Hansard -- Tuesday, September 20, 2005 p.m. -- Vol. 1, No. 11 (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


Introductions by Members		189

Ministerial Statements		189
	Review of death of Sherry Charlie
	Hon. S. Hagen
	A. Dix

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		191
	Supply Act (No. 2), 2005 (Bill 5)
	Hon. C. Taylor

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		192
	Simon Wiesenthal
	C. James
	Economic and cultural exchanges with Asia
	R. Lee
	Aboriginal veterans
	C. Wyse
	North Shore Rescue
	K. Whittred
	Status of aboriginal women in Canada
	S. Fraser
	Post-secondary education in Okanagan
	A. Horning

Oral Questions		194
	Review of death of Sherry Charlie
	A. Dix
	Hon. S. Hagen
	C. James
	R. Fleming
	J. Kwan
	M. Farnworth
	L. Krog
	Hon. W. Oppal
	G. Robertson
	B. Ralston
	J. Horgan
	B. Simpson
	D. Cubberley
	C. Trevena

Petitions		198
	D. MacKay
	N. Macdonald

Budget Debate (continued)		198
	R. Fleming
	Hon. G. Abbott
	D. Cubberley
	Hon. B. Bennett
	C. Puchmayr
	M. Polak
	J. Brar

Hon. R. Thorpe: Today in the House are members of the executive of the New Car Dealers of British Columbia. Would the House please make Manse Brinkley, Maury Keith and Glen Ringdal welcome to this House.

Hon. C. Richmond: I'm pleased to introduce a constituent today. Sharon Richards is president of the B.C. Art Teachers Association and also is a teacher at Westsyde Secondary School. On behalf of the member for Kamloops–North Thompson and myself, I'd ask the House to please make Sharon welcome.

B. Simpson: I'd like to welcome to the House today Ruby and Jack Williams from my constituency — long-time supporters of the NDP in my area. They have friends with them: Kay and Jack Lackner and Lynn Sam, also long-time members of our party. Please make them welcome.

J. Horgan: I, too, would like to welcome some guests from the provincial specialists association of the B.C. Teachers Federation here with us today: Cheryl Johnson, from school district 69, president of the dance PSA; Jenny Garrels, from school district 46 on the Sunshine Coast, the president of the home economics section; and lastly, David Ennis, from school district 34, B.C. music teachers. Would you please make them welcome.

J. Nuraney: We have in the gallery today my nephew Shafique Dahya, who has come to Victoria to study at Royal Roads. May I please ask the House to make him welcome.

J. Kwan: I have the pleasure of making six introductions today. It's a rare occasion for me to have so many visitors in the Legislature.

First, let me introduce Tim Agg, the executive director of PLEA Community Services, an agency providing a range of services in the Vancouver, coastal and Fraser regions, whose office is in Vancouver — in fact, in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. PLEA also has the KidStart program, which happens to be one of four finalists for the 2005 VanCity award for a million dollars. I'll be supporting that, and I hope other members in this House will be also.

With him are two visitors from the United Kingdom: Martin Hurst, chief executive of Catholic Care in the diocese of Leeds; and Pat Hurst, who is the manager of the Cedar Crescent Resource Centre for people with mental health challenges in Kirkham, Lancastershire.

Also in the gallery is Stuart Alcock, my constituency assistant, who does tremendous work in my office, particularly when I'm away. With him is Amber Hitchin, a graduate student at the University of Victoria school of social work, who completed her practicum at my constituency office this summer and who has done tremendous work. Along with her, of course, is her mother, Marie Fletcher. I would ask the House to please welcome these visitors.

C. Wyse: Today it is my pleasure to introduce Rob Taylor from the Cariboo-Chilcotin Teachers Association. Rob is the professional development chair. I request the House extend a warm welcome to Rob.

R. Fleming: It's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Ben Johnson, a young political science student at Camosun College. He's a young man who used to think that Canadian politics was boring until last spring when he was here to watch former MLA Joy MacPhail in the House at question period. He's a constituent of mine in Victoria-Hillside. He's active in his community. Would the House please make him feel welcome.

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, we have a visiting parliamentarian with us today. Allan Kerpan is the member of the Saskatchewan Legislature for Carrot River Valley. He is the Saskatchewan Party critic for Crown Corporations and Investment Saskatchewan. He is also a former member of the federal parliament from 1993 to 2000. I hope all members will help me to welcome our visiting parliamentarian from Saskatchewan.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I have a special guest that I'd like to introduce today. It is my pleasure to advise you that we have the visiting Clerk from another jurisdiction on attachment to our House this week. I'm going to probably mispronounce his name here: Mr. Dhammika Dasanayake, Deputy Secretary General, Parliament of Sri Lanka.

The visit is one of the continuing series of attachments whereby our Legislative Assembly hosts Clerks from other jurisdictions. Please join me in welcoming Dhammika Dasanayake to British Columbia and to our House.

Hon. S. Hagen: I rise to make a ministerial statement on the terms of reference of the director's case review into the death of Sherry Charlie. As the Minister of Children and Family Development, I am very sorry for the loss of Sherry Charlie and the suffering brought about for her family by this tragedy. All of us involved in Sherry's case regret the renewed anguish this recent exposure has brought.

There have been a number of factual errors and allegations tossed about recently, and I take this opportunity to set the record straight. This past July my assistant deputy minister and director of child welfare, Jeremy Berland, regional Chief Shawn Atleo, co-chairman of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribal council, and I held a news

conference to release a summary of the director's case review into the death of Sherry Charlie.

Following that conference, at my direction, we released a severed copy of the director's case review. The review was severed as required by law under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

I made a promise at that time publicly that should we ever experience a further tragedy such as this, both the summary and severed director's case review would be released by the ministry at the same time, without the need for anyone to submit a freedom-of-information request. This was unprecedented at the time. I have directed that it become the standard that the government will follow in the future.

Following the release of the severed director's case review, the independent child and youth officer for British Columbia said in a release dated August 4, 2005, that she is satisfied that the information cut from the report was taken out for privacy reasons as required by law and that as much detail as can be released publicly, consistent with privacy laws, has been released.

Yesterday I made a comment in the House that I know has been widely misconstrued. We have always accepted ultimate responsibility for the fact that a child died as a result of an inappropriate practice. One of the most unfortunate circumstances in this matter was the result of human error. That being said, I have never, ever put personal blame or responsibility for this tragedy on the shoulders of any individual child protection social worker.

I spent time this summer visiting front-line workers in offices around the province. I cannot stress enough how much I value what I heard from them. The challenges of the changing realities of social work today are more than most of us in this House could probably cope with on a daily basis. Yet they are out there every day dealing with these matters, and I thank each and every one of them for that.

Yesterday it was alleged in this House that ministry staff purposely held back the release of the director's case review for some 15 months. The allegation that the review was purposely held back is categorically untrue. The director for child welfare would not, morally or ethically, hold back the review into the death of any child once that review was completed and finalized to ministry standards.

I've been advised that the report was sent back to the reviewer time and time again because the core questions were not being answered and the report was not being written in a way that was acceptable to the standards of the ministry. As the director for child welfare said himself yesterday during a media conference, when being questioned on the time line: "In this case, starting again wouldn't have been acceptable. To try and go back to square one and say: 'Okay, add more things; ask more questions….' We'd already done that. We had already posed more questions to the reviewer. We'd already said to the reviewer: 'Look, you haven't answered the core questions. You haven't written this in a way that is acceptable.'" As we all learned yesterday afternoon in the House, the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast has told us that he was the individual contracted to conduct the director's case review.

Yesterday the opposition critic brought to my attention that the original terms of reference of the director's case review had been amended. At the end of this statement I will be seeking leave to table both the original terms of reference and the amended terms of reference made two months earlier.

I have also been asked why I did not know that the terms of reference were changed. To be clear, I shouldn't have known. The director of child welfare conducts reviews into these matters completely independently of the minister, as is the intent of the legislation. As the director of child welfare said yesterday, it is simply not appropriate. I have also confirmed via staff that no previous Minister of Children and Family Development was aware of any changes to the terms of reference. Nevertheless, now we know the terms of reference were changed.

I have questions as to why, and I know that the director shares my concerns. To answer those questions, I have asked the Attorney General — and he has agreed — to appoint the child and youth officer for British Columbia according to section 6 of the Office of Child and Youth Act to conduct a review into three areas: (1) the time lines involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; (2) why the terms of reference were changed; and (3) the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith-and-kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

I have requested of the Attorney General that this review be completed by December 1 of this year. I've also asked that the child and youth officer ensure that the official opposition critic for Children and Family Development as well as a member of the aboriginal community are involved in the process of this review. The Attorney General has also agreed to my request that the child and youth officer's report be released publicly, to the degree that we are legally able to do so, as soon as possible following its full completion. Today I have also asked the director of child welfare to ensure, should there ever be a need to conduct a future director's case review, that the role of this ministry will always be reviewed, whether a delegated authority is involved or not.

As a result of the director's case review, there were 12 recommendations made. All 12 of those recommendations have been implemented or are in the process of implementation. Our aim and intent has always been to learn, to improve and to do everything in our power to better protect the children of this province. To be clear, the intent of this review is not to reopen the original director's case review in its entirety but instead to focus on variances in the process, as were brought to light yesterday. I also want to remind everyone that the coroner's office is also conducting their own review in the death of Sherry Charlie. Indeed, I remain confident in our system, in my ministry and, in particular, in all of my front-line child protection social workers.

A. Dix: This is of course an extremely serious issue. We received a copy of the minister's ministerial statement five minutes before two o'clock. I would say this: I respect the minister, and I respect his commitment to public service, but in this case, there has been a pattern of cover-up that should be disturbing to all members of this House.

In 2002, when Sherry Charlie died, the government had just implemented kith-and-kin guidelines. They implemented a new program to protect the most vulnerable children in our society. They implemented that program by faxing out draft practice guidelines to social workers.

I just want to say the significance of this: there was no training for those social workers. The guidelines said that there would be no home studies in spite of the fact that every child involved in the kith-and-kin program was in need of protection — no home studies. This didn't come from front-line social workers; it came from the highest ranks of the ministry and from the government. The ministry was instructing social workers not to monitor homes and not to do home studies.

When we came to July of this past year, 15 months after the government had received a copy of this report, and the government finally chose to release the summary of the report, the government did not mention…. In fact, they hid all references to the responsibility of the Ministry of Children and Families. They hid them in July of this year — July 2005.

Subsequent to that, they were forced by pressure to release the full report. At that time they did not release the guidelines — the public document, the public guidelines — that they handed out to social workers. Those were hidden. They weren't just hidden from me; they were hidden from the child and youth officer who was given the task of ensuring that all information was provided to the public. They were hidden.

Subsequent to that, we received a copy of that document. We had asked the minister's office to provide us one — that public document. They refused to do so. Subsequent to that, we've had the revelation that the cover-up and the effort to deny ministerial responsibility started in this case as early as October 2002. These are very serious issues.

I appreciate the minister's statement and his desire to get to the bottom of it, but there are more issues here, I think, than are dealt with in this referral. And there is a fundamental question beyond that. The Minister of Children and Families and his colleague the Attorney General gave direction as to this review. What this House needs, what this province needs, what all of us need to protect children in the future, are independent reviews — an independent child commissioner to decide what's important and what isn't, what's relevant and what isn't, what should be shown to the public, to the members of this House, and what shouldn't.

In this case there has been a pattern to deny the opposition, to deny the public the information it needs to go forward and to deny social workers the information they need to protect children. While I appreciate and, of course, will help with any review that seeks to find the facts, the government is missing the point here. They cut spending for children and families by 23 percent. They were responsible for the chaos in the Ministry of Children and Family Development. They were responsible for racing to implement this new program with terrible, terrible mistakes made in the way they implemented. They were responsible for those things. They were responsible for denying the people of this province an independent commissioner by vote in this Legislature.

I think the lesson from this is not that we should help the minister or his officials out of their embarrassment with respect to the terms of reference, but that we make fundamental change, that we bring in an independent children's commissioner — bring one back to British Columbia.

Hon. C. Taylor presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Supply Act (No. 2), 2005.

Hon. C. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. C. Taylor: This supply bill is introduced to provide supply for the continuation of government programs until the government's estimates for 2005-2006 have been debated and voted upon in this assembly. The bill will provide interim supply for government operating expenses for approximately two additional months of the 2005-2006 fiscal year. This will allow time to debate and pass the estimates. This interim supply is required because we anticipate the authority under the existing interim supply will be exhausted before the estimates debate has completed.

This bill will also provide interim supply for other financing requirements. The first interim supply sought supply for two-thirds of the year's financing transaction requirements for capital asset expenditures and loans and investments. This bill seeks two-thirds of the supply based on the estimates tabled on September 14, 2005, and includes the amount authorized under section 2 of the Supply Act (No.1), 2005.

This bill also repeals section 3 of the Supply Act (No.1), 2005, which provided for 100 percent of the year's financing transaction requirements for revenues collected for and transferred to other entities and replaces it with 100 percent of the year's financing transaction requirements based on the estimates tabled on

September 14, 2005. This requirement includes any sum already paid under section 3 of the Supply Act (No. 1), 2005.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the days for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 5, Supply Act (No. 2), 2005, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

C. James: I rise today to pay respects to the memory of Mr. Simon Wiesenthal, the pre-eminent human rights activist known all over the world for his work in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. As the members may have heard, Mr. Wiesenthal died today at the age of 96. He was the conscience of the Holocaust, a description so aptly drawn by Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder of the international human rights centre named in honour of Mr. Simon Wiesenthal's work.

Simon Wiesenthal spent his life pursuing those who tried to escape responsibility for the evil they perpetrated in Europe from 1933 to the Holocaust's end in 1945. Working alone, he took on an enormous task with a quiet, determined courage, not out of a desire for revenge but in the patient and persistent pursuit of justice. He rose to this challenge in an effort to spare future generations the incredible horror of genocide. He said once that because he had survived the Holocaust, he felt a special obligation to those who did not survive.

Simon Wiesenthal will be remembered and wants us to remember the victims — in many cases, when the world didn't want to. Working against a rising tide of postwar apathy and against overwhelming odds, Mr. Wiesenthal brought over 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. Our memory of Simon Wiesenthal and the courage he showed in pursuing what he knew in his heart to be right serves as a very important reminder of our collective obligation to our past and our responsibility to justice and the memory of the six million who were murdered.

R. Lee: In order to keep British Columbia's economy firing on all cylinders, our government recognizes the need to build strong economic and cultural relationships with the world's emerging markets — especially Asia, the world's fastest-growing economy. I can tell you firsthand that these efforts are paying off.

As a direct result of our province's expanding ties to China, I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Chinese consulate this morning for an announcement about a great opportunity for university students. Beginning in September next year the government of China will provide 15 scholarships for British Columbia post-secondary students to study in their country for a year. Not only will these students attend a post-secondary institution in China, but they also will experience Chinese culture, learn the language and develop a bond with the Chinese people.

To build on partnerships such as the one announced today, the B.C. Liberal government has launched the Asia-Pacific gateway strategy to take our products to the world and to open doors for new cultural and educational exchanges and ties. We have already announced that we will establish a world trade university in Chilliwack to offer graduate-level programs in trade-related fields and host international trade conferences and events. We will expand the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert to commercial and cruise ship traffic. Our government will build on the Dream Home Canada project and create even more opportunities for B.C. forestry products in the growing Chinese sector.

This is an exciting time to be in British Columbia. The strength of our economy will only grow by leaps and bounds, thanks to our progressing partnerships and the Asia-Pacific gateway strategy.

C. Wyse: Today I rise in the House to recognize an achievement of an individual from Cariboo South: Ashley Camille. Ashley received national recognition in a contest sponsored by Veterans Affairs Canada.

Ashley is one of 13 students selected to travel to Belgium and France. She will join war veterans, aboriginal leaders and others at significant European battlefields, such as Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach.

This trip is named the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey. It is meant to recognize sacrifices made by aboriginal soldiers and to call home the spirits of those who died. Let me read for you an excerpt from Ashley's essay:

Her mother Marie, her family and friends from Canoe Creek nation, her classmates and teachers at Columneeza Secondary School are indeed proud of Ashley's achievement. I request that the House recognize this achievement.

K. Whittred: This last Saturday I was very pleased to participate with other members of the North Shore community in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the North Shore Rescue team. Many of you, I think, know about this highly skilled mountain search and rescue team. They are frequently in the news, as they successfully locate hikers and skiers in the mountainous terrain of the north shore, Whistler and in fact throughout our province.

Forty years ago, in 1965, when this team started their work, their equipment was pretty basic. They had sash-cord safety lines, tin helmets, antique vehicles and a lot of hand-me-downs from the province and, I think, from various fire departments. Today, I'm happy to say, the team works with much more advanced tools. They have automated external defibrillators; radio repeaters, the most up-to-date of modern communications and, of course, a helicopter flight rescue team.

The amazing part about this rescue team is that it is all volunteer. This team is made up of people from North Vancouver and, I think, a few other communities. It has been and continues to be a leader in its field.

Did you know, Mr. Speaker, that the North Shore Rescue was one of the first B.C. search and rescue teams to train in human tracking, to use search dogs, to establish a dive team and to develop special protocols to treat hypothermia? It is this history of innovation and clever teamwork that has given North Shore Rescue the well-respected reputation it enjoys.

For four decades they have rescued people in the north shore and provided leadership and assistance to other parts of British Columbia and throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

S. Fraser: I apologize for not attending the House yesterday. I was given leave to attend the conference on the pine beetle in Prince George.

There was an article in the paper that I found very disturbing. On Saturday people marched along Southridge towards Highway 16. They marched to bring attention to the missing women that have disappeared along that highway and in that area. A disproportionate number of those women were aboriginal.

I will refer to the Amnesty International report of last year entitled Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada.

In the report it says: "The social and economic marginalization of indigenous women, along with a history of government policies that have torn apart families in indigenous communities, have pushed the disproportionate number of those indigenous women into dangerous situations." Further: "These are not new concerns. Indigenous women's organizations, government commissions, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the United Nations human rights bodies have all called on Canadian officials to address the marginalization of indigenous women in Canadian society…." And further: "…and to ensure that the rights and the safety of indigenous people are respected and upheld by police and the courts. Sadly, fundamental measures that could help to reduce the risk of violence to indigenous women remain unimplemented."

I bring this to the attention of the House, and I support those marchers on Highway 16. They should not need to march to raise attention. I suggest that if the same number of people and girls had gone missing in, say, Shaughnessy, no one would have needed to march to get attention.

A. Horning: I think it is only fitting that today, on International Student Day, I take the opportunity to speak about a landmark event in the Okanagan, the opening of UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College. Earlier this month I had the privilege of attending the official opening of these two new post-secondary institutions in Kelowna. The opening marked an incredible shift in how students from my constituency and throughout the Okanagan access post-secondary education.

Before, students were forced to leave our region to pursue a full degree. Now, those students can remain close to home and still access the education they want. As study after study shows, students are more likely to stay and work near where they go to school. Along with direct benefits to students, these two institutions combined will bring an estimated $700 million each year to the economic activity of the Okanagan and create 2,000 new jobs.

From day one our government has been a trail-blazer in post-secondary education. It is one of our five great goals to make B.C. the best-educated jurisdiction on the continent. A major part of reaching that goal is ensuring our post-secondary system grows with the needs of our province. We have already made more investments and innovations over the past four years than were made during the previous ten. From the opening of UBC Okanagan and the Okanagan college to the establishment of Thompson Rivers University and the medical school at UNBC in Prince George, we're working to make B.C. a leader in post-secondary education and university research.

By 2010 we will have created 5,000 new post-secondary education seats in the Okanagan, part of the overall provincial target of 25,000 new seats. We've capped tuition fees at the rate of inflation and are pro-

viding $450 million over three years for student financial assistance so every resident can make the advantage of B.C.'s world-class education system. Students come first for our government, and we're backing that commitment with dollars and deeds.

Hon. S. Hagen: Mr. Speaker, it's been pointed out to me that I made an error in what I read, and I would just like to re-read the sentence that the error was in. At the end of the statement: "I will be seeking leave to table both the original terms of reference and the amended terms of reference made two months later." I had said "earlier," but it's two months later.

A. Dix: We've learned today that the Ministry of Children and Family Development removed from the terms of reference for the director's review a fundamental question, which was: was the response of the Ministry of Children and Family Development to the child protection concerns consistent with established standards? That question has never been answered and will not be answered in the review announced today. Will the Attorney General expand the terms of reference of the review he has ordered to include an answer to that question?

Hon. S. Hagen: What we are doing by asking the child and family officer to look into this whole matter is finding out the answer to those three questions, which I have read into the record but am happy to read into the record again. One has to do with the time lines, because an accusation has been made that the government held up this report. The accusation is wrong.

The Attorney General is asking the child and youth officer to look into the time lines involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review and, secondly, why the terms of reference were changed, which is a question I and, I think, everyone in this House wants to know the answer to — and thirdly, to review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith-and-kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

A. Dix: My supplemental is again to the Attorney General, who is the person who directs the child and youth officer in British Columbia to make reviews. The Minister of Children and Family Development and the Attorney General seem interested in their problem, which is the cover-up, but not the problem in the investigation of this case. The purpose of removing that term of reference was to, in fact, limit the review and not ask serious questions about budget cuts in the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

I ask the Attorney General: since this was stricken from the review and we have not had these answers, will the Attorney General expand the public inquiry that he has announced into this case to include fundamental questions of the failures of the Ministry of Children and Family Development?

Hon. S. Hagen: I will read into the record again what the Attorney General is asking the child and youth officer for British Columbia to do, and that is number two — and I know the member has it, so he should read it again so he understands it: why the terms of reference were changed. That's what we're asking the child and youth officer to look into.

A. Dix: With great respect to the minister, the question he should be asking, and all of us should be asking, is why the Ministry of Children and Family Development let down Sherry Charlie. That's the issue we need to know about. That's the issue that the striking of this term of reference from the review has hidden from the people of British Columbia. That's the issue we need an answer to.

I ask the Attorney General: will he expand this review, the provisions in his review, to include a review, as well, of the guidelines faxed to aboriginal agencies that instruct social workers not to monitor homes and that instruct social workers not to do reviews of family homes before entering into kith-and-kin agreements.

Hon. S. Hagen: I think I would ask the member opposite to, perhaps, show a little patience and to wait until the child and youth officer's report is made public, which is a commitment that's been made by my colleague the Attorney General of British Columbia. It doesn't have to be made public under the act, but he has made the commitment that it will be made public. I think that we should all wait to read that report.

C. James: There's no question that people have been patient. They've been waiting a very long time to have this issue responded to. Yesterday in question period the minister said: "…it was a mistake that was made that was not related to budget cuts." Based on what information did the minister make this statement?

Hon. S. Hagen: I want to say categorically that I have full confidence in the social workers in my ministry. They do exceptional work. They do an exceptional job. They do a tough job — the toughest job there is in government. I have total confidence in them.

The unfortunate occurrence that happened in this particular case is that there was a piece of information that was not sent. I have said that publicly; we have said it publicly many, many times. It was a case of not sending a piece of paper. It was a case of a 49-cent stamp or sending it by e-mail.

Having said that, I have never directed blame on this case to an individual social worker. I have the utmost respect for our front-line workers, because they

do work that I could never do. They deal with situations every day that I could never deal with. Thankfully, they have the training, they're professionals, and they know how to do it right.

C. James: I'm still not getting an answer, nor was our previous questioner getting an answer from the minister. I'm going to try again, and I would like the Attorney General, as well, to listen to this question, since it relates to the scope of the review that's coming up.

When we listened to the minister's statement today, we still heard no acknowledgement of the responsibility of the minister who is responsible for the ministry in this case. I'd like to ask again to the minister: will he ask for this review to include a discussion on the impact of the budget reductions by his government on this case?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said to the House yesterday, the kith-and-kin agreement that the mother and the delegated agency agreed to put the child into actually cost the taxpayer more money. Because this was on reserve, the federal government would not pay for it. So it was not a case…. It was not a decision made to save money. It was a decision made because at the time it was thought to be the best placement for the child.

R. Fleming: Yesterday the minister's assistant deputy minister said that he was irritated when he found out that the terms of reference were changed. The minister's statement has said today that he will look into why the terms of reference were changed. The fact is that they were changed a year ago, and people in his ministry knew that a year ago. If they were so irritated, why did the minister and the ministry cover up that information until only yesterday afternoon?

Hon. S. Hagen: Well, I can only say this: apparently, members of your caucus knew a year ago, but I didn't.

R. Fleming: Yes, I do. This is about ministerial accountability, not blaming others. Yesterday the minister rose in this House and said: "I can say categorically…that this ministry is more open and transparent than any other ministry of its kind in Canada and probably the United States and Europe as well." If the ministry is so transparent, why did it delay the report until after an election, hide information, dodge answers and change the terms of reference?

Hon. S. Hagen: That question is exactly why the Attorney General has asked the child and youth officer to examine why these things happened. That's what we just announced today.

J. Kwan: Yesterday during question period the minister blamed a former minister at 2:40. At 2:45 he blamed a single social worker. Two minutes after that, he blamed a director. At four o'clock the minister blamed an unnamed civil servant for the cover-up. Today in his statement…. The statement gives us no comfort that in fact the minister's going to take responsibility for the actions and the bungling of this file. Will the minister finally stop pointing fingers and take responsibility today in this House?

Hon. S. Hagen: Let me make it perfectly clear. I have never blamed an individual social worker. I have never blamed my director of child welfare. I have always said that I and my ministry take full responsibility for what happened. But my job is also to make sure that we correct our best practices so that these things don't continue to happen.

The previous member was correct. We are the most transparent ministry of our kind in Canada, and I challenge anybody in this House to find another agency like this in the United States or Europe. That's why we're not afraid to ask the questions to get to the bottom of this, because I also want to know why the terms of reference were changed.

J. Kwan: The minister said yesterday: "This occurred because of a tragic error made by one of our employees." He further says: "I have said on record that a mistake was made by one of our social workers, and we recognize that, but we want to make sure that we learn from this so that these sorts of things can't happen again." That's blaming others. It was his ministry that sent out flawed guidelines. It was his ministry that told social workers they did not have to do home monitors. Why did the minister blame a social worker, blame staff, blame everyone else yesterday, when the responsibility is clearly at the feet of this ministry and this government?

Hon. S. Hagen: I have said many, many times on the public record that I am very proud of the work that our front-line social workers do. They do work that I couldn't do. They deal with the most difficult issues that any ministry in government deals with — far more difficult than numbers or budget issues. They deal with people issues — the most difficult challenges that there are in government. They're family issues. They work to keep families together.

When the NDP were in government, they couldn't wait to run into a home and snatch the kids away. What we try to do is keep the kids in their families, with extended families or in the communities. That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of family counselling, and that's what our workers do to make life better for kids in this province.

M. Farnworth: The minister has stated that he takes full responsibility, so why is not ministerial responsi-

bility included in this review? Why is it not part of the review being done by the Attorney General?

Hon. S. Hagen: Let me reiterate into the record what we're asking the review to do, which came as a result of a question that was asked yesterday. The Attorney General is asking the child and youth officer for British Columbia, under section 6 of the Office for Children and Youth Act, to conduct a review into three areas: firstly, the timeliness involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; secondly, why the terms of reference were changed; and lastly, to review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith and kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

I might add, if I find my note here, it is sort of interesting…. This is a question that the opposition should have asked, but I'll ask it: what kind of legal power does the child and youth officer have? The answer to that is the child and youth officer has the authority to access any provincial government information she requires to do her job. She also has the authority to comment publicly without interference on matters affecting children and youth.

M. Farnworth: That's correct, but the minister has chosen to emphasize certain points they want to have looked at and to ignore others. If it wasn't for the questions that were asked in this House yesterday, this commission and the work of the Attorney General wouldn't have been announced today. So again: why are not ministerial accountability and the actions of the minister part of the review? Why are not the issues that have been raised around budget part of the review? Will the minister ask the Attorney General to broaden the scope of the review so that those items are included?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said, this is not about redoing the director's case review. The child and youth officer, on August 4, said that she is satisfied that the information severed or cut from the report was taken out for privacy reasons, as required by law. She is satisfied that as much detail as can be released publicly, consistent with the privacy laws, has been released. Together with that, we released a document at that time showing the 12 recommendations that came out of the report which we have completed or which will be completed this fall.

I'll make this request to all members of the House: if there are members of the House who have information on this case that the child and youth officer should know, please come forward with that information.

L. Krog: My question is to the hon. Attorney General. As the Attorney General is supposed to be independent of government, does he agree with the scope of this report?

Hon. W. Oppal: The scope of the report obviously is going to be an independent report. It's a report that I'm asking the child and youth officer to do under section 6 of the act. I can assure the hon. member that she will have complete independence, without any interference from my ministry or any other member of government.

L. Krog: Again, to the Attorney General. The issue is the scope of the report. The report should include the actions of this government. It should include whether or not the information was, in fact, appropriate, whether or not the budget cuts had effect. Does the Attorney General agree in this respect that the scope of the report is, in fact, appropriate?

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm sorry. I just have this enthusiasm, and it's tough to curb it from time to time.

I'm completely satisfied that the terms of reference here are exhaustive, they're thorough, and they will provide the appropriate answers and recommendations.

G. Robertson: Yesterday the minister told the media he wasn't sure about the terms of reference. He said: "I'm not saying that over a year of briefings it wasn't mentioned to me." It's been 24 hours now. Can the minister tell us if he was briefed on the terms of reference?

G. Robertson: The minister should have been on top of this file a long time ago. He should have found out for himself what role budget cuts played in this case, instead of waiting until now and being pressured by the opposition. He should have done his homework. Can the minister explain in clear terms how it's possible that he knew so little about the most important file to cross his desk as a minister?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm not sure what the member's question is. If the member's question is related to the change of terms of reference, the answer is that I am not supposed to know. I'm not told that. That is made by director-level decision in the ministry.

B. Ralston: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Children and Family Development.

Mr. Speaker: I've still got to recognize you first. Sorry. Member for Surrey-Whalley.

B. Ralston: Thanks, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Children and Family Development. The

minister has just told this House that he was aware of the guidelines in 2004. According to a document that has been provided to me, the government knew this in November, 2002. Can the minister please confirm that?

Hon. S. Hagen: Could you ask the member to rephrase his question, because I have no idea what he's asking.

Mr. Speaker: Member for Surrey-Whalley, would you like to repeat your question?

B. Ralston: I'll rephrase the question. I understand and am advised that Mr. Berland in the ministry was aware of this matter and the change in the guidelines in November of 2002, although the minister has just said to this House that he was not aware and the ministry was not aware until 2004. There is a clear contradiction between what the minister has said here in this House and what Mr. Berland has said in correspondence to others in the public.

Hon. S. Hagen: I think there's confusion in the member's mind about the ministry and the minister's office. What we've said consistently is that the change in the terms of reference was made between September and November of '02. I did not find out about the change until yesterday.

J. Horgan: My question is to the Minister of Children and Family Development. He said in his ministerial statement earlier today that he was responsible for releasing a summary document that deleted key elements of the whole report. Can he confirm today that that was made by his office — his ministerial office?

Hon. S. Hagen: No. What I said today in my statement was with regard to the director's case review. Here's what I said. I made a promise at that time that should we ever experience a further tragedy such as this, both the summary and severed director's case review will be released by the ministry at the same time, without the need for anyone to submit a freedom-of-information request. I might add that none of these reports were ever released under the previous NDP government. We are the most open and transparent ministry of its kind in Canada, and probably the world.

J. Horgan: Of course, the minister would be aware in the previous administration there was an independent children's commissioner who handled all these reports publicly with complete access to all the information.

My supplemental question is to the minister, and it has to do with the proliferation of order-in-council appointments in the public affairs bureau. Will the minister confirm that the Premier's office and his staff were aware of changes to the document before it was released?

B. Simpson: Today the minister has repeatedly stated that he has the full confidence of the social workers and the front-line workers out in the field. However, today the issue is not the confidence that we have in those workers. The issue today is whether or not the people of British Columbia can have confidence in the minister and the minister's office to conduct the oversight necessary on the files that he has on his desk.

Will the minister please speak to the province of British Columbia and its people as to how they can regain confidence in your office and what you will do to regain that confidence.

Hon. S. Hagen: That is precisely why today I have asked the Attorney General, and he has agreed, to appoint the child and youth officer for British Columbia, according to section 6 of the Office for Children and Youth Act, to conduct a review into three areas: first, the time lines involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; second, why the terms of reference were changed; and last, review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith and kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

B. Simpson: I'm sure that the minister is getting tired of reading the terms of reference for us, as we are getting tired of hearing what's missing in those terms of reference and what we are calling for today. So I ask the minister: would you please clarify for this House whether or not the Premier is satisfied with the scope of this and has signed off on those terms of reference.

Hon. S. Hagen: To answer that question, I have asked the Attorney General, and he has agreed to appoint the child and youth officer for British Columbia according to section 6 of the Office for Children and Youth Act to conduct a review into three areas: first, the time lines involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; second, why the terms of reference were changed; and last, review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith and kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as result.

D. Cubberley: A question to the Minister of Children and Family Development: can the minister tell this House whether the Premier's office signed off on the terms of reference he has presented for the inquiry today and who in the Premier's office signed off on the terms of reference.

Hon. S. Hagen: Let me reiterate what we've announced today — the Attorney General of British Columbia and myself. The Attorney General has agreed to appoint the child and youth officer for British Columbia according to section 6 of the Office for Children and Youth Act to conduct a review into three areas: first, the timeliness involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; second, why the

terms of reference were changed; and last, review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith and kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

Might I remind the member opposite of the powers of the child and youth officer? The child and youth officer has the authority to access any provincial government information she requires to do her job. She also has the authority to comment publicly without interference on the matters affecting children and youth.

D. Cubberley: We're beginning to understand the terms of reference, Mr. Minister. What we're really interested in is what's not in the terms of reference. I think what the House and all British Columbians would appreciate is your speaking directly to the issue of the fact that the government cutbacks to the Ministry of Children and Family Development are not under consideration in the inquiry you're proposing. Will you now tell the House why that lies outside the scope of this inquiry?

Hon. S. Hagen: Under the kith-and-kin arrangement — which in this case, the mother and the delegated agency agreed the child would be placed under — there was actually an extra cost to the Crown. This was not anything to do about saving money. It cost us more money because the federal government wouldn't pay for that part of the cost.

C. Trevena: I'd like to ask the Deputy Premier who approved the terms of reference. Did you?

Hon. S. Hagen: What I've announced today together with the Attorney General, who is in agreement…. He has agreed to appoint the child and youth officer for British Columbia according to section 6 of the Office for Children and Youth Act to conduct a review into three areas: first, the time lines involved in the writing, completion and release of the director's case review; second, why the terms of reference were changed; and last, review the policy concerning a director's case review, including those where kith and kin has been applied, and make any recommendations necessary as a result.

Let me also read into the record the legal power of the child and youth officer. The child and youth officer has the authority to access any provincial government information she requires to do her job. She also has the authority to comment publicly without interference on matters affecting children and youth.

D. MacKay: I wish to file a petition on behalf of 1,090 residents of the Bulkley Valley and Lakes District who are opposed to the non-motorized use of a proposed Maurice LRMP process that took place in that part of the province.

N. Macdonald: On behalf of the residents of Columere Park, a community in Columbia River–Revelstoke, I present a 204-name petition opposing proposed changes to Columbia Lake Park.

R. Fleming: It's a great honour as a new MLA to this House to be able to rise today to both respond to the government's budget and remark on some of the issues and the hopes and aspirations that the people of Victoria have expressed to me.

Firstly, I want to thank the people of Victoria-Hillside for electing me as their representative to this assembly and placing their trust in me to represent their issues and interests. It was a great honour to represent many of my constituents and to work with neighbourhoods across my riding over the past six years as a member of Victoria city council. I look forward to continuing with public service in this new role.

There are a number of people I'd like to thank for their help and friendship. I'll begin with my former colleagues from city council, Councillors Denise Savoie, Pam Madoff and Dean Fortin, also Mayor Alan Lowe and the rest of council, and the great staff at the city of Victoria. I'd also like to thank Councillors Carol Pickup and Judy Brownoff from the district of Saanich, whom I've worked with closely over the past several years on regional planning, transportation and housing issues in Greater Victoria.

I'd like to thank my campaign manager Chloe Burgess and my constituency assistant Marni Offman for constantly working so hard on my behalf. I'd also like to thank my family and my wife Maura for their years of support and hopefully enduring patience that isn't wearing thin of my choice of career for the time being. I'd also like to thank the former MLA for Victoria-Hillside, Sheila Orr, for the dedication and sincerity that she brought to the job of serving the people of Victoria-Hillside, which she cared very much about and continues to care very much about.

I'm very much looking forward to convening the Public Accounts Committee shortly. It's an important part of the Legislature, and I think in recent years it's emerged as a key check and balance, in our parliamentary democracy, of executive power. I look forward to working with the members opposite and all the members of the committee to run an exemplary public accounts committee that serves this House well.

Much has been said by the government about a rising sense of confidence occurring in our economy.

Indeed, there are many undeniable benefits that come and flow from the Bank of Canada's record-low interest rates and its effect on the housing and construction market in this province and across our country. The rebound in several of our resource sectors has flowed money to many parts of the province and to the treasury here. Today's record level of federal transfers to B.C., a complete reversal of the era of federal cuts and downloading of health and social transfers in the mid to late 1990s…. Federal reinvestment in health care, education, child care and other areas have helped this government post a surplus of $1.26 billion this fiscal year, almost matching the $1.3 billion surplus and 4 percent growth rate that the government inherited in 2001.

But we must never make the mistake of believing that the economic confidence of certain market analysts means that we should not take seriously the worries that occupy the minds of ordinary British Columbians who struggle to make a decent living each day. Far too many people in our province and in my constituency are consumed with daily anxieties about feeding their children nutritious food, paying for basic medicines, accessing post-secondary education and wondering about the well-being of their elderly parents as they age. Many people work long hours for low pay, and instead of feeling like they're getting ahead, they feel vulnerable in our economy. Too many people have fallen outside of society and are living in situations that risk their health.

Last January Victoria had its first official homeless count and estimated that there are as many as 700 people in this region without a place to call home, many sleeping in the rough each night. In the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood in my riding social workers have told me about the homeless one- and two-parent families that they encounter, some living in their cars, who each morning have to send their kids to school without food. This neighbourhood coordinates a housing placement program for temporary and long-term housing, but they are unable to help too many people that need their help.

I think that everyone in this House can acknowledge a number of serious social problems we face here in British Columbia, and the point really is that we're not helpless to effect change. When we decide to show the proper determination and resolve, we can begin to improve, to fix our housing problems, fix flaws in our health care system, provide people with skills and training opportunities and address the long-term care bed shortages and other service gaps that will allow our seniors to live in dignity.

On this last point, in my constituency there is a high percentage of seniors, many on fixed, low incomes. For them, private care homes aren't an option. Many are blocking acute care hospital beds because of the shortage of public long-term care facilities. The government must work on its fulfilment of the 5,000-bed promise from 2001. Part of the challenge to the government, who now say that this commitment will be met by 2008, is finding and assembling land at a reasonable cost. I'm pleased to say that there are two such sites in my constituency already zoned for residential care and assisted living that could issue building permits immediately. We are ready to be part of the solution if the Ministry of Health and B.C. Housing will enable our health authority to proceed.

I'm a great fan of so-called mixed development in our urban and suburban areas. We've learned some painful lessons about the negative impact of redeveloping tracts of land into homogeneous places where the housing forms and the income and demographic group are pretty much the same. We've learned the mistake of building low-density, car-oriented neighbourhoods that don't have commercial spaces for living and working and don't have public amenities like transit and parks. We've learned that these poorly planned communities gobble up far too much land and, let's face it, tend to be boring and depressing places to be.

Victoria boasts some redeveloped areas that are highly liveable places. One of them, at the heart of my constituency, is the Selkirk waterfront. This large site was a former plywood plant that sat dormant for many years. The land was heavily contaminated. Pollution impacted the marine health of the shoreline and the waterway. Fortunately, a local family, the Jalls, developed a visionary and comprehensive proposal to clean up and revitalize this site.

Today at the Selkirk waterfront what you see is a clean waterway that houses a beautiful rowing club and public wharves. There you'll find hundreds of good paying jobs in the office buildings on the site. Hundreds of residents live in apartments and townhouses that range from the expensive to the very good quality, affordable public housing for families and the so-called hard-to-house. There's a Montessori school and pubs, cafés, restaurants and greenspace commons.

This project involved a monumental cleanup utilizing made-in-Canada, made-in-B.C., environmental technologies. All three levels of government were involved in this project. The public amenity package included the conversion of an abandoned rail bridge to become a significant walking and cycling trail connector — the Galloping Goose Trail.

For me, the Selkirk project is a great example of new thinking about planning. It's an example of how to bring economic revitalization and vibrancy to a depressed area. It's also a politically inspiring, real-life story about the difference that private sector visionaries like the Jalls can make and how politicians can help make things happen when they believe in something and when they champion it.

Andrew Petter was the MLA for Saanich South during the Selkirk revitalization. It was a project that he took an active interest in and got the support of his government for. Mr. Petter is now the dean of the faculty of law at the University of Victoria. He was a great champion for this region during his time in public office. Among other things, he supported and helped the community create one of the most comprehensive networks of urban cycling and walking pathways in all of Canada. He helped the region secure its water supply

and purchase significant land holdings to create a large protected area for our region's blue and greenspaces in the surrounding hills and shorelines.

He also helped to preserve one of the province's most significant heritage buildings just a block from here — St. Ann's Academy. He did it by involving the B.C. Buildings Corporation in the creation of a business plan that worked for that building. Sadly, this Crown entity is soon to have its assets stripped and wound down for privatization. One would think that a business-minded government would today see the value of owning a property portfolio in this hot market, but such is not the case.

There are other brownfield redevelopments underway in our region. One significant cleanup is being led by Transport Canada and B.C. Hydro at the former gas plant in Rock Bay. Still another is a $300 million dockside redevelopment project financed by VanCity Enterprises in Victoria West, part of my neighbour's constituency of Victoria–Beacon Hill.

There is no question that Victoria is a premiere destination for tourism from around the world. This industry has matured into a major employer, and it continues to grow each year. It now surpasses the $1 billion mark in economic gross activity each year for this area. But in order to remain a great destination, people have to be able to travel here easily, affordably and comfortably.

One of our gateways for nearly a million visitors, mainly from the United States, is just a block from this House — the Belleville ferry terminal. Various private ferry operators have used this facility for decades. Unfortunately, its age shows. The site — I think all would agree — is an eyesore, whether it's viewed from the land or from a vessel in the harbour. Its redevelopment by the Crown Provincial Capital Commission seemed certain only a few short years ago. After years of discussion with Transport Canada, we finally got harbour properties divested from Ottawa to local and provincial authorities. The province became the consolidated owner of the Belleville terminal site, and the province successfully rezoned this property in 2000-2001.

The province, again with Mr. Petter in the lead, was looking at providing grants and low-interest borrowing guarantees for the Provincial Capital Commission to redevelop the site. It was to be an updated and refreshed ferry terminal that promised to double the number of passengers visiting our city each year. Well, this government, the current administration, has had over four years to oversee this project. I'm disappointed to say that next to nothing has happened. I know that the business community, Tourism Victoria, the chamber of commerce and many others share my sense of frustration, as does the U.S. Customs authority and the ferry operators and passengers.

There are other transportation issues that have been ignored by this budget: public transit in Greater Victoria. Public transit in Greater Victoria and 50 other communities where B.C. Transit operates have suffered four years of cutbacks from frozen funding. Service levels in my community today are at pre-1996 levels. Over 100,000 hours of operating annual transit service have been cut here in Victoria.

Instead of providing more transportation options, we have fewer. Instead of funding public transit as part of a comprehensive Kyoto implementation plan, we're ignoring rising greenhouse gas emissions. Once upon a time, shortly after the 2001 election, in fact, the Ministry of Transportation said it would examine sustainable transit funding and governance models. This never happened. There are certainly many other strategic investments the government should make that will improve the health of the population and save taxpayers money downstream.

It was a mistake — and I would like to hear the government admit it — when they cancelled the Homes B.C. program. This program created thousands of new units of affordable family rental housing. The program was innovative, it was flexible, and it was necessary. Housing programs are needed even more today than they were ten years ago. Vacancy rates are lower, housing and land costs have risen dramatically, and the private sector can no longer build rental housing in any viable way. B.C. Housing should have the resources and the ability to respond to the creative housing ideas that are coming from the non-profit sector. We'd be a much better province for it.

I know that local governments, neighbourhoods and law enforcement would like to see B.C. Housing help convert problem properties — so-called crack houses — into well-managed, affordable housing. There's one such property in my riding that had over 300 visits from the police last year. Crystal meth and other drugs are sold and consumed openly at this address. Yet without the ability to sentence addicted dealers to treatment — because the facilities don't exist and aren't funded — without services that make it possible to intervene, this dangerous, toxic situation goes on.

To build affordable rental housing again in this province will require a committed partnership from the province. In search of this partnership, the city of Victoria and the capital regional district have created two affordable housing trust funds to leverage dollars for affordable housing projects. I know that the mayor's door is open in this city, and the mayors' doors in many of our communities across B.C. They want to engage the province on housing.

To build any kind of housing and meet the demand of a booming construction sector is a challenge we must take up, and it is a challenge that provides government with the opportunity to invest in the skills development of young workers. The independent economic advisory council cited a skills shortage as one of the major risks facing B.C.'s economy today, yet this budget, sadly, does little to move us in the right direction.

I note that the budget for the Industry Training Authority is in fact $10 million less today than it was in 2001. In my constituency, wait-lists are growing for

young people to get into trades programs at Camosun College. I've heard firsthand from contractors and developers in Victoria about the lack of skills training. Young people and small businesses are struggling to afford the fees introduced by this government for apprenticeship.

Similarly, students and their families that want to attend one of the two institutions, the University of Victoria and Camosun College, to pursue a degree or vocational program are struggling with this government's huge increase to tuition fees and the corresponding cuts to student grants and other supports that make it possible to attend. This government is literally crushing the dreams of education for students from low-income backgrounds.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank this House for the chance to share some of my constituents' concerns and priorities. I look forward to working with the government MLAs and various ministries to make good things happen in my constituency and in this province. Despite all the challenges we face, I'm optimistic we can find solutions that will improve the lives of the people who we all serve.

Hon. G. Abbott: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to make some comments in respect of the recently tendered provincial budget. It is a great honour to be able to speak once again in the House and to be part of this incoming parliament. First, I do want to congratulate you on your ascension to the chair — richly deserved — and I'm sure you'll do an exceptional job. I'd also appreciate it if you would pass along to Mr. Speaker my congratulations.

Mr. Speaker as well as Madam Speaker and I have had the opportunity to serve together since 1996. I certainly do welcome his movement into the chair as well and, of course, the new Assistant Deputy Speaker, who is from the opposition side and who I hope will be part of a new and more constructive relationship in this House between the government and the opposition.

Having served in opposition, I do remember well how easily additional spending rolls off the tongue in comparison to the position one finds oneself in when constrained by actual budget disciplines. But I know we'll work hard to do a good job for the people of British Columbia, and I do look forward to working with all members of the House and, indeed, want to congratulate all members of the House on their election.

I particularly want to thank the electors of the Shuswap, who have now been putting up with me for some time and who have been generous in their support over the years — in 1996, 2001 and again in 2005. It is a tremendous privilege and honour to represent them and to serve them in this Legislature. I have very much enjoyed doing that, being an MLA, and in more recent years have had the opportunity to serve on the executive council as well.

I also want to thank the electors of the Shuswap for allowing me the opportunity to serve in local government for 17 years before coming to this Legislature. I had the good fortune to serve with, among others, the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke — I see across the House — who was a good friend of mine in local government. We're probably not going to be such good friends now, but actually….

Hon. G. Abbott: Yes, the Deputy Premier is absolutely right that we don't let small issues of partisanship get in the way of friendships in this Legislature, so I'm sure that will continue here as well.

I did have the good fortune to serve for 17 years on the board of the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, where the hon. member also served, and as a councillor in the new district of Sicamous after it was incorporated in 1989. I think one of the great benefits of having served in local government is that one does get used to working with people, regardless of what their partisan complexion may be. It is an opportunity to try to resolve problems — to meet difficult issues without recourse, necessarily, to particularly ideological solutions. One of the things that I have learned from my now over 25 years in elected office is that the public really welcomes commonsense solutions rather than embracing ideological solutions. Hopefully, that is a spirit that will pervade this House as well as the broader province.

One of the things, of course, that one learns after some experience in local government is the importance of sound fiscal management in whatever jurisdiction we are fortunate enough to be a part of. One of the things local governments have been obliged to do for decades in British Columbia is to balance their budgets every year. You are not permitted, under the terms of the Municipal Act — now the Local Government Act — or the Community Charter to incur deficits, and that does, I think, impose a fiscal discipline on elected officials that is not always evident in this particular jurisdiction.

I am pleased, though, that in fact our government has restored that fiscal discipline to the management of finances in this province. Obviously, the budget recently tendered by the new Finance Minister is yet another example of that. We have moved away from what were in the 1990s a continuous stream of substantial deficit budgets to a fiscal position now where I think we can be sure that we will see balanced and surplus budgets for a long way into the future. I think the fiscal discipline is critical to producing the outcomes that we need in this province.

Having been a part of the government from 2001 to 2005, when we did have to make some difficult decisions — and it seemed every day there were more than a few difficult decisions that had to be made…. The purpose of making those difficult decisions was not to just feel the tide of difficulty rolling over us. It was to ensure we had an economy that was buoyant and growing, and finances that could sustain the social

safety net we have in the province and the innovative programs that would make this province a better place to live and to work and be a part of.

I'm very proud of what we were able to achieve over the past four years, and I think I'm going to be even more proud of what we're going to be achieving in the next four years ahead.

Yeah, go ahead — clap. I think the next four years are going to be a tremendously exciting time for this government, for this province. I think we're going to see achievements that one would simply not have anticipated just a few years ago. It's going to be a tremendously exciting time as we see the product of that fiscal discipline and that exceptional management of the economy and our finances yield social investments for the province.

The previous speaker referenced B.C. Housing, and I just want to…. I'm not going to do a critique of his or anybody else's speech in the Legislature, but I do want to note, as minister responsible for B.C. Housing for over three years earlier in our tenure in office, that B.C. Housing was one of the two provincial programs in Canada that continued and expanded under our leadership. Only ourselves and Quebec had social housing programs during that period in time.

The budget for that — I remember it very well — was $153 million annually for housing programs at B.C. Housing. I was very proud of what we were able to do with that. We have an exceptional team at B.C. Housing. They put together public-private partnerships. They put together partnerships with non-profits across this province that yield literally thousands of new housing units that are of tremendous benefit to those who are most vulnerable in our province. I'm tremendously proud of what B.C. Housing has done, and I will say that in any venue.

I am particularly proud of the Independent Living B.C. program that we launched in 2002. That has made a huge difference to the frail elderly in the province. It provides them with supportive housing opportunities and assisted-living opportunities that ensure they can live as independently as they can for as long as they can with the health supports they need. I think it's a great model, and it's something that I'm proud of and I know our government is tremendously proud of.

I'm also very proud to hear from the Finance Minister in her recent budget update that we are going to see a major extension to the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters program in B.C. Again, this is a great step forward, and this is very much a dividend of the hard work that has gone on over the past four years. The SAFER program is a subsidy to elderly renters who, in the absence of that subsidy, might not be able to live independently. It's a very important program. We are going to see, through this budget, an expansion in the level of support in the SAFER program for the first time since 1991. That's a big step ahead to expand the SAFER program.

I'm also very proud because I, absolutely shamelessly, advocated for this as a Housing Minister. I'm very proud that we are going to be able to extend the SAFER program to elderly renters who have their own trailers or mobile homes in mobile home parks. They pay a monthly pad rental, and this is going to be extended to them. Again, elderly renters will be able to live independently, with support from the health authorities where they need it, as long as they can and as independently as they can. Certainly, today's senior is healthier than ever before, lives longer than ever before and is more independent than ever before. I think these are the kind of supports that make life even better for seniors in British Columbia.

The other thing we need to make note of as something that really backstops the social changes that we've made, the social investments that we've made and the social dividends that are being produced in British Columbia is that we have seen confidence restored in the British Columbia economy. In terms of economic growth and all of the different measures associated with economic growth, we have moved from being the number ten jurisdiction to being the number one jurisdiction in Canada — something that we should be tremendously proud of.

In the most recent year we are seeing ourselves move ahead of Alberta as being the number one economy in Canada, and I think we all are very proud of that. It also underlines the point that by being good economic managers, by seeing our economy and our job growth so strong, we can again produce social dividends that would have been unimaginable under a different regime where taxes and regulations were more onerous and there were fewer incentives to build a strong economy.

I'm proud to have been and to be a member of a government that has had tremendous success in the area of building the economy. We are seeing jobs produced in British Columbia like never before. In many areas of the economy one of the biggest challenges is in fact to find the human resources to meet the job potential that exists there. We have led Canada in recent years in job creation. I think that's a tremendous feat for our great province. Many times we are leading North America in terms of job creation. We can be very, very proud of that. The lowest unemployment rates in British Columbia for 20 years…. One suspects that we are going to see more good news of that character in the months and years ahead as well.

Ours is a province that has been tremendously blessed in a range of areas by the resources, the people and the infrastructure that we have. If we keep building on that in the sustained, disciplined manner that we have over the past four years, we are going to continue to see tremendous economic news in British Columbia for literally years to come. It's going to be tremendously exciting to be a part of that.

Madam Speaker, today I want to focus, perhaps not surprisingly, on the area of health. I know that you're a former Minister of Health Planning, so I hope you find my comments tremendously stimulating as well, being a former minister responsible. I know that if I were to ask my constituents in Shuswap what their number

one issue was, they would say health, without a doubt. I suspect that if I canvassed the constituents in 78 other ridings about what their number one issue was, they would say health as well. Health currently constitutes between 43 cents and 44 cents of every budgetary dollar in the province.

It is a huge responsibility, and it's a tremendous honour for me to have the opportunity to lead the Ministry of Health, at least for some period to come.

I did want to talk about some of the issues around health and some of the challenges we face in the months and years to come. I think that it is going to be tremendously exciting and gratifying to lead this ministry. Every day I am astonished by the commitment, the talents and the energy that exist within the Ministry of Health, across the health authorities of this province and within the hospitals and the facilities sector. Health is a huge thing. I have not to date, as Minister of Health, met anyone in the health care system who is not excited and committed to producing better health outcomes for the citizens of British Columbia. I think it's going to be an exciting time.

Again, I don't think I'm being biased here. We have a great health care system in British Columbia. Is it perfect? No. There's always room for improvement in a number of areas, and the key to success is to drive forward and to see continuous improvement across the system. Notwithstanding the occasional things that go wrong in a system where there are literally hundreds of thousands of interactions on a daily basis, we have a great health care system.

The fact that we have a great health care system is a tribute to the doctors, to the nurses, to the orderlies, to the front-line workers, to the administrators and to the thousands and thousands of people who make this system work very, very well on a daily basis. We want to build an even stronger health care system in British Columbia, and I think that by driving and demanding continuous improvement across the system, we're going to do that.

Again, I've heard a lot of comments in this House, and I understand why members of the opposition need to try to discredit or diminish public confidence in our management of the health care system. That's part of being in opposition. I accept that they are going to do that, but I do hope that while they may wish to undermine confidence in me, they never in their comments undermine the public health care system in British Columbia as a whole, because it's a great system. Again, we are working every day to make it an even better system. I think in many respects the facts speak for themselves in regard to making it a better system.

Let me begin with this. The budget for health in fiscal 2000-2001 was $8.5 billion. I think it's somewhere in the 30s as a percentage of the provincial budget. We have seen that figure grow over four years to where we have, in the 2005-2006 budget, a budgetary allocation of $11.6 billion plus the $150 million incremental increase, which the Finance Minister announced in her recent budget.

We have seen the budget for health care grow by $3.25 billion over the past four years. People may want to natter on about cuts for all of the reasons that people natter on about cuts, but the fact of the matter is that there has been a huge increase in the budget for the Ministry of Health. We may want to quarrel about whether the allocation is perfect or whether it's appropriate — and I think that's a great thing to debate — but there has been no question that both the size of the budget for health and its percentage of the overall provincial budget have grown dramatically. That's the first point I wished to be clear on.

The other thing that we are doing as a government, which I think is very important, in addition to growing the size of the budget…. The other key element that we are in the process of expanding is the skilled human resources that are necessary to make this a great and greater health care system in British Columbia. We have, I'm proud to say, expanded — in fact, doubled — the number of seats for doctors being trained in this province. That's going to be key to ensuring that we have that very important skill as we move forward. Also, because they are also a key part of the health system, we have greatly expanded the number of nursing seats in the province.

I know, Madam Speaker, you can take some credit for this. In the early years I know you were a great advocate for expanding the number of nursing seats in training institutions across the province. That's yielding dividends today.

We saw — and I know this is surprising — that through the 1990s there were only 85 nursing seats added across the province and another 400 added just prior to the 2001 election. If you compare that ten-year period to what we did over the past four years, which was to add some 62 percent more new seats — and I don't want to be too precise about this, but it's 2,511 new nursing seats across British Columbia — that is a tremendous advance in terms of meeting the need for nurses and nursing skills across the province. In addition to that, through the provincial nominee program and other initiatives, we have added 600 additional nurses as well. That's key, I think, as we move forward.

One of the things that is possible through the addition of the $3.25 billion in new resourcing and the addition of the human resources — the additional doctors and nurses — is that we are far better equipped to deal with the challenge of wait times than we ever were before in the history of British Columbia. Let me begin by prefacing my remarks with this. We have a demographic challenge in British Columbia, and I'm a part of that challenge. I am part of that great burst of population following the Second World War that we affectionately call the baby- boomers. I'm part of that. Many of the members of this chamber are part of that.

You, Madam Speaker, are far too young to be a part of that particular phenomenon, but there are a number of us in here who I think can be rightly described as baby-boomers.

In addition to having that demographic wave of people in their 50s and 60s who are making increasing demands on the health care system, we are also, I'm happy to say, seeing our seniors live longer in British Columbia than ever before in history. British Columbia's seniors live longer than anywhere else in Canada. That's a great fact and one we should be really proud of. They are living longer, they are living healthier, they are living more active lives, they are living more independently, and they are also demanding more surgical services than ever before in British Columbia's history.

We've got a demographic wave that's coming at us. That's part of our challenge here, and we are, I think, moving very appropriately to meet that challenge. I'm not saying we resolved it. I think we've got some ways to go. That goes back to continuous improvement in this area as well as other areas of government.

I want to put a few facts on the table. This is a comparison between today and 2000-2001. These are surgeries that are being performed in the province. We are doing 65 percent more knee surgeries, particularly knee replacements, than four or five years ago — so a 65 percent increase in that, a 35 percent increase in hip replacements, a 20 percent increase in cataract surgeries, a 7 percent increase in coronary bypasses and a 52 percent increase in angioplasty surgeries across this province.

We are resourcing a lot more surgeries than has ever been the case in this province before. About half of the surgeries that we do in the province are done immediately. If you break a leg or an arm in an automobile accident, chances are you will get that done immediately. Of the balance — that is, the elective surgeries that are not done on an emergent basis — 50 percent of the balance of those surgeries are done within one month, 75 percent are done within three months, 90 percent within seven months and 97 percent within 12 months. So that's all good too.

Now, one of the challenges of my job, one of the challenges of the health care system we have in British Columbia, is that it tends to get characterized by the exceptions rather than the rule. We have 3 percent who are not getting their surgeries on a timely basis, and they are rightly and deeply concerned about that. I think that's, again, where we need to be blunt and honest about the challenge and find ways to address the needs of all British Columbians. Hopefully, one day I can report that 100 percent of British Columbians are receiving their surgeries in a timely way. I'm going to be honest about that, and we're going to work tirelessly towards better health outcomes in that area.

We are making progress on wait times. Again, the facts speak for themselves. I think members probably know that we recently re-released a website on wait times that contains much more accurate and up-to-date information about wait times across the province. But generally, the outcomes are improving.

In cataracts we have seen the wait times reduced cross-province from an average 12 weeks down to less than eight weeks. Cancer radiation — a critical piece in the exceptional cancer care that we have in the province — is reduced from two weeks to one week. In fact, I want to say this about cancer care before we move on. I am tremendously proud, hon. Speaker, as I'm sure you are, of the work that has been done by the Provincial Health Services Authority, the PHSA, and particularly proud of the work that has been done by the B.C. Cancer Agency.

We often take for granted the just remarkable, exceptional people that we have working in different places in our health care system. British Columbia has become a centre of excellence second to none in North America and perhaps the world in terms of cancer treatment and cancer research. It is astonishing — the work that is done every day in that area. In fact, your recovery is testament to that, Madam Speaker, as well. Just incredible work is being done by the B.C. Cancer Agency, and it's something we can all be very proud of.

The area where we still have a challenge…. I talked earlier about the increase in the number of hip surgeries, the number of knee surgeries. Even though those surgeries are up 65 percent and 35 percent respectively, it's still a challenge because we have more and more people. The demand curve, because of the demographics in our province, continues to go up, and we need to find ways to meet that demographic challenge. We have relative stability around the wait-list or wait times on hips and knees, but I want to do better. I do look forward to the constructive suggestion and advice from members all across the House in respect of how we might do that. I know sometimes we need to look at innovations and embrace innovative thinking, and I think this is no exception in this case.

As we move forward, we are going to see, I think, improving outcomes for British Columbians. I want to see that happen. I see the green light is on, and I don't want to get caught here.

Hon. G. Abbott: Go two hours — oh, yes. Well, thank you very much for that vote of confidence and diverting me a bit.

I do want to say in conclusion that I've had the opportunity to live now in this province for all of my life, 52 years. It's a great province. We are spectacularly blessed with resources. My favourite place on a weekend is either up on Silver Star or Larch Hills cross-country skiing or downhill skiing. You can look out. You see the forests; you see the farms and orchards. You can see the rivers and lakes, the mountains, the tremendous wealth, the tremendous opportunity that exists in this province. We're all tremendously honoured, tremendously lucky to be able to live here. I know that today British Columbia is once again the envy of this nation, and I know we're going to continue to be the envy of the world.

D. Cubberley: I rise today to address the House for a first time. The chance to take part in these delibera-

tions comes with a sense of awe and a determination to give my best. It will take time to acclimatize to the privilege of having a voice in the course of events in the life of our great province. I recognize that with this privilege comes a large responsibility, one I believe I personally felt settle on my shoulders at the moment of the swearing-in. It's one that I welcome because it's central to our system of representative democracy, and because it is an honour to enjoy the public's confidence to represent the constituency of Saanich South.

Since the swearing-in, just what it means to be an elected representative has become clearer day by day. Stepping into this grand chamber in the company of so many fine colleagues on both sides of the House opens a new chapter in an exciting and promising adventure. I welcome the chance to speak, in my own right to be sure, but more importantly for all those who have sent me here to advocate on their behalf for the values of community, caring and cooperation that we on this side hold dear.

Let me begin by congratulating all members of the House on their victory in the recent election and by acknowledging that no one who comes to this grand House gets there on individual effort alone. For me, victory flowed from having a great campaign team with a relevant platform offering practical solutions to the problems faced by people. There were also many enthusiastic volunteers and widespread local support. So let me thank, first of all, my own community, the citizens of Saanich, for the confidence they vested in me. I had the privilege to serve them in other roles for some 15 years, but I'm eager and delighted to serve them now to the best of my abilities in this new one.

I also want to thank my wife and partner Susan and my son Bryn for their support and for their willingness to make personal sacrifices in the service of politics. I think every family does that, and we appreciate it.

May I also, on behalf of Saanich South, thank my recent political opponent, former MLA Susan Brice, for her efforts on our behalf. I know from personal experience that it isn't easy to lose, especially as an incumbent. Hopefully, one draws consolation from friends and colleagues and from the things achieved while in office.

There are many reasons why I am standing here today, rather than someone representing the governing party. Those reasons have much to do with the public's assessment of how the prior government performed in office. I want to canvass today a few of the currents of opinion that affected the outcome and that I believe will ultimately provide a litmus test as to whether government has heard and learned, or not.

There is widespread unease about government's handling of valued public services — foremost among those, health care and education — and also about its blatant disregard for certain constituencies, seniors and the less well-off being the most obvious. There was also a deep undercurrent of concern about its management of our forests and our environment, one that registers even in a suburban municipality like my own.

Some here may know that I served for many years as a municipal councillor and more recently as a regional district director, an experience that taught me much and reinforced my belief in the value of making decisions in open forum and delivering services as close to home as possible. Local government tends in the direction of openness, transparency and good public process because its decisions are made in committee of the whole, where the public can attend and directly address decision makers who themselves, in turn, must give reasons publicly for the decisions they're about to make.

Local government affords an interesting angle from which to view provincial political machinations. I'm sure some other members of the House have had that experience. One often feels that senior government conducts its business without much regard — or respect, for that matter — for the more junior level. I have been one of those who doesn't accept this as just reality and have pushed for progressive change — change that gives local government greater autonomy and access to sources of revenue that grow with the economy; change that commits senior government to share resources, to consult and to show respect; change that enables communities to manage the challenges they face by making their own choices and decisions.

I must admit I was not eager to leave municipal politics, but rather chose to step forward in response to the terrible mistakes of the past four years: the disinvestment in core community services; the skewing of public priorities toward failing privatization schemes; the shifting of fees and taxes onto low- and middle-income earners, those on fixed incomes and the needy; and the incompetent management of our public health system.

Elections are always a judgment on government's performance in office, and as we can tell from the results, there was widespread concern and disillusion in British Columbia. The gap between promised and delivered outcomes was so wide that a sense of betrayal and unease had taken root by election time.

Entire communities of interest and of place were abandoned as promise after promise was broken. The lack of respect for signed contracts and working people in general. The sale of public assets like B.C. Rail and the ongoing export of jobs in forestry and shipbuilding. The gutting of environmental regulation and the elimination of oversight at every level. The missing 5,000 long-term care beds. Rampant privatization of services the government pledged to protect. Skewing of tax relief to the most wealthy, after promising not to, coupled with increases of fees and taxes falling most heavily on those least capable of paying. The high-handed governing style. The refusal to consult or consider impacts prior to acting. The complete lack of accountability and transparency in everything from the sale of public assets to the delivery of public services.

We see the same sad story playing itself out today with the Maximus fiasco. A government that pledged to be the most open, transparent and accountable in Canada privatizes by stealth and then hides from scrutiny behind hollow phrases like "proprietary information." All the while, the most grandiose and misleading language is deployed to cover over the most obvious realities — empty slogans like "the golden decade" and "B.C. is back."

Madam Speaker, you won't convince people that B.C. is back when they're preoccupied with the things that have been stuck onto their own backs.

One reason this government underachieved electorally was this huge gap between rhetoric and perceived reality. The gap and the practice of self-praise continue today as if nothing had been learned. For example, the claim, which we heard most recently from the Minister of Health, that there are more long-term care beds for seniors — one that ran absolutely false during the election campaign — continues to be made. Everyone accepts that there are more assisted-living spaces today than before. That's a good thing, as Martha Stewart says.

The public knows there are fewer long-term care beds — as many as 600 cut in the capital region. The promise was to add 5,000 to the stock of beds, not to deplete it further. It was a doorstep issue.

It surprised me how many families were actually affected by this or knew someone affected — when a senior needing long-term care, round-the-clock care which can't be attained in assisted living, got stuck in an acute care bed in a local hospital and waited anxiously, for months in many cases, for a placement that wasn't coming any time soon because government had cut beds in British Columbia; or worse still, when seniors got moved to an inappropriate interim setting where they were warehoused with nothing to do but wait and eat rethermalized food from the privatized food service operators.

I go back far enough to recall the rhetoric of patient-centred care from this government's time in opposition. Compare that rhetoric with the things done to seniors in the last term of office. Consider the impact of raising medicare premiums and increasing Pharmacare deductibles on seniors, people who struggle to live on fixed — which means declining — incomes; or of privatizing MSP access, eliminating face-to-face, walk-in access and condemning seniors, indeed everyone, to endless waits in a telephone maze with no service when you get through because the privatized contractor isn't able to get the mail opened in order to be able to process it in a timely manner and therefore can't report on the file status to the worried senior on the end of the line after an hour when they finally do get through.

Or consider the impact of reducing home care and housekeeping services on seniors attempting to remain independent and age in place — something we all benefit from their doing; or the impacts on morale for care providers who don't earn large wages, dealing with seniors and having their wages arbitrarily and unilaterally rolled back by 15 percent, or the impact on morale in care settings, unable to retain quality staff now, because the 15-percent wage reduction made it unattractive to take the preparatory training at the community college; or the terrifying experience of crowded emergency rooms and hallway waits for elders unable to get into a proper hospital bed because acute care beds are being used to store people who needed one of the long-term care beds that the government decided not to build.

Senior anger and concern were definitely a factor in my constituency — indeed, I believe in most constituencies across B.C. Anger, fuelled by rhetoric like Fair Pharmacare — which might more aptly have been called unfair Pharmacare — that was offered up, the name, to counter the reality that new costs were being transferred onto those least able to pay — over $100 million in added costs according to one analysis, which translates into seniors on fixed income with multiple medications suddenly having to find hundreds more dollars a month for the same service…. Anger and unease are because of the perception that the government makes far-reaching choices without caring about their impacts in real lives.

The manifest lack of respect shown for working people generally was another potent factor — cancelling contracts, legislating wages, privatizing services, all leading to widespread social and familial dislocation.

We in the capital region experienced that very directly, with a fury in fact, because we received the double whammy of the combined impacts of outsourcing and privatization along with major cuts to ministries headquartered here. Those subjected to arbitrary treatment by government, after promising not to do it in an election campaign, used their democratic rights to participate in sending government a message. That's another reason why Saanich South sent me to this Legislature.

The approach to education in general and teachers in particular was also a doorstep issue. Claiming to invest in education and early childhood development, while capping funding for one and siphoning money away from the other, did not persuade the public. Rising class sizes, fewer teaching assistants and school librarians, the closure of schools and reduction of the teaching force led to a wide-ranging sense of unease with the government's management of the system. Think of the huge gap between the glorious rhetoric about government's approach to education and the reality experienced in communities and families.

The first of the five great goals of the golden era is to make B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent. That was trumpeted in the pre-election throne speech, as if progress were already being made in a deliberate manner towards that outcome. Never mind that it flew in the face of reality — that B.C. was regressing, not moving forward.

Contrast the rhetoric with the actual state of child care and early learning in this province, where B.C. ranks near the bottom in a country that's in the basement amongst G-8 countries — right at the bottom.

How important is access to high-quality, affordable early learning and out-of-school care? It's very important to all those families with children who, either because they are single-parent provider families or are two-parent provider families…. These now compromise the vast majority of all families raising children, and they must have access in order to keep working. It's important to them, as it is to the economy and to the company wanting to retain happy, motivated employees while maximizing productivity.

Early childhood development and out-of-school care are part of the educational infrastructure that optimizes individual development and sets the stage for school achievement by readying children for the classroom and for future workforce readiness. It provides the basis for the creation of a family-friendly workplace, which we do not have in British Columbia at this time.

When people have access to high-quality child care and early learning, they don't have to find a way to excuse themselves several times a day in order to move children between places of learning and places of care. Nor do they live with the stress of having to do that without detracting from their performance at work or the stress of having someone else, a person they may not know, pick their child up and drive them to where they can be dropped off. This was a doorstep issue in my community. It's one for me personally because I have a young child, but it was a doorstep issue, and it's one where government's record is most lacking. Now with federal funding on the immediate horizon, there is indeed a golden opportunity to bring this lamentable performance into line with one of the five great goals, to line reality up with the rhetoric and deliver the service that supports the attainment of the goal.

But that won't happen if the experience of jurisdictions that do this capably already are ignored or if the wishes of parents for safe, affordable and accessible opportunities are disregarded. Above all, it won't happen if the experience of current providers, both not-for-profit and for-profit, are ignored in the design of B.C.'s programs and if they aren't consulted before we implement.

As the Minister of Health said — I find myself agreeing with him on this one — without doubt the single most salient issue in my constituency is health care. The principal concern is the way in which restructuring of health care delivery has taken place. The sense that government is uncaring combined with its manifest preoccupation with privatizing and outsourcing components of care delivery are creating widespread unease about the future of public health care. There's a clear and widespread sense that government's attention is not where it should be — not on reducing waiting times for quality-of-life surgeries, not on reducing pressures in crowded emergency rooms, not on providing promised investments in long-term care beds and certainly not on ensuring the cleanliness of hospitals or the quality of food provided to patients and people in long-term care.

There is a sense that health care is drifting without a real plan to address its deficiencies and that privatization continues to be overtly and by stealth what government is most interested in. This sense of unease is not allayed by the constant iteration of the golden goal for health and fitness, nor by the Premier — however sincerely — urging us all to ingest at least five servings of fruit and vegetables daily.

Let me just say on a somewhat humorous but still serious note, for the benefit of the spinmeisters who advise government on this sort of thing, that simple repetition of a phrase will not change public behaviour. I will give us the benefit of the doubt and say that the government intends to try to change public behaviour and not merely to repeat the formula for its own sake. In fact, despite having heard this repeated endlessly by members opposite, it isn't clear to anyone whether it is actually five servings each of fruit and vegetables every day or five servings of fruit and vegetables cumulatively.

D. Cubberley: Or three and two. Madam Speaker, you know the gravity of this concern.

More seriously, if government wishes to close the gap between the rhetoric and the reality on health care, it will require a demonstration of its determination to address the bottlenecks and gaps in the existing care delivery system and to respect the wishes of all British Columbians for timely access to care. I heard the minister minimizing this area of concern when talking about the government's great achievements. But you know, it should be obvious on the heels of the Chaoulli decision by the Supreme Court that reducing waiting times for quality-of-life surgeries especially must be a priority for all provincial governments if we intend to protect the public system. Yet throughout the election there was utter denial of this issue in favour of gobs of bafflegab about the great job being done and golden goals.

It's interesting, as one who had the opportunity to listen sometimes — perhaps more often than I wanted to — to the Premier and his ministers while they were in opposition arguing that wait-lists were the most pressing problem facing British Columbia…. They were requiring urgent and express actions to make access prompt. I find the silence today deafening.

I still recall the government's new-era pledge — you probably do as well — to make care patient-centred and to provide it closer to home. In opposition it was assured that this could be done not by adding new resources to health care funding, as the NDP government of the day was doing in a sincere effort to offset the federal cuts to health care transfers, but by reallocating existing funding. I recall members opposite vehemently asserting that no more money was needed, and yet today I hear the Minister of Health talking about how much money has been put into the system. So today it's an entirely different tune.

Members opposite speak about how much money is being invested, as well they should — how much they've increased the budget since taking office. But no one wants to talk realistically about an action plan for

wait-lists. In fact, the minister says that they're all coming down and that we don't need to think about it.

We do need an action plan to address wait-lists, to address the problems plaguing British Columbia — problems so severe that in many places people wait far longer than the patient whose case went to the Supreme Court. No. Instead, though, what we get is a revamped wait-list website that performs the amazing feat of bringing waiting times down by — wait for it — cleaning up the data. We brought wait-lists down in British Columbia by cleaning up the data. It feels good, doesn't it?

Ironically, the new and improved website does nothing for wait times, but it does demonstrate that patients of particular doctors are waiting far too long for surgeries that are routinely handled in a matter of weeks through other doctors living in nearby communities. The gap between rhetoric and reality in this instance is extreme, and it's growing.

The real challenge to this government is whether it's going to change course and prioritize the real needs of health care or whether it will continue to privatize by stealth, as it's doing with B.C. NurseLine today — listing it quietly on the B.C. Bid website without establishing any kind of business case for what's being proposed — or as it has done with Maximus — with a contract so bogus as to contain clauses allowing the minister responsible to decline to discuss the expenditure of public funds on the grounds that it's proprietary information and can't be talked about.

D. Cubberley: "Open and transparent," my colleague says. A little bit far from it, you might say.

I've also watched with considerable interest as the government has attempted to give itself the aura of holding laudable goals — and they are laudable — and developing plans to move B.C. towards those goals. It was a rather stunning about-face after four years of decimation on the road to re-election.

I contrast, however, the rhetoric about becoming healthy and fit and the endless exhortations to act now with a rather underwhelming performance on the ground over the preceding term. Madam Speaker, the election demonstrated one thing, and that is that you cannot simply walk away from your history in politics.

"Eat your veggies and fresh fruit, and get more exercise" will go nowhere at all unless you provide the social and physical infrastructures that enable changed behaviour at the community and neighbourhood level. I know, for the record, that upon taking office, this government eliminated the provincial cycling network program — a modest investment fund in urban cycling infrastructures to cost-share their development in partnership with municipalities; a program with demonstrated impacts on the incidents of cycling and walking in daily life, because it allowed communities to build trails and bike lanes. This, of course, is the real prescription for personal fitness.

It was the first of its kind in North America — one I know something about because, as an advocate, I was directly involved in creating it; one that generated new patterns of investing in facilities in urban regions.

I suggest to members opposite, with the greatest respect, that it will take much more than one-shop grant programs and photo ops to get people to become active as part of daily life. The animatronic repetition of formulas about fruits and vegetables will have no impact at all without new opportunities for changed behaviour.

Let's pause there for a moment — just for a moment. The history of fitness promotion is littered with hollow campaigns urging publics to engage in physical activity. Be active. Do something — anything. Get up right now and do it. These verbal promotions universally flopped, and they've been doing it for 35 years, because there's no sense urging people to be active if they can't walk between their house, the local school and their place of work.

If we want to meet the golden goal of fitness, we will have to find the ways to enable people to get exercise as part of their daily life. That will mean providing the infrastructures that support those choices — principally, improved walking and cycling environments along with high-quality public transit. As Madam Speaker knows, I'm sure, every transit trip involves two walk or cycle trips, so there's the connection.

It won't do to announce one-off grant programs that do not provide sustained inducements to municipalities to supply the infrastructure for active living. We were making progress — modest progress, but progress — which we could easily have accelerated in order to make Act Now more than a slogan. But the B.C. government cut the legs out from under it by shelving the cycling network program, and we lost four years of investment in active living. Now we need to catch up — not in photo opportunities but in ongoing and sustained investments.

Were this government opposite enterprising, it would approach the federal government quickly and, under its joint mandates for health promotion and for greenhouse gas reduction, secure its involvement in an expanded program for cycling infrastructure and a twin program for walking infrastructure and, between the two, fund the development of mixed-use trails in every city in British Columbia. Instead, what we see is another one-off with less money than the program had in it before, with communities like Kelowna and Victoria denied grants because there isn't enough funding to supply the demand that's already there, let alone supply the demand that's latent or could be there.

The failure to work in concert with communities on issues related to growth, especially public transit, was a further reason for the outcome in Saanich South and, I think, right across southern Vancouver Island. The provincial transportation plan crows about spending a thousand dollars per capita on the lower mainland. We did the math, and it remains silent on spending $10 per capita here.

Transit properties outside TransLink have received no increase to funding and have been denied access to additional gas tax. That continued in the budget update, which has resulted in ongoing service declines and deteriorating rolling stock. Pass-ups on key routes

are now a feature of the Greater Victoria system, and no relief is being offered despite the megamillions available for much-needed transit around the lower mainland.

Finally, Madam Speaker, concern about the environment and the government's neglect of public lands, water and air were a factor in the electoral outcome in my constituency. The lack of trust there is widespread and deep-rooted, based on elimination of most staff and a wide swath cut through the regulatory framework. Whether it's forest practices, land conservation, aquaculture, sustainable energy, product stewardship and recycling — there's one we'll come back to — or sustainable development in cities, this government lacks all credibility among environmental stakeholders.

Leading the world in sustainable environmental management — one of the great goals — is going to be very difficult to bring off with the government's priorities in practice. But we on this side exist and will serve to try to bring you to your senses and to impart a sense of urgency about returning to regulation and oversight. Self-regulation is an oxymoronic non-starter. The push for profit will always conflict with doing the right thing as regards the environment. That's why regulation exists and why enforcement will always be necessary.

Let me draw the summary — gratefully, I'm sure, to some members opposite — to a close by commenting on the renewed commitment to first nations, both in the AIP and in the budget update. I think it is certainly one of the most promising aspects of the throne speech. I like the words that I have heard, and I'm encouraged by the commitment of startup funding. I would like to acknowledge that it represents progress for the party opposite. Reconciliation and renewal have long been urgent priorities but are only now being recognized.

Hon. B. Bennett: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment.

I want to take this opportunity, like other colleagues have, to thank a few people. This is my first opportunity in the House. I want to thank my campaign manager Gayle Clark and the president of my constituency association, Jim Fennell. Both of those folks gave a lot of themselves to help get me here, and I appreciate that. None of us would be here, in fact, without volunteers who are prepared to commit themselves to helping us and people who believe in the same things that we do.

I also want to thank Premier Campbell. Over the past four years every time we had to do something that was felt to be unpleasant out there — and we had to do some things that weren't a lot of fun — he always took it on the chin. That's what happens when you are the leader. The Leader of the Opposition will no doubt experience some of that as she goes along. So thank you to Premier Campbell.

I also want to take this opportunity to say so long to some friends of mine that aren't here anymore: the member for North Coast, Bill Belsey, who used to be my roommate; the member for North Island, Mr. Visser; the member for Skeena, Roger Harris; and also the member for Cariboo South, Walt Cobb. They were beaten in their elections fair and square, but I enjoyed getting to know them. One of the real values in doing this job is the people you get to know. I recommend to anyone who is here for the first time to make sure that you take advantage of that part of the opportunity.

I also want to thank my family: my wife Beth and my two boys Dylan and Daniel. As other people have said — and I won't belabour the point — none of us would be able to do this if we did not have the support of our families.

Congratulations, as well, to Leader of the Opposition Carole James for the impressive showing of the NDP in the election campaign. Congratulations to all of the people who are here for the first time. Try and have some fun with the job. You should try and have some fun with the job. Otherwise, it can get tough.

I want to say a particular congratulations and welcome — in the case of the member for Nelson-Creston, it's welcome back — to my Kootenay colleagues. I expect we will work together on some things. There will be many things we will probably disagree on — even most things, maybe. But there will be some things we will work together on, because a thing we do have in common is that we come from the greatest region of the greatest province of the greatest country in the world.

There were many times for me over the past four years that I felt uncomfortable in this House. It was my first political experience. I didn't know what to expect. There were times when I was really happy that my kids weren't here to see what we were doing to one another. I'm hoping that we can do it differently this time around. I do agree with making the place more civil.

I appreciate the comments that were made in the House — last week, I think — by the member for Nelson-Creston regarding the parts of our throne speech that he actually liked. I think we need more of that.

I agree with the member on one other thing, and that is that first and foremost, we are here to represent the people back home. I spent four years here representing my constituents as vigorously as I could. Fortunately, enough of them agreed that I'd done a decent job, and they sent me back here for more punishment. If we remember that our purpose here is to represent our constituents, I think we will find it difficult to revert to the old ways of this B.C. Legislature.

There is, however, another fundamental that's not so easy to manage and, no doubt, will lead to some heated debates over the next four years. It is that we each have beliefs about how the economy should func-

tion and how government should serve the people. Our side of the House, I think, believes in smaller government, lower taxes and the power of the individual.

I'm not going to presume to describe the ideological underpinnings of the other side, but I know it isn't the same as us. I expect there will be many exchanges in this House where, when you sweep away the specifics of the issue, it really will come down to these two different world-views. The best that we can do, in my opinion, is to remember that each of us holds our views very strongly. Occasionally we may say things that will annoy one another. I think that when that happens, we should assume it's not personal.

The election. I didn't think we'd be refighting the election, but we seem to be, so we might as well get that out of the way. There are some lessons. Hon. members from the other side of the House have said that we should learn some lessons from the election, and I actually agree with that. Certainly, in my riding the NDP gained ground, so I obviously must receive a message from that. The message to me is that I have to work harder for my constituents, and I believe that I have to work harder to explain what it is that this government is doing and why we're doing it.

On the budget. I'm very proud of the budget and the throne speech, like my colleagues. I don't happen to agree, on this occasion, with my colleague from Nelson-Creston that the throne speech was vacuous, to use his terminology.

Now, I'm not as familiar with the writings of Mao Zedong as my friend from the West Kootenay, so I can't comment on that part. I do recall some fairly serious sloganeering back in the 1990s. The jobs and timber accord comes to mind. That's a very nice-sounding slogan, but I think it was the jobs that went south, not the timber.

As I ponder this budget of ours, I can't help but reflect on how far we have come in this province. In 2001, when I got involved in politics, the unemployment rate at home was more than 10 percent. Taxes were the highest in this country, and our prospects weren't very good. We had the worst economy in Canada. We had been number one, but we had dropped to number ten. There were fairly high commodity prices and a strong economy in the rest of the country. Still, we were at number ten.

There was only one place in my region for young people to go to get a job, and that was Alberta. One of those young persons was my son Dylan. Now, my wife and I didn't intend for our son, who was barely 18 years old, to have to go to Alberta to find work. That experience, more than anything else, drove me into this business. Regrettably, my son was not the only person that had to leave B.C. in those days. We lost doctors; we lost engineers; we lost software designers; we lost nurses. They all left British Columbia in the 1990s, and now today, for the first time since about 1996-1997, there are more people moving back to this province than leaving. A few months ago my son returned to B.C. with a very good job in mining after more than seven years in Alberta.

The hon. members over there can say, as they have this afternoon, that they care more than us. That seems to be their mantra. Presumably, we don't, but my view is that this debate here in this House must be not about who cares the most but about who has the best ideas. So let us examine policies, let us recall what has worked in B.C. and what has not, and at the end of four years we'll all be judged on our ideas — ideas that either work for people, or they don't.

I want to talk a little bit about health care in this speech because it is, as others have said, the number-one issue — certainly in my riding and probably in most ridings. I've heard the word "cuts" so many times over the past four years that I'll tell you that the hon. members on the other side almost have me believing it — not quite, but almost. But in reality, there's a different story out there, and it's starting to unfold. People are starting to see it.

In the East Kootenay, where I come from, the patients had no regional hospital prior to 2001 and had to find their specialist care in Calgary or Vancouver. It takes 12 hours to drive from Cranbrook to Vancouver. It takes four hours to drive to Calgary.

Our government took the necessary steps to fund not only the recruitment, which is in some ways the easy part, but also the retention of specialists, so that we get pods of three or four specialists in each category to support one another. That takes time. It takes effort, and it takes commitment. It means, unfortunately, that in some small communities — smaller communities in great places like Creston, like Fernie, like Invermere — they can't necessarily have the Lone Ranger surgeon there who doesn't do enough work to keep his or her skills current but who just does enough work to detract from those pods of specialists at the regional hospital.

Decisions to remove in-patient surgery in the East Kootenay hospitals were extremely difficult for the people in those communities. But making difficult decisions for the long-term benefit of people is what leadership is all about.

I've heard my hon. colleagues on the other side of the floor say that the B.C. Liberals don't care. I would remind those members that it was this government that increased the health care budget by over $3 billion annually since taking office. That's a 36.5 percent increase. It's not a cut. In 2000-2001 the budget was $8½ billion. Today it's $11.6 billion. I know that money has no intrinsic value. It's what that money does for people that counts.

As to the comments made by my colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke the other day — I listened to his speech; it was a good speech — I know that his constituents did lose something, and I respect his right to share that anguish for that loss in this House. However, I would respectfully suggest to that member that today, because of this government, his constituents have access to 16 specialists at the regional hospital that they did not have before. There is a $31 million expansion of the regional hospital taking place as we speak right now. There is new equipment — new specialized equipment. We even have an MRI at the re-

Change was necessary in health care, and change in the management of health care has proven to be traumatic in any jurisdiction that has taken it on. The bottom line is that patient outcomes must drive changes to health care. The management of health care must be driven by what is best for patients, not by politics. We're recruiting more doctors and specialists to rural areas. In 2004, 155 doctors and 162 nurses were placed in rural B.C. You want to contrast that to 1999 when 40 doctors left British Columbia.

We've doubled the number of medical school graduates. The NDP didn't add one medical school seat in ten years. We've opened up medical schools in the north and on the Island, and for the first time doctors are being trained outside of Vancouver. I think that's a good thing. This government has increased the number of nursing seats by over 2,000 in only four years. With all due respect to the members here today, I contrast that with the NDP government of the 1990s, which added less than 500 nursing seats in ten years.

Health authorities. Everybody loves to hate the health authorities. They've cut the administration costs in this province by $100 million. It's a 7 percent savings. Well, that $100 million can now be redirected into patient care. This government actually funded the province's mental health plan, unlike the government in the 1990s that merely talked about it. They announced it I don't know how many times but never funded it. In fact, the critic — and again, I mean no disrespect to the critic — for the opposition today talked about mental health and seemed to be completely unaware of the fact that it was our government that actually funded and implemented the plan for mental health.

I can tell you that in Cranbrook — Cranbrook is not a big place; it is about 25,000 people — we have a brand-new eight-person mental health facility. I know one family. I know the mother, in particular. She came to me in the first year after I was elected. That mother can now go into this facility and visit her adult daughter who spent over a decade institutionalized at Riverview. That's improvement, and that shows we do care.

The fall budget focuses on seniors, and I'm grateful for that. I'm sure that we all are. But the budget builds on what we've already done to help seniors, and I think it's significant. I remind the House, given many of the comments made by the opposition, that low-income seniors in this province now pay less income tax than they did in 2001. They pay the least amount of income tax in Canada. Low-income seniors in B.C. now pay less for MSP — not more, less. Low-income seniors in B.C. pay less for Pharmacare — Fair Pharmacare. The reason we said Fair Pharmacare is because it's fair to low-income seniors — pretty simple.

In terms of seniors care in my riding over the past four years, there have been enormous positive changes. Joseph Creek Village in Cranbrook — 25 subsidized assisted-living units, over a hundred private units; Rocky Mountain Village in Fernie — 50 long-term residential care beds, brand-new state-of-the-art facility, 23 assisted-living units.

The Tom Uphill Memorial Home. Tom Uphill was an NDP MLA. He served for many years the area that I come from with distinction. They named a seniors home for him, but it was an old home that had basically outlived its usefulness. It had a market value of about a million dollars. We ultimately gave that facility to the community and then got B.C. Housing to give them over a million dollars so they could refit it and turn it into an affordable seniors housing unit. I'm proud of that as well. There's a new home going up in Cranbrook — it hasn't started yet, but it will this year — with 75 residential care beds for seniors.

The whole notion of providing a more independent model for seniors who don't need and don't want institutional care came from this government. Our region had never heard of assisted living before 2001. I ask you with all due respect: how is it caring to force seniors into institutional care before they want it and before their health needs require it?

In my region wait times to get into residential care have improved dramatically. In 2001 a senior would wait for 18 months to get into residential care. Today they wait 90 days. That's another improvement. This is real-life evidence. This is not political rhetoric; these are facts.

The fall budget, of course, goes a long way towards improving life further for low-income seniors. You have the $50-a-month supplement, at $600 a year. For somebody on a fixed income, that's significant. That's meaningful. That will help. The SAFER program increased by $180 a month, and the program was extended to seniors living in manufactured homes. For those of us on both sides of the House that come from rural areas, that also is a very meaningful change, and we welcome that.

Then there's the $150 million for seniors housing over two years. I've heard a lot, even this afternoon…. It certainly is different in the House hearing from so many from the opposition. We only used to have to hear from two, so it's going to take a while for me to get used to that. I've heard a lot about the seniors' beds issue. We have built 4,000 beds for seniors, but because so many of the beds in this province were condemned, we had to close, or the health authorities had to close, hundreds of beds. In 2002 a provincial survey was done of all residential care beds in this province, and over half of them were condemned. They were unsalvageable, or some of them needed upgrading.

Again, I don't see how the mismanagement of seniors care in the 1990s equates to caring. I hope that the group here this time on the other side of the House will be different, and I'm expecting that they will.

Another aspect of this minibudget was the tax relief for people who create jobs in B.C. We've heard a few questions in question period around that. I think it's interesting to contrast the way our government goes about trying to encourage job creation and the way that the NDP traditionally tried to create jobs. It's true that we lowered taxes for people and that we lowered taxes

for companies. I'm actually very proud of that. I think it's a great policy. Not only do we have the lowest personal income tax rates for people. We have one of the lowest rates for companies in Canada. That would explain why people are moving back to B.C. after the province lost thousands of people in the 1990s. It would also explain why investment and job creation is flooding back to B.C. at unprecedented levels.

We actually did what the other side of the House says. I've heard it in the last few days. They say they don't believe in this. We lowered taxes. We've reduced regulations. We established an investment-friendly climate, and then entrepreneurs did the rest. Now, what that has resulted in, in my region where I come from, is a 4-percent unemployment rate. I mean, that's effectively 100 percent employment. I'm proud of that too.

The third focus of the fall budget, of course, was on first nations. I have some experience — I'm by no means an expert — working day to day with aboriginal people. For over 20 years I worked in the fly and fishing lodge business in northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. I had the opportunity to work with and to get to know many aboriginal people. Unfortunately, at times I would watch helplessly as some of my friends didn't make it out of residential schools, and some of them were lost to alcoholism and despair.

I'm just an MLA. I'm just a politician. But if there is one thing that I would like to see in my short time as an elected person in this Legislature, it would be an improvement in the lives of first nations people — not the lawyers or the consultants, or even the chiefs necessarily. They seem to be doing okay. I want to see improvement for mom and dad and the kids, because I believe that first nations parents want the same thing we do. They want a decent job. They want some disposable income. They want a chance for a good life with a family of their own. They want security and confidence in the future.

I believe that this new relationship that the first nations leadership and our Premier are leading us to will bring the certainty on the land that we need. It will lead to opportunity and prosperity for both aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people in British Columbia. I know that all members in this House agree with this new initiative and that this will be one policy that we will be able to work together on.

I'm a bit regional and maybe parochial today. I want to talk a little bit about tourism and recreation because of how important they are in the Kootenays. Although the NDP seemed in the campaign to want to cut the budget for tourism, I am hoping that was an honest mistake and that they will support our efforts to grow tourism in rural B.C. We do have spectacular ski resorts, back-country lodges, golf courses, guide-outfitting, fishing and wildlife. On the recreation front we have outdoor sports galore in this province, of course, whether it's skiing, hiking, boating, quadding or snowmobiling.

My private member's bill that was passed last session supports the sports of hunting and fishing. I trust that the NDP will support hunting, in particular, and will join with us in saying to the federal government that the billions of public dollars spent on forcing farmers and loggers to register their shotguns is a waste of money and that it's an affront to law-abiding gun owners.

I'm pleased to tell the House that the Kootenays benefited greatly from the increased tourism spending by our government and that the region will continue to produce some of the best tourism destinations and services in the province. Alberta knows all about it us. I don't know whether it has filtered all the way out to the west coast entirely yet, but I think people are finding out that the Kootenays are a great place to invest and a great place to vacation.

While I'm talking about the Kootenays, I do want to congratulate the great city of Trail for being chosen by the Province newspaper as the number-one sports town in British Columbia. It sticks in my craw a little bit. It's really hard to jump up and down to say, "We're number eight," but we were number eight in Cranbrook. So I'm happy about that as well. I don't know who the judges were, but in any case, I do congratulate the city of Trail.

I have to say a few words about mining. I have what I consider to be the best job in the whole Legislature. I get to work with the mining industry and mineworkers, and I get to help build this great industry back up after the dreadful days of the 1990s.

Mining's been brought up twice here in the House by the opposition. I'm pleased about that. I'm happy to hear that the other side of the House now supports mining. I think the member for Nelson-Creston actually does support mining. I have no doubt about that. Hopefully, his rural colleagues will as well. It will be interesting to see as we go along here whether the rural caucus over there on the other side of the House can persuade their urban brothers and sisters that they should support new mines in this province. When you start taking the political hits from the green lobby, it will be interesting. I look for your support.

I remind you that jobs in rural British Columbia in mining average $94,000 a year with benefits. Those jobs are not easy to come by. We should all support mining for that reason. On this side of the House we made our mind up a long time ago about mining, and our actions prove it.

Last term we introduced a flow-through share tax incentive that is the envy of the world. According to what mining industry people tell me, our government's flow-through share program combined with the federal program — and it's referred to as a super flow-through — is largely responsible for the incredible rate of expansion in exploration in B.C. today. We've gone from $29 million in exploration in 2001 to $150 million in 2004. It's going to be up even further this year. I think we will get up to $200 million, if not this year then for sure next year.

We've developed a plan for mining in B.C., and surprisingly, we call it the B.C. mining plan. It's been extolled by the mining associations in the province and, actually, by many associations outside the province. We've made permitting more user-friendly, and we've maintained the high environmental standards that British Columbians are accustomed to. We implemented on-line claim-staking. It's another made-in-B.C. program, and it's also the envy of the world.

So far this year we're 200 percent ahead of last year in terms of the ground stake — 200 percent already this year. That was as of the end of August. Last year we were 85 percent ahead of 2001. We're looking for a lot of new discoveries to be made over the next few years.

We've changed the investment climate for mining in B.C. from its sorry state to one of confidence in the future for mining in B.C. I do congratulate the members on the other side who have mentioned mining, and I do hope that that is a sign of a positive change for that party. I'm not skeptical, I guess. I'm just a little bit wait-and-see. I'm from Missouri.

I know that in ten years, in ten throne speeches the NDP mentioned mining twice. That's not many times. More recently in the election campaign the NDP promised to reduce the budget for mining, and that was their only reference to mining in their campaign platform.

But I'm going to keep an open mind. I do want the support of the members opposite when we discuss the permitting of new mines. We have a very comprehensive environmental process in this province. If a mining project makes it through that process, I would expect the members on the other side that support mining to rally to my side to support permitting these new mines when the predictable naysayers mobilize to stop it.

Madam Speaker, I sense a new spirit in the Legislature, and I welcome it. To some degree our democratic system is adversarial by nature. As I've said, we have fundamentally different points of view, and that will lead to some interesting debates. I look forward to that. It's the job of the opposition members to question our policies and direction. They did a pretty darn good job of it today. It's our job to implement policies that we believe will move British Columbia forward and help people on the ground. But we should never lose respect for this House or for one another. We are all striving to make British Columbia a better place. Otherwise, none of us would be here.

I think the Leader of the Opposition has set a respectful tone, and our Premier has proven with the budget and with the throne speech that we're committed to making this Legislature and British Columbia stronger. We've doubled the length of question period. The opposition's been given an increased role. And most importantly, Premier Campbell has boldly committed us to democratic reform. British Columbians told us in the election unequivocally, I think, that they're ready for reform. There is an appetite there. We have to listen, and we are listening.

Hello, Madam Speaker. It's a different Madam Speaker. Congratulations on your appointment.

I'm just finishing up. These are exciting times that I look forward to sharing with all of my colleagues in this House on both sides of the floor over the next four years.

C. Puchmayr: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you to my colleagues across and on this side.

What a grand historical chamber — a parliamentary system that's over 800 years old. I was very impressed with the ritual of pulling the actual Speaker up to the chair. I know that Speakers centuries ago used to have to bear the bad news of legislation passed by the Legislature to the monarchy. In some instances they would be beheaded or executed for bringing the bad news, hence the term: "Don't shoot the Speaker."

To the Deputy Speaker from Kelowna-Mission, I want to express my pleasure in seeing you back in the House again after overcoming some medical maladies, and we pray that your health has returned. We actually met, Madam Speaker, in a bar in Kelowna during the Okanagan fire. My duty was to bring a pallet of beer to the firefighters, supplied by Molson and Labatt and by Granville Island, which is also owned by Cascadia brewery in Kelowna. They were very pleased with that gift. After that, we treated the firefighters to some refreshment.

We had firefighters from New Westminster that served well, and firefighters from all over British Columbia pulled together to go to Kelowna to assist during this time of extreme crisis. I was very pleased to see the response that manifested itself.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my predecessor Joyce Murray for her last four years representing New Westminster. I wish her and her husband Dirk Brinkman great success in their future endeavours.

I want to acknowledge now the great team of volunteers who worked tirelessly to assist me in achieving the nomination for New Westminster. I can't name them all, because I'm sure I will forget some. I want to say that they worked extremely hard on my behalf, not only to assist me in winning the nomination but also in winning the election. I also humbly thank the residents of New Westminster that gave me the opportunity to come here to this chamber and represent them.

I also want to thank my opponent in the nomination and a good friend of mine, Steve McClurg. I wish him well in his future political endeavours. To Mayor Wright and my former colleagues on city council, and to the fine residents association and community groups in my constituency: I look forward to and already have begun working with them in my new capacity as MLA. I will miss how closely civic politics works with the citizens. I will miss the relationship with members of city staff and civic workers, including the fire and the police. It's quite a sacrifice that people make for this privilege to fight for what they believe in. I respect those on the other side, even though there will be days when our emotions will get the best of us.

The greatest sacrifice is to family and friends. I want to acknowledge my partner Amber, who has given me so much moral support through my nine years of political duty; my adult children in order of seniority — because I truly respect that concept — Troy, Cora-Lea, Shawn and Candase; and my darling granddaughter Taylor. They all continue to make me proud. I thank my father Victor — I feel like I'm getting an Academy Award here or something — and my mother Alice for dreaming of a better place and choosing beautiful British Columbia as the home for my brothers Victor, Mike and Albert and my twin sisters Barbara and Amalia — from Switzerland and Austria through Quebec to British Columbia.

I am so pleased to be in this province that can be the best place on earth to live. This side is going to make sure that it becomes the best place on earth to live for all British Columbians. New Westminster — not New Westminister; that's how we weed out the foreigners that come into my constituency — was named by Queen Victoria, hence the nickname the Royal City. It was once named Queenborough or Queensborough. It was also the first capital of the colony.

The first nations preceded the colonists by thousands of years. They welcomed the new settlers and helped them get through some tough times, especially during the cold winters — winters that would freeze the mighty Fraser River solid. It saddens me that the untold history of New Westminster culminated in the elimination of any land base for our last remaining first nations band, the Qayqayt band. Chief Rhonda Larrabee is a chief without a land. Maybe the new conciliation with first nations will address this issue, and I certainly will work with this House in trying to achieve some recognition for this.

The constituency I represent is the oldest city west of the Great Lakes. It's 11 square kilometres. I've spoken to some of my colleagues here who live in a quarter of a million square kilometres, and what it takes for them to get from one end of their constituency to the other is hours of driving. Some days with the traffic in New Westminster, ours is equally as trying. But I certainly was fortunate and blessed to be running in a constituency that you can actually get around in a very short period of time, and I respect those that have to put in the longer hours to knock on the doors.

New Westminster is the home of the Royal Westminster Regiment, the Westies and the Regimental Museum. New Westminster was the birthplace of Ernest "Smokey" Smith, who just passed away and was the last surviving Victoria Cross recipient. He actually served in the Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver.

We have a constituency that is proud of its heritage, yet barraged by over 300,000 vehicle trips a day passing through the city. Less than 20,000 of those are generated from New Westminster. New Westminster also has the second-highest transit usage in the Greater Vancouver area — second to Vancouver.

New Westminster is a proud community with a colourful, multicultural component: South Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, the Philippines, Europe, a large Italian community, a large Romanian community, a Middle Eastern community. Many first nations and Métis are residents of New Westminster.

Multiculturalism, to me, isn't only having people of different cultures living in our community. It's actually learning about their cultures while they learn about your culture. I think that's where we become wealthy with culturalism. It's when we learn, respect and share their cultures, and that's what we proudly do in New Westminster.

We have many places of worship and temples, and I want to name a few that do exceptional work in fighting the challenges of the homeless and the hungry: St. Barnabas' Church has a congregation of about 20 people, and they feed 800 people a week in their soup kitchen; the Salvation Army, with all the shelters that they provide. The work of the Sixth Avenue United Church — now, I believe, the largest food bank in the lower mainland, if not in the province. It's certainly not something that we can be proud of, but they're there on the front line assisting people in need, and they continue to do that. Many places of worship also play a role in the community in assisting those in need, and that is of extreme value to my community.

We are blessed by volunteers who coach our children in sports. We, too, are a city of champions. Our teams and individual athletes have gone on to represent us both nationally and internationally. Justin Morneau, who is a member of the Minnesota Twins, grew up with my son Shawn. I remember one time pitching him a ball when he was about 13 or 14 years old, and he hit that ball so far that the kids didn't even bother going after it. This kid was phenomenal. You could tell at that very young age that this was a special athlete that was going to go places, and he has, and he makes New Westminster proud.

New Westminster is the home of the winningest lacrosse team in Canadian history, the New Westminster Salmonbellies…

I hear the heckles from down on the other end here about the Shamrocks. To the Shamrocks: be warned. The Bellies are going to be a major contender next season. If the member from Kamloops-Thompson will permit, I would like to place a wager right now.

Now, on the budget. We are a municipality with core-city syndrome. We have seen a doubling of homelessness in the last four years. We have seen cuts to services which have hurt the most vulnerable in my community. Our at-risk youth centre was demolished after closing its doors due to a $50,000 funding shortfall from the provincial government. By the way, it costs $100,000 a year to keep a youth in maximum detention, and it is absolutely priceless to save a youth from addiction.

We have seen a proliferation of drug use in our youth that I believe is unprecedented, from crack co-

caine to methamphetamine. It is at an epidemic stage and cannot be tackled by a scared-straight approach alone. We need treatment facilities, and — spare no expense — we need them now. The budget does not address this serious need.

Remember, you heard yesterday that for every dollar spent on rehabilitation and prevention there is a $7 saving. Even the United Nations has quantified this. If you took the $500 million corporate tax gift that was announced in the budget and spent it on rehab and prevention, you would save $3.5 million in health costs, emergency rollouts of ambulance, fire, police and rescue — $3.5 billion would be saved — as well as lost time of workers, white-collar and blue-collar, I might add. You would save employer medical premiums. You would save insurance costs. You would reduce the staggering cost of AIDS and blood-borne diseases.

This would be an even greater gift to the corporate community than the $500 million just given to them in the budget, because it would be a prudent economic investment. Discard the mushy caring and compassion stuff. I see the other side cringe every time we use the words "most vulnerable." I propose to the other side that they do it because it makes economic sense, and let our side wax poetically in our space because it makes social sense. The recycled budget does not address the shortage of detox beds in our province. Let this be my constructive input that the other side has encouraged us to provide.

Now, let's back up a bit to 1858. Is that all right? Col. James Douglas requested aid from the British government to keep law and order in the colony because of the gold rush. Gold, or the mere thought of gold, makes people react in a way that is unexplainable in our society. That's why we hear "the golden economy" over and over and over. It excites people. It gets the heart thumping. It makes us feel good.

But what is this golden economy, this golden decade? The true gold fuelling us is not brilliant and shiny; it's black, and it smells like sulphur. It's oil. Yes, Texas tea, except that Texas is almost out of oil, and they want ours. And they want our gas, but not our lumber yet. The elimination of the Canadian ownership provisions that allows Terasen Gas to completely leave Canadian control is something that is going to have a catastrophic impact on our economy. The purchase of this corporation will be paid for over time by users. I predict the B.C. Utilities Commission will be asked repeatedly for rate increases by Kinder Morgan, as they use our residents and our businesses to pay for what was once our asset. Rate increases will make people choose between food and heat, and businesses choose between gas or coal or hog fuel. This will surely extinguish our ability to meet any of the Kyoto goals.

We are seeing a shocking trend towards privatization schemes in our province: railway, medical records, B.C. Hydro, B.C. Ferries, medical services such as food and cleaning. Many of them are fraught with mismanagement and end up costing us more. Fines, derailments, broken ferries, broken promises, dirty hospitals — all a product of the bottom line.

The 3Ps — public-private partnerships. I see them more as pilfering the public purse. To profit from doing public services means just one more hand in the purse, and the analogy that the private sector can do it better is now showing that this is untrue. Now the government is contracting out social agencies that are non-profit. How does this work? I guess the profit will come from reducing the services they used to provide.

It's simple economics. I've seen this happen in my city when we tried to contract out the electrical utility service. Of the three bidders, two were higher than what we were doing it for in-house and paying decent jobs and decent benefits and money that was being spent in the community. One was slightly lower, but at the end of the contract it would have cost us more to bring it back in-house if we weren't satisfied. Also, we were warned that we could be prohibited to do so under the rules of NAFTA.

I want to talk a bit about St. Mary's Hospital, which came under the wrecking ball in my community. It was a hospital that excelled in joint replacement, cataract surgery, breast cancer, diagnostics and palliative care. It also served as an overflow for trauma patients that are often flown in from throughout the province. Patients are now at risk. When the emergency room at Surrey Memorial or Royal Columbian was full, they could phone and have an operating theatre opened at St. Mary's any time of the day or night and take the volume over there, take the pressure off. That is no longer available.

Our system is suffering, and I hear almost weekly from nurses and people working in that profession that they are at their wits' end. It's no wonder we can't attract people into that profession when we expose them to that type of suffering.

Our medical system, including Royal Columbian Hospital and Surrey Memorial Hospital, is reeling at the loss of this regional hospital. The budget speech does nothing to address the increase in waiting lists caused by the elimination of this hospital. It does nothing to address the crisis in our health care system.

We always hear about the good stories, about getting in within half an hour and back out again with a cast on. That may happen occasionally, but that is rare. I spent time in a hospital last October with a staph infection, where I still suffer today, and I saw firsthand how the new contract on cleaning affected that hospital. I felt bad for the new employees. I can't blame the new employees. They weren't trained properly. They weren't given the proper tools. There weren't enough of them. They were being paged from acute care booth to acute care booth. I was warned not to step off the bed without putting shoes on. When you walked through that area, your feet were sticking to the floor from dirty mops. I saw firsthand the dirty hospitals, and it is not something that's being made up by the professionals that work there. It's not something being made up by the many people who I spoke to on the doorstep.

I want to touch a bit now on my role as labour critic. Labour is the backbone of this economy, whether

white-collar, blue-collar or small business. The best economies are created from disposable income, not from tax cuts to an elite few. We need to upgrade our skills development so that our children have the tools they need to meet the challenges of the new economy and gain meaningful employment so that they can participate in this new economy. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is a de-skilling of training; a de-skilling of the workforce; cuts to apprenticeship training; tuition increases that have made it more difficult, in some cases impossible, for children to achieve post-secondary education.

On free collective bargaining, this has been going on in this province for maybe a hundred years, whether by group or individually. It's how we establish fair, sustainable wages and benefits for our families. It's not a crime to demand a fair and decent living. My experiences in this field have taught me to respect this process and to respect those involved. When the two sides retreat for frank discussions on a collective agreement, it should be allowed to take its course without outside interference or political rhetoric, and the contracts agreed to must be respected and adhered to. Political involvement must never impact the free process to bargain an agreement in good faith.

The elimination of the special regulations affecting child labour as young as 12 in this province is reprehensible. We need to establish the protection of our young workers and do it before there is a fatality. It is not enough to put the onus of workplace inspections on the shoulders of parents who are not conversant in the technical regulations of ergonomics or the safe operating practices of equipment. Safety in the workplace is something that should never regress — not for young workers, not for any workers.

I am pleased to see some moneys going to first nations skills training. The federal courts have ruled that for traditional first nations lands, the historic land users need full consultation before any mining, logging or development can take place. This provides first nations with the ability to negotiate jobs and partnerships for the use of their historic lands. This will go a long way towards the economic justice that the first nations community deserves.

This is not a new position by this government, as they suddenly take a dramatic change in their approach to first nations relations. It's one established through the Supreme Court, through decisions such as Delgamuukw. It's the federal jurisprudence that is directing the new relationship. It's not without the Premier's attempt to subvert it through referendum, legislation and threatened lawsuits not so long ago. I hope that we have truly reached a fork in the road and that we are going around the bend towards a new relationship with our first nations.

In my community we have seen residents fall victim to the system of applying for basic income assistance. For a government that prides itself on — and boasts about — eliminating red tape in worker compensation, environment and logging, why have they created such a system of red tape for people with disabilities? People are leaving the office in frustration and falling into the clutches of homelessness. Nothing in this budget addresses this serious matter.

In closing, I wish to once again offer my assistance to this chamber to bring constructive solutions to the many challenges we face today. If I could quote Tommy Douglas, Canada's greatest Canadian, I want to close by saying: "Courage, my friends; it's never too late to make a better world."

M. Polak: Madam Speaker, I, too, want to add my congratulations to you on your election as Deputy Speaker, and I hope that you will enjoy your time there and that we won't give you too much trouble.

I'm certainly pleased to rise in response to the budget and in support of a government vision that is bold in its outlook, far-reaching in scope and, indeed, courageous in its direction. I also want to offer my congratulations to all of our returning and new members to this chamber. I look forward to serving for the next four years with you.

At this time I'd like to honour my predecessor Lynn Stephens. Lynn represented the riding of Langley from 1991 until her retirement in 2005. During her 14 years of service to the people of Langley and to this province, Lynn fulfilled a variety of roles. She served as an opposition member, then as a government member. She held the post of Minister of State for Women's Equality from June of 2001 to January of 2004. The people of Langley and of B.C. certainly owe her a debt of thanks for her many years of dedicated public service. It is my great privilege and also my great challenge to be selected by my constituents to carry on in her stead.

I want to thank all those whose gifts of time and effort contributed to my election to this House. The many community volunteers and campaign workers who participated in my campaign are to be commended for their commitment to the democratic process and for their dedication to their community. As a new MLA, I am humbled by the task before me. At the same time I'm encouraged by the faith and trust that has been placed in me by the voters of Langley.

On a personal level, I want to thank my father, who remains a guiding force in my life. His example of integrity, strength and sacrifice is a benefit to all who know him. Many times in my life he has been my silent strength.

There is one other individual who deserves my very special thanks, and that's my daughter. She is alternately my biggest fan and my harshest critic, but she keeps me grounded, and she reminds me how important it is to dream big and to believe in the future. For me, that's what this budget update is all about.

I think we have to thank the diligent work of the Minister of Finance and her staff, because they've now mapped out a future that is one of prosperity and opportunity. I'm really proud to support a government that has returned hope and optimism to the people of British Columbia. I'm proud to support a government

that is not afraid to dream big and to lay before us a challenge and a plan that all British Columbians can believe in. Above all, I'm proud to support a government whose values embrace those of all British Columbians — values that we may express in different ways but that are certainly held and supported by members on both sides of this House.

This government values self-reliance and independence for every single resident of this great province. Leading the nation in job creation is a phrase we've used frequently on this side of the House, and sometimes we get jeers from the members of the opposition. That's because they seem to think there isn't a connection between a positive economic indicator and what that means in people's everyday lives. Well, you know what? Leading the nation in job creation is more than just a positive economic indicator. It changes lives, it strengthens families, and it builds communities.

As the mother of an 18-year-old, I've personally witnessed the renewed optimism among B.C.'s youth. Since 2001 youth employment in British Columbia has increased by 44,000, with most of those positions being full-time. In fact, 2004 saw the lowest annual youth unemployment rate in B.C. since 1990.

The NDP opposition is really fond of criticizing the $6 first-job wage, but there are some things they forget to mention. One of them is this. The $6 first-job wage is higher than Alberta's minimum wage. British Columbia has the highest minimum wage of any province in Canada.

This government also values responsible stewardship of our vast natural resources. We will strive to lead the world in sustainable resource management, not because of a partisan agenda and not to gain political support from special interest groups. You know why we're going to do it? Because it's the right thing to do. Our children will enjoy the best air quality, the best water quality and the best fisheries management because it's important to all British Columbians.

The NDP opposition, though, would have British Columbians believe that they are the party of the environment, the party that would work to preserve our parks and wilderness places. But you kind of have to look at their record to get a better idea of what that might mean.

I was reminded last week, when I was driving to the ferry and watched the Burns Bog fire — the smoke was incredible — of what the NDP's vision for Burns Bog was. The NDP's vision for Burns Bog? They didn't want to save it. They wanted to pave it. They even went about putting up a $25 million loan for the purpose of turning that valuable ecosystem into, of all things, an amusement park.

Thankfully, it was our B.C. Liberal government that took steps to preserve and protect Burns Bog forever. Our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy a park area that is five times the size of Stanley Park, and that's thanks to the action of this B.C. Liberal government. It's truly a lasting legacy that we can all be proud of.

This government values compassionate and caring communities. We are all well on our way to building the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk and seniors. Our B.C. Liberal government gave people with disabilities the biggest increase in their monthly income support in a decade, and we doubled the earnings exemption for people with disabilities.

B.C. has the lowest income taxes in Canada. We've eliminated provincial income taxes for everyone earning under $15,500 a year. That is not just a tax cut; that's more money in the pockets of low-income British Columbians. I might point out to the member for New Westminster that a tax cut does give people disposable income, which is what he seems to want to give, so I'm not quite understanding what his point was.

Low-income seniors have had their MSP premiums eliminated, while the introduction of Fair Pharmacare has provided assistance to about 280,000 low-income seniors and families. It doesn't stop there. The budget update provides an additional $242 million to renew the seniors supplement and to double the funding for the SAFER program. With the addition of coverage to manufactured homes, that's 7,200 more seniors who will be able to qualify for the SAFER rent subsidy. It is the seniors of British Columbia who have built this province. It's right and proper that they should be the first to benefit from our strengthening economy.

This government also values prevention. We're investing in healthy living and physical fitness at an unprecedented level: $100 million for health research; $100 million for public health initiatives like Act Now B.C.; and $73 million for infant and early childhood vision, dental and hearing screening. We know that dollars spent on prevention will multiply as they relate to future savings in our health care system.

I want to comment briefly on some things that I listened to from the member for Saanich South. They relate to waiting lists. I'm always interested to hear the opposition talk about this, because they seem to think that the most important thing to British Columbians is what number they might happen to be on any given list. Well, I've been out talking to seniors. I've been out talking to families. I've been listening to constituents. You know what they're telling me? They tell me that it's not about how many surgeries you do or about how many people are on the list. It's about how long it takes them to get their service.

I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, some facts that…. Well, you know, I always feel bad doing this. It's really a sad thing when a weak piece of rhetoric gets beat up by a muscle-bound group of facts, but here it comes. When it comes right down to it, the facts prove that we are turning the corner on wait times for people in British Columbia. As of June 2005, less than 50 percent of surgeries were wait-listed. Of the less-than-50 percent that were wait-listed, 10 percent were done within a week, 50 percent were done in just over a month and 90 percent are done in less than seven months.

It's time that we started pulling together on health care and not just playing the blame game. What the NDP opposition doesn't like to think about is that this isn't just a British Columbia problem. Fortunately, in government we've recognized that. We're beginning to work together with the federal government and other levels of government to be able to address these issues. Health care is a challenge across North America. I know, though, that British Columbians are up to the challenge. I know that we will lead North America in healthy living and physical fitness.

This government values lifelong learning. We've proven our commitment by investing heavily in education. We've seen a rapid decline in enrolment in British Columbia: 30,000 fewer students. But what has the funding response been by this provincial government? It has been to increase education spending in the K-to-12 sector every single year. Per-pupil funding right now is higher than any other province in Canada outside of Alberta. The additional $150 million this year will mean a boost of almost $5 million just in my local school district of Langley.

Local school boards can finally be assured that they are going to have the opportunity to make those decisions that will best serve the needs of their students. I find it really interesting to listen to the debate on education, being a former school trustee, because I had the opportunity to serve as a school trustee under both an NDP government and then a B.C. Liberal government. There were some distinct differences.

In terms of the B.C. Liberal government's funding — guess what. School districts were able to count on a time when they were going to get their money. They knew ahead of time how much money they were going to get, and it actually stayed stable from year to year. What happened under the NDP? It was a guessing game. Not only did districts never know how much they were going to get, but I do not believe — and I checked back about as far as I had time for — that there was a single year when the NDP were in government that they provided the education funding announcement on time. That's a pretty sorry record.

The other thing they like to talk about is how we've exceeded expectations in this budget update around the corporate income tax reduction. I'm really happy to hear them talking about exceeding expectations. I know it's not something they like to talk about a lot, because certainly the NDP government had a bit of difficulty exceeding and, in fact, even meeting expectations. Year after year they were late announcing the school district funding. In eight years they issued five debt management plans, and they missed the mark on every single one.

Oh, but you know what? There was one area where they were exceptionally good at exceeding expectations. Major infrastructure and capital projects routinely exceeded budgeted expectations. That was the dark decade of the '90s, and fortunately, we've moved on to the 21st century.

When the B.C. Liberals took office in 2001, they set a target to balance the budget in three years. Then some things happened — September 11, SARS, BSE, forest fires. I mean, I think the only thing we were waiting for was the plague of locusts. Everybody — the pundits, the press, the opposition — said it couldn't be done. They said: "You ought to scrap those plans. You're not going to be able to balance the budget. Why keep that there? Everybody would understand if you didn't balance the budget." But that's not what the B.C. Liberal government did. They held their ground, and it was tough. It was tough for four million British Columbians. But you know what happened? It was done. It was done, and it has laid the foundation for what we're seeing today.

Once again British Columbia is exceeding expectations. In job creation we've gone from worst to first. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1981. We've posted a record surplus, and we've paid down a record $1.7 billion in debt — the largest single paydown of B.C.'s debt ever. By every account we have exceeded expectations. Our economy is back on track, and B.C. is once again the economic leader that it ought to be. That bodes well for our whole province and for communities like my riding of Langley.

I want to give you some specific examples from Langley that have occurred only in the past few months. I could go back further, but you probably don't want to hear me talk that long. We've seen an investment in child care capital funding to the Langley Meadows Community Association of $22,990. That's creating 20 new licensed preschool spaces. We've seen a contribution of $235,000 to help the township of Langley reduce flood risk in the community. It's going to fund the Nathan Creek project of $153,000 and the Salmon River project of $161,000.

The province has provided funding for Langley Regional Airport's further development — $563,000. Listen to the benefits of this one. It's expected to double the number of direct and indirect jobs that the airport provides in my riding.

We've seen a funding boost for the Langley school district of $5 million. One that I'm very proud of is that we were able to provide an emergency grant for Langley Family Services to recover from a major fire that destroyed their entire building. We were able to provide them with the total cost they needed for tenant improvements in an emergency space and also to help them out with their rent in the interim — $37,928. We were able to return that decision to them within a couple of months and get them back on their feet. I'm very proud of that.

Langley is a growing and a changing community. In many ways it symbolizes the change that is taking place across the Fraser Valley. More and more people

are leaving the traditional centres of Vancouver and its suburbs in favour of the lifestyle that they find in communities such as Langley.

In Langley you see a constant contrast. We're known across the region as horse country, while at the same time I really think we're beginning to rival Vancouver in the number of Starbucks per capita that we have in Langley. I will emphasize that the majority of them are drive-throughs.

Certainly, though, this growth and this change mean we're facing challenges. One of the ones that is top of mind for Langley residents is the potential impact in rail traffic that is going to be caused by the Delta Port expansion. I want you to know that our province is leading the way as we work to find solutions for that issue. We now, finally, after years of trying, have been able to bring the rail companies to the table to discuss the problem. We see the province meeting with the federal government, provincial government, regional government, the city, the township, the port authorities and now the rail companies, because we know that this is important to Langley. It's important to our economic growth to expand the port, and we know that we have to solve those problems to move forward.

It's that kind of thinking that has moved us forward as a government and, indeed, has moved us forward as a province in terms of our economic growth. We've looked at where our province was. We've solved the problems, and we're moving forward to solve even more that come to us.

On a closing note, one of the other things that has really intrigued me over the last while is the NDP's fascination with the fact that they've been elected as a strong opposition. I don't question that at all. You know, I think we've returned to what is really a traditional structure in the House, and certainly, the public voted for a strong opposition. But I think it's fair to remind them that, at the end of the day, the people of British Columbia elected a B.C. Liberal government, and there's a reason they did that. They elected a B.C. Liberal government because they wanted to vote for vision and for leadership. They voted to keep our economy going strong, and they voted for a future of opportunity and prosperity for all British Columbians. That's what this September budget update gets us closer to, and that's what this B.C. Liberal government is going to deliver over the next four years.

J. Brar: It's a kind of coincidence that the member who just finished her speech…. We both went into the first election, the by-election, so there are some memories there.

I am proud to rise today once again to respond to the budget presented just last week. But, first of all, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge and many of my friends who came to support me during the last two elections. I came here only 14 years ago as an immigrant and adopted this province as my home. Today I stand here as an elected member of this assembly, and that is an extraordinary example of the Canadian values of tolerance, equality and opportunity. Therefore, I am proud to say that Canada is truly a country of opportunities.

British Columbia is a beautiful province. It is beautiful because we have mountains. It is beautiful because we have oceans. It is beautiful because we have green forests, and it's beautiful because we have clean air. Moreover, this province is beautiful because of its people, who come from almost every part of the globe. It's a true reflection of the global community. They not only participate in our democracy; they make our democracy work. They elect us as MLAs for this House.

In Punjabi we say, Inhi ki kirpaa ke saje hum hain, which means: "I'm here only because of them." So I want to say from the bottom of my heart, Shukriya, Dhanyavaad, Mehrbaani, which means thank you to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge, the friends who came and supported me in both elections and the people who participated in the democracy in Surrey–Panorama Ridge.

Secondly, I want to say thank you to Jenny and Joy, who saved democracy in this House during the last four years, working very hard — and for also being great mentors to me during the first session.

Thirdly, I would not be standing here today without the active support, love and guidance of my wife, who has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement from the very first day of my politics, so I want to say thank you to her today. My love and thanks to my daughter Noor — in English it's known as the divine light — who, although she was too young, understood what was going on in her life when I was going through the two election campaigns. She told stories to her friends and her teachers — "My dad will stop dropping me to school again after he wins the election " — and I won both the elections. Her innocent questions to me during the evenings served as a great source of stress relief, because the campaigns are difficult.

Fourthly, I want to say thank you to my extended family: my brother Jaswant Brar; my sister-in-law Baljit Brar; my two nieces Jaskiran and Jaspaul, who were always with me and strongly supported my candidacy and encouraged me to be a strong voice for Surrey–Panorama Ridge and stand for the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge.

Fifthly, I want to say thanks to my constituency assistants Neera and Murray, who have extraordinary experience and knowledge to serve the people of my riding, and they do the best to serve them in the best possible way. Thank you to them.

Sixthly, my sincere thanks to all the volunteers and all the friends who came and worked on my election campaign.

Last but not least, I want to say thank you to all the members on this side of the House and that side of the House for coming forward to serve the people of British Columbia, and I want to say thank you to their families for offering them for this difficult job. Although I am a new politician, I understand how difficult it could be for you and particularly for your family, so I wanted to say thank you to all of you for this great service you have accepted.

I was elected as the MLA of Surrey–Panorama Ridge on October 28 after the tough-fought by-election, when this member I mentioned was, of course, the candidate on the other side. At that time I made a promise to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge that I will stand for you and speak for you whenever I get the opportunity in Victoria, and that is exactly what I did when I came here. The very first day I started asking questions — the people reminded me at every door, when I was knocking on doors — although it was challenging, because I was only here for the one last session, but I did what I said to people. I did what I promised to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge. I stood up in the House and started asking questions about the Surrey Memorial Hospital, and I asked those questions, one after the other, every day. It continued for almost six days, when a young man died in the Surrey Memorial emergency room.

That was the only time this government started listening to my questions. That was the only time this government started taking some action. First, the CEO of Surrey Memorial Hospital had to go. It didn't solve the problem. Then the government had to intervene and allocate $28 million to the Surrey Memorial Hospital emergency room. That's what I did during the first two weeks for the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge. Before that, we had seven MLAs representing Surrey in this House, and none of them said even a single word about the Surrey Memorial Hospital.

In 2001 this government made a promise to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge and the people of British Columbia: "We will provide the best health care system, when you need it and where you need it." In fact, they did the opposite. The story of Surrey Memorial Hospital will tell you. It is one prime example of that broken promise.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you some facts about Surrey Memorial Hospital. This hospital has the capacity of serving 55,000 people through the ER room in one year, but the actual number of people walking into the ER room is over 72,000. We served, through this hospital, 30 percent more patients than Vancouver General Hospital. This hospital served more heart patients than VGH and Royal Columbian combined. And 300 to 500 patients go back without seeing a doctor in the emergency room because of the wait time. There are a lot of people who never go to Surrey Memorial anymore because they know they have to spend probably the whole night before they can see a doctor. That's the situation.

A number of reports have been done about the situation we have at Surrey Memorial Hospital. The previous government…. Let me go back one step. The last major expansion of Surrey Memorial Hospital took place under the NDP, the previous government. Not only that, the second thing the NDP did, in 2001, was to complete a plan for the expansion of the emergency room, because that was the need in 2001.

Then in 2004 a second report was prepared for the same thing. This government called for a report, a review of the emergency room in 2004, and Mr. Cochrane presented a report which includes improving the services at the ER room.

This budget, the budget presented last week, does not offer even a single dollar to Surrey Memorial Hospital. It does not give any hope to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge — to the people of Surrey. How many more studies does this government need before it can attach some dollars for the construction of either a new hospital or the expansion of the emergency room? How many reports do you need?

What will be the use of that report, which is due next month, if this government decides to just expand the hospital as was recommended in 2001? What will be your answer to the people of Surrey–Panorama Ridge, the people of Surrey — that you're doing the same thing which was recommended in 2001? Is that a positive change? Is that one of the five great goals this government has?

The answer is no. This government failed to take action to address the fast-growing problem at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

Let me tell you a story, Mr. Speaker, about Surrey Memorial Hospital, about a five-year-old child. This child was playing at home with a hardball, and he, by mistake, hit the TV screen. The ball went into the TV screen. The innocent child went in to pull out the ball, and what happened is he tore both sides of his arm. He was taken to Surrey Memorial Hospital. According to his mother, it took five hours before he was able to see the doctor. This budget does not provide any hope to this mother that if something happens to her son or somebody else, they will be seen by a doctor sooner than her son was.

The other promise this government made in 2001 was adding 5,000 new long-term care beds. That is the key factor for the wait time we have at Surrey Memorial Hospital. The promise was made. The actual number of beds was less than 300. The people of Surrey are facing that problem because of the broken promise of this government. Seniors are waiting for the beds. That's the situation we have at the hospital. I have a number of stories I can keep telling you.

Let me move on to the second thing. During the by-election I went out and started knocking on doors in the community. Every second door told me a story about Surrey Memorial Hospital. I came back, and I said: "The number-one issue in this city is Surrey Memorial Hospital." But this government said: "No, the number-one issue is the gateway plan and the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge." They are very serious about doing it very quickly.

I had a number of debates with the member who just finished the speech. But that promise was made. There are a number of components to the gateway plan, and this government understands that very well. Until today, the minister of this government could not tell us, the people of Surrey. They failed to develop a viable business plan about the gateway plan. I haven't seen that plan. I asked that question during the by-election. I asked that question during the last session. I have not seen the business plan until today.

They also failed to question the answer as to how, if they end up having a business plan — which they don't at this point in time — it will fit into the livable regional transportation plan. We don't have those answers.

This government also failed to consult the stakeholders, a lot of people on both sides of the bridge. Nothing has been done about that. There's no environmental study completed until today. But for about the last year this government has been saying: "We are very serious about it." So I don't understand the seriousness of this issue, when the transportation in Surrey is a huge problem.

There is one component of this plan, and that is what we call the south perimeter road, where we agree with the government that we should build it, because that fits very well within the livable regional transportation plan. There is no funding in this budget for that. This budget does not provide any funding for that as well.

We have made it very clear that, as the opposition, we will not just oppose; we will propose. We have proposed to build the south perimeter road. No action has been taken. No funding has been provided in this budget, and the people of Surrey, particularly the average families as well as the truckers, are very anxious to see that this should happen. But nothing happened until today.

I understand the time line; it's almost over. I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

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