depreciate, and sometimes they serve no useful purpose. Common business sense says that we have to get rid of those assets and replace them with newer assets. I suspect the minister put it in there to avoid any confusion, and maybe that can be

brought up at committee stage. Certainly, I agree with it being in there, and certainly I agree with the fact about not privatizing B.C. Hydro.

I'd like to just discuss the heritage aspect of this act, which is really what it's all about. It's about protecting the hydro resources we have right now, which are at a very low rate because we're using hydroelectricity from dams. Any new generation is going to cost more money to develop. Clearly, it's going to cost a lot more dollars to develop generation now than what it cost in the 1950s and 1960s when these dams were built, and we have to take that into consideration.

What I really like about this is the fact that we're blending the low costs with the higher costs of producing electricity, so we come up with a blended cost at a lower rate. This is unusual, from a business perspective. As a retailer, I can tell you what we do in the retail business — or what anybody in the retail business does when they have a price change because they bring in their new stock and the costs come in higher. They have a computer program, and they change their pricing, because everything is scanned. All the inventory, whether it's inventory that cost them less in the past, is now bumped up to the newer price.

I have to admit that some of my constituents were concerned about that. They were saying, "We understand that bringing on new energy" — I won't call it hydro, because they're not all hydro energy sources — "is going to cost more money, but are you going to charge us at the higher rate or the lower rate?" I'm glad to see we're going to blend those payments and come in at the lowest possible rate, so Hydro can still bring in its efficient funds to regenerate itself and replace its assets and give us the best possible electricity we need.

Also, the importance with hydro here, by coming on with new generating capacity, is the fact that they're going to have green…. A good portion of the energy will be green energy, and I think that's a good thing for British Columbia, and it's certainly a good thing for the Island.

In this act they have a provision for Terasen, which is a new name for B.C. Gas. I can tell you a funny story there. I had a constituent phone me up, of course, criticizing us for selling off B.C. Hydro, which we weren't going to do. She also criticized us because we were going to sell off B.C. Gas, which is a very good company. I answer all my e-mails, so I e-mailed her back, telling her we're not going to sell B.C. Hydro, that it will still stay in public hands — that all the core assets will stay in public hands. I had to inform her that, in fact, B.C. Gas is a separate, private company right now, and if she did want to continue to own it, she could go on the Toronto Stock Exchange. I gave her the symbol and said it was $33, and she could go and buy it. I only wish I had followed my own advice. I looked today, and I see it's trading at $46 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, but it was $33 when I told her about that. Had she followed my advice, she would have done quite well. But, you know, that's what happens on the stock exchange.

We are getting a heritage price, which I think is an excellent idea. We're not privatizing B.C. Hydro. We've set it up there, and we're setting off and setting free B.C. Gas now where they can act like a regular company to enhance the value to shareholders and continue to provide good service.

I should say that, again, the member for Prince George–Omineca was throwing out these scare tactics: there's going to be a 65 percent increase in rates and a 21 percent increase in rates. Well, we don't know what the increase in rates will be. There will probably be an increase in rates because it costs more money to bring energy to serve four million people in British Columbia instead of three million people or two million people that were here 15 years ago. But whatever the increase in rate is, if there is one, it will have to be done in an open, transparent and accountable manner through the B.C. Utilities Commission. It won't be done in the secrecy of cabinet. The public will have an opportunity to discuss this in the B.C. Utilities Commission hearings. Whatever happens, it will be done in an open and transparent manner, and I think that's excellent as opposed to the past when things were done in secret and you could get into a Raiwind situation, which was a company set up by B.C. Hydro for its own insiders and turned out to be about a $100 million debacle.

To allay the fears of the people, we are not deregulating B.C. Hydro; we're, in fact, regulating B.C. Hydro. It is now going to have to go through the B.C. Utilities Commission for any change in rates. I think that's an excellent idea. All in all, what we're doing with B.C. Hydro is a good-news story for British Columbia, and it's going to help British Columbia.

There's one item here…. I have to say that I do have one concern on this bill. Maybe it isn't in this bill; maybe it should be in another bill. I guess I'm concerned about the protection of the rates for Vancouver Island, which is where my riding is. I'll talk in terms of postage-stamping. I wish there was something we could do with regard to postage-stamping so we knew there would be one rate for all of British Columbia. We'd take that blended rate, and everybody would have the same rate so it wouldn't cost you more, depending on what large centre you lived in. That would protect Vancouver Island's rates. As you know, the power now has to be brought across from the mainland, or it will have to be through new generation on the Island.

Having said that, I'm happy to stand to support this bill, and I'll be voting in favour of this bill when the time comes.

J. MacPhail: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to my colleagues for their allowing me to speak at this moment. I am going to talk to Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act.

I just want to outline a bit of a history here about why we are where we are. It was almost one year ago that the Minister of Energy and Mines and petroleum resources

went public with his National Public Relations–scripted energy plan for B.C. The number one policy action in that report was: "A legislated heritage contract to preserve the benefits of B.C. Hydro's existing generation." Then, when the minister introduced this bill on Monday, he made specific note of this also, when he said: "The energy plan's first policy action is a legislative heritage contract to preserve B.C.'s low-cost energy advantage." He then went on to call this bill "enabling legislation to create the regulatory framework to establish the heritage contract."

In his press release issued on Monday, the minister notes that the B.C. Utilities Commission report is now in the hands of cabinet, where it's being reviewed, and it's quite a report. The title alone is cause to pause. Here's the title: In the Matter of British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority and an Inquiry into a Heritage Contract for British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority's Existing Generation Resources and Regarding Stepped Rates and Transmission Access — Report and Recommendations. Phew, a full page just for the title.

For ease, I'm just going to call it the report. Recommendation 1 in the report is "that the heritage contract attached as appendix B be legislated as contemplated in the energy plan…." But of course even though the government says it's legislating the heritage contract, and even though the report of the B.C. Utilities Commission says that they should legislate the contract, and even though the energy plan said that it should legislate a heritage contract, that's really not what we're doing today at all. In fact, we're not legislating a heritage contract at all. We don't have that before us. What we do have, as is typical with this government, is legislation that enables the cabinet to establish the heritage contract by regulation, just as we see everything being done by this government. They try to tell people they're legislating out front in an open and accountable way, but really they're doing it behind closed doors.

Now, some — in fact, I would suspect every single Liberal MLA — will see this as pettiness and a minor point, and they'll stand up and berate alternatively the Leader of the Opposition or the member for Vancouver-Hastings. They'll spend all their time berating me making this silly little point, as they would call it. But actually that point is emblematic of how this government really does not want the light shone on any of its activities.

Yesterday it was the Columbia Basin Trust being completely appointed by order-in-council from Victoria. Today it's the heritage contract being done not in legislation, as was promised and as was demanded, but in regulation. The promise of openness and transparency becomes more closed and more clouded with each passing day of this government.

There is nothing wrong, actually, with the concept of a heritage contract, although it is somewhat superfluous, and for a government bent on cutting red tape and redundancy, it really is more of an opportunity for speech-making than continuing to provide the lowest electricity rates in the country. With or without this contract, the low cost of Hydro's generation facilities would have to be used to offset the higher cost of all new generation that this government has decided must come from the private sector. So it is window dressing. It would have occurred anyway.

The B.C. Utilities Commission would have had to take the cheaper power into account in establishing its rates. The B.C. Utilities Commission would have it no other way. It is the B.C. Utilities Commission that regulates B.C. Hydro. So this is fluff, and in fact it's clouding fluff. It's fluff that clouds the fact that the government is reneging on its own energy plan report that calls for a legislated heritage contract that could be debated in this Legislature, and they'll do it behind closed doors.

In a sense, the minister with his enabling legislation is in fact doing what he condemned the previous government for. He used to stand up every day — actually, he still does it — and condemn the previous government for not listening to the B.C. Utilities Commission and for doing things by regulation, by cabinet. In fact, that's exactly what he's legislating today — exactly the same thing.

I know it's a new standard that this government likes to set. It's their only defence: "Hey, we're no worse than the NDP." I love it. That's their new defence for everything, and today is a perfect example of this. What this minister used to accuse the previous administration of doing, he is now doing himself. He is institutionalizing by legislation the role of cabinet to make the determination of electricity rates. It is like this government wants to take credit for what nature has endowed this province with — thousands of rivers, steep canyons and plenty of precipitation — because that is what the heritage contract is all about.

The B.C. Utilities Commission report was the result of a thorough process. It contains 26 recommendations. If this government were truly committed to the independence and expertise of the B.C. Utilities Commission, it would adopt all of them and would start with recommendation No. 1 and bring in a legislated heritage contract. I guess the B.C. Utilities Commission actually thought the minister was speaking his mind when he said they weren't going to do anything behind closed doors in cabinet, but it turns out that what the minister's doing is now legislating, for the first time ever, his right and his government's right to do everything behind closed doors and to do nothing out in the open.

It would be of interest to see what the cabinet is going to do with the other two dozen or more recommendations of the B.C. Utilities Commission report. We will no doubt hear a great deal this afternoon about how this government is not privatizing the core assets of B.C. Hydro. Unfortunately, like B.C. Rail, it will sound a lot like the backbench doth protest too much. What little credibility this government has on the issue of privatization will again be put to the test. That credibility is not helped by the comments of the Minister of Energy on that section of this bill that deals with what assets can and cannot be sold by Hydro.

To suggest that Hydro ever needed the approval of cabinet to sell off its used vehicles is to pander to ignorance and substitute hyperbole for reasoned explanation. That minister knows full well that was never the situation — ever. He uses hyperbole and misleads on using examples such as that. We actually don't know what he means when he talks about the change in this legislation, because he was using an erroneous, false example from the past that never existed to justify the change he's bringing in. We have no idea what exactly is the intent of this legislation. In fact, that kind of silliness does not bolster the minister's case. In fact, I would assert it makes his assurances that Hydro is not for sale even less believable.

B.C. Hydro and Power Authority is an important part of our heritage. The low electricity rates we have enjoyed for two generations have helped build this province. That great natural heritage remains the backbone of our economic future. It has performed that role as a Crown corporation owned by all British Columbians for the benefit of all British Columbians. If British Columbians are going to continue to have faith in that corporation and in the government that directs it, the minister must step out from behind his rhetoric, ditch the National Public Relations script and demonstrate a real commitment to keeping Hydro in public hands. Maybe he should use facts to justify these changes and not false, misleading examples that never existed. Maybe then he could lay some claim to having ensured B.C. Hydro's legacy.

Hon. S. Bond: I am pleased today to stand in the House and speak to Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act.

You know, it never fails to amaze me how we can stand and read a piece of legislation, and yet in this House we continue to have those people who would have us believe that what we read on the paper and what we continue to say and what the Minister of Energy and Mines continues to say in the province is somehow not accurate. It's absolutely incredible to me.

The BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act fulfils our commitment to secure — let's repeat that: to secure — public ownership of B.C. Hydro's historic low-cost electrical generation assets. This contract will essentially make sure electricity rates are kept as low as possible for British Columbians.

We've heard a lot of comment in the last hour or so about our energy plan. I want to be able to tell you some of the good news that's happening as a result of a progressive, exciting energy plan that was created by this government to ensure that we will maintain low electricity rates, public ownership of B.C. Hydro, a secure supply of energy and — imagine that — increased public opportunities and private opportunities. You know, there has been no significant new generation established in British Columbia for almost 25 years. We need to bring new power into the system to meet growing demand.

I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that I come from a constituency that produces power. Alternative energy potential is all around us in Prince George–Mount Robson. We have the ideal conditions to produce electricity in a clean and green manner. Just recently my colleague from Prince George North and I were delighted to celebrate an announcement between Power Smart and Canfor. Through an amazing Power Smart partnership, Canfor will save enough electricity — hear this — to power 39,000 homes in our province. Now, I think that's the direct result of an energy policy that addresses the kinds of issues we need to be addressing in this province.

It is time we stood up and put to rest the nonsense that's being contributed by several members of this House. It's simply not true; it is simply not accurate. It's time we celebrated an energy policy that reflects the needs of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I want very briefly to introduce you to some of the people in my constituency who are going to take advantage of an energy policy that respects and celebrates independent power production in this province. I want to introduce you to Duke Peterson, because Mr. Peterson is on the leading edge of providing alternative power in this province. Eleven years ago he started selling electricity to B.C. Hydro from his run-of-the-river turbine on East Twin Creek in the Robson Valley.

By definition, a run-of-the-river hydro project effectively borrows water from a fast-flowing, steep portion of a stream and carries it in a pipe to a powerhouse downstream, where it is used to propel turbines, creating electricity. The water is then returned to its normal flow in the creek.

Since that time, he has added Hystad Creek. He is a veteran of eco-energy. Peterson's two power sites sell electricity directly onto the B.C. Hydro grid, supplying as much as eight megawatts between them during peak flows.

Green hydro projects, those projects that we are encouraging and endorsing and celebrating as a government, provide a sustainable energy source with minimal impact on the environment. In order to qualify as a green hydro project, the project must meet stringent guidelines laid out by both government and B.C. Hydro. These strict guidelines ensure that environmental and social issues are addressed and public resources are used in a responsible manner.

I want you to know that our energy policy and our support of independent power producers are having an incredible impact in my constituency. Just recently I was pleased to be able to bring the Minister of Energy and Mines to Prince George to meet with a number of independent power producers from the Robson Valley for a series of meetings that my colleague the member for Prince George North and I knew was important for the constituents we serve. In that meeting we talked about the kinds of potential we have in Prince George–Mount Robson. We talked about ways of continuing to streamline and use our resources efficiently.

All of those discussions and the support for independent power production are reflected in our energy

policy. We think that's absolutely great news in Prince George–Mount Robson, and it's certainly great news for British Columbia.

I want to say today that as we look at the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act, we are securing continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and distribution assets. We remain committed to protecting the investments of British Columbia that we have made in B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and distribution assets. I will be supporting this bill.

L. Mayencourt: It's a great privilege for me to be able to stand here and speak in favour of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. I was listening to the Leader of the Opposition just a few moments ago. We don't often agree on things, but I'll tell you, there's one thing I kind of agree with her on: that's a heck of a title for a bill.

With the introduction of Bill 85, our government has brought forward enabling legislation that will create the regulatory framework needed to establish the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. This heritage contract was promised in our policy action No. 1 of the energy plan to secure public ownership of B.C. Hydro's historic low-cost generation assets. The heritage contract will essentially lock in the value of existing low-cost generation assets for British Columbia for an extended period of time.

This is good and important information, but more than this, B.C. Hydro is a part of our heritage. It holds deep emotional meaning for many people who live in British Columbia, because B.C. Hydro was a foundational piece of B.C.'s initial growth and development.

My family moved to British Columbia in 1956; I was just a small child at that point. I can remember growing up in British Columbia with my father always talking with great pride about this province, always talking about what a great place it was to live. They'd moved from Manitoba, which is also a nice province, but this was different. This was a province that was blessed with natural resources. This was a province that had a can-do kind of attitude. This was a province that was building and growing under the leadership of W.A.C. Bennett.

I'm sure my colleagues in the House are well aware of B.C. Hydro's history, but let me take this opportunity to put some highlights on the record. In 1860 the founding of the Victoria Gas Co. started the B.C. Hydro legacy. Almost 25 years later, Robert McMicking turned on the very first commercial lights in this country right here in Victoria. McMicking and a group of local investors then incorporated the Victoria Electric Illuminating Co., and that was the dawn of the electric age in British Columbia. The coast's very first hydroelectric plant was built near Victoria in 1898.

We fast-forward to 1945, when the provincial government created the B.C. Power Commission. This public sector entity sought to acquire small utilities, extending electrical service in rural and isolated areas throughout beautiful British Columbia. Over the years existing generation plants and transmission facilities were modernized and new systems were built. By 1961, a company known as B.C. Electric served well over 200 communities.

The late fifties and early sixties saw an era of unprecedented growth in our province. To power the needs of this growth and enable the development of the Peace River and Columbia River hydroelectric generation projects, the provincial government — under the leadership of W.A.C. Bennett — bought B.C. Electric. Around a year later, the provincial government created a new Crown corporation when they merged the Power Commission and B.C. Electric to create the entity British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. Everybody in this House and most people in this province know that entity as B.C. Hydro.

This was a visionary move. It brought together the determination of our people from every part of this province. It brought together all of our political leaders to bring about great change in British Columbia, to facilitate the great growth and development that have made this province so strong. Many members in this House will remember the glory days of the sixties and seventies, which would see B.C. Hydro pursue some of the most ambitious hydroelectric projects in the world. In the eighties B.C. Hydro, consistent with industry trends and best practices, shifted its focus from the creation of new generation facilities to maximizing existing ones. In 1989 B.C. Hydro introduced a very successful and very high profile energy consumption reduction plan known as Power Smart, which was introduced to British Columbia in that year.

I just want to reflect for a moment on the Power Smart program, because there are some important things that have come as a result of the work of those good, hard-working people at B.C. Hydro. Do you know that a compact fluorescent bulb uses approximately 75 percent less energy and lasts eight times as long as a conventional bulb? A water-saving shower head can save up to 15 percent of a home's hot water consumption. Lowering the temperature on your thermostat just a couple of degrees overnight or when you're not at home can save up to 5 or 10 percent of your average energy bill. Those are savings that save us money, but they also allow us to make wise use of what power we have in British Columbia. But I digress.

B.C. Hydro continues to provide high value. It continues to provide reliable power that fuels our homes, our businesses. More importantly, it fuels economic growth in this province. In fact, B.C. Hydro is one of the largest electric utilities in Canada. It serves 1.6 million residences in British Columbia.

Our very own B.C. Hydro endeavours to provide energy solutions in environmentally and socially responsible ways by balancing our province's energy needs with environmental concerns. Some of our most successful new projects are ones that are providing citizens with environmentally sound alternatives to energy production, like the Holberg wind energy pro-

The Minister of Advanced Education just a few minutes ago explained what run-of-river means, the way you take the downward slope of a stream or river and use it to maximize hydroelectric power generation out of that. The Forrest Kerr run-of-river hydroelectric project is also important because it does something really great. It opens up the northern part of our province.

You know, when we were talking a little earlier…. I was talking to the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine. This particular power project is just north of Stewart. If you look at the map of British Columbia, Stewart is up in the top left-hand corner, if you will, just alongside Alaska. It's the site of a couple of mines: the Kemess mine and the Eskay mine, which is a copper and gold mine. You know, that area of the province is known by miners as the golden triangle.

Mining needs a couple of really good things to make mining work. It needs power; it needs electricity. By opening up the opportunity for the Forrest Kerr run-of-river hydroelectric project, we're actually generating power just north of Stewart. We have the potential to feed the mines that are up there and, potentially, other mines. Now, the other portion that mines need in order to be effective and useful is transportation. That's another thing our government has really put its mind to. We've really got very aggressive and responsible plans to expand the transportation corridors in British Columbia. Opening up the golden triangle right now with this hydroelectric plant is very, very important to that part of the province.

B.C. Hydro has constructed a world-class integrated hydroelectric system. It's capable of generating almost 12,000 megawatts of electricity. Almost 90 percent of the electricity in this province is created from hydroelectric dams and generating stations. This electricity is delivered safely and reliably to customers across British Columbia and through some 72,000 kilometres of publicly owned transmission lines.

Because of B.C. Hydro's world-class employees and an efficient and reliable system, British Columbians continue to enjoy some of the lowest electricity rates anywhere in the world. British Columbia continues to enjoy the lowest electricity rates of nearly anywhere else in the world, just like it did in 1956 when my dad and my mom came to British Columbia, and just like it did in 1960 when B.C. Hydro was formed. You know, building on past successes, B.C. Hydro is now positioning itself to continue to deliver this same value to the ratepayer and the shareholders of B.C. Hydro.

Who are the shareholders of B.C. Hydro? Well, as the Minister of Energy and Mines stated, they are the Freds and Marthas of the world. They are, in my case, the Wilmas and the Marcels; they are, in the case of other members, their moms and their dads. These people own B.C. Hydro, and B.C. Hydro has an obligation to make money for those people so that it can provide economical power to them as well as to the industries we have in this province.

Now B.C. Hydro is positioning itself to continue to deliver that value to all British Columbians under a variety of economic and market and restructuring scenarios. This heritage contract, Bill 85, shows that this government is committed to maintaining low electricity rates; public ownership of B.C. Hydro; a secure, reliable supply of energy; more private sector opportunities, environmental responsibilities and accountability; and a guarantee of no — no — nuclear generation in British Columbia.

We listened to the opposition. We listened to the member for Prince George–Omineca go on about how this is about privatizing and about fearmongering and how much he wished he wasn't doing it. Well, I wish he would stop. I wish he would stop and reflect on this.

You know, just a few minutes ago we had a stunning statement from the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Vancouver-Hastings. It was a stunning one because, once again, the member was admitting that she and her colleagues have no idea what this legislation is about. She said it right in this House. I don't understand that, because this is a very simple act to read. It's three pages; it's pretty simple. It tells people that we're preserving B.C. Hydro, that we're protecting its core assets. We are ensuring that people in British Columbia have low-cost power.

The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has made an art form of her Chicken Little routine. She's running around claiming the sky is falling, the sky is falling. As usual, and as in all previous instances when Chicken Little ran out into the hallways to scare British Columbians, that member was wrong.

This topic has been of great concern to people across this province. It's a very emotional subject for most British Columbians. It's an emotional subject for me. It's an emotional subject for my constituents. It's an emotional subject for the members of this Legislature on both sides of this House. It's important, in all of that emotion, to look at the facts.

It's important to understand, for all British Columbians, that this is not about privatization. This is about ensuring that the people of British Columbia will retain the B.C. Hydro that has been so important in their lives. You know, my father, God rest his soul, would turn in his grave if we sold B.C. Hydro. He would. I know that the Premier's mother would not feel good if we were doing that. We all have family members that have been involved in some way in the building of this province, and we all have this deep and abiding connection to B.C. Hydro. It is one of the main issues I receive mail on. It's something people really care about. They see it as theirs. They want to retain it. They want to ensure they have excellent service through B.C. Hydro.

I am proud, because with this act, it is stated that B.C. Hydro is and will remain publicly owned. The new BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act strengthens public ownership of B.C. Hydro by specifying that B.C. Hydro's electrical division assets cannot be sold. Now, there has been some talk

about section 2, which allows B.C. Hydro to be able to sell assets under certain circumstances as part of conducting day-to-day business. In fact, the cost of the heritage power we have right now in British Columbia, as defined by this act, is cheaper than the power that is going to be created through these projects. That means B.C. Hydro can consider disposing of some assets, such as vehicles that are worn out or office equipment that is no longer required, when they're no longer useful or cost-effective.

This is good business. I can't imagine what it would be like to come to work dragging all the cars I've had in my life. I can't imagine what it would be like to have my computers from over many years stacking up in some closet somewhere. You know, there are lots of reasons why B.C. Hydro should unload some of that junk, and this bill will allow them to do those sorts of things as part of their day-to-day business. As a fail-safe, the independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission, will decide whether or not facilities can be disposed of or decommissioned — not B.C. Hydro, not this government, not the next government, but the B.C. Utilities Commission.

This House will recall that the B.C. Utilities Commission's mandate is to ensure that electricity rates are fair and reasonable and are in the best interests of all British Columbians. This government is keeping our commitment in the New Era document to maintain the core assets in public hands. The new act fulfils our energy plan promise to put in place a heritage contract to preserve the value of B.C.'s flexible, low-cost hydroelectric resources for the benefit of all British Columbians.

While programs like Power Smart have been very successful in reducing our dependence on electricity and our consumption levels, the fact remains that this province is open for business; and when you're open for business, business shows up, as it has in droves in the last year and a half. As our province grows, we have new needs for power to be delivered to more places in our province, like Stewart and others, and that's what we're trying to do by using independent power producers.

The cost of new generation facilities. I think it's really important that we recognize it has been 25 years, almost since the end of W.A.C. Bennett's term, since we've built new generation facilities. That's 25 years, and British Columbia has been growing. At the time, we were probably one million residents. No, sorry. We would have been about 2½ million at that point, and now we sit at four million. Of course, I read just recently there's a projection that the city of Vancouver will double in size in the next 12 years. There's lots of growth, and there's lots of need for power.

The cost of these new generation facilities will be higher than the cost of previous facilities. It will cost a lot of money, and we don't really have all the money to do it. What's more, business in British Columbia, like the folks up in Stewart who are going to employ British Columbians in the creation of a run-of-the-river dam, like the people who are working to take the gases that come out of the garbage dump in Delta…. Those people are creating jobs.

They also want to invest in this province, and we are allowing them to do that. We're giving them access to the power grid so that they can sell that power and so that we can continue to build up the number and volume of megawatts and what have you to ensure that we power British Columbia. In fact, the cost of the heritage power we have right now in British Columbia, as defined by this act, is cheaper than the power that's going to be created through these projects.

Right now the cost of the heritage power is 2.5 cents per megawatt. The cost for these new projects is going to be 5.5 cents. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot of money to people, but maybe they should take a look at it in terms of their hydro bills. What we're doing with this act is blending the cost of the heritage power with the cost of newly developed power so that we can ensure British Columbians receive the cheapest power and so that they can balance the price of the new power with the heritage power to keep rates as low as possible.

I stand in support of Bill 85. It's a bill that's here for the people of British Columbia. I remember a few years ago seeing an ad somewhere, relating to B.C. Hydro, and that ad said: "The power is yours." With this bill, we are ensuring that promise, that statement, that ideal, is met in British Columbia so that every British Columbian will know that the power is theirs.

J. Bray: I, too, am very pleased to rise in support of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. You know, it's interesting. I have a lot to say on this particular bill, but I was listening with interest to what the Leader of the Opposition would say and also to what the member for Prince George–Omineca would say. I have to sum it up that they didn't really have much to say, and I think there are several reasons for that. The member for Vancouver-Burrard referred to the Chicken Little scenario, and I think that to some extent, that's correct.

One of the things that acts do is they have titles, and the concept of the title is to give a general perception of what the bill is attempting to accomplish. BC Hydro Public Power Legacy — right there, the act clearly goes counter to the messages that the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Prince George–Omineca have been trumpeting for the last two years. It's a bit difficult for them, I think, to come into this House and debate this bill when, in the clearest legal language imaginable, it completely takes their argument and their point away. Instead of the two hours the Leader of the Opposition had available to debate this bill, it was a matter of minutes, and I find that very telling. I'm also curious, given what this bill accomplishes, why the Citizens for Public Power aren't here in the gallery to see the debate that confirms their goals as well, but I'll talk about them in a minute.

Now, there is no question that the NDP and their public lobby group, the Citizens for Public Power, have

generated a lot of issues around B.C. Hydro, and there's no question that in my community of Victoria–Beacon Hill, correspondence relating to B.C. Hydro and public ownership of B.C. Hydro has probably been the single biggest issue I've dealt with over the last two years. I am so pleased today that the Minister of Energy and Mines has brought forward Bill 85, because there's no better way to discount the arguments of the opposition and their public advocacy groups than by actually bringing in this legislation. This legislation, I hope for my constituents, will provide them the comfort they've been looking for from us with respect to B.C. Hydro and the commitments we've made.

It's interesting that we made a couple of significant commitments during the election with respect to power. We had lots. We had 230-plus commitments, and we had a couple on energy that were important. One was that we said we would protect B.C. Hydro and all its core assets, including dams, reservoirs and power lines under public ownership. The energy plan that was released last year made that very clear.

Today that commitment is in law. Bill 85 confirms it. It's there in black and white, and I expected that the member for Prince George–Omineca and the Leader of the Opposition would have stood up in this House, acknowledged it and stopped the Chicken Little activity. Unfortunately, they've decided not to do that, and that's a problem.

We made commitments during the election, and in legislation we are bringing those commitments forward. I look forward to meeting with my constituents, showing them this piece of legislation and showing how all of these issues we've dealt with in energy have connected.

One of the issues that we found when we formed government in May of 2001 — and I've referred to it before — was the policy by press release and policy by panic that the former NDP administration operated this government on for ten years. I worked in the civil service, and I saw it to some extent. But when we became elected, when we actually came into government and had to deal with all the range of public policy issues that you deal with as government, that lack of planning, that complete lack of vision, became evident.

Now, the NDP and the member for Prince George–Omineca and Citizens for Public Power all stand up and say how important energy is and how critical it is to our economy, to our communities, to our public institutions and to our futures. I don't think there's a member in this House that would disagree with that. But you would have thought that with the NDP saying how important power was, they actually would have had a plan, any plan — a vision, any vision. The fact is that they had none.

In fact, this province never really had an energy policy, an energy plan, or anything that industry, consumers, investors, bureaucrats — anybody — could actually hold and see that this is the direction the province is going in, in this incredibly important sector.

One of the first things that we did as a government and the Minister of Energy and Mines took up was actually develop an energy plan. Why? Well, because as the NDP pointed out, energy is very important. The difference between the NDP and us is that we recognize the importance and we actually do things like plans — three-year service plans, energy plans, fiscal plans, infrastructure plans — because the only way you can deliver on those important public policy issues is actually to have a plan, a direction, a strategy, and then to execute that strategy.

For ten years the NDP had B.C. Hydro. They did things like deregulating it, taking control away from the public, away from the B.C. Utilities Commission, and putting it into the cabinet room. Then when they came up to their budget troubles every year, guess what they did. They dipped into B.C. Hydro, and they took funds out of B.C. Hydro — not the traditional dividends that a Crown corp would provide. They went and dipped in to help with their own bottom line every year. What did that do? That starved the Crown corporation of its ability to manage its affairs and invest in its own infrastructure, invest in its own generation, the maintenance of its transmission lines — all of the functions that it should be able to do — because it actually took public power out of the hands of the public.

We inherited these types of situations. I don't mean to harp on the past forever, but that was the reality. Bill 85 is critical to the type of planning we have done in this province in the last two years to ensure that our energy policy carries us forward for the next 100 years.

I want to go through some of that energy plan because I think it's critical — unfortunately, unlike the NDP , who got all of their public policy issues down on a one-page press release — that when you actually plan properly in the public domain, you can't do it in a one-page press release. You actually have to have a document and a structure to support that document. The reality is that we can't communicate our energy plan in fancy little slogans like the NDP used to do, but we do have an energy plan that is comprehensive, covers all sectors and has led to investment.

Maybe this is a good time to just highlight one of the things that our energy plan has done. Most of my constituents and most people in this House and most British Columbians who are watching now probably heard about the one-day lease auction for drilling rights in the northeast sector of this province — the investment that was going to come in for people who wanted to bid on the opportunity to explore for natural gas up in the northeast. It brought, in one day, $418 million into British Columbia.

Now, that wasn't to pay for the oil. That wasn't the cost of them doing business. That was simply for the opportunity to explore. That $418 million will translate into $4 billion to $6 billion worth of economic activity, investment, jobs and taxes. And who benefits from

that? The 4.1 million British Columbians. And why did that happen? Why did that sale occur, which broke the previous record for years and actually made Alberta stand up and take notice? It's because industry saw that we had an energy plan. Industry saw that we understood that energy is not a one-page press release, and that energy needs a comprehensive plan and a government that supports that plan, a government that executes that plan.

That was just a recent example of what an energy plan can do. Let me look at some of the actions that were listed in the energy plan of this government and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. I'm looking on page 7.

The No. 1 action: "A legislated heritage contract will preserve the benefits of B.C. Hydro's existing generation." Well, my goodness. No wonder the NDP didn't have much to say in debate. They looked at the energy policy and said: "My goodness, they're doing exactly what they said they were going to do. They're actually executing their plan. How can we argue against that?" Bill 85, BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act — we fulfilled that.

Second action plan: "B.C. Hydro ratepayers will continue to benefit from electricity trade." We've just heard Powerex has been cleared of being involved in some of the issues that other companies down in the U.S. were involved with during California's power difficulties in the 2001-02 year. That's because, as the member for Vancouver-Burrard pointed out, B.C. Hydro and Powerex have incredibly good public servants who serve all British Columbians well. We benefit from that activity; we benefit from the skill of employees of Powerex. That benefits British Columbia. That benefits our competitiveness in North America.

No. 5. "The B.C. Utilities Commission will once again regulate B.C. Hydro rates." Now, this is critical, I think, with respect to Bill 85 and what we've done in the last two years. You know, the Leader of the Opposition talks about secret cabinet dealings in her sort of conspiracy theory that I guess she's borrowed from the member for Prince George–Omineca for lack of any other material. Yet what did they do? What did those energy experts of the NDP do? They actually said: "B.C. Utilities Commission, you're the experts. You hold public hearings. You look at a whole bunch of factors in dealing with rates. You actually aren't qualified to do that. But we are in cabinet, so we're going to strip you of that responsibility, take the public oversight of rate-setting, and we're actually going to do it at the cabinet table."

That would be the same cabinet table that came up with fast ferries. That was the same cabinet table that developed the ten-year economic disaster that was the NDP government. That cabinet table decided they best knew how to set rates. Then they said: "Well, maybe we shouldn't set rates, because, jeez, that actually is kind of complicated. Let's just — I don't know — freeze them." So they froze the rates.

They didn't go back to B.C. Hydro and ask: "How can you operate with your increased costs? How can you invest in new generation or maximize your existing generation if we actually choke off the one source of direct revenue you have, which is rates?" They didn't do that. They just said: "Looks good on paper. We can fit it on a one-page press release." They froze rates, and they said: "We've done our job."

B.C. Hydro was left hanging. Oh, they still reached in and took out excess dividends to cover their own financial difficulties, but they didn't let B.C. Hydro operate. We said that we would bring B.C. Hydro back under the auspices of the place it belongs, and that's the B.C. Utilities Commission. Why? Because we don't want to be involved in political decisions on something that has nothing to do with politics. We want to ensure that B.C. Hydro, a public company, can operate to its maximum potential and that British Columbians now and into the future will have the best power access in the world and that the rates will be set by the people who understand it, under the full guise of the public process that is B.C. Utilities Commission, and we have done that.

No. 13 on this list: "The private sector will develop new electricity generation, with B.C. Hydro restricted to improvements at existing plants." Now, the NDP makes some comment — and I remember in debates on other bills in this House — that somehow suggested that was actually a problem and that it was sending down the path to privatization. They can't really say that now because, of course, we've got Bill 85. But what they fail to understand is that the way they dealt with B.C. Hydro for a decade meant that for the improvements, the excess ability to generate that they currently have, there was no investment. They weren't given the opportunity. They weren't given the ability to control their affairs enough. There is the ability for B.C. Hydro to actually increase its generation through existing infrastructure — different turbines, more turbines in some capacity.

They now actually have the opportunity to focus on that, but they can't possibly do that and turn around and build brand-new projects. They just can't do it all. Yet our needs for energy are increasing. By allowing B.C. Hydro to look at its core assets, which are publicly owned, to maximize the generation from that infrastructure, it allows new investors, new employers and new companies to come in and help us meet that energy demand.

In fact, contrary to what the NDP and others would say, we have actually had independent power production here for years. B.C. Hydro is not the sole producer of electricity that we use to light the Legislature and our homes and our laptops and everything else. Yet until we had a structure that actually rewarded that investment and made it viable, it wasn't going to happen.

The energy plan set out the structure. It set out that there would be a separate transmission corporation, still publicly owned, but then it would mean that independent power producers who want to invest, who want to employ people and who want to help us meet our energy needs know they don't have to compete

with the great big B.C. Hydro in order to hope they get some access onto the grid to actually transmit that power. Conversely, a large industrial consumer now who might want to do some of their own generation, knowing if they have excess capacity in their own generation, can get that onto the grid and sell it to whomever — B.C. Hydro or anybody else.

By bringing in B.C. Transmission Corporation, we now put in place the ability for independent power production to occur. That's an incredibly important part of our energy plan. The energy plan is not even two years old, and we're already seeing the benefits, but the benefits weren't just new generation. We said we wanted a commitment that of all new generation, 50 percent would be green generation. Vancouver Island is developing — and I'm going to read some of the projects in a minute — the reputation for being the green energy capital of North America. That is something I'm very proud of, and that's something that is very important to my constituents.

My constituents are very much concerned about the environment here in Victoria and also how we deal with the environment throughout the province and, in fact, throughout the world. Setting in our energy plan that not only do we want new investment in this province and new jobs to help us meet our energy demands, but we want 50 percent of that to be green energy, is incredibly important to my constituents. At the time we produced the energy plan, that was still just something on paper.

Just like the oilfield leases of $418 million in September that were a direct result of this energy plan, I want to talk about another result of that energy plan. That was that we had 16 new green energy plants, $800 million worth of projects, approved by B.C. Hydro that are green energy — $800 million. That's an absolutely astounding amount. Now, you didn't hear that from the NDP during their time. Oh, they did build generation. We shouldn't forget that. They had a very successful project. Unfortunately, it was in Pakistan and wasn't here in British Columbia.

We've been here two years, and we have had an incredible boom in the northeast, and now we have 16 green energy projects here in British Columbia. We have the Ashlu Creek hydroelectric project that's being built by Ledcor Power near Squamish, 42 megawatts. It will generate approximately 200 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. The Bear hydro project, a 16-megawatt facility that will generate approximately 77 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, is being built by Regional Power Inc. near Sechelt. There's Berkley Creek hydroelectric generation project by Princeton Energy near Hope. The Brilliant expansion project near Castlegar will be built by Brilliant Expansion Power Corp. China Creek hydro project is a 5.6-megawatt project to be built near Port Alberni here on Vancouver Island by a first nations group. We have Cypress Creek hydroelectric project by Synex Energy near Gold River, Forrest Kerr run-of-the-river hydroelectric project near Stewart by Coast Mountain Hydro Corp, and Holberg wind energy project built by Stothert Power Corp. and Global Renewable Energy Partners Inc. near Holberg.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, it's important to note that Holberg is a small community on the west coast of Vancouver Island that has been devastated by downturns in forestry prices and commodities, and it is an isolated community. I can tell you that this kind of project in a community like Holberg, which is up in the member for North Island's riding, is huge. It is huge, and it happened because we had an energy plan.

We have Hunter Creek hydroelectric generation by Princeton Energy, again near Hope; Maxim landfill gas cogeneration project near Delta built by Maxim Power; the Mkw'alts Creek hydro project near Mount Currie by Cloudworks Energy; Pierce Creek hydroelectric generation project near Chilliwack to be built by Larson Farms Inc.; South Cranberry Creek power project to be built by Advanced Energy Systems 1 Limited Partnership near Revelstoke; Spuzzum Creek power project to be built by Interpac Resources near Boston Bar; Ucona River hydro project near Gold River, built by Ucona River Joint Venture; and Zeballos Lake hydro project, a 21.85-megawatt facility built by Pacific Rim Power Corp. near Zeballos, which will generate approximately 93 gigawatts of electricity per year.

The NDP had ten years to generate one gigawatt, and outside of this building, they didn't do it. Our energy plan has brought in new generation. What's critical is that this is new generation where the private sector is using their capital, employing British Columbians and British Columbia know-how to meet British Columbia's needs. On Vancouver Island this is particularly important, and the projects I listed on Vancouver Island are particularly important, because Vancouver Island — in particular, here on the south Island — is the number two growth centre and the number two centre for high technology in British Columbia.

There are two things the high-tech sector tell us when we meet with them. Unlike the NDP, we meet with them regularly, because they're important and they employ people. They say: "The first thing we need is access to skilled people. We need to know that as we expand" — and high-tech companies can sometimes expand very quickly — "we will be able to recruit locally for skilled people." Because we have three world-class post-secondary universities and institutes here on the south Island, we meet that demand.

The second thing, they tell us, is a reliable energy source. They want a source they know is not dependent on old cables that come across or on the willingness of another part of the province to have another valley dammed so that generation can occur and hope it continues to come down the line and across the strait to here. They want to know this is a place that is prepared to invest in its own generation of secure, stable power now and into future. As they build their companies, as they build their infrastructure, as they build manufacturing, they can't afford brownouts. They can't afford power outages. They can't afford rationing.

When they see we actually have five of these projects occurring here on Vancouver Island, that sends a

strong signal to the high-tech community that Vancouver Island is going to be the kind of place that will provide them with strong energy and secure energy into the future and that we will meet their educational needs as well.

There's another important aspect to what we've done with energy that I want to revisit with respect to Vancouver Island. I mentioned earlier the fact that we've put B.C. Hydro back under the auspices of the B.C. Utilities Commission. I talked about the review of rates, but that's only one aspect the BCUC actually engages in. The other is to ensure that decisions made by B.C. Hydro are in the best interest of ratepayers on the capital side, on the investment side, on the operational side — not just on rates.

There is a major project that's been planned for some time — the Duke Energy power plant up in Nanaimo, with the Georgia strait crossing pipeline bringing natural gas forward. That was a co-gen power plant. That project went through the National Energy Board; it went through the environmental assessment review panel. I applaud the Minister of Energy and Mines and B.C. Hydro for ensuring that project also went through the B.C. Utilities Commission review to ensure that project matched the needs and the demand projections, and it was going to ensure that the generation was done in the most cost-productive manner possible. My constituents had said loudly and clearly that they wanted a project of that size, of that magnitude, to go through that process.

B.C. Utilities Commission reviewed that, and it challenged B.C. Hydro. It said: "You know, we don't think you have justified your demands and your future needs for this particular project in this particular configuration." They didn't say: "You can't do it." They said: "You've got to go back to the drawing board, and you've got to come back to us and convince us that the kind of cost and the kind of operation you're planning here are actually going to meet real demand and not place too much pressure on rates unnecessarily."

That is something that constituents of mine want. They don't want cabinet to be making those decisions — or me, for that matter, to be involved in those decisions. I'm not the energy expert. They also want to make sure they can have input and real input and meaningful input. The B.C. Utilities Commission provides that forum.

Guess what. Although we need new generation on this Island and we need to make sure that we move forward by placing the B.C. Utilities Commission back in full control, we will get the best value for the best generation plan by the best proponents. That will ensure that we have secure, stable power on Vancouver Island and that ratepayers will be protected now and into the future by ensuring that the best projects go forward.

The other thing I want to cover on the energy plan, if I might very quickly, is…. Actually, I should also just point out No. 6 on page 8 of the energy plan: "The Vancouver Island generation project will be reviewed to determine if it is the most cost-effective means to reliably meet Island power needs." In other words, we didn't make the decision, but we identified — because members from Vancouver Island had spoken to the minister — that people wanted to ensure that the process was complete. We met that commitment. That was No. 6 — always have to keep track of all the commitments that we meet here.

The energy plan has brought forward new generation, new exploration and new investment, and has removed politics from what is such an important component of our economy. It's interesting, you know. The NDP raise their concerns in the Chicken Little fashion that was mentioned earlier.

One of the groups I've heard a lot from in the public — and as I said earlier, I'm surprised they're not here in the gallery to be cheering on Bill 85 — is the Citizens for Public Power. You know, a lot of my constituents received information from this group — e-mails, pamphlets — and, rightly so, looked at them and said: "My goodness, this raises concerns for me." I heard from literally hundreds of constituents on this issue over the last couple of years. It was nice that the Citizens for Public Power provided form e-mails and form letters and various other ways to ensure that their message, not my constituents' message, came to me. Nonetheless, it was a democratic opportunity for my constituents to at least raise some concerns.

When I go back and take a look at who the Citizens for Public Power are and their one-trick-pony message that we're privatizing B.C. Hydro, I'm actually quite surprised. I just got this to have a look at it.

Who actually is on the Citizens for Public Power? Marjorie Griffin Cohen, who is an economist and SFU professor. That really sounds very eminent until you realize that she was an NDP appointee to the B.C. Hydro board. Jim Abram, executive member of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, sounds very interesting, but he also was an NDP candidate. He didn't get elected, but he was an NDP candidate. There's Jerri New of the OPEIU, a union that is the major union at B.C. Hydro. Jim Fulton is from the Suzuki Foundation, a very apolitical and balanced organization on issues.

Jim Sinclair is the B.C. Federation of Labour head and former member of the B.C. Hydro board appointed by the NDP. You might be catching a theme here. I'm not sure. John McGraw is from the IBEW. Rudy Lawrence is from the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations.

You know, this group that we start to hear about — we realize, in fact, that the other two members they have are the elected members here from the New Democratic Party — actually used this as a platform to fight this government. In the meantime they created confusion. They spread around information that was

not accurate, and I really would be delighted to hear Jim Sinclair and others stand up and acknowledge Bill 85, acknowledge that we've said in section 2 that we will not be selling the core assets of B.C. Hydro. They are not available for sale. In fact, the word is "prohibited."

I hope to see a letter to the editor or an editorial from one of the members of the Citizens for Public Power (a) announcing that they're disbanding because clearly they're no longer needed and (b) congratulating — like I am — the Minister of Energy and Mines for bringing forward Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act.

K. Stewart: I, too, would like to rise today in support of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. I have a few issues to touch on, but the previous member was talking about Citizens for Public Power, and I think I can touch on that one a bit.

I had the opportunity to accept an invitation from the B.C. Citizens for Public Power to attend an information seminar they had. They asked me to be there to represent the government and our views on B.C. Hydro, the changes to B.C. Hydro and the adjustments that will be made in B.C. Hydro.

It's interesting because before I went, I read on their webpage what they were all about. B.C. Citizens for Public Power: a non-profit, grass-roots organization established to give voice to B.C.'s demand that B.C. power generation systems remain in public hands. Well, I looked over what we were doing. This should be pretty easy. That's exactly what we're planning on doing. It goes on to say that the B.C. Citizens for Public Power was founded by a group of community leaders from diverse backgrounds including senior, consumer, environmental, labour, municipal and academic.

Our previous speaker spoke about the members and who they were. Again, I won't touch on their titles, but their names are Jim Sinclair, Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Jim Abram, Jim Fulton, Murray Dobbin, Jerri New, John McGraw and Rudy Lawrence. If any of you have not met these people, I'm sure that in two weeks you'll be able to meet them at the NDP leadership convention. I'm sure most if not all of them will be there.

Moving on, I did attend this — I don't know whether you call it a rally — information seminar. Some people said: "Why bother going there? It's just a bunch of NDP hacks that are not there to talk about B.C. Hydro but just to slam you and your government and what you're doing." I thought: no, I was invited to go. So I went. As I entered, they asked very politely if I could put down my name, address and phone number, as with everyone else that entered. I got to go up and suggest what it was I believed that B.C. Hydro was doing and what our energy plan meant. They had another gentleman there. I'm not sure how much they paid him, but he was a paid spokesman for them who brought out a number of obscure reports that I hadn't seen.

I had been a little bit diligent, I would suspect, in my work ahead of time. I read the business plan for B.C. Hydro. I looked at their financials. I looked at our energy plan. I looked at some of the upcoming legislation. I felt I was relatively well informed, but there were a number of obscure reports and authors that I must admit I had never heard of before. There were a number of questions that were put to me, and I said: "You know, I don't really have the answer for those today, but I'd certainly be glad to research it and get back to you. I'll talk to the minister who's always there with his door open. If we have any questions about the issues, he and his staff are very supportive to get you any kind of background you want. I'd be more than pleased to bring this back to the group." That's great. I made that commitment to the group.

Then I said, "Could I have a copy of the list so I could send these questions back to this group?" as I said I would. They indicated I would be allowed to send all this information back. Two days later they said: "No, we're not giving you the list." I thought that was a really good way of informing the public that are interested in B.C. Hydro, interested in our future power — just to refuse to give them the information. I thought, well, this is a great forum.

I went on, and I answered the question point blank as my information had showed me with regard to what B.C. Hydro's plans were. It wasn't just that I had the opportunity to read a bit. As the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, we had the opportunity to have B.C. Hydro before us, and we asked them these questions straight out. It's all there for anyone to read in Hansard. It's clear, in black and white: "Are you selling B.C. Hydro?" "No. The core assets of B.C. Hydro are not for sale." Every action of this government has shown that. The letter of transmittal to the chairman of B.C. Hydro strongly indicates what direction he was given with regard to B.C. Hydro. When I go back to this webpage, "Who We Are," I also agree that Citizens for Public Power should be very happy about what's going on here in the House today.

Again, that's what I've been hearing. Then I hear from the member for Prince George–Omineca. He must have gotten this information from B.C. Citizens for Public Power, because he certainly asked some of the questions right off their webpage. Interestingly enough, these questions have been asked and answered. The questions are asked very directly to the minister in question period, and he very directly gives an answer to the question. That seems to go right over the head of the member for Prince George–Omineca, which doesn't surprise me. Being a relatively new member in the House, I looked around at the participation of my fellow members when I first came, and there were certainly some wonderful mentors. Some weren't.

Moving on, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver-Burrard. He gave a very, very good history of B.C. Hydro. Now, for some of us who have had the fortune of living in this province all our lives, it's hard not to know about B.C. Hydro. The great work of W.A.C. Bennett and the work he did prior to B.C. Hy-

dro becoming what it was, the risks he took as a government — it's historic. Anyone that's lived in British Columbia knows about that. But time is moving on. The dams that were built in the sixties and the transmission lines and the infrastructure are starting to age a bit, and we need to upgrade those.

It's very important, though, to the citizens of British Columbia that we do keep those in public hands. That's what we're going to continue to do: keep those in public hands. We made it very clear. But we still have to improve that infrastructure. We still have to, in some ways, increase the amount of electricity to the homes and industries and businesses of British Columbia.

An interesting note I picked up looking at B.C. Hydro is that in two of the last three years, B.C. Hydro has been a net importer of power. A lot of people might think: "Well, that's pretty interesting, because B.C. Hydro has made profits every year." How do they import power and make profits? They're a very well run company, and they're very smart in the way they manage our hydro grid. In the evening, when we can buy really cheap power from outside of British Columbia from other types of generation systems which can't shut down as easily as a hydro plant, we buy at the low and then sell our hydro during the day at the high on any excess we have for export. That allows us to do a very good job of managing that company for British Columbians.

When we look at three of the last ten years, we were net importers, but two of the last three…. We're going to have to look at future supplies of power for British Columbians. That's why we've gone on to look at some of these independent power producers and some of the generation capacity they have to bring back into our grid.

B.C. Hydro recently — and I'm not going to name them, because they were previously named — has awarded a number of contracts for different types of independent power producers to get on the grid. One advantage of going to some of these independent power producers is that some of them are actually producing power for their own needs and have a surplus in areas where we have a deficit for hydro. Instead of us having to transmit hydro halfway across the province to an area where we need to service our customers, we're now able to — much cheaper — buy it locally and deliver it locally without having to bring it in. That's got to be a great advantage to the people who live in that area. It also helps keep our costs down.

The whole issue of the heritage power is that it's power being delivered to us at a cost that there's no way we can replicate. There's no way we can build those large dams, those transmission lines, for the costs we produced them in the sixties and seventies. That's why we have, from those plants, one of the lowest power costs in North America if not probably in the world. Again, we do need to supplement that, and this plan allows for that.

Another issue I'd just like to touch on is some of the oversight that hasn't occurred in B.C. Hydro over the years. B.C. Hydro is a company that's well run, but there have been some governance issues with B.C. Hydro. I believe that now, with the B.C. Utilities Commission back with the ability to set power rates and actually regulate power rates — compared to the deregulation the Citizens for Public Power were speculating they would be doing, which is exactly opposite from the truth of what they're doing — that allows a certain oversight for that.

The other thing with the committee I'm on is that we have the governance oversight, and we get to look at and benchmark B.C. Hydro every year. That's another way citizens can look at that. It's an open process. It's in Hansard as soon as we're there. We accept public questions. It's another opportunity for the accountability of B.C. Hydro to be there, which wasn't there in the past.

In closing, I'd just like to thank the minister for his initiatives to this. I know it's going to enhance our ability to compete in the world, with jobs and hydroelectric power for our homes, and allow a better lifestyle for the citizens of British Columbia. I just look forward to future debate on this.

D. MacKay: Electricity is an interesting commodity. I'm going to think back to years ago, when I was a youngster. I can remember getting up in the mornings and turning a light switch on, and a light came on. I can remember looking at the light switch as a young person and wondering: how did that happen? You could turn a light switch on, and a light came on. You could shut it off, and the light went off. I actually thought, when I was younger, that that's where the power came from — from that little light switch.

I'd get up, I'd turn the light switch on, Mom would cook me breakfast, and I'd go off to school. When I got to school, there were lights on in the school. I didn't know how the lights got there. I suspected somebody, when they came to school in the morning, flipped the light switch on and we had electricity. The room was light. We could sit down and do our homework and our studies at school. It's kind of interesting when you stop and think about electricity. Where does it come from?

As we get older, we start to appreciate where our electricity comes from. As we get older, we start to look around and ask ourselves: how much electricity do we actually consume? We have a population in British Columbia today that is over four million people. How much electricity do we actually consume? Well, for the record, the average B.C. home uses about 0.01 gigawatts per year. Just to carry that a bit further, if we look at a 20-to-25-storey office building, they will use about five gigawatt-hours per year.

The G.M. Shrum generating station, which is B.C. Hydro's largest facility, generates more than 13,000 gigawatts per year. It sounds like a lot of power. But as I said, we have a population of over four million people in this province, and we haven't seen any new generation for a number of years, so we as a government started looking at ways to increase the amount of power the public is using.

You know, it's interesting. We weren't the first province to do it. We have to look to Ontario or Alberta. Both Alberta and Ontario looked at privatizing the hydro they produced for their people, and they looked at deregulation. They looked at deregulating power, thinking they might be able to get power more cheaply to the residents of those provinces. Well, that's not what we're doing in this province. We are not doing that in this province. We're doing entirely the opposite. We are looking at regulating power and controlling it, leaving it in the hands of the people of British Columbia.

The B.C. Hydro core assets — which include the generation, the transmission and the distribution — are not for sale. They are not for sale now. They were, however, considered for sale a few years ago by the NDP, back in the year 2000. A secret briefing document was prepared for the NDP caucus, considering the sale of B.C. Hydro and other big-ticket items. We're not doing that. We have never intended to sell off B.C. Hydro. We want to retain B.C. Hydro.

That's an interesting difference between these two parties that sat in government for ten years and did nothing to produce more power for the people in this province. We have now committed to do just that. It is not for sale. I don't know how many times we have told the people of this province that B.C. Hydro is not for sale. I've heard it so often it makes me think about a country and western song. I happen to be a country and western fan, and there's a….

D. MacKay: That is the truth. That is for sure. Country and western is good music, and it actually takes electricity for me to be able to listen to my favourite country and western songs.

D. MacKay: I'll get to it in a moment. I'm going to mention a particular song. The singer of this song was Lorrie Morgan, and she used to sing a song called What Part of No Don't You Understand. I've heard that so often, I keep thinking…. I can see this beautiful woman singing this song over and over. I wish those people who think that Hydro was for sale would listen to Lorrie Morgan and listen to that song I just mentioned. It is not for sale. We will continue to keep B.C. Hydro — the core assets of B.C. Hydro — in the hands of the people of the province.

You know, it's interesting. Since 1984, when the Revelstoke Dam was built, there has not been any new hydroelectric or any generation of power in this province. We're getting up to 25 years where no new power has been produced by the province. But I'm going to touch on that just a little bit further in my comments. That's a long time ago — 1984 — since there was any generation in this province.

Contrary to what people believe, we don't have a surplus of power in this province. Other members have spoken about it already. We actually are a net importer of electricity to meet the demands of the people of this province. Since 1984, no new generation. What's happened over the 25-year period when we haven't produced any new electricity? Well, the demand for electricity has increased dramatically. It goes up at about 1.3 or 1.7 percent every year. That's why we have experienced some power shortages, and we've had to be an importer. We've imported from the province of Alberta, because they have coal-fire generation back there, and those plants have to run on a continuing basis. We can buy power, and we can turn down our dam generation facilities to save water.

What has also happened is that the infrastructure that was built in 1984 and prior to 1984 has aged. It's requiring more and more upkeep. No new money has gone into looking after the infrastructure that was developed so well under the leadership of W.A.C. Bennett. We've heard his name mentioned several times, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it today, because he did a great job for the people of this province. He produced hydro at a cheap rate, and everybody appreciated that. The mining industry appreciated it, because the mining industry relies heavily on cheap electric power.

As the infrastructure has aged, the demand has gone up, and the cost today to build new generation has also increased. We can't build generation today for what it cost back in 1984. The demand is there, so we now have to produce more power. What we're doing is looking at the independent power producers to produce power. But this is not new — asking independent power producers to build facilities to produce electricity. Between 1988 and 1996, 16 IPP facilities were built in this province and put on line to produce power for the people of the province. That's since 1988. That was under the Socreds, and it continued under the NDP.

D. MacKay: They killed it after 1996. Both those governments produced power from independent power producers. We are going down the same road, and I think that's the way to go. I'm excited about that.

I have to talk about one project that has just been given the green light, and that is the Coast Mountain hydroelectric project on the Iskut River. That's an important project because years ago B.C. Hydro looked at that very project. They looked at diverting water or damming that Iskut canyon, which has a huge volume of water going through it. B.C. Hydro looked at that and realized they couldn't make it go because of the economic cost associated with building that facility.

Years later, and I'm talking about 2003, we gave the green light to Coast Mountain hydroelectric project to build a run-of-the-river facility there to produce 100

megawatts of power. That's a lot of power. The project is going to cost $200 million to build. They're going to have to build a 3.5-kilometre tunnel from the start of the canyon. They're going to divert some of the water and put it back in three and a half kilometres downstream. We're just going to borrow the water, put it back in and produce 100 megawatts of power.

The reason the independent power producers are able to make this happen and B.C. Hydro couldn't is that technology has changed over the years. They're talking about transmitting this power by direct current down to the main grid at the Meziadin junction, where they will boot it back up to alternating current and put it on the grid.

Great news, because not only does the new power generation that will be created from the Coast Mountain…. There are new mining opportunities. As I said earlier, the mining people rely heavily on cheap power for their operations. That's one of the benefits we have in this province, and that's why the mining industry is once again coming back into our province and looking at the province for a place to do business. We have cheap hydroelectric power. That's not available all over this world. We have such a surplus of cheap hydroelectric power in this province that the mining industry is excited again.

The heritage power that we talk about costs approximately 2.5 cents per megawatt-hour. That's what it costs those of us that use it. With the new power that is going to be produced, we're going to be looking at a rate of about 5.5 cents per megawatt-hour, so there's a slight difference. As I said, that's because it costs more to build these facilities today than it did back in 1984 when the last one was built by government. What we're going to be doing, of course, is blend the two of those — not we the government. The BCUC is going to look at rate applications from B.C. Hydro to determine if, in fact, there should be a rate increase. If they do determine there should be a rate increase, the two rates will be blended. They're going to do that in order to keep our rates reasonable for all of us.

The new Bill 85 confirms that generation, storage and transmission are not for sale. It says so in subsection (2) of this new bill that has been introduced by the minister. It is not for sale. It goes back to what I said earlier. What part of no don't you understand? B.C. Hydro is not for sale. It's now legislated in this Bill 85, which is before the House today. When you read subsection (2) — and I'm going to read it for the record today because some people are still confused about this — it talks about the sale of protected assets. It says: "Subject to subsection (2), the authority must not sell or otherwise dispose of the protected assets."

The protected assets are outlined in the schedule on the back of Bill 85. There are 34 generation and storage assets owned by B.C. Hydro that cannot be sold. It mentions the G.M. Shrum. It talks about the Revelstoke Dam — 34 in all. Those cannot be sold. It's legislated in this new piece of legislation. For those people that continue to insist that B.C. Hydro is for sale, they're mistaken.

That brings me to the B.C. Citizens for Public Power, which had generated so much uncertainty and fear among the people of this province. We've all heard their names: Marjorie Griffin Cohen, who sat on the B.C. Hydro board when rates were deregulated by the NDP and the Pakistan power deal was initiated — interesting that we're looking at building power under the NDP outside the country instead of for their own citizens; Jim Abram, a municipal politician and failed NDP candidate; Jim Fulton, a former NDP Member of Parliament; Jerri New and Jim Sinclair, B.C. Federation of Labour.

D. MacKay: Totally unbiased people. These people have gone around the province and put the fear into people about this government selling off B.C. Hydro. Once again, I say go back and listen to Lorrie Morgan when she sings the song What Part of No Don't You Understand.

With this new bill that is before us today — and we're speaking at second reading — I can't emphasize enough what a good thing this is for the province. We need power, we need electricity for our day-to-day lives, and we consume more and more of it every day.

The other interesting thing is that any B.C. Hydro rates are not going to be set like they were under the NDP, by cabinet. That was a political decision to control the B.C. Hydro rates when the costs were increasing. It looked good on paper. It looked good when it came close to election time, and that's what the NDP did. They deregulated B.C. Hydro and gave the power decision to set the rates to the cabinet.

D. MacKay: NDP politics. We're not doing that. We're giving it to the BCUC to determine what the rate should be. We're taking it out of the political hands. I don't know how to set a hydro rate. As I said earlier, I didn't even know where hydro came from when I was younger, so what do I know about running a corporation like B.C. Hydro? Give it to the people that know what they're doing. I think that makes so much sense. BCUC will determine the rate, and the rate will be blended with the heritage rate that I mentioned earlier — with the new rate — when determining what we as residents in the province will be paying for our B.C. hydro.

Bill 85 is moving in the right direction. It's moving in the right direction for the generation of us that are here today; it's moving in the right direction for my children and for my grandchildren. For those, I applaud the minister for having the courage to come forward with a piece of legislation that's going to look after the demands of the residents of this province for hydro for years to come.

In closing, I just have to stand up and continue to say that I support on second reading Bill 85, which has been put forward today.

R. Hawes: You know, after listening to my colleague from Bulkley Valley–Stikine and his penchant for country music, it reminds me…. He's reminded of a country song that says: "What part of no don't you understand?" It reminds me of an infamous court case some years ago in this province that was just universally panned, which upset everybody I have ever talked to who ever read about that court case — where a judge in a rape case said: "Sometimes no might mean maybe." I've got to tell you, people were so upset by that, and that's why we are now saying no. We are not saying maybe. No doesn't mean maybe.

We're listening in this province…. We're having in this province a huge, huge voice of fearmongers that are out there. I'm trying to figure out, as some of my colleagues have tried to figure out, why these people are saying what they're saying. There were a number of us, months ago here in the Legislature, that agreed to meet with a delegation from the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. They came and tried to outline their position to us and tried to persuade us not to sell the assets of B.C. Hydro.

We took out our New Era document that was published prior to our election — along with numerous statements made in this House, in public or in the press by pretty much every member of this House, including the minister — that says the core assets of B.C. Hydro are not for sale. We said right from the start that the back office of B.C. Hydro was going to be outsourced through Accenture, and we did that. That is not the sale of a core asset. That was a move that's going to save British Columbia taxpayers $25 million a year over ten years. That was universally panned by this group that, as many of the members of this House have already pointed out, seems to be dominated by both failed NDP candidates and members of the public union sector, who were very upset at the outsourcing out of the back office of B.C. Hydro.

The assets, the core assets — generation, distribution, transmission — are not for sale. There's already been another act passed that has created the Transmission Corporation, and within that act it says the transmission facilities are fully protected and cannot be sold. This act now protects all of the generation facility within B.C. Hydro. Frankly — and my colleagues have all spoken on this earlier — nothing can be clearer. There is no act I can imagine that the government could take to make our intent more gelled in cement than to pass an act that prohibits us from selling the assets that we have established as heritage assets.

I want to speak for a minute about fearmongering. If we look at what's happening in this province, there's a huge amount of fearmongering not just around this issue, but the fearmongering seems to emanate from the same sources. We have made a number of changes in the public school system in this province where we have made parents far, far more in charge of their children's education, able to enter the schools and able to have some say in the operation of schools. We have taken some power from the B.C. Teachers Federation, who were the dominant body in education and who have basically declared themselves to be a trade union at this point by joining the B.C. Federation of Labour. They're out there talking about how we have completely destroyed education. Nothing could be further from the truth. The self-interest model they push, disguised as concern for our children, is really nothing short of fearmongering.

If we listen to what's happening in the health sector and how the overly rich contracts that some of the public unions got — such as the HEU, around provision of support services — now are being contracted out, the public is being told this is an absolute destruction of the health system. If a public sector union employee doesn't cook the meal that you got in the hospital, somehow this is going to destroy health in our province.

All of these fearmongering things are coming actually from groups who have self-interest at heart and who push an agenda of self-interest. The Leader of the Opposition always speaks in terms of how we are here only to pander to big business. What she doesn't talk about is the fact that these public sector unions are collecting substantial dues from all of their members, and when they have total revenue from these dues — some of them in excess of $50 million a year — I call that big business. The unions, the public sector unions, are in fact some of the biggest businesses. That little fact is something the Leader of the Opposition would never want to talk about, because, of course, that's one of the support bases for her group.

The B.C. Citizens for Public Power, when they visited me in my constituency office, actually were people who were very rational and who had very big concerns. We had a very polite and very constructive meeting. They laid their concerns on the table, and I did the best I could do to try to assuage those concerns, to try to show them how there wasn't really a basis for them to worry. I can't say that they left convinced, but I do believe they were very sincere. With the group that visited us here, on the other hand, and the leadership of that group, I would have some suspicion as to their motivation. I suspect they know…. I mean, who wouldn't know?

In fact, for the Leader of the Opposition, the very nature of her title — opposition — doesn't mean she's going to support our legislation. It means she's going to oppose what the government does. But you know, deep down — and I'm going to give the Leader of the Opposition a lot of credit here — the Leader of the Opposition is an extremely intelligent person, and I think anybody who has listened to her argue and listened to her long, long speeches here at times knows she is extremely articulate.

She knows we are not looking at privatizing Hydro. In her heart of hearts, I know she supports what we're

doing with B.C. Hydro. I know she knows, because she can read a balance sheet. I don't think she can necessarily run a business or run a government, but she can read a balance sheet. I think she knows that for the last ten years with B.C. Hydro, the previous government did not do the right thing.

In fact, what they did was rob Hydro of its ability to grow with the province. They took away B.C. Hydro's ability to reinvest in itself. Anyone who understands business knows that in order to keep a business healthy, you have to reinvest constantly in your business, and that's not something that happened with Hydro.

I won't limit it to the previous government. The government before them also stripped B.C. Hydro. In fact, it's been going on for a lot of years. B.C. Hydro has been a cash cow that governments have used to prop up the bottom line. With the last government, it was to prop up an out-of-control spending habit, so they took every dime that could possibly be taken from B.C. Hydro. That left Hydro with no ability to reinvest in transmission or in expanding our generation capacity or, really, to do the kind of big maintenance that's necessary on big, big machinery.

We have plants like Burrard Thermal that are way behind in their maintenance and that do need some attention. We have our transmission lines that need huge, huge investment. They're aging, and frankly, we don't have the money to do these things, because the previous government did leave the cupboards more than empty. They left a huge whopping debt for our kids. That's not something we're going to allow to continue, and I'll come back to that in a minute.

With respect to B.C. Hydro, we need to develop new generation facilities. We need to do that in a big hurry, and we don't have the money to do it. We have looked at private enterprise to be our partners. The independent power producers, the IPPs, are the source of new generation in this province, but the existing facilities, through this act, are fully protected.

The beauty of this is that we are able to maintain the B.C. advantage, the price advantage, because these assets really have been paid for. Hydro is going to have the ability to do some reinvestment in itself in terms of maintenance. We have ensured, through the heritage contract, that we can actually grow these facilities out to their full potential. In some cases they aren't at their full potential, and we can do that in the heritage contract. What we can't do is go out and compete by building new greenfield facilities. We think the private sector is better to do that, and we're going to have them do that.

I mentioned the B.C. advantage in price. It's quite interesting. My colleague that spoke previously mentioned the interference the previous government had in setting prices. They set prices politically. They deregulated the prices, and then they froze them in the back offices of the Premier's suite here in this building. The Premier would make decisions on what would happen with Hydro prices.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure you as a businessman yourself and as many of us, even those who aren't in business, would understand, if the cost of running your business rises and you're not allowed to raise your prices, you soon begin to run at a loss. B.C. Hydro had its prices frozen, but of course costs of production go up and costs of labour go up. The previous government didn't understand that, just as they didn't with ICBC.

With ICBC they froze rates because politically it would buy them a few votes, or so they thought. So they froze rates. Close to the election, in fact, they wrote cheques to everyone for refunds. When we took office, we found very quickly that not only were the cupboards bare at ICBC, but it was losing money. There had to be a very quick reassessment in terms of the staffing component at ICBC. Interestingly enough, from the 1998 period through to just over 2000, the last years of the NDP, the increase in staffing at ICBC was phenomenal.

That staff was basically let go under the new regime at ICBC, and I can tell you that as a consumer, I haven't noticed any difference in service there. In fact, I think service levels have improved. The staff at ICBC are excellent, well-trained staff. We had too many staff, frankly, which is something the previous government was well known to do — pad the staffing levels to pander to their support within the public sector unions. Maybe that's not surprising.

I know the Leader of the Opposition in retrospect knows, and I've heard her say several times here that the mistakes of the last government…. In fact, she has apologized for some of the mistakes. She has apologized publicly, basically, for the fast ferries fiasco and other misjudgments of the previous government. When she looks back in retrospect at that terrible, terrible decade, I know she knows there were a tremendous number of mistakes they made that she, I'm sure, is very sorry about.

But she's in opposition now, so she has to oppose what we're doing to rectify the damage done by her cohorts and herself during that last decade. She has to oppose what we're doing. I mean, that's the definition. That's our system. Good or bad, the opposition would not stand up and say: "Yahoo, you're fixing our mistakes, and congratulations." I think personally, in her heart of hearts, she really would like to do that.

She would really like to get up and give us hearty congratulations for a lot of the things we're doing, because we've had the courage to do what we know is right and, more importantly, what I believe she knows is right. She knows in her heart of hearts that what we're doing is the right thing, but with the nature of the job, she has to oppose. She has to make a lot of noise. When the cameras go off and in the solitude of her own home, I'm sure she's reading the paper and cheering quite loudly for the successes we're enjoying as a government.

We live in a changing world, and this changing world involves — for example, in health care — massive changes. Nobody likes change. Massive changes in health care are taking place not just in British Columbia but across the world. For many, these changes are very,

very troublesome. They cause people a lot of consternation. They're very necessary changes for us to get where we need to be in health care so that we can sustain health care for our kids.

We have made massive changes to the education system. We've made changes to so many things that are necessary to bring sustainability, but the one thing that's stable, the one thing we are guaranteeing with this piece of legislation, is stability of rate for our people here. Not that they won't see rate increases that are fair and move with the cost of production, but they will see the B.C. price advantage in hydro remain, because we have protected these assets.

This is just one piece of the entire energy policy that was rolled out some months ago by the minister, which is going to ensure we become a leader in this country in both energy and mining. We have other ministers that are working hard to restore all of our business sectors.

Our economy is going to be restored to the number one spot in the country. The Citizens for Public Power are continuing their campaign. I know, and I've heard other members here say it's a shame that they aren't honest enough and forthright enough to stand up and apologize to the people of this province.

I know we recently spoke to the head of one of the big private medical laboratories in this province that had begun a campaign of what I could only describe as fearmongering because we're looking at changing the way that hospital labs and medical labs run in this province. We are paying some 50 percent more than the average per capita in this province, more than any other province in the country. We have looked at creating an immediate savings of over $50 million a year by dropping the price we will pay to those labs by 20 percent. They've agreed that they are paid too much money. Then we're asking for proposals for the provision of lab services in the various regions throughout this province. We believe that kind of competitive process will bring further cost savings. More importantly, we will be looking for ways to ensure that people are getting lab tests when they need them and only those they need and not some of the redundant testing that's been going on.

How does that tie in with this act? Well, the owners of some of the labs don't like the change because it can affect them, so they're out there giving letters to all of the people who come in for lab tests or on their websites they are saying that what's going to happen is that service levels will decline so that there will be hours of waiting to get a lab test in this province. They are saying that perhaps your lab samples will be sent to the United States for analysis, and there will be all of the confusion with the transmission of these tests. They could get lost or you could get the wrong tests.

All kinds of terrible fearmongering is being pushed forward by some of these lab owners. It's scaring people; it's scaring seniors. The seniors are writing to us in our constituency offices. The fact is that through the proposal process we're putting forward, these very labs that are doing the fearmongering, these very labs that are saying that now there will be hours of waiting, are going to put forward proposals to provide service for the government that probably, in their proposals, will meet or even better the service people have today. They've admitted that.

In fact, some of the labs that are doing this have stated that they overreacted, that they went too far. They at least were big enough to say: "We made a mistake." I wonder if the Citizens for Public Power could look at what happened to those people, the lab owners, and what they did and perhaps be big enough to do the same thing and say: "We're sorry. We've scared people unnecessarily in this province. We have castigated a minister who has done exactly the right thing, who's worked really hard to make sure we have power in this province with the B.C. advantage."

Are they going to do that? I think not, because the motivation for the Citizens for Public Power was never to preserve B.C. Hydro, its assets, the B.C. advantage. The motivation for these people was to winnow out support for their political stance. This is a political movement led by the likes of the mayor of Burnaby, who's a well-known, very affable socialist member of the NDP and very much in opposition to our government and many of the very, very positive moves we have made. He too, like the Leader of the Opposition, is a very intelligent man who knows in his heart of hearts that what we're doing is the right thing. I think Mayor Corrigan, too, would stand up and cheer in the privacy of his own home for the moves this government is making, but publicly, because he opposes through his political affiliations, he's got to put on a public face of opposition.

You know, any reasonable person who analyzes what we're doing, who sits down and just looks at the cold hard facts, knows we're on the right road and knows that we were on the path of destruction and that we were going to load our kids with a debt they could never get out of. That's not something we're going to do. It's not something the Leader of the Opposition wants, and that's why she's so happy with our policies. I'm sure of it, and I'm sure Mayor Corrigan of Burnaby is also extremely pleased.

Jim Abram is extremely pleased with our policies as well. I am convinced of this. They are intelligent, reasonable people who just happen to be members of an opposing party and, because of their opposition status, must oppose what we're doing even though they do it, I'm sure, half-heartedly. They do it feeling extremely bad about having to do it, but in their own homes I'm sure they celebrate every victory we have over the terrible legacy that was left to us by that previous government.

I'll leave that. I'm sure both the members of the opposition are at home today secretly cheering and watching our debate, so I'll leave it here. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity for at least getting some of my thoughts out.

R. Sultan: I am pleased to be able to rise in support of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heri-

tage Contract Act. I think the minister explained the purposes of the act very well. The heritage contract will essentially lock in the value of existing low-cost generation assets for British Columbians for a long time, and I think all British Columbians can support that.

B.C. Hydro holds a very special place in the hearts of the citizens of this province, something I didn't truly appreciate before becoming active in public life. It's one of the truly sensitive areas among constituents who come to talk to me about the future of this government. Of all the things we do, B.C. Hydro is perhaps the most precious in their minds. They want to see its assets preserved for the public, and of course that is exactly what the minister has pledged to do.

It's part of our history. This fine Crown corporation has been around a long time. It's an icon. In fact, it's a part of our history that I personally helped create. Its predecessor, the B.C. Electric Co. — so many decades ago that the people opposite weren't even born — was building hydroelectric plants on the banks of the Fraser River that I assisted in building: the Seaton Lake project, draining the lake down to the Fraser River opposite Lillooet and, in another summer of my life, helping build Bridge River 2 and the Terzaghi Dam. Even today, both of these facilities provide very reliable, low-cost hydroelectricity to us. This was a very enjoyable part of my life, but it also left a sense of accomplishment and, I would even say, a sense of ownership in the physical assets of this wonderful utility we call B.C. Hydro.

Similarly, British Columbians today, even if they didn't have the privilege of helping construct these assets, know that this utility has served British Columbians very well. They know that because they read the shocking headlines of how electric utility organizations elsewhere in the world have fallen badly. They only have to read the headlines out of California: the Enron scandal; the fiascos of electrical mismanagement that I would say have propelled a weightlifter into the governorship; the problems of Ontario Hydro, stuck with billions of dollars of stranded nuclear generating capacity that is not reliable and has had to be decommissioned even while being recommissioned — a huge, huge fiscal burden that the citizens of Ontario will have to live with for generations.

The New York hydro facility had a blackout. I think the estimates seem to be 30 million to 50 million people put in the dark not many weeks ago. Even an event in Europe, when the electrical grid in Italy broke down — very much a parallel to the failure of the electrical grid in eastern United States and eastern Canada….

Because of the excellence of our engineering and the prudent management of the system here in British Columbia, we have avoided these catastrophes, and I think most British Columbians, even if they aren't experts in electrical generation and transmission, understand that. They travel to other areas of the world, and they see flimsy electrical supply systems in Latin America, in Asia. They read about the inability to restore electrical service in Iraq as a major contributor to the turmoil in that unfortunate country, and they come to the conclusion that they like B.C. Hydro in terms of how it's reformed and, in particular, the way it is owned.

We are very fortunate, but we take it for granted. My friend the previous speaker has pointed out that we shouldn't take it for granted, because it is not without its problems. We need new capacity; we haven't built any for 25 years. We are dependent upon imports from Alberta and the United States for an undue proportion of our demand. We have problems of supply on Vancouver Island. Burrard terminal is not without its headaches — an aging plant, $30 billion to $35 billion worth that has to be replaced in the next decade.

These are major challenges, but under this government and under this minister, it is at least being run as a business rather than a political sinecure, and I think they will manage the job. Meanwhile the opposition doesn't dwell on the weaknesses they left us with. Rather, we hear continually that we plan to sell B.C. Hydro. The Citizens for Public Power bombard us with e-mails and get our constituents to write us letters and the councillors we represent at the municipal level in Victoria to send us resolutions.

I would argue that this is actually unethical conduct. I used to be involved in teaching marketing students at one period in my life, and we had a name for advertising something that actually wasn't for sale as being for sale. It was used when you wanted to get customers into the store and then sell them something else — for example, if you want to advertise a great big television set for under a hundred dollars. You come into the store, and sure enough, there'd be a model on the floor, but it would be bolted down and it wasn't for sale. What they really wanted to sell you was a $2,500, 84-inch DVD special. That's the one they wanted to switch you to. The bait was to try and offer you something for sale that wasn't for sale, and the switch was to have you switch and sell you something else.

I would suggest that's the same bait-and-switch tactic that we see on display now with the Citizens for Public Power. The bait is: "B.C. Hydro's going to be sold. Come on in, folks. Let's have a demonstration." When you get in the store, you find that they really want to sell you something else, and that something else is a political message involving another political party we hear an awful lot about in this legislative hall. I don't think British Columbians are foolish enough to fall for what are classic bait-and-switch tactics. They know B.C. Hydro isn't for sale, and they know, if they get into that store, that they're not going to be switched into another political message with another motive.

I think the previous speaker has spelled out very clearly, in great detail, the mechanics of this essentially propaganda campaign. I don't think too many British Columbians, at the end of the day, are fooled by it.

I think Bill 85 puts B.C. Hydro on a more businesslike basis. It gives them the flexibility to conduct their affairs like any other independent corporation should. It further insulates them from the political influence

which has been the bane of this fine utility organization under the previous government. It gives them assurance that should they want to shuffle assets around on the margin, without touching the core assets of generating, transmission and distribution, they can do so. I see no hidden plot here, such the Citizens for Public Power with their bait-and-switch tactics are trying to sell to the citizens of British Columbia.

Therefore, like my colleagues, I applaud the minister for bringing this legislation forward. I think it's going to serve B.C. Hydro well. It's going to serve the citizens of British Columbia very well.

W. Cobb: Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract, as has been said in the act, creates a framework to establish the heritage contract to ensure and lock in the value of existing low generation costs for an expanded period of time. This, of course, does not mean that there will be no changes over time in our prices. To guarantee that would probably do exactly what happened in California a few years ago, when they froze the prices. Any rate increase, of course, will be approved by the Utilities Commission. This part of the legislation, the heritage act, is very important as we now, particularly in the Cariboo, are gearing up for economic activity in the mining industry. Mining, of course, is a huge user of electricity.

I'm sure we've all heard of the latest exploration activities with Mount Polley and the success they've had in some drilling and the innovation of Gibraltar Mines in their development. What we've done with Hydro and the energy plan will allow Gibraltar to actually produce some of their own electricity, help them maintain their staff there until the copper prices come up and they can reopen. This legislation should also help their competitiveness as these mines start to reopen.

The legislation will also confirm our commitment that B.C. Hydro has not been sold, nor will it be. We've heard all the verbiage — I had some other words here, but I was advised not to use them — from the opposition on selling B.C. Hydro. It's unfortunate that some people actually believe them, including the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. I think other members in here have stated tonight that the list of people who are in that organization…. I think it was stated — and I would reiterate it — that this is not about whether it's good for B.C., whether it's good for power. But it's a political thing, and they're playing politics with a very important aspect of what B.C. needs to get it generated.

You talk to this group. Did this group speak out against the NDP consideration of selling B.C. Hydro? No, of course they didn't. In 2000 a secret briefing document was prepared for the NDP caucus considering the sale of B.C. Hydro and other big-ticket items. Did this group speak out against a B.C. Hydro contract with Accenture? You've heard a lot of stuff about what we've done. We've contracted out some stuff to Accenture. Did this group come out against the NDP? No, while the NDP was in government, they contracted with Accenture and, before then, Arthur Andersen Consulting. The new outsourcing agreement between B.C. Hydro and Accenture flows from the work that was done in the last decade.

Did this group speak out against the NDP's secret plan to invest in Pakistan power? Of course, we've heard that tonight. No, the NDP-appointed Hydro board embarked on a foolish and costly venture to rebuild a power plant in Pakistan, losing us, as taxpayers and ratepayers, millions of dollars.

B.C. Hydro is still owned by the people of British Columbia and will continue to be that way. This bill strengthens and secures continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro. It's already been done, but I think it needs to be reiterated here. Under section 2, "Sale of protected assets prohibited," it reads: "Subject to subsection (2), the authority must not sell or otherwise dispose of the protected assets." It goes on to list some of them. I think this is probably where our opposition will try and say: "Oh, but you leave the door open." It says: "Nothing in subsection (1) prevents the authority from disposing of protected assets…." But it gives some guidelines on what those assets are and how we must protect them. The assets that are allowed to be disposed of can only be disposed of if they are no longer fit for intended purposes, like producing power. The assets disposed of are no longer useful. Of course we have to upgrade, we have to buy equipment, and we have to replace. That allows us to sell off some of the equipment that's no longer usable. The assets disposed of are to be replaced with one or more assets that will perform similar functions.

I don't know how much clearer we could be. I am in support of this bill, and I applaud the minister for bringing it forward.

R. Visser: I wanted to spend a few minutes and talk about Bill 85, the heritage contract, the future of energy, the creation of electrons on Vancouver Island — specifically, northern Vancouver Island — and what some of this work means to us.

A lot of the members in the House today have spent some time talking about the critics of this government and what we're trying to do — the way we're trying to build an economy, the way we're trying to support communities, and the way we're trying to support industry and build a province. I think the debate in this House highlights exactly the distance and the difference between that political opposition that has found a home in the B.C. Citizens for Public Power and this government.

I think this bill outlines, in a pretty clear and black and white way for all of us to see, what our commitment is, what this minister's commitment is and what the Premier's commitment is to B.C. Hydro — and the legacy of very inexpensive, on a North American scale, electrons not only for our citizens but for industry and the citizens that depend on that industry for their employment.

What we're trying to do here is lock in those rates. We're trying to take that structure we have in generation, storage and transmission, and the benefits it provides this province and has provided this province for the last few decades, and lock that in and say: "That's fixed for all time."

Then we want to pass that on to the consumers in this province. Those consumers are many. They're seniors in their homes. They're people trying to raise families. They're industry, small businesses, big businesses — all of the above. They're tourism operators. We want to lock that in so that we receive from now on all of those benefits.

Well, we've got another problem, and this Bill 85 is part of a bigger issue. It's a piece of this puzzle. I talk about pieces of the puzzle all the time, because I think what our critics do is take parts of each of those pieces, and they rail about that. They spread fear amongst the citizens. I don't think that's particularly fair. But, hey, that's politics, and we'll get over it.

You know what? I think debate in this House gets to show us exactly the big picture, gets to show us what it is that we as a government are trying to do. Bill 85 is a piece of that big picture. We want to secure what we have, and we want to create a climate for investment. It's part of the energy plan. We have got to deliver new electrons to Vancouver Island.

Vancouver Island's got a couple of problems. We've got a growing population. I don't consider that to be a bad problem. That's a good problem; I like that problem. We've got a growing population mostly on the southern end of Vancouver Island. We want to see that spread north, so we need more industry. We need more investment. We need more opportunities. In order to get those things, we have to have a secure supply of electricity — cheap, affordable, leading-edge, globally competitive electricity.

But we've got, inside of that, a couple of other problems. One is that we've got a failing underwater cable that's getting to the end of its life expectancy. It needs to be replaced. The costs of that replacement are extraordinary. We need to find some new electrons to meet current demand and meet the growth over time.

How are we going to do that? Well, our plan is to preserve the heritage contract, the heritage prices, and then submit the balance to the BCUC, the regulator in this, and allow them to make adjustments over time, allow them to decide what's the best way — from a big-picture perspective — to get those electrons on Vancouver Island. Part of the success of this and the BCUC system in re-regulation and the energy plan and all the things that we've tried to undertake here as the government bore itself out not that long ago — well, in fact, right here, on September 26 when there was $800 million of green energy, new energy. That's what the private sector bid: $800 million in investment. They bid that to B.C. Hydro to produce new electrons.

Here's why this is good, and here's why this is good for the North Island: There is the Ucona River power project in Gold River, 35 megawatts. They want to drill a tunnel in the side of a mountain to a small lake up on top of a mountain — 12 or 15 feet in diameter, a few thousand metres long — and they want to shoot that out a small pipe down by the Ucona River. They're going to generate 35 megawatts of electricity with that run-of-the-river power project — green energy. They're going to harness the power of that water tumbling down the side of the mountain. They're going to turn it into dollars. They're going to turn it into electrons and turn those electrons into dollars and generate more taxes, more jobs and more income for a town like Gold River.

Gold River has already got a little 7-megawatt one being built right now. When the crews showed up, the hotel guy was happy. A couple of people stay in the hotel. The engineers stay in the hotel; some of the consultants stay in the hotel. The local guys…. The excavator was happy. He got a little work out of it. Some of the local labourers got a little work out of it. It's how you build an economy.

The Zeballos Lake Hydro project, 21.85 megawatts. There was a landslide centuries and centuries ago on Zeballos Lake, and it provided a little bit of a dam up there in the mountains. They want to run a little pipeline down into a small turbine and generate electricity with that.

These are all green projects. They're all environmentally friendly. They all have no bearing on fish habitat. They all have no drinking water implications — nothing. These are as small a footprint as you can get.

There's the Holberg wind energy project. You know, they want to build 48.5 megawatts of wind power at the northern end of Vancouver Island, at Holberg. They want to put up these big…. I think from the bottom to the top it's around 200 metres, from the top of the blade to the bottom of the tower. They want to put a wind farm up there, on the mountain. We know it blows; we know the wind blows up there. It

blows all the time. They want to harness that energy, and they want to put it into the grid. They want to sell those electrons to B.C. Hydro, and they want to, in turn, help with this energy problem we've got on Vancouver Island.

When's the last time that you or anybody in this House heard of industrial development and investment, large-scale investment — you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment — in towns like Tahsis, Holberg, Zeballos and Gold River? I submit it's been quite a while. I submit that in some of those towns' cases, it's probably back in the fifties when something like this occurred.

All of these things are going to help us. All of these things are going to help those small communities. There are a couple of jobs, but they're taxes. They're a tax base for those little towns, a tax base so that those municipal governments that represent those 200 people in Zeballos and 600 people in Tahsis — lets those municipal governments provide services to those people….

I think this is good stuff. I think these are good ideas. It's a great idea. It's important that we unleash the private sector on this. I think it's important that B.C. Hydro, in fact, doesn't do this and that we let the private sector take these risks, that we let the private sector out there. The government or a Crown corporation is not capable…. To the contrary of what the B.C. Citizens for Public Power will tell you, they are not as capable as the private sector is — as those entrepreneurs, as those small business people are — to get out there on that land base and think up good ideas on how to provide electrons to this province.

They're great at generating from the heritage contract. They're great at transmission, great at distribution, and that's what they should do. But when it comes time to look for new electrons in this province, when it comes time to get out there on that land base and look for those little run-of-the-river projects, look for those big run-of-the-river projects, look for those wind opportunities, look for tidal opportunities, I think the private sector is the one that's well suited for this.

I think this heritage contract stuff is great. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? There's another project in Gold River, called Green Island Energy. A consortium out of the U.S. came up to British Columbia, started looking around and found an asset that was the shut-down pulp mill in Gold River. When they shut down the pulp mill in Gold River, they kept the energy island intact — the small turbo generator and the boilers. They thought: "Someday, someone might want to buy that, so we'll set this aside, and we'll preserve this. We'll dismantle most of the other mill around it, and we'll do our environmental cleanup, but we think this asset has some value."

Lo and behold, they were right. Along came Green Island Energy, who bought that. Green Island Energy now, in a call that I think went out on Friday from B.C. Hydro, is going to bid into this new opportunity to produce. They want to produce between 105 and 150 megawatts of power in Gold River. They want to take that shut-down pulp mill and convert it into a wood waste facility, a green energy project.

Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? That has the town of Gold River abuzz. These people showed up, they put their money on the table, they are accepting the risk, they're assuming the responsibility for that site, and they're moving forward. And you know what? They're attracting a whole bunch of other things along with it. They're attracting an aggregate opportunity. They're looking at salmon aquaculture opportunities on the site. They're looking at sawmill opportunities and at small, value-added shake and shingle opportunities on that site. They're looking at a marina opportunity. They have re-energized — excuse the pun — that community.

You know, I think that's wonderful. I think it's wonderful that somebody showed up and saw an opportunity in British Columbia — in small-town, heartland British Columbia — and put their money on the table and said: "We think that in this province, we can earn a return on our investment, and we're willing to put our money there." Do you know what that means for the town of Gold River? That means more taxes. It means more taxes that are going to keep their swimming pool open. It means more taxes so they can keep that ice arena open, more taxes that are going to mean services for the kids and the residents of that community.

It means jobs. It means family-sustaining jobs for the residents and citizens of that community. Gold River is a pretty exciting place right now, and it's all because this government, this minister and this Premier had the foresight to understand that the private sector has a role to play in the generation of electrons in this province. Gold River has a future now. They could become one of the great energy centres of Vancouver Island. A whole new world of opportunity opened up for them, and I personally think that's fantastic.

It's an exciting time to be out there. We've got one of the pulp mills…. NorskeCanada has four pulp mills in the province, all on the coast of British Columbia. Three of them are on Vancouver Island — Crofton, Port Alberni and Elk Falls in Campbell River — and then one in Powell River. Last time I looked, they were B.C. Hydro's largest customer in the province. It takes a lot of energy to run a pulp mill. In fact, in Elk Falls, if I am not mistaken, it's 240 megawatts of steady committed power to keep that place running and to keep those 1,100 people in their jobs.

They need low rates. They need this commitment from this government that we're going to preserve that heritage contract and keep them competitive in the world, because they've been withstanding all kinds of difficult shocks lately: tough prices in the paper market and a rising Canadian dollar when they trade their products for U.S. dollars. They're one of those companies that earns one of our first dollars in this province.

Norske wants to bid in this. Norske wants to get involved in the generation of electrons on Vancouver

Island. They want to do it in an innovative and creative way. It's not only that they want to put a co-gen facility inside a mill and create 150 megawatts of power. They want to build into this call the notion that through wise management of their demand of the roughly, plus or minus, 240 megawatts per mill on the Island…. If they use that energy wisely — if they do some things such as schedule maintenance in a coordinated way, if they alter times of production in a coordinated way and if they mesh their power demands with the peak demand periods or the off-peak demand periods — they think they can provide a lot of saved electrons for Vancouver Island.

This is the power of the private sector at work. These folks are getting creative with things we never thought of for decades. Our response was: "Well, let's spend $700 million and put a new cable across." I don't know that that's an appropriate choice. We may have to do it sometime, but I think we need to have — and thankfully we have one — a utilities commission that's willing to say: "B.C. Hydro, you must look for the lowest-cost opportunity and the most efficient opportunity for Vancouver Island–generated electrons, and you must look to the private sector to do that."

When you tell them, they do that. When you give them that mandate, do you know what you get? You get opportunity. Opportunity comes knocking. Do you know where that opportunity is, Mr. Speaker? It's in Gold River. It's in Tahsis. It's in Zeballos. It's in Holberg. It's going to be in Port Hardy. They're talking about a wood-fired cogeneration plant at Port McNeill. I suspect that we've got as good a chance as any of the three mills on the Island to have good cogeneration facility inside a Norske mill. Quinsam Coal is looking at clean coal technology to generate electrons on Vancouver Island from their mine in Campbell River.

That's the power of the private sector. That's the power of the energy plan. That's why the focus on IPPs. That's why you do things like Bill 85 — so that you can provide the trust that the public needs and the insurance that industry needs that we are committed to keeping hydro rates in this province as low as they possibly can be so that we in this province, in those small communities, can benefit from a competitive advantage.

In this economy, in this global economy, in this trading environment we're in, we need that advantage. We need that advantage in the salmon aquaculture industry, because it uses electrons. It uses energy in its processing facilities. We need that in the mining sector, because those mining machines underground use electricity. We need it in the manufacturing, we need it in the sawmills, we need it in the pulp mills, we need it in the supply and service industries, and we need it in our homes. I think you even need electricity to make those little sprinklers pop up sometimes on the golf course, and the Lord knows that's important on Vancouver Island.

That's what we're doing. We're giving the assurance to the people of this province that their electricity rates are going to be as low and as competitive as they can possibly be. We're giving the assurance to industry that they are going to be able to be involved in a real and significant way if they invest their dollars in British Columbia. They'll be able to produce electrons, they'll be able to produce income, and they'll be able to produce taxes. They'll be able to produce opportunities and hope for small towns up and down this Island of ours and indeed across the province.

I fully support this bill. I fully support the energy plan. I fully support the direction this government has taken, because it's delivering results for the people of this province and the people that matter in those small towns.

B. Suffredine: I want to make it very clear and I want there to be no doubt at the end of what have to I say tonight that I support the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act completely.

For many months there have been a number of individuals and groups who, against all the evidence, have continued to allege that this government intends to sell B.C. Hydro or significant parts of it. No matter how many times or how directly the Premier, the Minister of Energy, the cabinet and members of caucus said, "We're not selling Hydro; Hydro is not for sale," they continued to say we were. It wasn't true. They knew it, but it sounded good, so they kept saying it.

It reminds me of many years ago when I was articling. My principal in the law practice told me a little story about a local lawyer who didn't get along with the local judge. One day in court there was a bit of a disagreement over a ruling of law that occurred in the case. The lawyer continued to debate the ruling with the judge, which isn't a very wise thing to do. The judge said to him: "Counsel, stop being so obtuse." Now, this particular counsel wasn't very proficient in English, so he didn't quite know what to say. He thought he had been insulted, but he really wasn't sure what obtuse meant. Although he knew it wasn't a compliment, he didn't know how to respond to it. Over lunch he went and found the dictionary, and he looked it up. After lunch he returned. He knew what obtuse meant now. He quite indignantly said to the judge: "Your Honour, before lunch you called me obtuse. I've looked it up, and it has two meanings. Which one did you intend?" The judge looked at him calmly and said: "Take your pick, counsel. Take your pick." For all of these months we've heard people repeatedly — in spite of being told clearly what was meant — tell the public what wasn't true.

Speaking of opponents, the member for Prince George–Omineca got up earlier today and made comments where he suggested he was open to listen and to start again. I think he needs a new speechwriter. He was full of talk about how he was listening and open, but he actually demonstrated just the opposite. In his desperation for a logical conclusion, the best he could do at the end of his comments was to say that he was going to continue to be the bogeyman. His attempts to make the atmosphere electric fell flat and went to ground.

Then the Leader of the Opposition took a turn at it. She says this act is about letting cabinet set power

rates. She calls it "institutionalizing them." Now there's an authoritative voice. After all, it was the NDP cabinet, in which the Leader of the Opposition sat as a minister, where power was taken from the BCUC and rates frozen by cabinet. It was the NDP that put us in the situation where the BCUC didn't govern and in the situation we're in, by freezing rates when it wasn't a logical decision. They did it for political reasons. They did it so they could get re-elected, not so the people in British Columbia could have the best and most sustainable power system.

For over a decade the government deluded itself and the people of British Columbia that keeping power rates artificially low was in the interests of the public. The Leader of the Opposition, in her comments, described this as fluff, as unnecessary. It would have happened anyway, she says. I guess she accepts that we are re-regulating Hydro and that by re-regulating it, it would automatically happen again.

She is right, however, that we are institutionalizing the setting of rates. The only difference is that the institution is called the BCUC, and it will set rates that are in the best interests of the people in all of British Columbia. I hope that in light of her comments and the fact that it really was not a matter of consequence that this act was before us, we won't see her here voting against the legislation. Maybe we'll even see her here, along with the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, voting for it.

I know it may be a repetition of some of the comments made earlier, but I wanted to make sure the misinformation that was spread by the deliberate campaign against the government is corrected. Let's look at the facts and maybe just take the time to read the section of the bill. In section 1 it has a definition of something called protected assets: "'protected assets' means any of the following in respect of which, on the date on which this Act receives First Reading in the Legislative Assembly, a certificate of public convenience and necessity has been granted, or has been deemed to have been granted, to the authority under the Utilities Commission Act." It defines those as:"(a) those generation and storage assets identified in the Schedule to this Act."

There's a big list in the schedule of all the locations where there are generation and storage facilities. It includes all the major assets of B.C. Hydro: "(b) equipment or facilities for the transmission or distribution of electricity."

To the Citizens for Public Power: (a) says we're not selling generation facilities and we're not selling storage facilities, and (b) says we're not selling equipment or facilities for the transmission or distribution that Hydro owns.

To the member for Prince George–Omineca, who said he didn't get a direct answer: (a) says we're not selling generation or storage assets of B.C. Hydro, and (b) says we're not selling transmission or distribution facilities of B.C. Hydro.

To the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant: (a) says we're not selling generation or storage assets of B.C. Hydro, and (b) says we're not selling storage assets or equipment of B.C. Hydro.

To all of the above — let's make it simple: the assets of B.C. Hydro — the generation, storage, equipment, transmission or distribution facilities — are not for sale. In case they missed it, the dams are not for sale, the generation facilities are not for sale, the storage facilities are not for sale, and transmission facilities are not for sale. It's time for the opposition to see the light.

What's the heritage contract all about? Why have it? Why not just let the market govern? Well, let me give you a little example. We all think about things we've done in life. I was once on the board of a local ski society, called the Whitewater Ski Society, in the 1970s. We made a similar error, as the board of directors of a volunteer society, that has been made in the last ten years by government with respect to power rates. We failed to raise the price of a lift ticket annually to keep up with the rising costs that were going on in the industry. The result was that we lost money almost every year. We couldn't keep up to our costs. We fell behind in our bank payments. We got to the point where we were insolvent, and basically the society had to sell that facility to an operating company that could recapitalize it and make it work.

We certainly don't want that to happen with B.C. Hydro. We want to make B.C. Hydro sustainable for now and forever. Back when I was in the ski area, the new company had to adjust the rates, and it adopted a policy of adjusting the rates modestly every year so that the rates were acceptable to people and they could make the adjustment. It made it so that the company became profitable again, and today it's a great asset to the community.

B.C. Hydro provides a valued service to us, but it has a cost to production. Generating facilities wear out. When we see a dam, we don't necessarily think that the dam has a life, but it does. The concrete has a life. The generators that fit in the dam have a life, and those generators, because they're moving parts, need to be replaced. Replacing those facilities, in today's dollars, costs more than it cost to build them in the 1960s. Essentially, B.C. Hydro has been utilizing those assets and wearing them out. They need the money to replace them. As well, we need more power in order to meet the needs we have today.

We need a plan to replace existing generation facilities in a rational way so we don't get a big shock. New generation facilities cost way more today than they did in the sixties. We pay rates far below the cost per kilowatt for that new generation. I've been to some of the meetings with new IPPs, and it's noteworthy that their cost to production is well over our present rates for consumption. We want to encourage that new generation to be built. For example, in my riding there's the

Brilliant expansion project — $200 million worth. We want to encourage that to be built, and it's hard to imagine who would build such a project if the cost exceeds the earnings potential. The Brilliant expansion project alone will bring $200 million of investment into the Kootenays.

B. Suffredine: I stand corrected — $203 million. It will improve the environment for the fish in the river by lessening the amount of trapped nitrogen in the water. The nitrogen gets trapped by virtue of going over the falls. It will bring some great high-paying jobs for years to come.

Who would want to make that investment unless they can sell the power for enough to pay for the investment? At the same time, we need to recognize ways to make the transition and protect consumers from a sudden dramatic increase. Recently the eastern U.S. got a wake-up call with the lights out when the power system failed due to overloading. Earlier today the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine told us about his favourite country song. He talked about….

B. Suffredine: I understand no, Mr. Speaker, but that wasn't actually a song that occurred to me. It struck me that there was also a song about the day the lights went out in Georgia. Well, recently they went out in more than Georgia. They went out across the whole eastern seaboard, and it was quite a lesson. If we don't pay attention, the day may come when the Leader of the Opposition will be singing about the day the lights went out on Georgia Street.

The heritage contract is designed to keep power rates competitive for B.C. residents while encouraging new investment and facilities. It's important we all recognize that building reliable new production capacity means that over time we must expect to pay reasonable costs for that power. Time never stands still, and costs must rise over time. We must accept that. The adjustment is to be made gradually. That's what the act is all about. It's about averaging the rates between the new generation and the old so that we can get the best possible protection for British Columbia and a sustainable system of electric power generation for years and years to come.

I support this legislation in all aspects, and I hope that we'll now hear those negative voices — who have been trying to spread fear among everyone who will listen — be silent.

B. Lekstrom: I, like my colleagues prior, raise my voice in support of Bill 85.

It's been an interesting time for all of us, I think, in government. You get in, and you try to make changes for the betterment of the province and in the best interests of its citizens. When you work towards something, and you hear a group that takes the issue and misrepresents it to the public…. You begin to get constituents, in my case from Peace River South, questioning what we are doing with B.C. Hydro. They'll bring in a form letter they've had sent to them, and they'll talk you about: "My God, you're privatizing B.C. Hydro. What are you doing?"

Then you sit with them. Most people are reasonable, I find. You sit down with them and go through the true facts of what's actually taking place on the floor of the Legislature, the work the minister is doing — our cabinet, our Premier and the colleagues I work with. Most times…. I say "most times," because there is on the odd occasion someone who will not accept the truth. They leave, and they may not agree with the direction, but at the end of the day….

At the end of the day they have a new-found respect, I believe, because the facts are put in front of them. What we face here today is an issue under Bill 85, with the heritage power that we talk about. Many people are questioning: "What is heritage power? What is all that about?" It's really about the way we've produced power in the past and how effectively we've done it in British Columbia with the assets we've had. It's about a vision of previous governments before us, which had a vision that we had to develop power in a sustainable manner and maintain that power. We've managed to do that. We've done it very effectively.

But the time has come that we have to generate more power in the future. We're moving ahead as a society, and when society grows, we create more jobs and industry grows. As industry grows, we need more power. So we do that in partnerships. Rather than just have the government Crown corporation develop this power, we're allowing the private sector into this, allowing independent power producers to bring their innovative ideas forward, to take the risk, to invest the capital and to produce power for British Columbians.

I don't think it's a secret that in order to produce power 20 years ago or 30 years ago, the investment and the capital outlaid was significantly different than what's required today. Much of the power we produce is very cost-effective today in British Columbia. I'll take the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, very close to my home in my colleague's riding, actually — the Minister of Energy and Mines. If we were to develop that today, I can tell you that the cost of production of that power wouldn't be as inexpensive as what we have today coming out of that dam. That's a reality.

As time progresses and we move on as a society and the years go by, there is very little, if any, way that we can actually produce things cheaper today than we

did 20 years ago or 30 years ago. Our investment costs are higher; our labour costs are higher. Those aren't bad things; they're just a reality of life. So heritage power is about the blending of the old rates and the new rates. It's a far cry from paying market price for power, which is what we see today with natural gas.

We face a significant challenge. I believe 1986 was the year, under what was called the Halloween agreement, when natural gas was deregulated. I can look at that as a very poor decision. We sit on natural gas in British Columbia that benefits all of us in many ways, yet we pay the market price because of a decision made by previous governments to deregulate that. With B.C. Hydro, we had a group of people out there saying that we were going to deregulate B.C. Hydro. Heck, that scared even me. I had to relook at what was going on and say: "My God, I've never heard that. I've never read that. I'd better go back and go over the documents."

Well, I did, and nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the previous government deregulated B.C. Hydro — took it out of the hands of the commission that set the rates and put it in the hands of the cabinet to play politics with. Very effective tool, though. I mean, if you can go to your electorate and say that you're going to freeze power rates — and that's what they did — most people, in the short term, think that's a pretty good idea. The reality is that the longer you leave those rates frozen — while your costs of production are increasing day after day, year after year — it catches up to you. That's what we face here today.

We talk about B.C. Hydro. I think as a British Columbian, as an MLA that represents Peace River South, as a father…. I'm very proud to be a British Columbian, and I'm proud to be part of B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro is all of us in British Columbia. It isn't the government, it isn't the B.C. Hydro board, and it isn't just the employees of B.C. Hydro. It's each and every one of us that live in British Columbia. We should all be proud of that asset. I don't think you can find many Crown corporations anywhere in the world that have as good a track record as what we see in B.C. Hydro, and probably you can't find another province or community around this world that's as proud of that asset as we are here in British Columbia. So I do understand the emotional aspect of this, when people are out there saying we're going to sell B.C. Hydro, we're going to get rid of it, and we're going to deregulate it. Those concerns, from that type of information, are valid when people come in. It's unfortunate, though, that the people that were spreading this information knew it was wrong, and that's the part I know….

B. Lekstrom: Well, it's politics, I guess. Many people say: "Well, that's politics." I for one, and I'm sure I can speak for many of my colleagues, am tired of that kind of politics. I think most British Columbians are tired of that kind of politics. That's one of the main reasons I ran for office. I believe that when you run, regardless of your political background, you're here to do what's best for British Columbia and the constituents you represent.

For the life of me I can't understand the tactics used, but I'm glad to be able to stand here today to ease the fears of many people that may still have those fears, because under Bill 85 it spells out very clearly what we're doing. B.C. Hydro — our generation, our production, our transmission — is not for sale. I don't want to dwell on that too much, because for the previous 15 speakers before me, at least, it's been pointed out time and time again. But we did point that out. We pointed it out day in and day out during the campaign of misinformation that was out there — that that isn't what this government is doing. It would be foolish to do that.

You know, we may be MLAs, but we're also British Columbians. I can tell you that each person in this Legislature understands the importance of B.C. Hydro and what it means to our economic well-being in our province, to our families, to our business community. So why on earth would we take a move that would jeopardize all of the good work that we've been able to accomplish to this point? It just wasn't factual, and it just won't happen.

I want to go back to B.C. Hydro and what I believe it's all about. I said it's about more than a government. It isn't about government. It isn't about the B.C. Hydro board. Far too often, sometimes, I think we overlook one of the key elements of what B.C. Hydro is, and that's the workers at B.C. Hydro. Those are the people on the ground that go to work every day, who work in our facilities to make sure that we have power when we can walk into a room and turn our lights on. Hopefully, when you walk out, you turn them off. That's conservation.

The idea of the public ownership is a great one. It's one I've wholeheartedly supported. Bill 85 is about the issue of a heritage contract. I heard the member of the opposition talk about that that isn't what it's about. This is enabling legislation that talks about allowing the regulatory framework to be put in place to allow the heritage contract to work, to allow the British Columbia Utilities Commission to take the information from that heritage contract and apply that when they are looking at rate applications by B.C. Hydro. That's what it's all about.

Our heritage rate, being here at a low price…. New power coming on will come on, I'm sure, somewhat higher. That's the reality as time goes by. Then we take the low rate and the rate of production today, and we blend those, that's going to be the rate we'll all pay in British Columbia. It just doesn't get any better than that. The thought of ever having to pay market price, because that's the top dollar we can get for that electricity, is somewhat scary. I don't think that's the way to go, and I'm very glad our government recognized that from day one. That's not the direction we took.

There are so many good things that are taking place. I want to talk about our power. People are wor-

ried about it. Will rates go up? I can't say for sure. I know the British Columbia Utilities Commission will be the group that decides that. Do I think rates can be frozen for another ten years? No. I'm a realist. They've been frozen for ten years now, and there's little hope, I think, that trend can continue.

For people that do worry about a small increase in power prices, I can tell you we probably don't focus enough on power conservation. I'm guilty of it. I'm sure, like many of us, sometimes you'll leave a room, as I indicated before, and not turn out the light behind you. We see buildings all over, not just in British Columbia but across North America, with their lights on. We have to do a better job of conservation.

We talk about the need for more power, and we do need more in British Columbia, because — you know what? — our economy is growing. We have industrial development that comes on. Roughly, I believe — and these numbers I'll quote are going to be relatively close — 100 of the major industrial users use 70 percent of all the power produced in British Columbia. That's quite an amazing statistic when you think we have four million people living here. The majority of our power is utilized by what I would consider to be not a relatively large number of major industrial users. They need this power. They aren't abusing it. They're using it in production. They're using it, which creates jobs for all of us. We can take pay home to our families, we can invest in their future and our children's future, and that's a good thing.

We've heard how power conservation is making huge headway in our society today. Rather than produce more power, which we are going to have to do, we have to look at and work in cooperation with the conservation side. If each and every one of us pays a little extra attention to how we run our day-to-day lives when we leave our homes, when we leave our offices here in the Legislature…. When you go to work and leave work, pay attention to what lights are on. Turn them off if they're not in use, and when you walk back in, turn them back on. It will be amazing how much power you'll save. It's not always about dollars and cents. This is about the environment; it's about many things.

Mr. Speaker, we're going to hear a number of speakers, I'm sure, after myself talk about what B.C. Hydro means to them, what it means to their constituents, what it means to our government and our country. I don't want to pre-guess what I'm going to hear, but I think they're going to reflect a pride that I show not only in our province but in our Crown corporation called B.C. Hydro. It's a very effective Crown corporation. It's one that has worked well for us, but like everything else, you have to be able to move forward as society moves forward, and you try to improve things.

That's what we're doing here. Without a doubt, Bill 85 sets the table for an improved B.C. Hydro. It creates an atmosphere of openness of government, our acceptance of allowing independent power producers to come in and work in collaboration with all of us in British Columbia to create the additional power we need.

A project we have going in the Peace River South area is very exciting. We talk about diversified economies; we talk about agriculture in our area; we talk about mining, oil and gas, tourism, ranching. I could go on and on. We're very fortunate. There's an exciting event taking place in my area, and that's wind energy. We have Peace Energy, which has applied for and is in the process of working on a lease agreement for one of the premier locations in British Columbia for wind energy development. It's an exciting venture.

We aren't talking some small money here. Significant dollars are going to be invested if this comes through. I know with the people working on it and the dedication they have to the environment…. The dedication they have to power generation and how that generation will be utilized is there. These are people who live in the north, people who are interested in the north, people who are interested in more than just the north. They're interested in producing power for British Columbia, and that's what it's about.

The days of the megaprojects — I think we're probably not going to see them nearly as often anymore. The direction I've seen through my studies — although not tremendously extensive, I've done my homework…. We're seeing more and more power generation developed closer to the markets that use it. Rather than the transmission lines that have to carry it the length of a province, we're looking at new and innovative ways to develop that power closer to the markets that use it. We can do that through all of the avenues we've spoken about in this House, whether it be wind energy or whether it be tidal. There are all kinds of options. The co-gen plants my colleague from the North Island spoke about and the opportunities and the excitement you see on the North Island…. It's incredible.

In closing I want to talk about a couple of things. I've said this before: this far exceeds politics. This is about what's good for British Columbia. This is about the truth. That's probably the single most important aspect I want to talk about here this evening.

We work hard, each and every person that sits in this Legislative Assembly now and in the future and previously. We do it because we believe we live in the most beautiful place on Earth, and that's British Columbia — and we do. We're fortunate. We will grow our province, and we will grow our power generation in this province. More importantly, we will grow the pride that each and every one of us enjoys as being part of a British Columbia atmosphere, which I can tell you I'm very proud to be part of and even more proud to be the MLA that represents an area of the province that I think — although we have the greatest province on Earth — is the most beautiful spot of that province.

V. Roddick: It is a great pleasure to rise this evening in support of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power

Legacy and Heritage Contract Act, because B.C. Hydro is not for sale. It will not be sold. Rumours abound about the possibility of privatization of B.C. Hydro. People are hand-wringing everywhere. It's simply not true. The transmission lines, dams and reservoirs will remain in British Columbians' ownership. The core business of B.C. Hydro will not be sold.

Despite consistent assurances that Hydro is not for sale, some groups — as my other colleagues have mentioned — continue to spread misinformation. Please, avail yourself. Clear, concise information about B.C.'s energy policy is available to each and every one of you on the following websites: www.gov.bc.ca.ca/em and www.bchydro.bc.ca.

Although B.C. Hydro is considered a public company by many, this is a bit of a misconception. B.C. Hydro is a Crown corporation and is owned and operated by the province and, therefore, the citizens of B.C. through their elected officials. However, B.C. Hydro does not pay dividends to the citizens of B.C. as shareholders. The citizens of B.C. do not elect the board of directors, and the citizens of B.C. do not own shares of B.C. Hydro which can give them a profit or return on investment.

B.C. Hydro is not being deregulated. This was done by the NDP. This government is re-regulating B.C. Hydro, which means that Hydro will have to explain and justify its electricity rates to the B.C. Utilities Commission. I can assure you that the government fully intends to stand by its election platform commitment to protect B.C. Hydro — its core assets, including dams, reservoirs and power lines — under public ownership.

The new BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act strengthens and secures continued public ownership of B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and distribution assets. Government remains committed to protecting the investments of the people of British Columbia that are made in B.C. Hydro's generation, transmission and assets.

The heritage contract was promised in policy action No. 1 of the energy plan to secure public ownership of B.C. Hydro's historic low-cost electrical generation assets. The heritage contract will essentially lock in the value of existing low-cost generation assets for British Columbians for an extended period.

British Columbia has a growing demand for power, and there has been no significant new generation for almost 25 years. The heritage contract will lock in low-cost electricity rates while capitalizing on new private sector investment. The cost of new power will be blended with the cost of B.C. Hydro's heritage power.

B.C.'s energy plan, released November 25, 2002, is committed to maintaining low electricity rates, public ownership of B.C. Hydro and more private sector opportunities and environmental responsibility with a guarantee of no nuclear generation in B.C. This leads to something in Delta South — the Canagro Maxim Power landfill gas co-gen facility — which is a great example of a cooperative project between several businesses, inspired by our dream of a sustainable community. Instead of burning what was considered a waste product, it will generate enough electricity for 5,000 homes.

Another benefit of this project is the same as taking more than 46,000 cars off the road or planting 63,000 trees. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 30,000 tonnes a year. It's no wonder this project has already won two significant environmental awards. This green energy power partnership between the GVRD landfill and the greenhouse is a renewable resource which, as I have already said, provides enough electricity for 5,000 homes. Its primary job is to heat the greenhouse, which produces superlative crops of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It's a renewable resource which generates $160 million annually into Delta South.

Congratulations and thanks are due to the minister and the Ministry of Energy and Mines for their hard work and dedication to ensure that the cost of new power will be balanced with heritage power to keep electricity rates as low as possible for British Columbians.

M. Hunter: BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. Legacy and heritage — two things which this government values and which I as a British Columbian value. I think this bill is very aptly named, and those two words are going to be important in the future as this bill becomes part of the legal fabric of our province.

I listened carefully and actually with some amusement to the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine a while ago. He admitted that as a child, he didn't know where electricity came from. He thought it came from that switch on the wall. Well, it's okay. The member can relax, because for ten years that's what the NDP thought too. They thought that hydro just came from the switch on the wall. They couldn't figure it out for all those long ten years. For a while they thought it came from Pakistan, because they sure invested a whole pile of your money in that country rather than pay attention to what was going on at home. So the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine can go to bed tonight assured that in his simplistic view of where electricity came from as a child, he was joined by a bunch of adults in the NDP through the 1990s. They clearly didn't know what they were doing either.

You know, the fact is that in order to put this bill in its context, we have to keep reminding ourselves that the NDP did nothing with B.C. Hydro during its term except prepare to do all the things then that it accuses this government of wanting to do now. Let's be clear about this as we debate this bill. The NDP government and its people, who it appointed to the board of B.C. Hydro through the 1990s, were planning to sell at least some if not all of B.C. Hydro's core assets. In July of 2000, it's now a matter of public record that the then board of B.C. Hydro — which included Jim Sinclair, who is now the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour — had decided to sell off much of B.C. Hydro to two private companies, two subsidiaries called Retailco and Servco. These companies were to be unregulated.

They would have been half owned by B.C. Gas, which was then a private corporation.

So, you know, it is passing strange. It's not funny. It's very confusing to the public, and it's unfair that these people who were prepared to do those kinds of things are now out there talking about this government, suggesting that it wants to sell B.C. Hydro. There is nothing this government has done that leads to that conclusion. This bill is one more piece of confirmation that we are not going to sell B.C. Hydro. Its assets remain in public hands.

The Leader of the Opposition very often talks to us in this House about secret documents, secret memos and leaked memos from government ministries. Let's remind ourselves about the secret memo from her caucus in June of 2000, just 18 months or so before the election that brought this government to power. That memo revealed that the NDP caucus of the day openly discussed selling B.C. Hydro to create a "significant one-time source of revenue." Well, one-time source of revenue is right, because that's what it would have been. Once you sell something of that nature, you can't get it back.

I think we need to remind ourselves and, again, put into context this bill and what it does to create more security for the legacy and the heritage of B.C. Hydro and its activities. I said that the NDP did nothing about B.C. Hydro, and I really believe that's true, Mr. Speaker. I can tell you that in my part of British Columbia, Nanaimo, I have canvassed many, many people — both private individuals and people in business — to ask them what are the key issues that trouble them. Of course, issues like health care and education always bubble up to the top of the pile. We know that. But it's interesting when you ask: "Okay, I understand that. What are the local issues that trouble you?" Surprising to me, when I first started asking, was the issue of secure power on Vancouver Island.

As a relatively new resident of Vancouver Island, having come from the mainland, I'd never really thought about it, to be honest. But I do now, and I think a lot more people do. It was just under a year ago — it was Boxing Day, if I'm not mistaken, of 2002 — that one of the major cables that carries power from the Peace River across Malaspina Strait and across the Strait of Georgia was toppled by a landslide. Vancouver Island was pretty short of power there for about 48 hours, and industrial customers had their power supplies reduced or cut off. Well, we all know that you can't build a society and an industrial base and jobs for people these days in a situation where the power might go off.

I don't care if you're in the business of manufacturing pulp, in the business of manufacturing circuitry or in the business of manufacturing robotics — which companies in my constituency do, all of those and more — you need a secure power supply, an uninterruptible power supply. What the NDP didn't do and what this bill does are vitally important to the future of my part of British Columbia and, I would venture to suggest and guess, vital and important to every other member in this chamber no matter which political party or affiliation they come from. This bill is a very, very important one.

I want to go back to the hypocrisy on the other side. I mentioned Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. Jim Sinclair is not only the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. He's now the director of an outfit called the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. B.C. Citizens for Public Power is an advocacy group that has been trying to convince our public since before the election, actually, that this government would sell off B.C. Hydro. It claims it is made up of people from diverse backgrounds.

Let's have a look at how diverse B.C. Citizens for Public Power really is. Marjorie Griffin Cohen is a director. She was a director of B.C. Hydro from 1992 to 1996, appointed by the previous NDP government. She's a director of the NDP–funded Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. That's one background. Jim Abram, a failed candidate for the NDP nomination in 1996 in North Island, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Jim is well known and quite publicly admits his NDP affiliation.

Another director: Jerri New, president of OPEIU 378, the Office and Professional Employees International Union, a director of the Columbia Foundation, whose other directors include Ken Georgetti of the CLC and Jim Sinclair of the B.C. Federation of Labour. The fourth director is Jim Fulton, a former NDP Member of the Parliament for Skeena and an executive director of the Suzuki Foundation. I won't go on. There are more members, more directors of this B.C. Citizens for Public Power, and they are not drawn from diverse backgrounds.

They are members of and affiliated with the New Democratic Party and the NDP government of this province. Let there be no question that the B.C. Citizens for Public Power is not telling people the truth about what is going on with B.C. Hydro. In fact, what makes it doubly difficult to accept all the propaganda they're coming out with is that some of the people that are involved with the B.C. Citizens for Public Power, notably Jim Sinclair, are the very same people who are trying to take the action they accuse us of. That's pretty hard to take.

I wonder what the member for Prince George–Omineca thought of all of this at the time, in 2000, when these facts were being revealed. Perhaps he didn't think at all, because today he's promulgating Jim Sinclair and Marjorie Griffin Cohen's views quite regularly inside this House and outside it. Then again, we know he's good at changing sides. The hypocrisy over this subject from the NDP and its friends, from former B.C. Hydro board members, is frankly extraordinary. I'm a great fan of Monty Python, and I figure what they have done qualifies for one of the all-time segments — a five-minute segment on Monty Python. It's so ridiculous.

Let's leave this sordid story alone for a while and look at how this bill continues the good-news story that

is this government's energy policy and that of this Minister of Energy and Mines. Let's look at how it continues the determination of this government to carry out the promises it made that each of us as members of the government made to the people of B.C. in May 2001. Let's look at how it guarantees again, one more time…. I'm the umpteenth person to say it today.

I'm the millionth person to say it in the last two and a half years, but let's look again at how this bill guarantees that the core generating, transmission and distribution systems that comprise the electrical system in B.C. are going to remain in public ownership. This bill specifies — if it needed specification, and presumably and obviously, for Jim Sinclair and his friends it does — that B.C. Hydro's electrical division assets…. That's the generators. It's the dams. It's the transmission, which is now in the hands of B.C. Transmission Corp. All of those publicly owned assets and the electrical system cannot be sold — cannot be sold. How many times do we have to say it?

Many, many other members have spoken very eloquently about the history of this unique B.C. institution called B.C. Hydro. I have to say that this government gets that. We understand why and how B.C. Hydro has the place it does in the hearts and the minds of the public of this province. We understand the rightful place that B.C. Hydro deserves in the day-to-day life of our province. We understand that that institution, that icon of our province, deserves better treatment than it got from that last dismal government called the NDP through the 1990s.

Let's remind ourselves again that today's generations — my generation and yours, Mr. Speaker, our children, those of us who have grandkids and our grandkids — have been left a huge and valuable legacy by the pioneers who built the system that's still today the backbone of the electricity supply system — the dams, the transmission lines, the distribution system. This bill ensures that the benefits of that legacy will continue to benefit us today and in the future.

This bill implements one of the fundamental promises of the energy plan that was announced and put into place just a year ago by this government. The energy plan undertook to put a heritage power contract in place that would preserve the value of our heritage low-cost electricity into the future. I think most people understand this — that what we are producing from facilities that are in some cases older than me and even older than the minister. It's a little different. Prices of production are a little different today. To actually legislate….

M. Hunter: I hear some muttering from the minister that he's not as old as me. I think that's what I'm hearing. I'll accept that.

It's important that we all understand that the prices of producing electricity today are going to be higher, but to get that low-cost production and to put it into our futures as a legacy, as a heritage contract, is hugely important. One of the key things about B.C. Hydro…. It's not just a good feeling that you get from B.C. Hydro. The fact is that B.C. Hydro and the rates we pay for power in this province are a huge competitive advantage to all of us. Whether it's our families, our industry or the places in which we work, the fact that we have cheap and more or less reliable power in this province — with the exception of some of the instances I quoted on Vancouver Island — is extremely important.

The energy plan is doubly important because for ten years — again I'm going to remind us — we had a vacuum in energy planning from the NDP. There was no energy planning. They had no plan. During their ten years in office, there was no new generating capacity built or even planned. To be fair for a moment — I'm always fair, but to be factual — that lack of investment in generating capacity even predates that government. Well, it's time to fix it, because as other speakers have said, the population of this province is growing. It grew through the 1990s. Nothing was done. Power demand is growing, and through the nineties nothing was done. We simply can't hide our heads in the sand.

I was told by a fellow I know who is in the business of retailing household electronics that a new high-definition television set designed for the reception of high-definition TV signals in Canada consumes somewhere between five and ten times the amount of power a traditional TV set does. I predict that five years from now, if what I see and what all of us see going on around electronics retailing in this country is anything to go by, we're all going to be consuming five to ten times more power when we sit there and watch a hockey game or, in my case, a soccer game. The demand is going up. We have to deal with it.

The last government's answer was simply to involve government in the setting of hydro rates. You know, when I say they did nothing for hydro, it's not quite true. They did something. They got involved in deciding what the price would be. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask you a rhetorical question. What institution can you think of that is the least qualified to decide on electricity pricing? If you answered "the government," I would say you're absolutely right, but that's what the NDP did. They had the government set the prices for electricity.

I've learned a lot during the two and a half years I've sat in this place. One thing I've learned is that electricity is a very complicated business. I learned that from the debate over the Vancouver Island generating project proposal in Nanaimo.

This government, by contrast, is out of the business of deciding electricity prices. We've kept our election promise to re-regulate, not deregulate. That's what the other guys did. We are re-regulating B.C. Hydro. We've kept our promise to have the experts at the B.C. Utilities Commission…. How proud I am of those experts at the B.C. Utilities Commission. We shouldn't take this technical expertise for granted. It's a real asset we have in this province. Once again, we've asked those people to take on the role which should rightly

have been theirs all along. The core assets of B.C. Hydro remain in public hands under this government. Technical decisions are to be made by a competent technical authority.

To recap, the NDP wanted to sell B.C. Hydro. They didn't tell anybody — we found out later — but they did. Now the NDP and the member for Prince George–Omineca are trying to convince the public that the government that says it won't, will. Well, no wonder people are confused. What you see is actually not what you see on the other side. It's pretty tough for people to figure out what's right and what's wrong, except we know what's right. We know what's right in this party, in this government. We know that the public of British Columbia is not prepared to sell B.C. Hydro. They need to know that we're not prepared to sell it either.

I've said that the NDP and their friends want us to believe their revisionist history. Never mind the revisionism. The facts are that they were incapable of providing new generating capacity. While they were at the wheel, on Vancouver Island, as I've said, the security of our electricity supply declined over the decade of the nineties. Under our energy plan, of which this bill is a part in terms of implementing that plan, we've opened the door to a revitalization of the electricity business in British Columbia. While B.C. Hydro remains public, we are inviting and encouraging private capital to invest in building the new capacity we need, and we're already seeing success. On Vancouver Island, just in the last few weeks with B.C. Hydro's announcement of an $800 million purchase of clean energy from independent power producers…. A number of those producing supplies are on Vancouver Island: clean energy, run-of-the-river hydro, wind power in the north part of the Island.

We're going to see more of this. I know there are companies — two companies that I know of — that are interested in a relatively small production facility in Nanaimo using technologies that are quite common in Europe to help deal with the crisis in getting rid of household garbage. This can be done in a clean way, an efficient way. We're going to see more innovative thinking, more innovative projects, as a result of the energy plan and what this bill does.

This bill adds one more step to the restoration of B.C. Hydro as a B.C. icon. It will guarantee that those legacy benefits and the competitive advantage that our electricity industry provides to our people and our industry will guarantee those benefits into the future. It will help assure the production of secure power for the next generation at fair prices that will be based on technical, not political, analysis. All of this says to me that this bill is good for this province, and I am very much in agreement with it and am just delighted to support it.

Hon. R. Thorpe: It's indeed a pleasure for me tonight to rise in the House and, let me be very clear, to stand and support Bill 85, BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. This is a great act for British Columbia. I wish those two members over there would please get it in their minds that this is good for British Columbia, and it's time to stop spreading the untruths to British Columbians.

If I could just reflect for a moment on the commitments that we and our Premier made during the 2001 election. One of the things we said was that we were going to protect B.C. Hydro and all its core assets, including dams, reservoirs and power lines. We were going to keep those under public ownership. That's what we said.

Now I think it's important for us to know what we've actually done. Under our government's new energy plan, B.C. Hydro and its core assets have been protected — and I want to say it again: have been protected — under public ownership. That means generation. That means storage. That means distribution. That means transmission. That means all of those assets are protected under public ownership.

The second thing we said we were going to do was restore the independent B.C. Utilities Commission to re-regulate B.C. Hydro's electric rates. That's what we said we were going to do.

You know, you cannot miss the opportunity to say that the two members over there — one for Vancouver-Hastings and the other for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant — when they were in government…. They in fact deregulated, took away the power from the B.C. Utilities Commission to regulate rates in British Columbia. And where did they put it? They put it inside their government, inside cabinet, where they could make political decisions about hydro rates for British Columbians. That was fundamentally wrong. We said we were going to change that.

What have we done? Under our government's new energy plan, B.C. Hydro rates will be re-regulated under the B.C. Utilities Commission. That was effective, of course, on March 31 of this year. Consumer and business groups now know and have the opportunity to appear before the B.C. Utilities Commission to state their case with respect to hydro rates. We cannot let it go that the very people that spread misinformation today in British Columbia — and, quite frankly, very dangerously play with the meaning of words and with true facts — the people that deregulated Hydro, were the NDP and those members over there. That was fundamentally wrong.

The heritage contract was a promise and policy action No. 1 of our government's energy plan to secure public ownership of B.C. Hydro's historic low-cost electrical generation assets. This heritage contract will essentially lock in the value of existing low generation cost assets for British Columbians. British Columbians built it, British Columbians invested in it, and British Columbians are going to share in the rewards of their investments. The British Columbia energy plan, released late last year, is committed to maintaining low electricity rates, public ownership of B.C. Hydro and a secure and reliable supply of energy.

There are also going to be more private opportunities in British Columbia. What an unbelievable thought

to those members over there — that the private sector will now actually want to invest and help grow British Columbia.

We're going to have environmental responsibility with a guarantee — a guarantee of no nuclear generation in British Columbia. The new BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act strengthens and secures continued public ownership of our Hydro assets: generation, transmission and distribution. This government remains committed to protecting the investments that British Columbians have made year after year in the great province of British Columbia and its assets.

The B.C. Utilities Commission, the independent regulator — taken out of the cabinet room — will decide on the future and has the mandate to ensure electricity rates are fair, just, reasonable and in the best interests of British Columbians. This bill, Bill 85, fulfils our commitments and preserves the value of British Columbia's flexible, low-cost hydroelectric resources, again, for the benefit of all British Columbians.

There will be new power. There will be new investments, but the costs of this new power will be balanced with the low cost of our heritage power to keep electricity rates as low as possible for British Columbians. It becomes a British Columbia advantage. It becomes a tool for all British Columbians to participate in the renewal, in the growth of our economy, because as we know, as we move forward, electricity and its cost will play a significant part in growing our economy. As our Premier committed, Bill 85 ensures affordable power going forward. Most importantly, it respects British Columbians and their ownership of their assets.

I understand that the cost of heritage power today is about 2.5 cents per megawatt-hour. The cost of new power is estimated at 5.5 cents per megawatt-hour. When this new power comes on stream, the costs will be blended. They will be balanced with our heritage cost power to keep our electricity rates as low as possible — and some of the very lowest in all of North America.

You know, one of the things that those two members over there have been part of is an almost scandalous misinformation campaign throughout British Columbia. In fact, I've had some of my constituents ask me: "Why would people want to do this to seniors? Why would people want to scare British Columbians?" I've even had some constituents suggest they're spreading untruths. You know, they hide. They hide behind this mask, and they call themselves B.C. Citizens for Public Power. The only public power they miss is when they were the NDP and they were in government and they were driving this province into the ground. That's the power they're missing.

This is about their interests. It's not about the interests of the citizens of British Columbia. Let's look at this mystical board of influencers that support those two members over there. Let's see who they are.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Well, let's start with one. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, who sat in the B.C. Hydro board when rates were deregulated by the NDP, was appointed by the NDP and was part of the Pakistan power deal. That's one of them. Jim Abram, a failed NDP candidate; Jim Fulton, former NDP federal member; Jerri New, a union leader from B.C. Hydro; John McGraw, a union leader, friend of the NDP; and of course their friend of all friends, Jim Sinclair, B.C. Federation of Labour boss and NDP appointee to B.C. Hydro — those are the group that call themselves B.C. Citizens for Public Power.

No, it's their power. It's the power of driving this province into the ground that they're missing. You know, where was this group when those members over there were thinking about selling B.C. Hydro? Where were they? Did they speak out against that? No, they didn't. It was later discovered that the member for Vancouver-Hastings…. In fact, a letter had been addressed to her by Hydro's union boss criticizing her for not telling them that they were about to sell off assets of B.C. Hydro. Now they spread misinformation to British Columbians.

Did this group of concerned citizens speak out against the NDP's secret plan to invest in Pakistan power plants? No, they didn't. In fact, it was their appointed board members who went on that foolish journey that cost British Columbians millions and millions of dollars, which we lost. Did this group speak out? That group I mentioned — Ms. Cohen, Mr. Fulton, Mr. Abram, Jerri New, Mr. Sinclair, Mr. McGraw — did they speak out when the NDP took the power away from the B.C. Utilities Commission and deregulated rate-monitoring and rate-setting in British Columbia? No, they didn't. They condoned it. Was that what British Columbians wanted? I think the answer is fairly clear: no, it is not.

The BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act clearly stipulates that B.C. Hydro's generation, storage, transmission and distribution assets cannot be sold. Those are simply the facts. No matter what those members do over there, they cannot distort the facts. They can spread misinformation, and they can stretch the truth till it almost becomes an untruth, but the fact is that those assets of generation, storage, transmission and distribution cannot be sold. That is a commitment our Premier made, that is a commitment our government made, and that is what this legislation is protecting.

The act also clearly sets out a framework for the independent British Columbia Utilities Commission to regulate electricity pricing in a way that recognizes the value of B.C. Hydro's existing assets. Under this heritage contract, British Columbians will continue to enjoy electricity rates that are among the lowest in British Columbia. As many in this House know and as many British Columbians know, we are rebuilding and restoring a private sector–driven economy here in British Columbia, one that is creating jobs in the province — the second-largest generator of jobs in the last year in all of Canada.

We are attracting new investment from abroad — recently, new investment from California and new investment from New York. Today I met with investors from Korea. People know that British Columbia is open for business again, and one of the reasons is because of the advantage we have with our electricity rates. The actions that are being taken by the minister responsible, my colleague the member for Peace River North, protect and create yet another strong foundation for us to move forward and grow our economy.

British Columbia has a growing demand for power, and there has been no significant new generation for almost 25 years. The heritage contract will lock in low electricity rates while capitalizing on new private sector investment. The cost of new power, as I said earlier, will be blended with our heritage rates so that again we have that competitive economic advantage.

The legislation also removes outdated regulations and restrictions that have acted to deter investments for Terasen and its subsidiary Terasen Gas. With this legislation, it would now create an opportunity for them and others to have new investment in British Columbia, create more jobs in British Columbia and create more opportunities in British Columbia.

Under the leadership of our Premier we committed to public ownership. We committed to low electricity rates. We committed to private sector opportunities. We committed to environmental responsibilities, and we committed to a guarantee of no nuclear generation in British Columbia. Those are the things we committed to British Columbians.

I want to be very, very clear. I am very proud to stand in this House tonight to support the actions of my colleague, the minister responsible. I am proud of our government delivering on its new era of commitment and our commitment to secure public ownership. I want to plead with those members over there. I want to plead with the member for Vancouver-Hastings and the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant to stop this misinformation to British Columbians.

It's time to recognize the facts. It's time to know what's in this bill. It's time to know that public ownership is a commitment our government has made. It's time to know that we're going to create investment. It's time to know we're going to create new jobs in British Columbia and create new opportunities throughout all parts of British Columbia — the heartlands, the lower mainland and the capital region.

This bill is good for British Columbians. This bill is good for British Columbia. We are sticking to our commitments of public ownership, a secure, reliable source of energy and more private sector opportunities, and it will be done. It will be done in an environmentally responsible manner.

As I close tonight, let me say very clearly that this is good for British Columbia. This is good for the economy of British Columbia. As we grow our economy, we enhance our health care and we increase our education. We make British Columbia not only a great place to live, but we make it the best place to live in the world. We give opportunity to our youth. We have an economy that can protect our seniors. We have an economy that can provide the health care British Columbians deserve. This is good news. I am proud to support this bill and to vote very strongly yes in favour of this great legislation brought in by the minister, the member for Peace River North.

It's not often I like to criticize the minister, but I will make just one comment on what he said. At the end of this speech he talked about this being good legislation. This isn't good; this is great legislation. It's absolutely one of the best pieces of legislation we've had in this place. I hope that member understands that.

Anyway, I was talking to the member for Peace River South here. A lot of the speakers before me have talked about how long it's been since we've seen new power generation. It dawned on us both that our fathers worked at the Portage Mountain Dam when it was being built. I know we're both young guys, but that's actually quite a ways back — about 1976 for my father, anyway. I was actually still in high school. The last dam after that was built in 1984.

The point is that we've seen no significant power generation in this province for a long time, an awful long time. For the average person in this province what's significant about this legislation is really two things. The first one is that it just protects assets. It protects those core assets: dams, generation, distribution and transmission lines. The other thing it guarantees people in this province for a long time is that the B.C. advantage, competitive power rates, are going to be around for a long time. That actually is important to them. That's why this piece of legislation is great news for them. It maintains something that each and every one of us hears every day, usually courtesy of the Leader of the Opposition.

I found it kind of interesting today. Normally she comes out here when pieces of legislation like this are introduced and rants away for half an hour, an hour, two hours — whatever the heck that member can do. It sort of never ends. I found it interesting today that five minutes after she began, she was gone. That's actually pretty relevant. It's relevant because it's really hard to hold that story. I noticed when the member for Prince George–Omineca got up, he went on for about 15 minutes. I know some members here today have talked about what he said, but to be quite candid, I haven't a clue what the hell he said. Maybe the rest of them are a

little quicker than me, but he didn't make a damn bit of sense — not a damn bit of sense.

Then I think of that ever-popular group, Citizens for Public Power. If that isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what the heck is.

If they think the things they're doing today…. We've heard member after member and speaker after speaker talk about these characters — Jim Sinclair, Marjorie Griffin Cohen — who had all sorts of opportunity to actually guarantee that we were going to have some power in this province, and that's the last thing they did. How the hell they can be Citizens for Public Power….

Deputy Speaker: Pardon me, member. I think we should keep it in parliamentary language, please.

How the heck they can now say they're citizens concerned about power is beyond me. They've done nothing as individuals or as a collective group to ensure that people in this province have power not just for today — and not just power but competitive rates — but for a long way going out.

The Leader of the Opposition tried to give us a little bit of a history lesson. Whenever that member gives us a little history lesson, it's usually new information to me. It's certainly not my recollection of history. But I would like to talk a little bit about history around the legislation we've seen pass through this House in regard to B.C. Hydro and Power.

We have a minister in the House who, when he started to get engaged in developing an energy strategy for this province — something we actually have never seen before — put out a White Paper. He actually went out to the public, took some ideas out there and said: "Tell me what you think." He asked citizens; he asked elected officials and businesses. Everybody had a chance to talk about electricity. That's pretty important to us.

You heard the member for Bulkley Valley–Stikine talk about where people think it comes from. It's just a light switch on the wall, but it's pretty important stuff. More important is that we actually went out and asked people. That minister took their input in a very, very open and transparent process. Out of that we developed an energy policy, one that actually says upwards of 50 percent of all new power that comes on stream is going to be green. That makes us a leader, probably worldwide, in terms of how we're focusing our energies on creating and generating not just electricity for the future but the right kind of electricity — the kind of methods of generating that the average citizen, certainly in this province, can relate to. We are a society that's pretty concerned about pollution, concerned about the environment, and that's a big deal.

I don't think the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Prince George–Omineca really get that. In fact, I know they don't. They haven't got a clue.

What came out of the energy policy wasn't just the kind of energy we're going to generate but what that means. Today we sat down with the North Central Municipal Association. That's a group that represents municipalities from 100 Mile House north right up to the border and from border to sea. This is a group of people that are looking for new opportunities to revitalize northern communities and get things happening. One of the things that came out of this energy policy was the whole idea of a commitment we made during the last election to actually encourage and support independent power producers. That's really important when you're looking at putting together an economy that actually works for everybody.

Through this legislation and through this energy policy, we've got 16 projects going on around the province today. The Forrest Kerr project up in Iskut, run-of-the-river…. That's a tremendous project, and not just because it's an IPP that generates electricity, not just because it attracts investment into the province, as did the other projects. Totally it's between $700 million and $800 million of new investment and jobs that are coming from that whole aspect of encouraging IPPs. Forrest Kerr is a great example of how IPPs interrelate and create other opportunities. We've now got a power generation facility north of Stewart.

If you talk to anyone in the mining industry today, they'll tell you that the obstacles to getting in business in this province are really transportation and cheap power — or competitive power. In this process we are going to get rid of one of the obstacles. Transportation is another one that we will deal with. The point is that this is all interrelated. It's all interrelated in how you get regions moving again, how you get economies booming, how you create opportunity for people and communities so that they can start to draw people back, start reversing the urbanization we've seen across this province. That's why this is important stuff. To the average guy this means something.

You have these Citizens for Public Power — whatever the heck they want to run around calling themselves these days — out there politically motivated on an agenda that actually has nothing to do with electricity and everything to do with power. But it's political power they're talking about. They couldn't care less about a project like Forrest Kerr and what it could mean for the mining industry, what it could mean to a community like Stewart, Dease Lake or Iskut. Those are pretty important little communities. People who live there want to continue to live there. They want to have a quality of life that's equal to the one that Jim Sinclair and Marjorie Cohen and the rest

of that group who get to live down here enjoy. This group's focus is strictly to bring that to an end.

You know, I listen to their comments — I actually sit on the edge of my seat sometimes listening to their comments — but the ranting and rhetoric that comes out has nothing to do with people, has nothing to do with what's real in most cases. This legislation, though, goes a long way to finally putting in place and continuing to put in place the kinds of tools we need as a province to maintain the B.C. advantage. The B.C. advantage is competitive electricity rates, and it's done by ensuring that the assets that generate that, from the B.C. Hydro perspective, stay in the ownership of the public.

It's this kind of legislation and that minister's energy plan that are allowing projects like the Canfor partnership in wood waste in Prince George to develop or the co-gen facility at Eurocan in Kitimat, which actually helps that industry maintain its competitiveness and generates other revenue streams so that they're actually going to be here for a long time.

Those are important projects. That's what having a thoughtful, strategic, well-planned-out energy plan is about. The whole aspect of this plan guarantees the heritage that my father worked on, and the member for Peace River South. It's there not just for us, which we already have enjoyed, but actually moves forward…

…for our children to enjoy. It'll maintain that competitive advantage a long time out — maybe two or three generations.

I do stand here very pleased to be able to support this legislation. I think that at the end of the day, it is about protecting assets. In the bill, for the general public, which I think at times seems challenged these days to believe politicians, it's right here to read. I would encourage members of the public, certainly those watching this show tonight and fixed to their TVs by the scintillating debate, to read this. These are the facts. This is what it's about: 34 facilities identified in the back of this bill for everyone to see.

We are protecting the assets of B.C. Hydro. We're protecting the core assets, the dams, transmission lines and distribution, and we're maintaining them under public control. We are putting in place a heritage contract that will maintain competitive rates not just for today but for the long term. This minister's put together an energy plan and an energy strategy that he's implementing with this piece of legislation, which actually supports and encourages development in this province, across the entire province, and is going to benefit every single one of us today and ensure that we actually have the kinds of amounts of power we're going to need into the future.

I am pleased to support this. I think it is a great piece of legislation, and the minister should be commended for it.

B. Belsey: I, too, am pleased to stand up and speak in support of Bill 85, the BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act. I want to congratulate the hon. member for Peace River North and his staff and the Premier for bringing forward this piece of legislation. It's good legislation. It's legislation that will help this province get on with B.C. Hydro and the issues that have been thrown out there by the two members opposite and the member for Prince George–Omineca.

This is a bold act, because what it's done…. It's taken and put into words and legislation exactly what we said we'd do, and that is: we will not sell B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro is not for sale. We've said that, and the minister has the courage to put it into legislation.

But the most ironic thing about this piece of legislation is that it repeals, it revokes and it eliminates the current legislation. Let me read it: BC Hydro and Power Authority Privatization Act. This was put in back in 1988, and we've had to listen to those two members opposite and the member for Prince George–Omineca say that, secretly, we're going to privatize. We're going to privatize B.C. Hydro. That's what they've been telling everybody out there. That's the fearmongering that they've been putting out there.

Do you know what? That act was in place. We're repealing that act. We're putting an act in place that says we are not privatizing B.C. Hydro. This act is going to go a long way for the province of British Columbia, for the people that live in this province, for the industries that work in this province. We'll have a much better understanding about where this government is going with B.C. Hydro.

There's another group out there that is going to be impacted by this new legislation, this Bill 85. That's the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. That's an interesting group, and we've heard a number of times this evening who makes up the board of B.C. Citizens for Public Power. We know that they are a handpicked group certainly bent on moving around this province, talking to as many as they have. I know the mayor and council of my community sent me a letter saying: "Please, you can't privatize B.C. Hydro." They had had a visit from somebody from the B.C. Citizens for Public Power. I've had a number of letters that came into my riding and e-mails that have arrived as a result of the fearmongering and the misinformation that the B.C. Citizens for Public Power put out there.

You know, I have one question that's been bothering me for quite some time — knowing what I've known, where we're going with B.C. Hydro. Every time you saw the advertisement for B.C. Citizens for Public Power, they asked for money to support the litigation they were going to bring against this government. They wanted citizens of this province to send them money because they are going to fight the privatization of B.C. Hydro.

They convinced the little old ladies, they convinced all kinds of seniors, and they convinced the member from North Vancouver's wife that they were going to

fight. They were going to be the champions, take this government to court because they were going to privatize B.C. Hydro. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands have been sent into them so that they can take us to court, because they thought we were going to privatize B.C. Hydro.

Well, we're not. I can't imagine the challenge that they have now, trying to give back all that money to those people. Imagine having to give back $10 and $5 to all of those people they've bilked, who they have convinced we were going to do something, knowing full well we weren't going to do it. We said we weren't. We've kept to our promise. We're not going to do it. I wonder if they will take the time and return that money. Or will they do what they were planning to do all along? That was to fundraise for the members opposite. I'm sure that money won't go back to the people they…

They won't return that money. That's going to go and fund another NDP campaign, and that is wrong. I think it probably borders on illegal. I wonder if they will have the courage to talk to the people they have taken that money from and get it back to them.

I would think that this piece of legislation has probably got the members opposite and the member for Prince George–Omineca just pulling their hair out. They stood up and said we were going to kick people off of Pharmacare with our new Pharmacare legislation. Well, no one was kicked off. They said we were going to kick seniors off of health care. Well, we never kicked any seniors off of health care. They said we were going to privatize B.C. Hydro. Well, we're not privatizing B.C. Hydro.

I wonder if they're having one of those little secret meetings in someone's front room that they talk about, trying to figure out what fearmongering they're going to bring out here tomorrow and tell the people of British Columbia that we're doing.

I was reading the Hansard because I was wasn't in the House this afternoon. I was busy at some meetings. I heard the comment that the devil is in the details — that you've got to read the act, and it's in there somewhere. I'd like to share with the public and with the House just exactly what it says in this act.

The interesting part is where it talks about protected assets of B.C. Hydro, and it defines those assets. It calls them those generating and storage assets. "Generating" is the generators that dot this province and the dams associated with those generators — the generated and storage assets. Also, the equipment or facilities for the transmission or distribution of electricity — those are the power lines and the transformers and the wires and the poles, and whatever, around this province. It clearly states what is a protected asset. There's no doubt about it. It's clear.

Then it goes on to say the that the sale of protected assets is prohibited. How can it be any clearer than that? The sale of protected assets is prohibited: "…the authority must not sell or otherwise dispose of the protected assets." How can it be any clearer?

The province has been blessed with its hydro power. The wisdom and the foresight of some of those that sat in this House years back had the vision and the wherewithal to build dams around this province — major dams, major construction projects…. But we haven't built one for 25 years. That means that the investments we've made in the past are all we have currently generating the power we consume. Therefore, if we don't start producing more power in the province, our rates are going to go up. When we start building other forms of generation, whether it's run-of-river or some of the green energy projects like the wind energy project we're looking at up on the Queen Charlotte Islands–Haida Gwaii…. It might be wave energy. It could be coal-fired generation. When we start looking at some of those other forms, we're going to have to take into consideration the cost of those sources of energy. What the minister has done has protected as heritage the contracts that B.C. Hydro has for the province. That is sound foresight as well.

As I said earlier, this act repeals an act that allows us to privatize B.C. Hydro. It repeals that act. That act is no longer in place. We had the courage to do it. The minister had the courage to do it, and now the people of British Columbia know that we've always told the truth. We said exactly what we were going to do, and now we've had the courage to put it into legislation.

I just want to say that hydro power in this province is critical. It's critical to the industries that work in my area. I have a pulp mill. We have mines in my riding, and they are major consumers of electric power. We have to make it clear to the people, to industry and to the consumers just where we're going with B.C. Hydro, and this act has done that. It has made it perfectly clear. We will continue working around this province to ensure that people and industry are able to carry on their businesses, provide employment and produce the products that we sell.

I'd just like to state that without any doubt, this is good legislation, and I will be supporting this when it comes time to stand up in this House and vote for this legislation.

P. Bell: I am very pleased tonight to stand in support of Bill 85. This, I believe, is another step in the right direction for the energy plan that has been brought forward by our minister. It really clarifies in my mind once and for all and, I believe, in the public's mind that we have made a conscious decision that B.C. Hydro is simply not for sale.

From the explanatory notes of the bill, I want to read out some of comments because I think they're

very relevant, and I think they should set aside the concerns of individuals in the communities.

I want to read out what those assets are, because I think that once and for all, people can look at a bill — and I admire the Minister of Energy and Mines for doing it this way — and can actually go to the laws of British Columbia and evaluate what it is that we are defining when we say B.C. Hydro is not for sale.

There are a number of facilities in here: Aberfeldie; Alouette; Ash River; Bridge River; the Buntzen/Coquitlam facility; Burrard Thermal; Cheakamus; Clowhom; Duncan; Elko; Falls River; Fort Nelson; the large facility at G.M. Shrum; the Hugh Keenleyside Dam — the Arrow Reservoir; the John Hart facility, which is close to my riding; Jordan; Kootenay Canal; La Joie; Ladore; Mica, another one of our large facilities; Peace Canyon, another one of our large facilities; Prince Rupert; Puntledge; Revelstoke; Ruskin; Seton; Seven Mile; Shuswap; Spillimacheen; Stave Falls; Strathcona; Wahleach; Walter Hardman; and Whatshan.

It's absolutely clear. No one can get confused anymore. I want to compare our New Era document, because I think that's important. What did we say in our New Era document? I'm going to read it word for word. We said we're going to protect "B.C. Hydro and all of its core assets including dams, reservoirs and power lines under public ownership." That's exactly what this bill does. There is just no confusion at all in the assessment of this bill.

All of the storage facilities, all of the dams, have been outlined. Then under "protected assets," which is in section 1 of this bill, which I'm sure the member for Prince George–Omineca will be pursuing in the debate of this bill…. In section 1(b) it says that not only does it include all of the facilities in the schedule I just read into the record of Hansard, but it also includes the equipment or facilities for the transmission and distribution of electricity.

Once and for all, what do we have? We have a bill, and we have a New Era document and commitment. The two are identical, so there can be absolutely no confusion in anyone's mind that we have not fulfilled the commitment that we laid out in New Era about two and a half years ago in the election. I am very pleased that we've approached it this way. The minister has taken the New Era document. He has taken the bill. He has matched them up. He has fulfilled the commitment, and certainly I believe we can move on.

I want to talk about some of the key benefits that accrue as a result of the strategy that the Minister of Energy and Mines has moved forward with in terms of independent power projects, because although this bill doesn't directly relate to independent power projects, it really facilitates them and allows them to occur. I think that's an important thing. My colleague from Bulkley Valley–Stikine, in a two-minute statement today, did a quiz, so I'd like to do the same thing. I'd like to give the House a quiz.

P. Bell: It's late. It's ten to nine now. I know that members are tired, but this is a quiz. I'm going to ask all members what these communities have in common. I'm going to read out a series of communities, and I'm just curious if they know what they have in common.

The first one is Squamish. The second one is Sechelt. Now, what would Squamish and Sechelt have in common?

We'll move on. We need more clues. This is a bit like 20 questions. We'll add Hope and Castlegar to the mix. Now we've got four nice, small rural communities. I see the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise is giving me a quizzical look, so I will carry on with more clues to this puzzle. We'll add to those four communities Port Alberni and Gold River. Now we've got six rural communities, six communities that were devastated by the policies of the previous NDP government during the 1990s, which lost large population bases.

There are six communities there. What do they have in common? I don't see any answers yet. I don't see any hands up. Well, I see one hand rising, but we're going to hang on for a second. I'll read a few more. Stewart, once a proud community of this province, had a population of 2,200 people when I was there in 1993. By the year 2000, there were 500 people left there. It was devastated. It was devastated by the policies of the 1990s.

Hope, Mount Currie, Chilliwack. Well, Chilliwack is our first non-small rural community, and I still have quizzical looks from the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise. We'll carry on. We have Revelstoke. We have Boston Bar. We have Gold River. We have Zeballos. We have Delta.

P. Bell: Okay, Delta. So we're back into urban British Columbia, and we have Holberg.

P. Bell: More investment in British Columbia. The Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise wins the prize tonight. He wins the prize: $810 million of

investment in British Columbia, upwards of 800 new jobs in the province, and 800 jobs in the communities that desperately need the jobs that were left to deteriorate in the 1990s by the previous NDP government — absolutely shameful.

The policy decisions of the Minister of Energy and Mines and the direction of his energy plan, in combination with Bill 85, have brought us where we are today, where we actually have a viable industry that is starting to blossom, starting to demonstrate significant investment. I hesitate to think that perhaps through the entire period of the 1990s, there was not $810 million worth of investment in the power sector, although I could be proven wrong. That is possible, but I'll tell you, that $810 million worth of investment is significant.

That investment is exactly what the communities of Squamish and Sechelt and Hope and Zeballos and Boston Bar and all of those little communities in rural British Columbia need. They need it badly, and they need the associated jobs that go with it. The policy of the Minister of Energy and Mines, in terms of both this bill and his energy plan, has allowed that to take place.

Again, this bill is a key initiative in our overall strategy. It protects the price that people will have to pay for power. It gives us a balanced approach to the rate plan. If we add an incremental 1 or 2 or 5 percent worth of new power into the system and it costs a little bit more to produce that power, people are still going to be paying lower rates — guaranteed lower rates — for 95 percent of their power and a slightly higher rate for the other 5 percent. When you sit down and explain that to constituents, they are quite comfortable knowing that is the policy of this government and that they are protected on the core assets of B.C. Hydro. Make no mistake: the core assets are written in this bill in law in British Columbia. It is clearly defined. There can be absolutely no mistake that we have fulfilled that commitment.

I want to move on a bit because although I read out a series of 16 different communities, small rural communities that have benefited significantly through this $810 million worth of investment, I want to talk about another project that was announced just last week, actually, in my riding of Prince George North. That's an $81 million….

P. Bell: More good news. That's an $81 million project in Prince George, a joint venture between Canfor and B.C. Hydro to develop a very large 48-megawatt project that will supply a large amount of electricity in Prince George. In fact, according to my calculations, if they were only supplying energy to the homes in Prince George, a community of some 75,000 people, it would light up virtually the entire community — a pretty good-sized community of 75,000 or 80,000 people — and this new electric facility has the capacity to provide that. The electricity, in fact, will be used by Canfor in their facilities. It will be enough power to run both of their pulp mills, and both are large consumers of power. That will free up that much power off the grid and make it available to the rest of the system.

Let's do the analysis on this. The fear, the concern that people have is that this new power will come in at such a high cost that it will impact our home rates. Well, this 48 megawatts is very inexpensive electricity, first of all. This 48 megawatts is going to be actually consumed by the industrial consumer, and the industrial consumer is going to free up 48 megawatts of power that can be used at the guaranteed low heritage rate that this minister has legislated for all consumers. Now we actually have that 48 megawatts of power that we didn't have available before but, due to the policies and strategies of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, has now been made available to the general consumer at the low guaranteed heritage rate.

Again, there are multiple layered benefits to this transaction: $81 million of investment in Prince George, 150 jobs during the construction period. It's certainly a significant number of jobs. It's going to take the better part of two years to actually build this facility. Ten long-term jobs….

There are other significant benefits of this project as well. Certainly, one of the demonstrated benefits will be the improvement in the airshed both in Prince George and in the small rural communities. There are two beehive burners, one of them located in my riding and one of them located in the member for Prince George–Omineca's riding, that will be able to be closed as a result of this. That waste material — that hog fuel that was used before — actually will be consumed in this burner, in this cogeneration system, and will be producing valuable power as a result of it.

The Isle Pierre burner and the burner at Bear Lake will be able to be closed down and significantly improve the quality of the air. Although I don't have the quote here with me, Councillor Murry Krause from Prince George, who is not always our friend, is very supportive of this and understands that, certainly, this makes a tremendous amount of sense — to be able to improve the quality of air we have in Prince George through this particular investment.

I'm very pleased to support this bill. I think it will clear up in people's minds exactly what is protected. I believe that when I look at the New Era document and I look at this bill, I can match the two line for line, and I am confident that we have fulfilled our commitment.

More importantly, I'm very, very excited about the notion of us continuing to expand our independent power projects throughout the province. I know the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise, in conjunction with the Minister of Energy and Mines, has been working very, very hard to deliver those projects to rural British Columbia. It will become one of the significant investment models and employment growth generators for rural British Columbia. I'm excited about this bill; I'm excited about this project. I congratulate the Minister of Energy and Mines.

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Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY