Hansard -- Tuesday, February 24, 2004 a.m. -- Vol. 20, No. 14 (HTML)

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page

Budget Debate (continued)		8755
	V. Anderson

Tabling Documents		8757
	An Investigation into the Administration and Collection of Traffic Camera Fines, ombudsman report No. 44, February 2004
	Audit of the Government's Review of Eligibility for Disability Assistance, auditor general report No. 6, 2003-04

Budget Debate (continued)		8757
	V. Roddick
	R. Visser
	Hon. C. Clark
	K. Manhas

Hon. G. Bruce: Good morning, everybody. I call continuing response to the budget speech.

V. Anderson: This is my opportunity to speak to the throne speech and the budget speech as they relate to the people of British Columbia.

First, let me emphasize that the budget is not just about money. Rather, it is about the impact of how we use the resources of British Columbia, both human and material, and the taxes we receive to support the people of B.C. In doing this, we must balance many priorities and adjust for current circumstances — these circumstances are local, provincial and international — realizing that there never is one simple, right answer.

A basic principle, though, is that every person is of equal value, though the abilities, contributions and needs will vary greatly in time and in space, so there will be a continuous need to adapt and re-adapt to many particular solutions. The goal of equity, though, must always take into account the changing variables and the need to seek the best answers and the best solutions, both for the short and the long term.

There are many ways to approach our examination of the budget, and most of these have their own validity. Today, though, I would like to approach my consideration from the point of view of the families of British Columbia, of the homes from where we come and go and interact most closely. Here is where we really depend upon each other and where we come to when we have finished our workday and are looking for an opportunity to rebuild our own personal resources. The family, for our society, is the basic interpersonal unit where people have their most significant relationships. This is where we are loved and are able to love and where we are most often forgiven. The family helps us build and discover our basic identities.

What does the budget try to do for families? That is what I am asking. In our governmental scheme, the provincial budget is but part of a trilogy of municipal, provincial and national planning processes. The combined result historically has led the United Nations and other evaluating world bodies to indicate that we are one of the most fortunate nations of the world and that British Columbia is one of the most fortunate provinces in which to live in Canada.

Of course, hon. Speaker, this doesn't mean that we are either the most happy or the most satisfied people. It often seems that the more we have, the more we want. It depends on our base and frame of reference. Having lived through the Depression of the thirties with my family, I certainly can attest to the fact that in our current living…. We are a people today who have much more than we could have even dared to imagine back in those days some 70 years ago. Are we happier, though? Maybe; maybe not.

That was when, according to the educational display at UBC, the average teacher's salary — yearly salary, that is — was about $1,800 a year. I can remember when teachers got their pay by being boarded in the homes of the community month by month. How times have changed.

The uniqueness of our budget today is: how does it match up with an international and national perspective as well as our own provincial perspective? Also, we must examine how it balances out to support equitable opportunities for various regions and groups of people. How do we, among the most educated and progressive people of the world, plan our budgets so our families have the most support possible to fulfil their obligations and wishes?

In our society we are organized in that basic income usually comes from the ability to have a job. Speaking generally, up to the 1950s that meant the average household was supported in the city by one wage earner and in the rural area by a whole family working together with the chores that were part of farm living. Today is much different, when 80 percent of two-parent families have both parents working out in the community and when 80 percent of single-parent families also have that person working in the community outside the home. These families are being supported by their work, but there are many untold numbers of families who are not able to work, for various reasons of their own, and therefore must depend upon their support through government services.

The change in society since World War II has brought about a very drastic change in our style of living here. We've gone through a time of prosperity and times of depression. Things have not been easy for many. In 1940 it was expected that every young person would help with the family chores like cutting wood and carrying out the water and working in the garden. Most young people also sought a part-time job in a store or after work or as a paper carrier. I worked in a store from the time I was 12 years of age on the weekends and after school, delivering groceries — and during the summer.

Today many graduates finish high school without ever having had a job outside of their own home. At the same time, in most communities the parents joined together in earlier days to provide the community recreational activities and provide leadership for the youth. Recreation was a family and community opportunity.

Things have changed. We have become an urban nation — now a nation, often, of strangers to each other; a nation that wants more than our resources can produce; a nation that expects "them," whoever "they" are, to meet our demands and our wishes. Over the last

50 years "they" have come to be our governments, who have been given the responsibility to do for us what we are not able to do for ourselves.

However, we have still maintained our social conscience, which means that those who cannot, for many reasons, find jobs to support themselves will be supported not by the state per se but by the rest of us who are part of the families as we live together in our community. We do depend upon each other in every aspect of our living.

However, these new circumstances are challenging for us. There are changes whereby many of us, fortunately, are living much longer and aren't able, because of the length of our years, to continue in the workforce. In fact, many of us are required to retire at 65 from our job whether we wish to or not. Also, because of our better health care — and this is an excellent thing — many persons who have emotional, mental or physical handicaps and challenges also live a full and long life, also without being able to be involved fully in the workforce to maintain themselves. Yet all of these persons have skills and abilities to enrich our collective society in that we can learn to share them together.

The point is that our thrust should be how we in an urbanized society, in an urbanized technological world–dependent society, support all those persons, in part, in the families which are still the core of our communities. There was a time in history when, if people had trouble, we simply set them aside and gave them basic care and no more. That time has passed. We want to support people. We want to support them fully, with respect and with dignity so that they, too, have the opportunity to make their contribution within our communities and within our families. Without healthy families, though, we don't have healthy communities. Without healthy families, we don't have the human resources to adapt and change.

What was the focus of the throne speech? I would remind that the Premier has given us a focus, which is on families: "For B.C.'s families to realize their dreams and reach their full potential…." This is the purpose of the throne speech and of the budget. "Your government," the Premier said, "will continue to improve services for children, women and families." Yes, and I expect men are also included in that description.

The Premier has promised that he will host a series of round tables aimed at engaging B.C. families in a discussion about their hopes and aspirations for the future. Building on the successful model employed to create the Citizens' Assembly, the round-table participants will be randomly selected in several communities. They will be invited to share their views on the challenges and opportunities that they see for their families and their communities. They will be asked to offer constructive suggestions on the steps they would like the government to pursue in a wide range of public policy areas that have a major effect on their day-to-day lives and families.

The budget is about laying the financial groundwork for the building and maintaining of a healthy society that all may share. Unfortunately, this message has not been heard across the province because the media in their selectivity have focused on other parts of the vision and omitted this particular concern for families. Let me encourage all of our listeners and readers in British Columbia to take the time to read the full throne speech and budget speech for themselves. It's available on the website, and every library has the opportunity to review it for those people who are in their community. We can't depend on the media to provide for us the information, for they only give us part of the story. Why they are so selective, I do not know.

Still with the budget speech and the throne speech, I want to say, hon. Speaker, that it is important we understand that it is gauged for the families of British Columbia. It's gauged, as it says in the statement within that speech, so that every British Columbian deserves an opportunity to bring out the best in his or her potential. With this I heartily agree.

I need one clarification on the following statement: "The best way to do that is by finding employment." I agree that for the people who are able to work, that is true, and we must have that opportunity for them. But there are those who are not able to work in the full-time occupations that are available in our community, and we must have the opportunities for them as well. We must have the opportunity for training and education and resources that enable them to participate in whatever way is meaningful to them within our community.

There's some 10 percent of our population for whom full-time employment is not at this point realistic. These are the persons of all ages, from youth to seniors, for whom full-time employment is not currently an option. We must work to provide the options for them to participate in meaningful ways within our society. There are persons with multiple challenges, and we must give them the opportunities and the resources to overcome these challenges.

I want to commend the Premier and the Minister of State for Early Childhood Development for the work they have done with children prior to the age of school to enable them to have the best possible family relationship and support systems to deal with their particular needs in those early years. I encourage those who have opportunity to go to the website and listen to the report of the Minister of State for Early Childhood Development last week and, on February 23, to hear what she had in a comprehensive report of the unique things that are being done for the children in our community. We need to focus on the opportunities and richness and variety of responsibilities in our family life, for this is a key focus for a healthy community and a healthy society.

One of the concluding statements of the budget presentation is: "British Columbia has the drive, the spirit and the talent to be nothing short of the best place anywhere to live, work, invest, start a business or raise a family." British Columbia can meet this view of family by working together, realizing that unless we

have healthy families we will not have healthy communities or a healthy society.

The B.C. Council for Families, for over 25 years, has had the project of the B.C. Legislature to give leadership in this goal…. Now is the time to make it not only the goal of the B.C. Council for Families but the goal of all of us working together to strengthen family life for each and every one.

I believe that we all — of every political stripe or religious belief — have this common goal to make family life the best it can be for all of us, for weakness in family life and thus of family members exists in all walks of life, all levels of education, all economic groups and all parts of our community. No matter our background, our heritage or our economic condition, we have a common need to work together for family strengthening. We must assert the common goal and each contribute our expertise for the common cause. The focus must recognize that each of us finds our real value within our families and that by combining our efforts and ideas, family life can and will be enriched for the well-being of all of us.

With focus on this common goal of healthy families, we can set out new priorities. We can overcome our disagreements, and we can bring to each home new confidence, accomplishment and satisfaction. I believe that with such a common goal of healthy families, we have only one choice. We must work together across all barriers for our common good. A leader I have great faith and trust in said at one point: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Let us undertake to be united for families, which is the only way to fulfil our mutual dream and vision.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I have the honour to present to the Legislature the following documents: the ombudsman's February 2004 report No. 44, An Investigation into the Administration and Collection of Traffic Camera Fines, and the auditor general's 2003-04 report No. 6, Audit of the Government's Review of Eligibility for Disability Assistance.

V. Roddick: Thank you to my colleague from Vancouver-Langara. Our society is based on families, and we as a province and collectively as a people are committed to their well-being. As someone who has successfully started and grown a small family agricultural business, it gives me the greatest of pleasure to rise today in support of British Columbia's balanced Budget 2004.

Virtually every single one of us has had to adhere to some level of budgeting in our lifetime — be it childhood allowance, an after-school job, a family income or a retirement pension — and we all know only too well that one cannot continue spending wildly beyond our incomes or revenues. The crunch comes, and it came in spades to British Columbia.

Those days — those grim, gloomy days of economic disaster — are now behind us. Our New Era document promises a new vision for hope and prosperity in the next decade and beyond. We now have the basic foundation to deliver on that vision on time, on target — a balanced budget which adheres completely to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, as it's known in the trade.

This is a first in Canada, totally, for a government. We as the general public, however, have had to operate by law under GAAP rules for years. Otherwise, we would have ended up in jail for fraud. Governments, on the other hand, have been able to be creative about their budget figures, but no longer. Our budget figures are open, transparent and accountable.

I would like to also thank my predecessor Fred Gingell for his input into getting GAAP to where it is today. This is Fred's copy of Enhancing Accountability for Performance: A Framework and an Implementation Plan from the auditor general of British Columbia and deputy ministers' council of April 1996 — with all his personal comments therein. So thank you to my predecessor Fred Gingell for his input.

Our vision is to make B.C. number one in Canada again. We can and we will. To rebuild, however, takes time, effort and commitment. To be able to pay for and maintain the services we desire, we must build and grow. British Columbia requires long-term investment and planning to generate jobs and income. We have told the world we're open for business. We've rolled out three-year plans, and we stuck to them. We knew we had to instil confidence in foreign markets that we have our financial issues under control.

Our government's operations are basically no different than the average family's operations — just with much, much bigger figures. To put it into perspective, if you need a loan or a mortgage, the lending institution minutely examines your income, your assets, your ability to earn and pay. It's no different for our government. Manage well, and people and lending institutions are interested in you. Squander, and you lose — big time. B.C.'s balanced budget, plus a competitive tax structure, is the foundation for economic growth and therefore a sustainable future.

We inherited a massive true structural deficit of $3.8 billion. The former government's two balanced budgets were achieved strictly through one-time energy revenue windfalls from hydro and natural gas. Even former Finance minister Paul Ramsey admitted that his balanced budget was not sustainable because revenues significantly lagged behind spending increases.

We, on the other hand, introduced an economic plan to balance the budget and cut taxes while increasing investment in health and education, whereas Carole James's budget isn't balanced till 2010, and the average tax is going to go up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 percent. We are going to keep spending under control. We are going to make our province the right place to live and grow.

Fifty percent of our provincial revenue comes from the heartlands. Since our health care alone costs us $1.14 million per hour, 24 hours a day, we in the lower mainland depend on that contribution, so it behooves us to invest in our provincial endeavours.

Investment is returning to B.C.'s number one industry, forestry, which generates a quarter of B.C.'s economic activity and supports 260,000 jobs in over 150 communities across the province.

One of the fastest-growing industries is oil and gas. Revenues are up over 50 percent in the last two years. Your province will continue to work with industry to upgrade roads and open up access to energy resources throughout the heartlands.

As well, B.C.'s vast energy reserves offer great potential for sustainable job creation. We are increasing private sector investment, exploration and production. Locally, we have the Vancouver CanAgro–Maxim Power landfill partnership, which taps into the garbage dump's methane gas that heats the greenhouse, which produces the best tomatoes in North America. As I have said many times before, you still have to eat to live. Now, the excess gas….

The excess gas — unlike the excess gas in the Legislature — is then used to produce enough electricity for 5,000 homes.

Our province is working on a three-year transportation plan to keep B.C.'s economy moving. Strong transportation infrastructure is key to almost a million direct and indirect jobs in B.C. and vital for economic growth. B.C. is a transportation gateway to world markets. Roberts Bank in Delta South is a perfect example of how planning and management of economic potential, along with rural and urban issues, must be dealt with so that everyone benefits.

We are committed to building safe and strong communities in every sense of the word. This is about our future. A new generation will build on the work we are doing now and ensure that this province has what it takes to compete and win — just as we did on that absolutely incredible, incredible day.

Where were you when those wonderful words came across on July 2? "Vancouver." Will you ever forget that moment? The world, as a result, is coming to our door. Each and every one of us in every region of this province now has the opportunity to bring out the best in ourselves and in our communities.

These accomplishments are also possible because we are investing in first nations and land certainty. The province has made remarkable progress since 2001, with three agreements-in-principle signed — Tsawwassen being one of the three — and two more pending. First nations people are playing a growing role in everything our province has to offer — creating jobs, opportunities and hope in communities that for too long governments ignored or overlooked.

This government recognizes that your successes are our successes. We can build a strong new relationship based on reconciliation, mutual respect and economic participation.

We are improving our investment climate. We are expanding the international financial business program across the province, as well as improving fair tax by immediately raising the threshold for the homeowner grant. This has been of great concern to many in my riding.

We are putting patients and students first. Our investment of an additional $2.2 billion in health care has resulted in attracting more doctors and nurses to fill vacant positions in the system and being able to perform 38,000 additional surgeries over last year.

Change, however, is never easy, but by and large, everyone across B.C. has done their part to keep costs under control. Their cooperation will ensure that we keep the budget balanced and build on our growing reputation as a province with a sound, stable investment climate that will enable us to invest sustainably in education and advanced education, despite declining enrolment in certain areas.

We are partnering with Ottawa to increase families' access to early learning and child care programs, as well as increasing per-student funding. These investments are about building our future, because our young people are our future. Our families are our future.

The majority of jobs in our society today require some higher education. Thousands of jobs are sitting vacant every year because we don't have workers with the right skills to fill them. We will create almost 12,000 new spaces by 2007, rising to more than 25,000 in 2010. We are looking at a new generation of leaders who will compete and win in tomorrow's world and tomorrow's economy.

With our youth come our seniors, because every youth will eventually — like myself — become a senior. As the numbers climb, so do the challenges. We have increased home and community care funding, created Independent Living B.C., worked with B.C. Housing and various health authorities to increase seniors units, renewed outdated residential care beds, and expanded care options and palliative care. We brought in the new Community Care and Assisted Living Act, the residential care access policy and a new rate structure for residential care. Despite the fact that a mere 30 years ago — and my children are in their thirties, so it just seems like yesterday — there were eight wage-earners for every senior, today there are only three wage-earners for every senior.

However, with resolve and confidence, dedication and purpose, we are building a better British Columbia. The decade of decline is over. People are moving back to our fair province, my son being one of them. As

our Finance minister so aptly put it, British Columbia has the drive, the spirit and the talent to be nothing short of the best place anywhere to live, work, invest, start a business and raise a family. Mr. Speaker, the best is yet to come.

R. Visser: I also have the pleasure of standing and talking a little bit about the budget and how it impacts the part of the world I'm most interested in today — this province and, most notably, the northern tip of Vancouver Island. I want to start by talking about the big-picture stuff and what's important there.

We in British Columbia, we as Canadians, I think, underestimate the value of rules in accounting. The accounting profession has gone under some scrutiny over the last couple of years, and across North America we've had to redesign and tighten up how they function and how they report. But this notion of generally accepted accounting principles is fundamental to the success of our economy and our future as an integrated North American economy.

It is essential, I believe, that governments follow that same rule. We ask school boards to do it, we ask municipal governments to do it, we ask societies and non-profit organizations to do it, we ask corporations to do it, and most importantly we ask individuals to do it in their households. But we don't ask governments to do it — until this year. For the first time in Canada a government has tabled a budget in British Columbia that conforms to generally accepted accounting principles. That's a significant step in bringing legitimacy, stability and accountability to the relationship between government, the finances of the people, and the industry and the investment climate in the world at large. It is a very big step, and I'm proud we were able to make it this year.

I think it is important that we know a little bit more about the balanced budget. The fact is that for the first time in a long time, in a real and sustainable way — looking out three years — revenues in British Columbia are actually matching expenses in British Columbia. That is important. It's important for the reasons why GAAP is important. It's accountable, it's sustainable, it's transparent, and it's stable. People know over the long-term — three years; a three-year planning window — where we're going to be. That is a great foundation to build an economy on.

I think it is important to know that the budget is conservative. It's conservative in its projections of revenue and conservative in its projections of spending. Those targets are achievable, and we have a track record over three years of meeting our goals. I think that is important for British Columbia. That adds to the stability, the accountability and the trustworthiness of this system — the trustworthiness of what we're trying to accomplish and the relationship between the people and the government. People need to know they can count on their government to spend their dollars wisely. They need to know how they're going to spend those dollars, when they're going to spend those dollars and on what they're going to spend those dollars.

What are we doing with all of this money? What are we doing with all of the money that we collect in revenue and disburse into society? Well, we're making some focus changes. We're going to work on education. We're going to add $313 million to K-to-12 education over the next three years. That's money that's important to those kids and to the future of this province. As we restructure education and focus on achievement and relating the education system to the larger world out there so that we have kids transition from K-to-12 to college to trade schools to the workplace so that we are as competitive and leading edge as we possibly can be, it is important to make those investments in those kids. I think we're doing a very sound job of getting us there on the restructuring side and on the fiscal side.

That doesn't mean there aren't challenges. There are certainly challenges up my way, and the challenges themselves are presented in this thing called declining enrolment. Declining enrolment is tough for districts — tough as heck. Where we fund, based on a per-student basis — which is really the only fair way to fund an education system across the province — it is hard on communities like Port Hardy and Port Alice and even Campbell River where the population of school-age children is dropping. It is doing that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is simple demographics, but really it's about the economy too.

So these districts aren't without their challenges. Balancing the transfers of money with the students' enrolment and the capital — the physical plant and the human capital that we have in those districts — is always difficult. But we're getting there. It is tough. The government's job now is to keep building on the economy and grow the economy so that we start building these communities again, stabilizing that declining enrolment and providing new opportunities for these kids.

One of the ways we're going to do it — and I think this is very exciting for a lot of the North Island — is the initiative we have where we're bringing broadband to these small rural schools. Think of the opportunities these kids will have now with broadband Internet access — broadband in Sayward, broadband in Woss, broadband in Port Alice. They have it in Tahsis and in Gold River now. Think about what it means to be able to take the power of the Internet and match that with the appetite for learning that these kids have. If we can provide the fundamental basis of technology, use that technology to advance and bring the world to these kids, their horizons are going to be endless.

These kids live in those communities. These kids grow up to be doctors, foresters, machinists, millwrights and truck drivers. They grow up to be nurses and teachers. If we can start them early and bring them the world in a learning environment through broadband Internet access and technology, it is going to be amazing — the results that we'll see and the gifts those kids will have. They will be able to match what they learn at home, what they learn by living in those small communities — what it means to be able to spend your

weekends out on the Nimpkish River fishing or Woss Lake or what it means to go to your cabin in Victoria Lake if you live in Port Alice and live in that natural environment; what it means to have parents that work in the forest industry and want to be in the forest industry; what it means to be able to learn early about technology; what it means to…. That's where the future of the province's innovation is going to come from. It's these kids.

When we allow them to be touched by technology and allow them to take their personal experiences and mesh that with the bigger world, that's why K-to-12 education is important and why technology is important to invest in. That's why we need to think about doing things differently in the province and educating our kids in rural British Columbia.

The budget is focused on health care. We're going to add a significant amount of money. With the help of the federal government and our own careful management, we're going to put money back in, and we want to focus that money on those patients. You know, in the last few days we've had a long conversation back and forth and around in this House about surgical waiting lists.

Let me tell you a little story in Campbell River. I can't specifically remember the number of orthopedic surgeries they do in a year there, but last year, because the Vancouver Island health authority managed their money wisely, they found an extra sum of money to fund an additional 39 joint replacements in Campbell River. Those are 39 people that were on a list. Those are 39 people, some of them that came to see me saying: "I have a bad knee. I have a bad hip. It's affected my quality of life. I need access." Those are 39 people whose lives have changed.

We in government understand what that means. We're not immune to this. We know what that access means to those people. It is important that we keep moving forward, keep funding and keep access available to those people for things like orthopedic surgeries. It's interesting, I think, that we focus on the bigger numbers when it's those little numbers that matter — the 14 or 15 here, the 30 or 40 there, the 20 or ten there — because that's what it is. One of the people came to see me, who had benefited from one of the procedures, and thanked me because we've been doing such a good job. I said: "You know what? It actually isn't me." It has nothing to do with me. It is a system and a system that is starting to work, that we have to mind and be careful with, that we have to be disciplined with and that we have to encourage. But it is the system that actually is finally working.

When you take the colossus that health care was and streamline the management procedures, you streamline accountability, when you make it focus on issues that are relevant and important to local areas, and when you allow them to manage themselves in efficient and affordable ways, good things will come of it. We can have conversations in the broader context about all the big things that happen, but I will tell you, it's those little things on the ground that matter to people. The budget lays out a path for doing more and more and more of them over time.

Health care has an insatiable appetite. The Premier is talking about that with the other Premiers today and yesterday in Vancouver. We know what we're looking at. There is no denying that the demographics in British Columbia, across Canada and North America are changing and that the population is getting older. We also know that as the population ages, that aging population spends more money on health care per year per person. We have a very large challenge ahead of us, and the expectations which exist in the system today cannot be met by this government, the next government or any other government. It needs fundamental structural change and a fundamental retooling of how we think about and how we deliver care to the people of British Columbia.

The budget talks about forestry, something that's near and dear to the hearts and minds of people on the North Island. It talks about a series of initiatives inside forestry. It talks about a series of initiatives inside the resource development community, the economy of British Columbia. It was Jack Munro or other people over the years who talked about generating that first dollar. The first dollar that says we can go and buy something; the first dollar that takes a tree that stands on the side of the hill, turns it into lumber, sells it into a marketplace and generates foreign currency and earnings for the people of British Columbia — that's the first dollar.

Something that takes a few hectares of an ocean in a pen and grows salmon from an egg, sells that into a marketplace and generates that first dollar — that's part of building the economy of British Columbia. Somebody that finds an iron ore or copper or zinc or gold or lead deposit, mines it, turns it into a product, ships it to a world market and earns foreign currency — that's the first dollar. Somebody that takes a hillside or a wild salmon population in the ocean and exploits it from a tourism perspective, where we bring in people from around the world to fish, to view, to experience British Columbia — that's the first dollar.

The budget talks a lot about the first dollar. The Olympics are about the first dollar. The Olympics are about bringing the world to British Columbia — having them bring their dollars here and having us grow our economy.

Budgets are about growing the economy. In forestry we're going to spend $170-odd million ramping up the B.C. timber sales program; 20 percent of the timber in this province is going to be put up for auction. New entrants into the industry, new people with new ideas, can find access to fibre. They can build a future for their companies and oftentimes their families. They can now find in this province a log market that didn't exist.

We're going to spend $6 million on small-scale salvage. That's an industry I know a little bit about, because I'll tell you, those people come to see me a lot.

They're the cedar salvagers on the coast of British Columbia. They go out there and walk through the old cutblocks and side hills, back to ones that were harvested at the turn of the century or ones that were done two days ago, and they find cedar. They convert it into shake blocks; they convert it into lumber and other high-value products. These are people who wander out in the bush and look for it. They bring it back and convert it into the first dollar, and they raise their families doing it.

We need to build a system that works for them. It's not going to be without a struggle. It's not going to be without its transition, but we're going to build it. We're going to build it where it works on North Island. For cedar, we're going to build it where it works in the Thompson Valley. For burnt wood and other things, we're going to build it in the north where beetle wood and other things are important. It is about building it where you can and where it is going to work, because one size is not going to fit this province. Our forests are too diverse.

In five days we're going to, on the coast of British Columbia, convert to the market-pricing system from the old comparative value-pricing system — which is MPS or CVP and which for most people actually is called stumpage — which ultimately nobody even understands, except for a small cabal of folks who administer it. It is the mechanism by which we as government collect rent from the people to whom we have granted licences to harvest the forest.

I know that is a big step on the coast of British Columbia. I know that as we build the market-pricing system over time and fill data from the auction system, we are going to drive one of the most competitive industries this world has seen in the forest products industry. It is one step, but it is an important one to get people back to work and get this industry functioning properly on the coast of British Columbia.

We also have now written and passed the regulations for the results-based Forest Practices Code and the Forest and Range Practices Act. We have now in 2004 started this long process where we're going to climb out of the malaise of the nineties, where we're going to focus really hard on those trees. We are implementing the package of reforms to the forest industry, and all of these things focus on those trees. They say to the people of British Columbia and the people who work in that industry in the communities that depend on those trees that we want you to succeed. They say we want you to be creative. They say we want you to think of ways of growing trees better and faster. We want you to protect the natural environment; we want you to use eco-based management principles on the broader landscape. We want you to plan for endangered species. We want you to plan for ungulate, for wildlife, for identified wildlife, for cavity-nesting birds. We want you to plan for the landscape; we want you to be innovative; we want you to be creative. We want you to be excited about the future of this industry and to know that we will measure you against your results. If you lay out a plan that is creative and innovative, we want it to be successful, and we will measure that success. We don't want you to fall short.

I think it is going to be an exciting time for the forest industry this year. It is a time of great change. I understand, but from great change comes great opportunity and people that are creative, people that are thinking and people that believe they are going to find great success from that great opportunity. This is the year that it starts. Last year was the year that we built it; this is the year that it is implemented. This is the year we start to see some successes. The budget provides us with the tools to get the job done.

We're going to be successful in mining this year; we're going to be successful in aquaculture this year. This year we're going to move a little bit closer on something that I think is very important for my part of the world — offshore oil and gas. We're going to provide $17 million over the next three years to engage with the people of British Columbia on what a regulatory regime and what a world would look like if we did find a path to get to developing an offshore oil and gas industry.

A lot of people say that's pretty wishy-washy. Are you going to do it, or are you not going to do it? Take a stand and just get out there. Actually, the reality is that this is a process. This is something that we have to bring the people of the province to understand. This is something that we have to provide a great deal of reassurance for. We have to understand all of the risks associated with such an endeavour, and we have to manage those risks and build confidence in the people of British Columbia and of Canada that we can and, indeed, will manage all of those risks and provide great benefits. Only then will we be able to provide great benefits to the people of British Columbia.

There are two jurisdictions in the world: Norway and British Columbia. Both have today roughly four million in population. They roughly have similar coastlines and roughly have similar latitudes and geography — deep fjords, deep water, cold water. In 1967 both countries started exploring for oil and gas off the coasts of their respective jurisdictions. Today in Norway they have $145 billion in the bank in a heritage fund they've developed since 1996. Guess how much we have in the bank. Wait a minute. We have a loan for $30 billion. That's almost $200 billion difference.

They have a great university system; they have a great health care system. They have great infrastructure in Norway. It's held as a model for the world to look at. Well, they didn't get there by saying no.

That's what the budget talks about. That's what we talk about as a government: how do we get the people of British Columbia to "yes" on developing a risk-based, careful, thoughtful, well-planned offshore oil and gas industry?

The budget talks about tourism. I think tourism is important. It's important to northern Vancouver Island.

All of it is. They're part of the first-dollar community. They're part of that group that earns us an economy, builds our economy and helps provide stability in our communities.

We have Mt. Washington next door. It employs 700 people in the winter season as a ski resort. We have lodges like Painter's Lodge. We have Nimmo Bay Lodge. We have hundreds of bed-and-breakfasts. We have hotels and motels. We have all the fishing camps. We have guiding associations and guide companies. We have the Nootka Island Fish Camp. We have hundreds of opportunities out there, and we want to explore those.

We want to open up the parks of British Columbia to generate that first dollar. Before we all light our hair on fire about that statement, parks are there for people. Parks are there so that we can enjoy them. Parks are there so that we maintain for the people of British Columbia a sense of the broader ecology of this place and the vistas, the geography of this place, but they're there to visit.

I think you can carefully massage or carefully manage a system that allows those parks to become sustainable — a system that lets them find a way to pay for themselves, that exploits their natural viability, their natural assets, and that is also sensitive to their ecology and to why they are parks in the first place. We can get there, and we're going to do that, and I think that's important. It's important to northern Vancouver Island, because we have some of the most beautiful places in the province, and we want to get people there to visit.

I want to close with a little contrast-and-compare. A couple of budgets ago I read into my comments something that I'd read. I don't know who to attribute it to other than that it is a U.S. commentator. He said that government has nothing to give anyone except what first it takes from someone, and government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. That's exactly what we're faced with today. That's exactly where we are today. When we tabled this budget and the NDP tabled their budget a week earlier, we were faced with that very statement.

The people of this province have a choice over the next 15 or 16 months. The choice is this: if you're going to ask for everything you want, you'd better expect a government that is going to come and take everything you have to pay for it. If you want a government that is going to live within its means, that is going to say, "This is what we can afford to do, this is what we can focus on, this is how we can help, and you are going to have to help yourself and help us along the way," then I think the choices are pretty clear.

You pick up the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives or the alternate NDP budget and you look at one line that just drives me crazy. What's the number for our…? It's called debt service. In '04-05 I think our debt service is around $700 million or $800 million — somewhere in there. In the solutions budget by the NDP it is $1.892 billion. That's more than a billion dollars more that they're going to pay in interest because they're going to borrow money. They're going to take your money, all of your money, and they're going to spend it on all of their friends. They're going to spend an extra billion dollars on interest to boot.

You can't take your friends on a Holt Renfrew shopping spree and then pay that credit card bill with a cash advance from your Wal-Mart card. You can't do it. So there is a difference out there.

You can have a government like we had in the 1990s — that drove people away, that started us in a downward spiral, that made us a laughingstock in the international investment community and the laughingstock of this nation, that took us from first to worst — or you can have a government that opens up the books of the province for three years in a planning cycle to generally accepted accounting principles that makes it transparent, meaningful, stable and consistent. You can have this. You can go back to lurch budgeting, or you can have a fixed budget day. You can go back to never knowing what the next year's going to look like. You can go back to the period where you don't know whether you've got funding or not, or you can have stability. You can have a government that lives within its means.

That's what this budget is about this year. It's about living within your means today, next year, the year after and for the next decade.

Hon. C. Clark: It is a pleasure to speak in support of this budget today. It has been two and a half years of very hard work to get us to this point, but I think all of us on the government side of the House would certainly say that it's been hard work that has been well worth it.

The accomplishments in this budget offer a great deal for us to celebrate. It is a balanced budget, exactly as promised and exactly on schedule. We balanced this budget not by raising the punishing taxes that we saw under the NDP but by lowering them.

With that lower tax burden what we've seen are more jobs created, more investment in British Columbia and more confidence. We have started to see British Columbia regain some of its former strength as an economic powerhouse again in Canada. Job growth is up — 159,000 new jobs created in British Columbia in one month alone. We created more jobs just in this province than the entire United States of America created in that same month.

We have been number one in housing growth — a 21 percent increase in housing starts in B.C. We're one of only two provinces in this country that is predicted to see housing starts continue to grow in 2004.

We are the number one jurisdiction for small business confidence anywhere in Canada. We have seen more new businesses start in British Columbia this year than we've seen in the last decade in our province. We are the number one province for new immigrant investors. We are for the first time in six years welcoming

You know, you look around at what we have in British Columbia — the magnificent scenery, the style of life we have, the diversity in this province — and you'd say to yourself: why wouldn't everyone want to live here? The fact is that probably everyone does want to live here, but for the last six years, for the last decade, it's been tough to find a job in British Columbia, so it hasn't been possible for everybody who wants to come live here to make a life. Now, for the first time in six years, more people think they can make a life, can make their future, can build something for their kids in British Columbia than have for a long time.

We are spending $1 billion more in health care this year. That's a 10 percent increase, and that represents part of a 36 percent increase since we took office. It's $313 million more for kindergarten-to-grade-12 education. That is an almost 6½ percent increase since we took office. It's $105 million more for post-secondary education. That's a 5 percent increase. Huge increases in the amount of money we're spending on health care and education. Why? Because we've got our budget under control, we've set our priorities very clearly, we're restoring confidence in our economy, and British Columbia is back.

British Columbia is on its way back to number one in the country, on its way back to number one in the world, on its way back to being a place where people can make their lives again, where people can find a job, where people can build a future for their children. It's a place where we will be creating 25,000 new spaces in colleges, universities and institutes; a place where if your kid gets a B or better in high school, they'll have a chance of getting a spot in post-secondary education.

For goodness' sake, we know that not every child who doesn't do well in high school isn't going to be someone who does well in university. We know that just because you can't get 90 or 92 percent on the exam doesn't necessarily mean you won't be able to make something of yourself and be able to go into a profession that requires post-secondary education. We need to give all those kids a crack at doing well in the rest of their lives. If they want to do that, perhaps they want to go out and pursue a post-secondary education. We need to provide more opportunities for those kids. That's what this budget wants to do.

Remember, the reason we have the ability to make the decisions about things like creating 25,000 new spaces is because we went out and did the grinding hard work of trying to get this economy back on track, of creating a sense of prosperity and a sense of opportunity again in British Columbia, creating more jobs for people to work at, creating a stronger tax base for British Columbia, making sure there are investors moving here. It's creating that sound foundation that makes it possible for government to pay for social programs, to pay for things like university spaces and post-secondary spaces.

Compare what we've done with what Carole James and the NDP want to do for British Columbia. They believe that if you make the ludicrously big sum of $32,000 a year, you deserve a tax increase on the scale of 40 percent. That's what they want to do to British Columbia. They want to raise the gas tax by 5 cents a litre. They want to increase business taxes by 70 percent. They want to make British Columbia number one again — not in job creation, not in investment, not in investor immigrants. They want to make British Columbia number one as the highest-taxed jurisdiction, once again, in North America.

I want to be fair, because the NDP do want to balance the budget. They've said that in the budget they presented through the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. They want to balance the budget when the Olympics come to British Columbia in 2010. In the meantime, they want to add $120 million a year just to debt service costs. That's not our money; that's our kids' money. When we go into debt, it's an exercise in saying: "All right, we're going to spend all the money we take in. Plus, we want to take some money from our kids to support the things we're doing today."

You can't run a province like that. You might be able to run a province like that for ten years. You might even get away with it for 20, but it sure isn't fair to our children. Every day we put off those tough decisions and every day we say we want to spend more than we take in is another day we say that our kids are going to have to make even tougher decisions. They're going to have even less flexibility about what they want to spend money on.

They're not going to have the luxury of being able to create 25,000 new spaces in post-secondary education. They're not going to have the luxury of saying they want to spend $3 billion more on health care. All of the money that, according to the NDP plan, our kids are going to have to spend is going to have to go toward servicing the debt we created for money we spend today. We have an obligation to them to make sure they have choices and opportunities to create for themselves. We have an obligation to leave this province in a state where they can make something of it for them and can build a province that looks the way they want it to.

Those budget decisions we're making today are important. Someone said to me a week ago at a meeting in my constituency…. I meet regularly with women, just groups of women from the community who are opinion leaders or who are active or who aren't active and are just interested in providing advice. One of them said to me last week: "You know, I sure wouldn't mind paying more taxes if it meant we could have better service." The thing is that more taxes don't necessarily equal better service. We tried that under the NDP for a decade. We had the highest taxes, in some cases, of any jurisdiction in North America. What did we have? We had fewer services. What the NDP was doing was creating a system of government that was so expensive, it was starting to crumble in on itself.

It's not true that if you just pay more taxes, you get better service. In fact, what happens is that if you pay more taxes, you drive people out of the province. You kill jobs. Your kids move to other places where they can find work. You create a crumbling economy that can no longer sustain itself. It really sends the economy into a death spiral because you just can't get your head above water.

We need to turn that around, and that's what we've done in British Columbia through a lot of hard work over the last two and a half years. I think every member of the government side of this House deserves to take a little pat on the back for the hard work they've done in helping to put together these budgets.

This Finance minister has led the country in inclusiveness and in consultation. He has included all members of our caucus in many of the decisions he has had to make. He has made sure that we were apprised of and involved in the really tough decisions and that we had opportunities to make changes where it was necessary.

This ministry, the Ministry of Children and Family Development, is a good example of how that can work. We changed our budget plan after a midterm service review, and we added over $100 million back into this ministry. Why did we do that? We recognized that in order to protect the safety and well-being of kids and developmentally disabled adults, we just couldn't do it on the money we had budgeted.

That was a response to members of our government caucus who were telling the Finance minister that. It was our members of the government caucus that raised the flag and said: "Hey, wait a minute. Maybe we need to take a second look. Maybe we need to make sure we do this in a sustainable way that's going to work." It's a really great example of how the Finance minister's inclusiveness pays off, because it means our government has the benefit of advice from people across this province, people who have got their ear to the ground, people who are in contact with what's going on in local communities. That advice is invaluable. You can't run a government just from the centre. You have to run a government that includes people from across the province.

That has been a huge change in this government. It's been, I think, a real tribute to the way our Premier has decided to change government — government caucus committees that include every member of our caucus in decision-making at the very, very beginning, when those decisions are first presented; caucus meetings where we discuss a broad range of issues and everything's up for discussion; free votes in the House, where members are allowed to express their opinion and express the views of the people they represent. All of those things have contributed to one of the most inclusive, transparent governments we've had in British Columbia.

One of the things the Finance minister talked about in his speech was the relationships we've created with first nations and aboriginal people in British Columbia. I would like to talk a little bit about that because this ministry, Children and Family Development, has really led the way, under my predecessor the member for Surrey–White Rock, in making sure that happened.

We signed a memorandum of understanding in September 2002. The Premier and my predecessor from Surrey–White Rock signed that protocol with aboriginal leaders from across the province. It was a powerful commitment between government and those communities.

There is a compelling amount of research that tells us that aboriginal control and operation of their own services makes for much better outcomes for aboriginal kids. Members of aboriginal communities tell me that they're tired of losing their kids. What happens often is that their kids get taken into government care and never get out, and they never find their way back to an aboriginal community until they come of age and can find their way back on their own. The experience for a child of aboriginal descent, I'm told, who's never been in contact with her or his community, when they go back to their community is traumatic. Those kids, like all of us, want to know where they're from. They want to know their roots. They want to understand their history. That's an important part of building a sense of self-esteem.

That's one of the reasons, as a rich multicultural society, we do so well. We celebrate our differences. We value them. We encourage people to stay in touch with where they're from. We need to do the same thing for aboriginal kids. That means making sure that fewer aboriginal kids come into government care; that more aboriginal kids are able to stay with their families or their extended families, if possible; and that if they do come into government care, they're able to stay in contact with their roots and their communities — and then to make sure they don't stay in government care for any longer than they have to. That's got to be our goal with aboriginal kids.

The reality is that governments over the years haven't done a very good job of making sure that those kids have what they need. I believe, and our government believes, that aboriginal communities can do a better job than we can. Those are the roots of this historic partnership that we've made with aboriginal communities.

One of the things we're working on is a program called A Child's Roots are Forever, recognizing that some of the kids we have in care might be able to get out of government care and go back to what we call kith-and-kin arrangements, back to family or extended families. What we're doing is going through every single individual file of the kids that we have in care. There are 2,700 files that we're going through for aboriginal kids to see if there's something we can do for them.

The difference is that we're not saying: "Gee, we've got a problem in the system; let's fix the system." What we're saying is: "Each of those children has issues that we can try and address. Let's try and find a solution for each of those individual children, one by one, file by

file, family by family. Let's make that commitment 2,700 times and just do the work." That's how we will get those kids back in connection with their families. It's one by one, plan by plan, family by family. Get them safely back in their communities where they can find their roots, build a sense of pride in where they're from, a sense of self-esteem, a sense of connectedness. That's so important in making sure that kids are able to function fully and meet their potential.

We're working on service redesign in this ministry, which is a fancy word for saying: "We're looking at how we deliver the services and making sure that what we deliver matches up with what people need." We haven't done a lot of that in the ministry over the years. Government is resistant to change. Any government is resistant to change. We're working hard to find out what services are needed out there and to make sure that we are delivering those services in a way that meets the needs of the people who are getting them.

We're working on the thousands of contracts that we sign every year with contractors and focusing those contracts on outcomes. We're asking: what do we want to buy? What services do we want to deliver for people? Then let's make sure that government is delivering those services, and let's measure whether or not we are meeting the goals we've set for ourselves. If we're not, let's change it. Where we're doing well, let's do more of it. Unless we measure outcomes, just like we do in the Ministry of Education, we won't know whether we're spending our money well.

In the Ministry of Education, where they are entirely outcome focused, they've been able to improve results for kids by focusing on outcomes, by building in accountabilities, by holding service providers, which are school boards, accountable for what they do — asking them what benchmarks they're going to meet for improvement and then holding them accountable for meeting those standards that they set. That is just good management. If we can do it in Education, we can do it in the Ministry of Children and Family Development too. If we can do it for non-aboriginal kids, we can do it for aboriginal children too.

We need to make sure that we're taking fewer children into care, not just in the aboriginal community but across the board. That's built on the philosophy that children thrive when they're with their families. They all do better if they can have a safe and secure home — a permanent home. We've been working on making sure there are fewer children that come into care. We've been working hard to make sure social workers have a range of different options available to them when they see a family in crisis. Rather than just having a choice between leaving a child in an unsafe situation or taking a child into government care, what about the range of other tools available for social workers? We spend a lot of money and a lot of time, and we invest a lot of confidence in social workers to give them the training they need to make that range of decisions. We need to let them make those decisions so they can build supports around a family, if that's what the family needs in order to provide a safe place for that child.

Most kids, most non-aboriginal kids in particular, come out of care and go back to their families at some point. Surely, we should be trying to, if possible, make that family a safe place for that child in the first place before we take the child into care, before the family reaches a crisis. Let's build the supports around that family and allow that child to stay there with their family in the place they know, in the place they're connected to, in the place where — even if it is dysfunctional — they know they're loved, in a place where they know they'll have a sense of permanence.

One of the things we need to be extremely proud of in this ministry is what we've done in working with adoptions. A lot of kids who are in care are looking for permanent adoptive situations. There are stories. If you talk to kids who are looking for adoptions or to kids who are in care, you find out that they want nothing more than a permanent home. Someone in the ministry was telling me the story of a child who was doing really badly in school, and then when he was adopted into his new home, he started to see his marks improve. They asked him why. The reason, he said, was that for years he couldn't even do his homework because he was so worried about where he was going to spend his next birthday. For years and years and years this child didn't know where he was going to be the next year — or even the next month sometimes. He couldn't even focus on his homework. He couldn't even do well in school. When we found him an adoptive home, his life literally turned around.

What a difference it has made for that child — not just for that child and all those kids who are adopted but for the families that take those kids in. The families decide they can give something back, and they want to offer up the love and security and connection in their home to do something for somebody else. It makes such a tremendous difference. If you talk to parents of adopted children, they will tell you what a difference it has made to bring those children into their home, children who might not have thrived somewhere else but who have found roots and connection and are thriving in the homes they're in now.

In 2000-01 there were 163 adoption placements of children in care. In 2002-03, 338 children moved from foster care to permanent, loving, connected, rooted homes. We hope to improve that number this year again. Now, many of those children have special needs of one kind or another; many of them don't. But almost all of the parents who apply to become adoptive parents are willing to share those challenges with their children that they take into their families.

One of the things we need to tell British Columbians is that there are a lot of children in British Columbia who are still looking for loving, adoptive, permanent homes and that parents don't need to go to the United States to try and find kids to adopt. There are kids in British Columbia today who are waiting for that sense of permanence and who are looking to maybe move just within their neighbourhood to try and find a

We are, indeed, very fortunate in British Columbia. Adoptive parents are just one example of the kinds of communities — loving, caring communities — we have in British Columbia and how many people there are here who are willing to do a little bit to try and make lives better for the kids in our neighbourhoods. More and more families are taking an active role in supporting children and families that are vulnerable in our communities. Because communities come together, it means a more supportive and stronger British Columbia. It means a British Columbia where our future is secure. It means a British Columbia where a generation of kids will grow up knowing that they're loved, that they're cared for, that they're supported and that they have a future.

After all, that is why we all run for office in the first place — because we want to make British Columbia better. We want to leave this a better place than we found it. I believe this budget and this government are working very hard to make sure that the next generation of British Columbians finds a province in as good a shape as we can make it for them.

K. Manhas: Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise today to respond to our government's budget, the first sustainably balanced budget in B.C. in over a decade and the first ever to be balanced in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

For the past three years this government has had to correct the misdeeds of the previous NDP regime, whose interest in economic growth was somewhere between notional and speculative. As our government has always known and as the NDP never learned, a balanced budget is what underpins responsible government. As we've seen in the past year alone, fire, flood and natural disasters can do much to hamper a government's resources. But smart and proactive thinking, intertwined with sound fiscal management and strong economic policies, can eliminate the potential for shaky economic recovery that outlives the reconstruction of those communities so adversely affected just a few months ago.

Let this balanced budget stand as a beacon to all British Columbians who have felt that nagging hangover of the NDP's reign finally come to an end. What's frightening is that the NDP's policies are not coming to light to the degree they really should, to be inspected as to what they really are. We have seen in the polls that the NDP has risen. What's scary about that is what the NDP will bring to this province. We have finally started to shake off the economic turmoil the NDP brought on British Columbia.

I was talking to a fellow the other day, and he was mentioning to me some of the issues he is still dealing with and some of the disagreements he might have with certain specific policies we have put into place. He started talking about what his life has become. He started talking about the fact that his daughter had just started a new career and that his son had gone into medical school and had been able to take in one of the new spaces our government created. Then he started thinking about what life was like in the nineties, what life was like when the NDP turned this province into a social experiment.

You know, our vision has been clear from the very beginning. We want jobs. We want opportunity. We want a society that promotes caring and tolerance with a culture that respects individual responsibility. We want businesses that are successful with profits. We want private sector investment. We want new ideas. We want innovation. We want B.C. to be the best darn place in the world in every area and in every endeavour. That's what we have been striving for, and that's what our balanced budget and our choices have moved us toward.

Our opponents have shown a clear vision as well. We saw their vision of B.C. in the last ten years. We saw businesses go south and east, and we saw the province turn into an interventionist experiment. Carole James and the NDP have put forward a budget, prepared by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, that outlines exactly what type of government they would bring back to British Columbia and what kind of budget they would have implemented in place of the budget we have put forward for British Columbia. It paints a bleak picture for British Columbia and an irresponsible one — one that continues to stuff IOU notes into the banks and savings of our kids today rather than focusing on building a solid foundation for them. It's one that would result in huge increases in taxes for everyone.

The NDP have put forward plans, if they got into government — instead of the budget we put forward — that we should increase taxes. Those taxes would go up on average of $1,700 per family per year for a middle-income family. Now, I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but for my family $1,700 a year is a lot of money. For families living in my community, that $1,700 goes a long way to helping them build a future for themselves and for their families. That is not something that is able to help those families build that hope and that future for themselves. That is the regressive type of thinking that will pull back our economy, and that is something that is a scary thought. It makes me sick, because I don't want to mortgage our future anymore. I want to start building our future again. I want to build towards a future and the success of families and kids that are growing up today.

That is what a balanced budget means. A balanced budget means we are no longer saying that we are more important than those kids and those people who are living here today. We do not take precedence because we want to pay for our salaries and the services that are delivered this year. "We will take the bill and put it forward and create a deficit so that someone else can pay for it." That's not how we run our families. That's not how any good parent would want their family to be run. Any family or parent I know saves money

for their kids' futures. They do not spend money on their credit card and give it to their kids and say: "Here. Go get a job. Go leverage your future. You pay off my credit card." We do not do that in our families, and we should not do that in our government.

Finally, we have done the right thing. We have balanced the budget. We are starting to live within our means. What that means is that we are starting to be able to make some more choices. By not increasing the deficit, we are also not increasing our debt and the interest on that debt we have to pay, which has become the second-largest ministry. If debt were a ministry, the interest on the debt would be the second-largest amount of money paid for any other government service. That's a scary thought. That means that if we are paying that much money this year, that keeps on increasing ten and 20 years down the road. That decreases the amount of money left for any provincial government and any people in the future to be able to make choices for where they want that money to go.

We have now come and brought that to an end. Unencumbered by those heavy chains of deficit, we can now start tackling our debt and focusing on our future. British Columbia is coming out of the malaise. We are coming out of that tunnel, and we can see the light. Man, is it ever bright.

British Columbia is growing quickly. We're getting ready for the world's spotlight, and we're working hard. This balanced budget embodies the work that all British Columbians have had to do to get our fiscal house in order.

It hasn't been the easiest time in our history. Venturing away from the claws of deficit is always challenging, but we've come through it. The most difficult part is behind us now. It shows the resilience that is so much a part of who we are as a people. It shows us we are able to carry through challenges — challenges we face that we may not know are coming ahead. We've been able to face them together, and it has carried us through so many challenges in our past. That's the spirit of British Columbia.

By living within our means and not spending money that is not ours, our government embraced the very lesson that is taught in schools and homes all across our land. Fiscal pragmatism is not only a principle. It's a path to economic reward, and it's a definable goal that all British Columbians can be proud of.

Under the leadership of our Premier we have charted a new course that sets our sights on to the future, on to hope, on to opportunity. We have chosen to aim high, and we have achieved what we set out to do. That's something all British Columbians can be proud of.

British Columbia was built on achievement. British Columbia is here because of the spirit of achievement that has brought us here. We may have lost that. We may have come through a decade where British Columbia's spirit and determination were hit. British Columbia went through a period when all of the rest of North America — every other jurisdiction — was going through the largest period of expansionary growth in North America's history. British Columbia missed out on that.

As the Finance minister has said before, in the 1990s there were only two jurisdictions that slipped into a recession. We were defined in British Columbia as having slipped into a recession. The other jurisdiction was Chiapas, Mexico, and they went to war. We just had the NDP.

We have started going back on the path of achievement. We have started lifting our spirits and renewing our confidence, and that confidence has come together in spades. British Columbia in 2003 was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics. That sets ourselves on the stage. It brings back the spirit of achievement, of success, that is British Columbia. We have something to work towards again. We have something that we can show the world, because we have the best place in the world. We have the best people in the world. We all know we live in the best place in the best country in the world, and now we have an opportunity to show people that. We have an opportunity to show what we can do, what we can achieve. We have a chance to be a world leader again.

I think we all should understand that this balanced budget means bright futures for our families, our children and our children's children. We have worked tirelessly at creating a fiscal climate that is warm and welcoming for our children. There is nothing we can do as a government that's more vital than to stop borrowing money from future generations that they have to pay back.

It opens a door to brighter futures for today's youth. It means more education for our children in our world-class schools staffed by first-class educators. This budget was able to put more money into education. It has put more money this year into education and next year and the year after that. We're planning for our future. This budget, I'm so proud, planned for 25,000 new spots by 2010 in British Columbia's post-secondary sector. That is an investment in the innovations and our human resources.

We have finally come to a point where we have understood that our resources are a great asset — an asset that we can leverage into our human resources, into intelligence, into intellectual capital and into knowledge-based industries that will bring British Columbia further and further ahead in the country.

We have seen oil and gas revenues in British Columbia grow higher than forestry revenues in British Columbia. We're working in our key sectors. We're investing the money that comes from the growth in British Columbia back into our human capital, back into our human resources, so that we maintain that edge in the world in the years ahead.

The youth that are growing up today are our real assets, and that is what our government has chosen to invest in. That is why we have decided to make a priority an increase in access and an increase in space in post-secondary education. That's why we've decided to increase the number of spaces in colleges and universi-

ties across the province — because we have understood that giving opportunity to people, youth and young people in British Columbia is our responsibility, is our future.

It is not acceptable that we can only accept in our colleges and universities an individual, a young person, who is able to get 90 percent or more to get into university or college. We have decided we want to increase that access so more young people can get in, so that we bring down the level of entry so more young people have the ability to access that knowledge and build a brighter future for themselves.

The balanced budget means more than that. It means a stronger economy and stronger confidence. It means more than just jobs; it means careers for young people and future generations. This balanced budget brings out the best in B.C. in so many ways, and it paves the best road for us to travel down, as a society, to a future of hope and opportunity.

I have presented to my riding of Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and to my caucus around the Legislature a pig — a piggy bank named Bal. Let me tell you that Bal is a very special pig. Not only does he embody the balanced budget of this government, but his smiling face represents that bright future that we can look forward to and that we are trying to build in this province.

The money deposited into Bal will be presented to the first baby born in 2005. The moneys that Bal is storing in his belly will be put into an educational trust fund where, like the child it is given to, it will grow and flourish in a prosperous economic climate. When the child is ready to pursue a post-secondary education, that trust fund will be there. There will be hope and jobs and an economy that pushes that young individual into the future to the top of the world. That is what Bal represents. Bal represents the balance and forethought within this budget.

By making practical decisions today, our children will be able to reap the rewards they so deserve to have tomorrow. The balanced budget offers as much for the present as it does for the future — as I've said, growth, tremendous growth. Our government has created the economic climate necessary for progress.

In January, B.C. housing starts were up by 94 percent over January of last year. The most recent Scotiabank provincial forecast predicts B.C. will have Canada's second-fastest-growing economy in 2004 and 2005 — quite a large stretch from the recession we were in, in the nineties. Building permits issued by B.C. municipalities were up 13 percent from 2002 compared to the national gain of 7.5 percent. The Conference Board of Canada reports that consumer confidence showed B.C. as the only province in the country where consumer confidence continued to rise in December of 2003. TD Bank forecasts that B.C. will have the second-highest GDP growth of all ten provinces in 2004 — growth of 3.1 percent for B.C. this year, second only to Alberta and well ahead of the national forecast increase.

People are moving back to British Columbia. B.C. saw a net inflow of 2,614 people from the rest of Canada in the third quarter of 2003. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has found that small and medium-sized businesses in B.C. are more optimistic about their business prospects over the next year than anywhere else in Canada.

The Economic Forecast Council is expecting B.C. to see stronger economic growth in 2004 and beyond. Credit Union Central of B.C. reports business incorporations in B.C. are up 9.3 percent in the first nine months of 2003, following an over 7.5 percent increase last year. The number of small businesses in B.C. has increased — 3.1 percent in 2002 — following three consecutive years of decline. We've turned that corner.

Mr. Speaker, aftertax family income in B.C. jumped over 4.5 percent in 2001 to $57,581, the third strongest increase in Canada and the largest increase in aftertax income for B.C. families in at least two decades. The average tax paid by B.C. families decreased by 13.5 percent, the largest decrease in over 20 years.

Jobs are increasing, with 83,400 new jobs in the last year and more jobs growing month by month — 158,900 new jobs between December of 2001 and December of 2003, up 8.1 percent.

This balanced budget and these economic prospects have carried my riding — my communities of Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, Coquitlam and the Tri-Cities area — further and further ahead. Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain is growing, and for good reason, Mr. Speaker. The city of Port Coquitlam approved 560 new business licences in 2003 — an increase of 14.5 percent from 2002, when only 489 new business licences were approved. My riding is open for business. The numbers show that people are coming in droves and with them come money, dreams and enterprises that fuel our economic engines and inspire my community to dream big ideas like the Indian River development initiative north of Coquitlam. That has the opportunity to bring billions of dollars of economic spinoff from a new ski resort just over half an hour away from Coquitlam — access from Coquitlam.

We also have the dream of strengthening our communities. This is evident in every area of Port Coquitlam and in the plans and work going into the Burke Mountain village. Residential communities anchor families to Port Coquitlam and, in doing so, provide stability and growth for commercial sectors. The Burke Mountain plans have started to develop. The city council is approving the new development that our government allowed to take place by making the land available.

Last year we made the land available to the private sector, and the city of Coquitlam has recognized for years and years, as has the GVRD, that this land is an integral part of the growth strategy for greater Vancouver. It's integral for affordable housing. The plan looks to 24,000 new people moving into Coquitlam, into the Burke Mountain village. That will provide over $1 billion in economic activity to the region.

One of the largest and most important sectors in my community is retail and wholesale trade. There are 793 retail and wholesale traders doing business in the region. After trade services, financial institutions, insurance and real estate, tourism, accommodation and food services are important employers and important elements of the regional economy. Since the start of 2003, Port Coquitlam city hall has issued 144 new building permits — 114 to construct new single-family dwellings, 18 multifamily, 11 for commercial business space and a new institutional building as well. With so much bustling activity, my constituents, people in my community, are looking to this government to continue that future. People are starting to see the need for the difficult decisions.

My community is very young. In 2001 it was estimated there were almost 200,000 people in the Tri-Cities area, of whom more than 64,000, or 34 percent, are 24 years old or younger. Population is anticipated to grow quickly from almost 187,000 in 2001 to nearly 346,000 by 2021. That amounts to an increase of 85 percent in just 20 years. By comparison, the population of the GVRD, the greater Vancouver area in general, is forecast to rise by only 28 to 34 percent. It will rise more than double that over the same period.

My constituency's youth combined with the growth of both the economy and the population create the backdrop for success. The residents of my riding should be both excited and proud, and I see from their actions that they have been. The households of my community earn more than the provincial average of $30,938. Coquitlam homes, on average, take home $34,000; Poco, over $31,000. Port Moody takes in over $38,000. Money is starting to flow into the community, and the members of the community and constituents see the benefit of that increased growth in every turn.

As wonderful as a booming economy is to the young and enterprising demographic that comprises my community, we are not without our challenges. Population expansion places strain on infrastructure. Roads get worn out at a faster rate, rush hour becomes slower and lasts longer, and bridges suddenly seem too small to deal with the load being placed on them. Seats on buses grow fewer, buses creep through piles of traffic, and traffic generally appears to be too slow and never-ending.

This balanced budget addresses the importance that infrastructure plays in a growing society. I'm proud to see funds being allocated to meet the ever-increasing demand that is a by-product of people moving back to British Columbia. Part of the $1.3 billion that is being reinvested into the province's transportation system is going towards infrastructure projects to ease the burden of more people travelling throughout our communities.

I continue to work to ensure the best for my community and the investments allocated by our government. Transportation is the single biggest issue facing my community and people who live in it, and improving the roads in my jurisdiction is a major task. We are working with TransLink, and I will continue to work with TransLink, our government and the municipalities to make sure those issues are at the forefront and are dealt with.

We have made significant improvements since taking office in 2001. We've partnered with the federal government to improve border infrastructure and to introduce a bold set of improvements across B.C., including the Gateway project, which will see improvements along the Mary Hill bypass in the south area of my riding and better connections to Pitt Meadows, Coquitlam and New Westminster — and eventually plan to twin the Port Mann Bridge.

My Tri-Cities colleagues and I have worked hard to ensure that our needs are given a priority in Victoria. We were able to ensure that the government specifically named the Coquitlam rapid transit line and the SkyTrain agreement with TransLink, an agreement worth $550 million. That opened the door and allowed TransLink to leverage the line being planned and built, and we are seeing that built. We have seen the commitment from TransLink. We have seen their commitment, and we will keep on working to make sure that line is built.

I continue to work towards improvements to the Pitt River crossing, and the government is examining options for expanding the capacity on the Trans-Canada Highway, improvements to the Cape Horn interchange, the North Fraser perimeter road and a new toll expressway connector dubbed the South Fraser perimeter road.

The residents and people of Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain understand that the balanced budget means choices, and those choices open the doors to better transportation. By eliminating the deficit, we can start planning for the large projects and big-ticket items that are so much a part of an expanding economy that is starting to run at a pace it should be.

This economic vitality is represented in our booming technology sector as well. Some of Canada's biggest and best firms reside in my own community, in my riding. Companies such as Faronics Corporation, Microplex Systems, Metalcraft Technology, Intentional Design, Infosat Communications, International Submarine technologies, Contec Innovations, Omnex Control Systems and Mindware Design all contribute to that rich knowledge-based economy that is popping up around our feet.

From making wireless controls to mobile application servers, our community's technology sector is making the world more connected at a faster pace and in a smaller package. A high-tech industry cannot arrive at our front doors unannounced. The high-tech sector's existence is a tribute to the high-quality education that all our youth receive. We have worked hard to attract and enhance the tech sector. We've reduced regulatory obstacles. We've instituted targeted tax credits. In short, we've engineered B.C.'s emergence as the leading edge in the high-tech sector. We've established Leading Edge B.C. to market British Columbia to the world.

Companies around the world have seen the quality and the great things they can build with the high-quality knowledge in young people coming out of our universities. They're starting to build their corporations and move their headquarters and their knowledge-based research and development operations into British Columbia. Establishing these high-tech communities is a group effort, and together we can bring the best in our economy.

As my constituents continue to make innovations in the technological sector, our biotech sector is also continuing to grow. This is an extremely lucrative industry to be in, and my community is pushing the envelope. B.C. currently has approximately 7,500 biotech firms within its border, and we're growing. B.C. is now home to the seventh-largest biotech cluster in British Columbia. Biotech is helping to make the environment greener, and by making products that break down pollutants and toxic waste, they're helping to solve some of our population's most vexing medical problems.

As economies grow and prosper, so, too, must the services we use to assist our families. This government is committed to the promotion of well-being of children and families, and as a testament to this, we have reinstated $122 million into the Ministry of Children and Family Development. We heard from the minister just now. The minister has continued working hard and building on the good work of her predecessor, and she is working hard to support successes for all children. Children in care have dropped by over 50 percent.

This balanced budget represents more than just dollars and cents. It's a snapshot that encapsulates everything our government has striven towards in the last year. We are no longer a province on the mend. We are a people that have gone through some tough times and are now turning the corner.

This is a time to rejoice, Mr. Speaker. We will continue to build, we will continue to work hard, and we will continue to make sure that people in my community and across the province have a bright future of prosperity they can look forward to in their future.

Hon. G. Bruce: I was going to. I was going to suggest that we adjourn the debate, as interesting as it has been.

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