Hansard -- Thursday, September 22, 2005 p.m. -- Vol. 1, No. 14 (HTML)

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		269

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		269
	Worker deaths in forest industry
	C. James
	Assisted-living seniors residence in Richmond
	J. Yap
	Haig-Brown Festival in Campbell River
	C. Trevena
	Promotion of literacy in B.C.
	L. Mayencourt
	B.C. Rivers Day
	S. Simpson
	K. Krueger

Oral Questions		271
	Independence of child protection officer
	C. James
	Hon. S. Hagen
	Hon. W. Oppal
	A. Dix
	Attorney General handling of review of death of Sherry Charlie
	A. Dix
	L. Krog
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Independence of child protection officer
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Hon. S. Hagen
	J. Kwan
	Impact of government policies on forest worker safety
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. M. de Jong
	B. Simpson

Budget Debate (continued)		276
	M. Sather

Tabling Documents		280
	B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, annual report, 2004-2005
	British Columbia Ferry Commission, annual report, for year ending March 31, 2005

Budget Debate (continued)		280
	K. Whittred
	D. Chudnovsky
	K. Krueger
	G. Gentner
	V. Roddick

Royal Assent to Bills		295
	Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2005 (Bill 4)
	Supply Act (No. 2), 2005 (Bill 5)

Hon. T. Christensen: It's my pleasure this afternoon to welcome to the House two teachers from the Vernon school district. The Vernon school district for years has been performing very well. I myself am a product of that school district, and I'm pleased that one of my three children has already started school there, with two more to follow. Would the House please join me in welcoming two of the teachers who do great work in that district, Glenda Dolcetti and Dolores Birnie.

S. Hawkins: I'm very pleased to introduce a constituent of mine today, Kevin Layne, who's visiting Victoria. He is also a teacher. He's a grade eight teacher from KLO Middle School in my riding. He's taught for 17 years in Kelowna in school district 23, and I would ask the House to make him feel very welcome.

G. Coons: I'm pleased today to introduce some friends and colleagues of mine from the teaching profession. In the gallery today are Richard Jost, John Turpenning, David Walker and Nancy Arenz. Please join me in making them welcome.

R. Sultan: I would like to introduce to the House a physician, our former family doctor, Dr. Pamela Letts, who has engaged in family practice in both Canada and the United States and who has drawn to my attention the supremely challenging circumstances facing primary care in both of our countries. Would the House please make Dr. Letts welcome.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Today in the House I'd like to welcome two of my constituents and friends from the west side, Helena and Larry Dirkson. Would the House please make them feel very welcome.

Hon. M. Coell: I have two guests in the precinct today: Alan Winter, president, and Bruce Schmidt, corporate secretary, of Genome B.C. Would the House please make them welcome.

D. Chudnovsky: I'd like to introduce to the House two constituents of mine in Vancouver-Kensington — dear friends. Please welcome Manjit Dhamrait and Jaswant Dhamrait. And I'd like to introduce to the House my wife and partner of many years, Ruth Herman.

K. Krueger: I, too, am celebrating a guest in the House today: Mr. Richard Youds from Kamloops. He's an English teacher from South Kamloops senior secondary school, where my children all attended. He taught my daughter. There are few things I love more than my daughter — well, probably none — but teachers are a close second, and my wife is one of them. Would the House please welcome Mr. Richard Youds from Kamloops.

C. James: I rise today to address an issue of critical importance to working families in this province and of critical importance to one of our most valued industries. It's an issue that demands immediate action from this government because it involves the lives of B.C.'s workers.

So far this year, 27 workers have died in B.C.'s forest industry, an appallingly high rate of death and the highest of any industry. The B.C. Forest Safety Council expects this rate to increase. While that prospect is frightening in itself, I want to put this rate in perspective. The number of Canadian peacekeepers who have died on active duty in some of the world's most dangerous conflicts is 107 in the past 50 years. The number of forest workers who have died in B.C. alone in the last ten years: 250. That's an average of 25 workers per year who went to work in B.C.'s forests and who never came home. It's unacceptable, and it's time for government to act.

The Truck Loggers Association has said something drastic needs to be done. The Western Fallers Association, whose members are at the greatest risk of death, has actively called on the government to do something. The United Steelworkers, who represent forest workers across this province, have demanded action. The B.C. Forest Safety Council has said the situation is unacceptable. I join with them today in calling on the government to act, and to act now, to ensure that every worker who sets out for work in the morning to work in our forests arrives home safely.

J. Yap: I rise today to talk about an exciting new development in my riding of Richmond-Steveston. The Austin Harris site on Moncton Street will be developed into 50 new assisted-living units under the Independent Living B.C. program. This assisted-living facility will be built on the site of a school that was closed ten years ago. This facility is a joint project between Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, B.C. Housing and SUCCESS.

No doubt, all members are familiar with the social service agency SUCCESS, which supports new immigrants with settlement, training, counselling, educational and other valuable social services. SUCCESS has also become an operator of assisted-living and long-term care seniors residences under the leadership of their late CEO Lilian To, who regrettably passed away this past July. This is a project that Lilian To initiated

before her passing, and it is fitting that it is progressing in fulfilment of her vision.

Richmond health services, on behalf of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, will place and refer seniors to this residence. My community hopes to break ground on this project next year and move seniors into this residence in early 2007. With two storeys and a building footprint of 55,000 square feet, this facility will be quite impressive. Austin Harris seniors residence will contain a dining room, library, outdoor patio, garden, Internet and multipurpose room. I'm certain these amenities will make the home quite comfortable for the seniors who will live there.

I'm proud of the work that our government is doing for seniors in my riding of Richmond-Steveston and around British Columbia as the government meets its goal of 5,000 new long-term care and assisted-living beds for seniors by 2008. My constituents are very pleased that this facility will be constructed in my riding. It's an example of the progress being made on this commitment as we move forward on our great goal of providing the best system of support for those who need it, in this case seniors.

C. Trevena: I'm very pleased to tell the House about the Haig-Brown Festival, which is happening in Campbell River this weekend. The festival is to honour the life, work and continuing legacy of Roderick Haig-Brown, who was one of B.C.'s first environmentalists. Haig-Brown came to B.C. from Britain. He took a temporary job with a logging company on the Nimpkish River in the early '20s, and that changed his life.

He found the hunting and fishing spectacular, and his love of the wilderness was immense. Haig-Brown settled in Campbell River, and from his study overlooking the bountiful Salmon River, he wrote 27 books and countless articles about the natural world surrounding him. One of his most renowned battles was over plans to build a dam at Buttle Lake in Strathcona Park. It was one of the first conservation campaigns in B.C.

He won a partial victory, with the dam being placed further down on the Upper Campbell, an area already logged. Haig-Brown said of this: "While this is a great loss of that virgin forested lakeshore, we have shown that the public can influence the developers. People will take heart from this and go on and fight against ignorant developments." He continued to fight, trying to protect the Campbell and Fraser rivers, among other battles. Haig-Brown hunted; he fished; he loved the environment. His legacy was the understanding of the need for balancing the economic and environmental values we still seek today.

People will be remembering, this weekend, that that balance between the environment and the economy is not impossible. At Haig-Brown House on the banks of the Campbell River, people will be celebrating one of our city's heroes. There will be fly-fishing competitions, stewardships awards, guided walks and tours. But they will also be looking for the legacy of Haig-Brown for the balance, for we have logging companies working at a huge rate, harvesting timber that loggers thought their grandchildren would want to log.

C. Trevena: We love our wilderness. We hunt. We hike. We fish. We kayak. It's the basis for our economy. We still need to find the balance, the sustainability which Haig-Brown fought for all those years ago.

L. Mayencourt: The ability to read and write is a cornerstone of success in learning and success in life. Our government recognizes the importance of supporting and encouraging literacy, and that's why we've committed to ensuring that British Columbia is the most educated and most literate jurisdiction in North America.

It's not an idle promise. We're taking action and promoting innovative literacy initiatives, funding programs that teach reading and writing to youth and adults, and taking part in great events like Raise-a-Reader Day, which is this Thursday. Last year the province matched over $400,000 in donations, and I'm sure that this year we'll do even better. You only need to look at the numbers to see how serious this government is about literacy — $12 million invested in our public libraries, $10 million for public school textbooks, $1.4 million for adult literacy, $5 million in innovation grants to support unique literacy programs across the province, $5 million in funding for community-based Literacy Now programs and $3 million for, my favourite, the Ready, Set, Learn kindergarten program.

Funding for education has increased every year and is at the highest level it has ever been in British Columbia. This year alone we've committed an additional $150 million in education funding for school districts to put into learning resources like school libraries or buying new textbooks. Per-pupil funding is at the highest it has ever been, at just a little bit over $7,000 for each public school student.

This isn't a goal that any government can reach alone. B.C.'s school districts also recognize the importance of this goal, and every single one of those has shown that they share our vision by making literacy their number-one priority. So don't be surprised if you see your local MLA and other volunteers on the streets hawking newspapers next Thursday. They're just doing their part to help us reach our goal of making B.C. the most literate jurisdiction on the continent by 2010. Remember to make a donation. It all goes to kids, it all goes to literacy programs, and it will help us reach our goals.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased today to have the opportunity to stand in this chamber to speak about B.C. Rivers Day, which is coming up this Sunday, Septem-

ber 25. This is the 26th annual B.C. Rivers Day. We'll be celebrating across the province with over 40,000 participants, individuals and communities expected to come together to embrace the wonder of our river system — through a variety of activities including stream clean-ups, paddle trips, community festivals — as well as creating opportunities to highlight the work of local stream stewardship groups.

Talking about B.C. Rivers Day without thanking its sponsoring organization, the Outdoor Recreation Council, and in particular without acknowledging the founder of Rivers Day, Mark Angelo, would be incomplete. Mr. Angelo's commitment and efforts on behalf of our river system in British Columbia are unmatched. This has been recognized by his receipt of the Order of Canada for his work.

While we are rightly celebrating our rivers, we cannot overlook the serious situation many of them face: toxic spills in the Cheakamus, pollution in the Pitt, and the always-concerning state of the Fraser and the Columbia. Today we also need to speak about the Taku, Nicola, Coldstream, Chilliwack, Vedder, Coquitlam, Okanagan, Kettle and Nechako rivers, all of which are endangered.

We need to do a better job on our rivers. We need to invest the resources to ensure that job is done well. We need the conservation staff to get the job done, the biologists to provide the science, and better support for our communities and local stewardship groups who are critical to ensuring the health of our river system. Only then can we have confidence that we will be able to celebrate an ever-improving situation for our rivers in British Columbia for many years to come on B.C. Rivers Day.

K. Krueger: Wake. Mr. Speaker, that is not a comment on the state of your alertness, but a traditional greeting of the Secwepemc people, many of whom I'm pleased to represent in this House. Today I chose a topic so important that my friend across the way has already done it for me, but it's important enough that we'll do it twice.

The name of my constituency is all about rivers. The city of Kamloops was named by the Secwepemc for the confluence of the North and South Thompson rivers — Tk’emlups in their language. The largest salmon run in the world swims the breadth of the constituency on its way to the spawning beds of the Adams River.

It is the goal of our government to make B.C. the world's leader in sustainable environmental management. Our province will have the best water quality and fisheries management bar none. From the mouth of the Fraser to B.C.'s mountain streams, waterways have shaped our province and its history and will always be vital to our well-being, recreation, tourism, commerce and quality of life.

To honour this, the last Sunday in September has been recognized as B.C. Rivers Day since 1980. Not only does this day serve as a celebration of these natural wonders but also as an opportunity to raise awareness about the threats to our rivers and streams such as rising temperatures, declining fish stocks and the problems caused by pollution.

B.C. Rivers Day has proven to be such an unqualified success that the world has paid attention. September 25, 2005, will mark the first World Rivers Day. Endorsed by two United Nations agencies, World Rivers Day will stress the importance of conserving and improving rivers and their ecosystems on a global level.

Our Premier has long been concerned for the health of B.C.'s rivers. Early in our acquaintance I remember his emphasis on a plan he named the living rivers strategy. The living rivers trust fund, which our government established, is going to see its funding tripled from the $7 million already committed to further improve watershed management and to restore B.C.'s waterways. I encourage all British Columbians to participate and to make this year's B.C. Rivers Day the most successful ever.

Cooksjam. Mr. Speaker, that is how the Secwepemc people sign off in the land where the waters meet.

C. James: The events of the past four days have been shameful and embarrassing for this government. The Premier's most senior ministers responsible for child protection displayed an attitude over the last few days that is contemptuous and cavalier towards their responsibilities. But more importantly, they've underscored how desperately we need a children's commissioner with an independent mandate to help protect the most vulnerable children in society.

I'd like to ask this question of the Premier, but since he's not here I'll ask the question of the Deputy Premier. Will the Deputy Premier immediately establish a children's commissioner with a fully independent mandate?

Hon. S. Hagen: In the year 2001 we commissioned an independent review of the children's commissioner's core functions. That review recommended that external reviews of children's death to learn prevention lessons should rest with the province's chief coroner. The review found that the 500-plus recommendations generated by the Children's Commission were becoming repetitive and lacked relevance by the time they were issued years after the death.

The chief coroner has responsibility for the investigation of deaths in British Columbia. The child and youth officer is appointed the same way the children's commissioner was — by order-in-council for a fixed term. The term is for four years. Ms. Morley was appointed May 1, 2003, so her OIC expires April 30, 2007. The child and youth officer, like the children's commissioner, has a broad mandate to focus on systemic issues. The child and youth officer does not answer to the Attorney General. No one in government vets her reports. The child and youth officer is working to sup-

C. James: I'd like to take a moment just to talk about how we got here and to speak to the minister's comments around the children's commissioner and the independence of that office.

We heard today at five minutes to two that once again, we've seen the mandate expanded for the review. So first we had an investigation into this tragic case, which was ten months overdue and completely inadequate. This was followed by another investigation announced this week, which again was inadequate.

Yesterday we heard the investigation was expanded. Today we have two more investigations in the conduct of this government. At every step it took political pressure on the minister and the government to get any kind of action, and all of it unnecessary if the Premier had just kept his word and if we had an independent children's commissioner. Again to the Deputy Premier, so we don't have to go through this time and time again: will her government reinstate an independent children's commissioner?

Hon. W. Oppal: The children's youth officer is independent. You know, you have to look at what the functions are in order to determine whether or not any particular person is independent. If you look at her functions, she is not a part of any ministry providing services for children. She has a legislated mandate to comment publicly on issues affecting children and youth without interference from any ministry or from Premier or the cabinet. She does not answer to the Attorney General. No one vets her reports. She has the complete authority to subpoena witnesses, to write reports and to do what she wants in order to reach a just decision.

The opposition seems to think that if you report to the Legislature or if you're created by the Legislature, that somehow makes you more independent than if you're appointed by government.

I was appointed to conduct the royal commission on policing in the 1990s by the NDP government. I can tell you that while my report went to the Attorney General, I operated in an independent manner at all times.

C. James: Once again, we've heard today in this House the lack of understanding by the Attorney General around independence and how important the independence issue is to this entire case. I see a lack of respect for this entire case. We've seen demonstrated once again that there's a deep misunderstanding of the responsibility of the Attorney General. The independent officer will not be appointed by government. We see right now the current officer's mandate is determined by the Attorney General. Her mandate is determined by the Attorney General.

Will the Deputy Premier please acknowledge that the conduct of the ministers of her government has undermined public confidence in the entire serving of children at risk in British Columbia?

Hon. W. Oppal: Again, I reiterate that the fact you are appointed by government as opposed to the Legislature is a red herring. You have to look at the substance of what an officer does.

A. Dix: I say, with due respect to the Attorney General's outstanding career and contribution to and aid of this province, that his efforts on this file — his disrespect for its importance that he exhibited outside the House yesterday — are, I think, worthy of an apology.

Justice Gove identified the individual children as a real problem, a problem where children who die under the government's care go unnoticed and uninvestigated. Those were the words of the Premier of British Columbia when he called for an independent children's commissioner in the 1990s. I ask the Attorney General to consider those remarks, to consider all the children other than Sherry Charlie who need the government's protection and today announce his intention to have a real independent children's commissioner for British Columbia.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'll read for you section 3 of the act: "The functions of the child and youth officer are to provide support to children, youth and their families in obtaining relevant services and to provide independent observations and advice to government about the state of services provided or funded by government to children and youth in British Columbia."

Again, I reiterate what I said yesterday. We are examining here the circumstances of a terrible tragedy that took place in our first nations community. It's my duty and my function and my fervent hope that we all set aside our political differences and engage in that activity so that we can prevent similar tragedies from

taking place. Regrettably, the opposition has turned this into a political hunt, and that isn't the function of what we're here for.

A. Dix: Hon. Speaker, the Attorney General has, I think, an important and profound responsibility to speak for all citizens of this province. This issue, the issue of the Sherry Charlie report, has been an important issue before him for months. He didn't bother to read the report. He didn't bother to read the mandate of his child and youth officer. He didn't bother to keep himself up to date when he was deciding, according to his own words, the mandate for a review of the matter.

I think — with great respect to the Attorney General and, as I say, his long and distinguished record of public service — that those actions require, on his part, an apology to the people of British Columbia and, on his part, evidence of an effort that he will try to commit himself to do better in the future.

Hon. W. Oppal: I would invite the hon. member to take part in the review, as he has been invited. It's my hope that he will.

I do have a letter here from Ms. Morley that she released at 12 noon today. In it, she states as follows:

I think that indicates that on this side of the House, we are desirous of finding out exactly what happened so that these tragic events do not repeat themselves.

L. Krog: With the greatest respect, the Attorney General has been undeniably uninformed, out of touch and incompetent around this issue. Yesterday he proved he didn't know the basic facts about the Sherry Charlie case. He didn't know the basic facts about his roles and responsibilities. On Tuesday morning the Attorney General told a radio host he'd read the report. On Wednesday afternoon he told reporters that he had not read the report.

Has the Attorney General finally taken the time to review the full report of the investigation into Sherry Charlie's death, and does he think it's appropriate to launch a review about a matter he knows nothing about?

Hon. W. Oppal: Again, I would invite the opposition to participate fully in this report rather than get politically involved in it. This is a horrible case that took place in our first nations community. Rather than delving into who knows what and what reports were filed, why don't we all get involved in this and solve this in the public interest?

L. Krog: Yesterday the Attorney General accused the opposition of "nitpicking." Instead of coming to terms with how his gross incompetence and contemptuous attitude have shaken the public's faith in his office, he attacked the opposition doing its historical job in this Legislature. Does the Deputy Premier agree that asking these questions and demanding accurate answers is nitpicking?

Hon. W. Oppal: When I suggested that perhaps the hon. member was nitpicking, what I was saying, the gist of what I was saying, was that he was misleading…. His question appeared to be misleading, and that isn't what I was saying in my response earlier. That's all I was saying. I wasn't being contemptuous or disrespectful of the hon. member — a person for whom I have the highest respect, incidentally.

M. Farnworth: The member made some comments a moment ago about the difference in independence and parliament. I'd like to remind the Attorney General that there is a difference — that there are positions that report to parliament, because we need the absolute and undying confidence of every member in this House that they are independent. That's why the Ombudsman, the freedom-of-information commissioner, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner are all independent officers of this House — because the individual or the position, the way the member has described it…. The contract for the current youth officer begins and rests with cabinet, not with this House.

Can the Attorney General tell us why the children's commissioner is not worthy of the same level of confidence as those other independent members of the Legislature?

Hon. W. Oppal: The hon. member may not be aware of the fact that the Ombudsman, in fact, is involved in this. The Ombudsman issued a statement September 22, in which he indicated that he is involved.

I don't want to repeat what I said earlier. The question was the same that's been raised earlier. But I will say again that the fact that you're appointed by gov-

ernment as opposed to being appointed by the Legislature does not take away from one's independence. You have to examine the functions, the roles and the process by which any person operates and issues a report.

M. Farnworth: The difference is simple. In the case of the children's advocate, these matters were automatically sent to them, which brings me to the situation where we are today. If the government was so interested in getting answers, why did it take four days of political pressure and the changing of stories by the government day by day to get the government to finally act?

Hon. S. Hagen: On Tuesday of this week I stood up and read a ministerial statement, which is the first time that the talk of the review came up in this House. It was in my ministerial statement that I advised the House that I had asked the Attorney General if he would direct the child and youth officer to review the three areas as noted in that statement. I further advised the House, through my statement, that the Attorney General had agreed to my request and accepted our recommended questions. The Attorney General prepared and signed his letter to the child and youth officer based on my ministerial statement. He added the paragraph widening the scope of the child and youth officer's role, with which I agree.

J. Kwan: There have been two reviews, an Ombudsman's involvement, the children's officer, the minister, the Attorney General and the coroner's office to get to where we are today. It's been three years since the death of Sherry Charlie. How many people does it take for this government to do the right thing and reinstate the very necessary and important position, which the Premier agreed with when he was in opposition — to have an independent children's commissioner in the province of British Columbia?

Hon. S. Hagen: As the Attorney General read out in the act, it lays out very clearly…. I'll just read it again, plus the gathering evidence section. This is the law in British Columbia.

In section 7 — and this is what makes the opposition's criticisms absolutely wrong:

I can tell the people of British Columbia that this person is independent. We have never vetted anything she's written. We take her advice seriously.

J. Kwan: The minister and the Attorney General can continue to read the act, but it does not change this very fundamental fact. That is that Ms. Morley only has the authority to act if the Attorney General asks her to do so, and her authority to act can only be within the scope of what the government tells her the mandate is. That is the difference around the issue of independence that this government fails to understand, and the Attorney General proved yesterday that he's missed that mark entirely.

The issue around independence is this — and why the importance of an independent children's commissioner is necessary in this province and why, after Judge Gove's report came out and said that this needs to be done…. I believe that was the reason why the Premier, when he was in opposition, agreed with the then government. This government erased…

J. Kwan: …that independent position. Will they finally do the right thing and reinstate that position today, right now?

Hon. S. Hagen: If the member opposite is insinuating or suggesting that the child and youth officer will not bring in a report that is independent and objective, then she should say so.

C. Puchmayr: Today a report was released by the Western Fallers Association on workplace safety in the lumber industry. The government's own Forest Safety Council has tracked 27 deaths and 58 serious injuries so far this year. Every single one of these is preventable. Clearly, something must be done to address workplace safety across the province.

The Liberal government over the last four years has reduced workplace safety inspections by 45 percent. Written orders are down by 49 percent. Employer penalties are down by 36 percent. Can the minister please tell British Columbians how many of these cutbacks have occurred in the forest sector?

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks to the member for raising the report. The numbers are terrible by any measure. In fact, the numbers I have suggest that you can add three to that list of 27. This morning I spoke with the president of the Fallers Association and also spoke with the head of the Forest Safety Council, and we are conven-

ing immediately with all of the stakeholders to settle upon a specific strategy.

Some work has been done; some good work has been done. But as Mike of the Fallers Association said: "There's no silver bullet here." There is a whole series of issues that need to be addressed in a comprehensive and coordinated manner to take care of a situation which, if it existed in any other walk of life, would be attracting howls of outrage and attention.

C. Puchmayr: The Steelworkers recently passed a resolution calling this the industry's dirty little secret. I want to quote the minister from 2003, where he said: "Working together, we will see significant decline in death and injury in the woods." What we have seen is an actual increase in deaths and injuries so far.

My question again to the Labour Minister: what is the government doing now to reduce the number of deaths in the forest sector?

Hon. M. de Jong: Again to the member, I appreciate the reference to the steelworkers union. Again, I have been in contact with Mr. Hunt. I think there was also involvement by Mr. Wong. All of the stakeholders involved in this have got to get together.

Some good work has been done. The Forest Safety Council that was established by the government — by my predecessor, in fact — has done that work, has identified…. But as this report that the member is referring to today and the numbers themselves reveal, we've got a long way to go.

If you look back over the trend — not just five years, not just ten years, but over 20 years — the reference the member makes to the industry's dirty little secret is, I think, a very accurate one. The numbers are deplorable. One death is too many deaths. You look at what has taken place over the last period of time.

We're going to convene that group. I'm going to suggest to them that we set some very specific objectives that we can measure over the course of the next weeks and months, and attack this in detail.

B. Simpson: The Western Fallers Association report that was released today and that the minister is referencing also indicated that forest policy changes and cuts to the Ministry of Forests have created conditions in the workplace that are increasing the hazards for workers.

One of the things that has gone on is a shortening of the permitting cycle. The shorter season puts pressure on the fallers to fall as many trees as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time. According to the association and the report, the push by logging contractors to get the job done quickly compromises safety and is listed as a major cause of accidents.

Will the Minister of Labour include in his review that he is announcing today an analysis of those forest policy changes, with a view to correcting the cuts and the changes in forest policy that are increasing the hazards in the workplace?

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks again to the member for the question. Actually, lest I leave any misimpression, I think the time for review has passed. I think it's time for action. If you look at these numbers and the combination of factors that the report itself identifies…. The member is from a part of the province where increased cuts attributable to the pine beetle infestation are very much a reality. You look at how that is translated into increased danger on the roadways for not just the transportation of wood products, of logs out of the woods, but the number of accidents related to travelling to and from work.

So there's a combination of factors. On the coast there are issues relating to the greater use of helicopter logging — from an environmental perspective, something very much encouraged. On the other hand, the after-effects of that on the ground are making the life of fallers, according to this report, very much more difficult.

There's a whole series of issues that this group, the safety council, are going to have to address. As the president told me this morning, everyone is going to have to roll up their sleeves. Everyone is going to have to, as I think they have, realize…

Hon. M. de Jong: …that it is not about assigning blame to anyone, but that we've got to fix it.

B. Simpson: The minister is correct; it's time for action. The task force recommendations were tabled, and 20 recommendations have not yet been implemented. However, the report tabled today implicates changes in the Ministry of Forests and cuts to the Ministry of Forests in creating increased hazards in the workplace.

Will the minister commit to looking at those cuts and those changes? For example, the report cites debris left by roadbuilders and heavy logging machinery as a major cause of accidents involving fallers. That increased debris is a result of changes to the Forest and Range Practices Act. Changes to workers compensation have also caused fewer inspections and one-day warnings before inspections.

B. Simpson: Will the minister review those changes with a view towards increasing workplace safety?

Hon. M. de Jong: Lest there be any doubt, we've got to examine all of the factors that people in the field are suggesting or contributing through the auspices of this report. If utilization rates in the woods are a factor, and certainly the report suggests that they might be, then we have to be prepared to examine that.

I take great heart in the fact that the stakeholders themselves…. I emphasize to the member — and I think he knows this, in fairness — that the report was funded by the council which the government set up. These numbers, historically, are atrocious. They're not getting any better. Last year, ironically, was the best year out of the last ten. This year is not. I think the commitment from all of the stakeholders and certainly from the government is to roll up our sleeves and get to work and change the trend.

Hon. M. de Jong: Only that it came up during the course of question period. I think all members know that it is deemed unparliamentary in our practices to refer to the presence or the absence of members in the House.

Mr. Speaker: Would members take note of that. It is unparliamentary, and I was going to mention that. Don't mention when people are here or aren't here.

M. Sather: It certainly is with great pleasure that I rise to address this House for the first time. I must add, though, that I also rise with a measure of trepidation, this being my first time. I'm reminded of the words of the venerable member for Nelson-Creston, who advised some of us rookies about this speech. He said: "Enjoy it. This will be the only time in your four years in this House when you will be able to stand up and talk about what you want to talk about for up to half an hour." I will try to keep that advice in mind.

Mr. Speaker, I want to add my congratulations to the many others for your election. I did note your protestations in being brought to the chair the other day. Notwithstanding questions about the landing of cod and so on, I'm sure you will lead this House for us very, very well, and I'm looking forward to the next four years with you in the chair. Thank you very much.

I'd like at this time to thank my predecessor. Ken Stewart was the MLA for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows between 2001 and 2005.

I want to mention just a couple of things about the work that Mr. Stewart did. It's around a couple of issues that I was also involved in, so they are very near and dear to me. One was the conservation of a bog known as Blaney Bog in Maple Ridge. This is a very valuable wetland. Mr. Stewart worked on that as well as on the preservation of the Codd Island wetlands in Pitt Meadows, another very valuable wetland. Both of these areas are now GVRD, Greater Vancouver regional district, parks. Thanks to him for his work there.

I would also like to add thanks regarding my election. I want to thank my campaign manager Diana Williams, who worked long and hard. Diana had not actually worked on a campaign before, so it was a big challenge for her. She came through in spades, so I definitely wanted to thank her as well as the rest of my campaign team.

I want to also thank my wife Annette Lebox for her devotion, I could almost say, to my election. She's a professional writer, and she set aside her career for quite a number of months to assist me with mine. I think that sometimes the spouses of members meet as many challenges, if not more, in the political realm, so I certainly appreciate them.

I also want to thank my two constituency assistants, Carmen Ortega and Donann Kinar, who are back in the constituency office doing a great job. They certainly have made it possible for me to be able to get my feet on the ground a bit in these first two weeks. Also, I want to thank my legislative assistant Brian Kowalski, who is extremely capable and who is helping me here in the Legislature.

We of course, my campaign team and I, were very pleased with the results of the election — in part, I suppose, because it was somewhat historic, I guess I could say. It had been 42 years since a member of the opposition of any stripe had been elected in our constituency. The last time that happened, back in 1963, the successful politician was an obscure politician that some of you may have heard of: Dave Barrett. I don't presume to fill the shoes of Mr. Barrett, but I'm pleased, certainly, to be here.

I now want to say a few words about my communities, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. Maple Ridge was settled by pioneers in the mid-1800s. One of those early pioneers was John Haney. Maple Ridge previously went by the name of Haney, and in town you can still see lots of businesses with the name Haney on them. Older residents still refer to the community as Haney. Maple Ridge was the fifth area to be incorporated in British Columbia, after Victoria, New Westminster, Langley and Chilliwack. We are an old community in that respect.

I wanted to read from the municipality's website with regard to the community of Maple Ridge, and I think it's quite apropos. It says: "From pristine mountains to agricultural plains, from home business to lumber mills, from forested parkland to urban sophistication, Maple Ridge offers a wealth of diversity to all who live or visit here." I think that's absolutely correct.

We certainly do, also, consider ourselves to be sophisticated. I think the member for Peace River North mentioned the other day that Fort St. John now has one Starbucks. I believe we have at least five Starbucks, so we're definitely in the big leagues in terms of urban sophistication, we feel.

Maple Ridge is growing quickly, and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a few minutes. Our current population is around 76,000 people, and 65 percent of the residents of Maple Ridge commute to work every day. I was one of those commuters before taking on this job. Certainly, it is in the interests of those commuters to be able to commute easily to their workplace, and there have been some difficulties with that due to congestion and growth.

I would just want to mention a few of the industries that we have. Our largest manufacturing industry is wood processing. We have Interfor's Hammond mill, which has been a good employer for these many years, I believe. We have the Maple Meadows Business Park. As I understand, it is nearing capacity now and will be probably be even busier when the new bridge that is planned to be built is completed — the Golden Ears Bridge. One of the many companies there is E-One Moli Energy. They're in the battery manufacturing business.

There are also considerable sand and gravel operations in Maple Ridge, and there's a lot of dredging taking place in the Fraser River. Rural farming, nursery and greenhouse operations are quite considerable in our community. As a surprise to a lot of us, we actually have $39 million in farm receipts from Maple Ridge every year, so farming is important to us.

With regard to transportation, the Lougheed Highway is the main corridor through town. We also have the West Coast Express, which does help commuters. It was built in the 1990s. I did mention the Golden Ears Bridge as coming on stream in a few years. That's going to change the nature of our community and commute. It will certainly help people to get to the Surrey area more easily, and there will be some people coming the other way going to the Tri-Cities area. So, Maple Ridge still has that friendly, small-town atmosphere, and that's greatly valued by the residents of Maple Ridge.

A couple of other things I wanted to mention: we have our Maple Ridge fair every August and the jazz and blues festival in August. The fair is usually in July, and the festival in August.

With regard to recreation facilities, we have our Maple Ridge town centre, which is quite new, with the recreation complex, the ACT Theatre — see, we are in the big leagues — and the Greg Moore Youth Centre. Golden Ears Provincial Park, the busiest park in British Columbia, is located in Maple Ridge. We get a lot of visitors coming every day to Golden Ears Park during the summer.

We also have one of the largest horse populations per capita in Canada and in North America. We also have over 100 kilometres of trails in our community, and the Haney Horsemen have been very active in creating those trails. I think particularly of two individuals: Bill Archibald and Sherman Olson.

The member for West Kootenay-Boundary was bragging the other day about sports heroes, so I certainly have to add our considerable contingent of heroes as well. Maple Ridge is the home of Larry Walker, who many of you may know is a very successful professional baseball player originally with the Montreal Expos, later the Colorado Rockies, and last year he was in the World Series with the St. Louis team.

Cam Neely also is from Maple Ridge. Cam was a very, very successful power-forward in the NHL, played with Vancouver and Boston and recently, I believe, has been nominated for the Hall of Fame.

I mentioned the Greg Moore Youth Centre. Greg was a very successful professional car driver on the CART circuit for many years, and we honour his name.

We have a strong network of social service agencies in Maple Ridge, and I'll just mention a few of them. We have the community services, the Family Education and Support Centre, the Asante centre — which is well known for diagnosing fetal alcohol syndrome, and very valuable in that respect — and we also have the Crystal Meth Task Force. Of course, crystal meth has been talked about in the House quite a bit lately and is a very important issue that Mary and Gord Robson have gotten started in our community.

Turning now to Pitt Meadows. Pitt Meadows is a smaller community than Maple Ridge — about 16,000 individuals now — and the official community plan expects only about 20,000 individuals there. Pitt Meadows is at the confluence of the mighty Pitt and Fraser rivers and is, indeed, an exceedingly attractive community. A lot of people have come to live there for the atmosphere of Pitt Meadows.

A large part of north Pitt Meadows is in what is called the Pitt polder. For those of you who may not know, a polder is an area of wetland that has been reclaimed. Not surprisingly, we had Dutch settlers originally who were responsible for that, so a lot of that area is now farmland.

Pitt Lake itself is quite interesting. It's one of only two tidal lakes in the world. It's interesting when you go to Pitt Lake, as you can watch the river going either way. It's quite remarkable. Recreation is big in Pitt Meadows — canoeing, kayaking, birdwatching, hunting. We have, as I mentioned, an extensive dike system in Pitt Meadows, which a lot of recreationists really, really enjoy. People come from all over the lower mainland every weekend to the Pitt polder.

Pitt Meadows is also home to the band office for the Katzie first nation. Their members live on both sides of

the Fraser River, but their office is in Pitt Meadows with Chief Peter James. The Katzie first nation are well-renowned for their community spirit and are working with the community to assist the community and to fulfil their goals. One of the elders, Willie Pierre, devotes a lot of his time to community events, where he will do ceremonies for those events.

I was down to the Katzie reserve this summer. It was an interesting experience. I met with the band council. Sitting around the table, the administrator asked me: "Michael, would you like to learn the owl dance?" I thought: "The owl dance?" I was trying quickly to think of how to respond to this, looking around the room, and nobody was smiling. So I said: "Well, how long would it take to learn it?" She said: "No time at all — about five minutes." Then she started to laugh, and she said: "You took me seriously, didn't you?" I said: "Well, I couldn't afford not to." So it turns out one definitely has to be on their toes with the Katzie first nation folks. They definitely have a great sense of humour. They ended up getting me in the dunk tank for the Katzie days. That was quite an experience in itself.

Transportation in Pitt Meadows is a big issue as well. The Pitt River Bridge is scheduled to be replaced around the same time frame as the Golden Ears Bridge. That was a thoroughly canvassed issue during the campaign, and we're looking forward to that.

Pitt Meadows has the new Meadow Town complex, and we have a Cineplex Odeon. We didn't have a theatre for many, many years, and then we did have the Pitt Meadows theatre for a time. Now we have the big time. We've got the Cineplex Odeon, and we have the Great Canadian Superstore in there and you name it.

Pitt Meadows has got four golf courses, so a lot of people love to come out to Pitt Meadows to go golfing. There's the Pitt Meadows golf club. There's also the Golden Eagle, Swan-e-set and Maple Meadows. So a lot of golf tournaments — some of them quite big ones — are held there.

Pitt Meadows is the sixth-largest agricultural area in the province in terms of economic significance, with a total of $50 million in farm receipts. As you can see, farming is a very significant area.

Ninety-three percent of the land in Pitt Meadows is agricultural. Now, some of the significant agricultural operations in Pitt Meadows include blueberries and cranberries. We have greenhouses, dairy farms and nurseries. Just to finish with my discussion about Pitt Meadows, I'll also mention a very prominent sports hero from Pitt Meadows, and that's Brendan Morrison of the Vancouver Canucks. So we have our share in spades.

I want to talk now a bit about how important my communities of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are in another respect. I've mentioned agriculture several times. Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are on the interface between the burgeoning metropolitan area of the Greater Vancouver regional district and the rural and semi-rural regions of the Fraser Valley. This has certainly led to a lot of discussion in our communities and particularly in Maple Ridge recently. It's been an issue with the official community plan discussions that are going on there at this time.

People come to Maple Ridge. They will say over and over that one of the big reasons they come is because they really enjoy the rural atmosphere of Maple Ridge. Surveys have been done that show that 85 percent of people feel that way and support retention of the rural atmosphere and the environment in Maple Ridge. However, there are a lot of pressures to develop, and by develop I'm referring here specifically to housing development. It's an issue that is playing itself out, I know, in many communities and certainly in North America. It has tremendous significance about what our world will actually look like as we try to address this issue.

Now, in Maple Ridge this past year we have had an unprecedented number of applications to the Agricultural Land Commission to remove land from the agricultural land reserve. Those submissions, most of them, have unfortunately been sent forward without any recommendation by council as to what should happen with them. We certainly have some concern as one of the previous applications was for the historic Jackson farm. Although council recommended against its removal from the agricultural land reserve, it was, in fact, removed.

I and many people in my community believe that it's not a coincidence that these applications are coming forward at this time when we have a Liberal government that many people feel is sympathetic to development. We are concerned about the commitment of this government to retaining our agricultural land reserve. I know that the minister has made statements about the ALR. But although land may have been added and has been added to the agricultural land reserve, it isn't in the lower mainland, and we're losing land.

There was another big application you may have heard about that proceeded not long ago in the area of Abbotsford. There's a great deal of concern about that. It's an issue that requires, I think, a lot of thought and honesty on both sides. I mean, certainly there are benefits of development, and those need to be acknowledged. It does provide homes for people, and it does provide jobs. If you look at the indicators of economic activity, either here or elsewhere, you will see that housing starts are usually high on the list. But unfortunately, it seems that although we are quite adept at counting the benefits of development, we're not so good at counting the costs.

I referred earlier to livability and the rural atmosphere of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. I wonder whether those are taken fully into account and valued. It seems like sometimes we hear phrases like: you can't stop progress. But we must, I think, look more care-

If we lose the livability of our community, we certainly have lost a lot. I have seen a number of strong community activists from my community move to other communities because they felt that Maple Ridge, in fact, was losing its rural character. So, unfortunately, they have left. But I'm a stubborn type of person, and I'm certainly not going to leave. I'm going to stay there and work towards maintaining our livability

I think, also, that we have to look at the reality of what we're doing in terms of our agricultural land, certainly in my community. We have to be, as I said, honest about it in our discussions. If we are honest about it, the reality is that we are filling the Fraser Valley with houses. If we continue in the way we are, there will be one megacity from Vancouver to Hope. There's no doubt about that. We have to be real, because that's what's happening. No one in positions of power wants to say that, but that's the reality.

On the other hand, however, those of us that want to protect livability need to face the reality, too, that the population is ever growing. What will we do with all those people? Now, fortunately, the Greater Vancouver regional district has come up with the Livable Region Strategic Plan. Without that strategy, I don't think there would be much hope for agricultural lands in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.

There are varying degrees of commitment to that strategy. I think that it's under pressure. Certainly the green zone, which is an integral part of the Liberal region strategy, is under pressure in my community. People have spoken out against their inability to remove land from the green zone, which really amounts to, in most cases, removing land from the agricultural land reserve. So that's a big issue.

I just want to say, though, also, on the other side of the issue — and this is sort of the thing about which we dare not speak in many respects — is population growth. If the population of our country, of this world continues to expand inexorably, I think the chances of us having a livable planet are much reduced. Certainly for non-human species, it's a death knell already. The burgeoning human population is simply overcoming many other species.

In Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows we have a small remnant population of the greater sandhill crane, and this is one of the most magnificent birds on this planet. A group of people and myself census this population every spring. We have about 12 left. If we are to lose that bird…. If you look back in early ethnographical notes and in the Katzie oral history, that valley was full of thousands of sandhill cranes at one time. If we lose that species, I believe we lose a great important part of who we are. People feel that way about salmon as well. I know it's very close to people's hearts.

Madam Speaker, I want to move on now and shift gears a little bit and talk about the five great goals that the government is talking about, repeatedly — the five great goals for a golden decade. One of those is to make B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent. I know the government is fond of talking about literacy, but I have to wonder, with these appellations, if they weren't focusing more on hyperbole than literacy.

Nonetheless, having said that, let's look at what actually has been happening. I know the members opposite are not fond of us looking back; they want to look forward. But if you want to know where someone is going, it's instructive to look at where they've been. This government has been very, very hard on education.

Members opposite like to say that there haven't been cuts, but if you talk to the people in the system, clearly, there have. So call them what you will; there definitely have been cuts. Teacher-librarians, special education teachers, counsellors, school supplies — you name it. There's been, unfortunately, an unending attack by this government on teachers, and it's been focused a lot on the B.C. Teachers Federation. But that is the voice of teachers in British Columbia, despite what this government would like to think and to say.

It seems that the model of education that this government is promoting and proposing is the Fraser Institute model of education, which I don't believe is about true accountability and creating the very creative kind of students that we need in the new economy in the new world.

The second great goal I wanted to comment on is to build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk and seniors. Well, there's a lot to be talked about there, and I don't have, I think, all that much time left, but I do want to talk about seniors, and seniors have been talked about a lot.

I had a broad range of people who supported me and are responsible for me being here — people that had never voted NDP before, had never had an NDP sign on their lawn before. But there is one group beyond all others that's responsible for me being here today, and that's the seniors of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. They understood and they understand very clearly the axe that has been taken to their services and the disrespect that has been shown to them over the past four years.

I just wanted to mention a discussion I had with one senior in a seniors facility. I walked up to the door and started talking to this gentleman. He told me, to my astonishment, that his oxygen was no longer being funded. I said: "Well, how do you manage?" He said something to me that has stuck with me for the whole of the campaign. He's a tough pioneer. He said: "It's not too bad if I don't walk."

In wrapping up, I have a lot of things I could talk about — the great goals — but I will say this. The government has said that they're going to, as I understand it, do things better this mandate than they did last time. I hope so, although it might not be necessarily good politically for us if they do. The people of British Columbia need them to do better, and I certainly hope

Hon. W. Oppal: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the following reports: the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal annual report for 2004-2005 and the British Columbia Ferry Commission annual report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.

K. Whittred: Like many of the House before me, I want to congratulate you on your selection, your appointment as Deputy Speaker, and of course, I want to congratulate the member for Penticton–Okanagan Valley on his appointment as Speaker. I wish both of you well in those roles, and I know that the House is going to be cooperative and not cause you any angst over the next several years.

I'd also like to congratulate all the members of the House on their re-election, particularly all the new members. To all of the new members, I would like to just tell you a little story about when I first came here in 1996. Shortly thereafter I think someone walked into my office with what appeared to be a cartload of budget books and binders and documents. Then somebody said: "You know, these are to get ready for estimates." Well, I have to confess to you, I didn't have the foggiest idea what estimates were, nor did I have the foggiest idea how to navigate those enormous documents. However, I do assure all the new members here that you will learn that, and you will also learn how to parse legislation, which is perhaps an even more tedious task.

Now, of course, most of all I want to thank the people of North Vancouver–Lonsdale. I want to tell you a little bit about my riding. I think I've got the best riding in the province. I think everyone in the House has said this. My riding I often refer to as the window of the province because from my front window of North Vancouver–Lonsdale I can look out, and I can watch the ships in the harbour. I can see the products from the world coming in, and I can see the bounty of B.C. going to other parts of the world — going to other parts of Canada, going to Asia-Pacific and all the places we trade with.

Members of the House may not know this, but in my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale we have, in fact, a third of the port of Vancouver. We all know right now how important that gateway to Asia-Pacific is for the economy of the province, which is growing at leaps and bounds.

I want to share with the House a little bit about being elected in 1996 and what it felt like at that time. This was a time when things were not going very well during that first term. We were frequently faced with stories about mines closing and forestry not doing well, and we would go from first to last. Eventually, we came out with the knowledge that B.C. had gone from a have province to a have-not province, and I have to confess to you, Madam Speaker, that that was a huge blow to my ego. Like many of you in this House, I am a westerner. My grandparents were pioneers. My parents were westerners, and I always felt that we as westerners enjoyed a kind of a privileged place, and certainly we weren't going to fall into that hole of being considered a have-not province. Well, we did, and that had to be a low point in my life as a parliamentarian.

I'm happy to say that things have turned around, and I also acknowledge that this was not always easy. We had to make some very tough choices. But now we lead Canada in job creation. We have the lowest rate of unemployment. We have the lowest income tax for lower- and middle-income people. We now have our house in order — our fiscal house is in order — and we now have choices about what we can do with our future.

We now have the opportunity to have a vision. We can have a vision into the future. We can talk about big ideas, and we can talk about lofty goals. This is what we've done. We have defined five lofty goals. Sometimes members opposite and others like to make fun of these. I am proud of them. I am proud of the fact that we have an economy that allows us to have the choice of making some lofty goals and working toward those goals. I am pleased that we now have the opportunity to have a vision beyond sort of the week or the month, just kind of struggling through to make it to the next month end. I'm glad we have the opportunity to actually do some long-range planning.

For the bulk of my time today I would like to take just a couple of those lofty goals and link those goals to my community. The first one I'm going to link is seniors, because that is an area where I have worked a great deal over the past years as critic and as minister of state and simply as an interested member of the House.

I am absolutely delighted that we are now in the position to have the choice to put money into services for seniors. My riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale has a great many seniors, as many, many areas do today. The Lonsdale corridor, you'll know, for those of us that are familiar with the geography of the North Shore, is a corridor of apartments. Many of those apartments are occupied by seniors. There is a real hub of senior activity around that Lonsdale corridor and emerging in the lower Lonsdale area.

Many of these seniors are very active. That's one thing about the seniors in North Van. They are active. You have to be fleet of foot, Madam Speaker, to keep ahead of many of them. We have very active seniors organizations. I'm going to tell you a little bit about one of them in a moment. The Lionsview seniors housing

I think I would like to break my remarks about seniors into two categories: one around housing and the other around, perhaps, health care concerns.

The housing. I've already indicated to you that there is this large population of seniors. The increase in the SAFER grant is going to make a very big change, I think, in the ability of some of the low-income seniors in my area to make ends meet.

One of the challenges in North Vancouver is that we do have very high property values. Therefore, it is often difficult for people on lower incomes to find adequate housing. The old rate for SAFER, which hadn't been changed in over a decade, has now been increased so that the threshold is raised. It will in fact allow some more people in my community to access SAFER and, therefore, benefit from that particular part of the safety net.

I'm also working with various groups to try to find ways to deliver more housing to seniors. This has been identified by many groups as probably the main concern. I had a forum last year where I invited a whole range of seniors to come for an afternoon, and we talked about issues. Out of that came the information I was looking for, really, that would inform me about what we had to do. One of those was housing.

I have been working very closely with organizations like the Kiwanis, and I'm happy to say that there are now ongoing negotiations for two different projects, both of them in that central Lonsdale core, which will enable seniors to live close to services and to live in housing that is safe, that is adapted to their needs, where they are close to the grocery store and the banks and those various sorts of things. Those are all services they identify as being important.

I'm also pleased to note that there is targeted housing that has been made available. One is a project on Queens Road in North Vancouver. This is going to be a campus-of-care model, where we will see the whole spectrum of seniors housing. There will be supported housing from the end of the spectrum, where only small supports are needed, and it will go right through to assisted living, where there will be a much larger degree of service available. That is scheduled to be available, I think, probably early next year. So I'm really looking forward to that.

I'm happy to say that we also had the opening of a seniors assisted-living facility called Cedarview Lodge, and I was able to officiate at that not too long ago. The people that were there just raved about it. I was invited into a lady's apartment to have tea — a lady named Winnifred. Winnifred invited me in, we had tea, and she had a lovely little apartment. She had, of course, all the medical services she needed. She had her independence. She could entertain her family. She could have her grandchildren. She wasn't locked in. She could go outside and have a walk, and she had the added advantage of having a wonderful mountain view. She couldn't have been happier, and the other residents in that particular complex were equally as pleased.

There have been a number of myths that have been circulated, I think, around seniors care in recent months. I'm going to try to give one or two examples, because I would like to try to put these myths to rest. One of them emerged recently around Evergreen House. Evergreen House in my community is a long-term care facility. It is, in fact, a complex care facility. It is a facility for the most serious of people who need long-term care.

The accusation was made that there were empty beds, closed beds. You know, I went to the health authority, and I said: "Have you closed any beds there?" No, they hadn't closed any beds. What it was, was simply the fact that the previous government had actually brought in a policy to have two-bed wards. We have continued that policy. We have been trying to renovate our facilities to bring them into the 21st century, to make them suitable for how people want to live in the year 2005. People no longer want to live in four-bed or eight-bed wards. So this was a case, if anyone had really bothered to ask the actual facts of the matter, where there had been no bed closures. There had simply been an adjustment of the beds in the wards so that there were no longer any eight-bed wards. That is exactly, of course, what we have all been working for.

I have a friend who recently had a stroke. This is very sad, and of course, it's very sad for the family. But I want to say that the good part of this is that this friend of mine was able to get into long-term care almost immediately. Now, there has been criticism from some quarters that changes were made that have impacted the rate at which people can access care. The fact is that people who need care the most get it almost immediately. I am very proud of the fact that access to long-term care for people who have strokes or other very serious illnesses is almost down to zero. There is almost no waiting period. For that, I am very thankful.

Over the last few weeks and months I've had some personal experience with the health care system, because a member of my family has been ill. I have had experience with several facilities. I've had experience with the cancer clinic, I've had experience with Vancouver General Hospital, and I've had experience with Lions Gate Hospital. I point out to the House that these are just my experiences.

I know that other people have different experiences, but my experience is that I have had nothing but absolutely top-notch, professional help from everybody in the system. I have found the facilities to be clean. I have not noted any abundance of any kind of dirt. I have noticed the odd piece of tissue or something on the floor — certainly nothing that could be construed as any kind of mess.

I have noticed courteous staff in all levels of the hospital, whether it be nurses, doctors, administrators, clerks or cleaning staff. I have noticed nothing but the highest level of professional activity and care. I commend the people on that, and I certainly congratulate everybody in the system.

I do have another friend, however, who has been needing a hip replacement, and she has been waiting for some time. So I also acknowledge that there are challenges in the system. I am pleased to say that in the most recent budget update, $20 million over three years has been added to access hip and knee replacements and to perhaps observe that the biggest challenges today in the health system are around procedures which are relatively new and procedures, particularly in this case, like my friend's, who is quite elderly.

You know, 20 years ago, we didn't even do that procedure, and we particularly didn't do that procedure on very elderly people. Now, I'm very pleased that we do it today. It makes people's lives much more comfortable, and I am grateful to the minister that this is noted and that we are working to make sure that hip and knee replacements are attended to more readily, without such a long wait.

I'll now turn my remarks to another one of our great goals, and that is around education. Last spring, I think it was, I had the opportunity to go to one of my elementary schools where they were having the Ready, Set, Learn program. One of the great goals is to have the most literate society. We all know that all the research tells us that we have to have children that are ready for school, and that the learning activities that they have in early childhood set the pace for the rest of their lives.

It was very interesting for me, Madam Speaker, because as you know, I was a secondary teacher. I taught the big kids, so it's always quite a treat for me to go for the really little guys. I was really interested. That night the children came in. The teachers were thoroughly professional, and I really want to give them every bit of credit. They came out in the evening, which shows the kind of dedicated people that we have in teaching. They came out in the evening to give of their time, to consult with parents and to test the kids. That is but one example of how we are readying our children.

At Westview school, also, they are in the midst of what I would call a flagship project in what the North Vancouver district is calling Early Learning Foundations. This is a project where they have partnered with the municipalities and with various non-profits to integrate child care services and early learning services. This is one of the great goals of our government: to find a way that we are going to streamline those early childhood experiences with early learning experiences and somehow bring them together in a package that works for everybody.

I'm really pleased to say that my community of North Vancouver is, I think, way ahead in this particular area, because they seem to be doing it already. North Vancouver is also very well known for its reading 44 program. This is another example of teachers doing an absolutely outstanding job.

The reading 44 program is a program that is used not only in North Van but is also used across the province and in fact across Canada. It is recognized very broadly, and it is a program that is developed completely by North Vancouver teachers.

At a little bit other level, the post-secondary level, Cap College, I'm happy to say, was designated as a centre of excellence for tourism. It is now a leader of all the various post-secondary institutions in the province and is helping to design policy and frame areas that we should pursue in tourism throughout British Columbia. Cap College has also been very innovative around film programs, and the film industry is one which is very, very important to North Vancouver.

There's one other program in North Van which is really outstanding and which shows its dedication to several of our great goals, and that is the Outdoor School. This year my grandson went to Outdoor School for the first time. He went to the big house. The big house, of course, is a program, as the name suggests. It's a Salish big house. It combines cultural activities with learning about the environment, conservation and learning how to survive in the wilderness. Of course, he came home, and he just thought he had had the most wonderful time.

The North Vancouver Outdoor School is an institution. My own son, my grandson's father, went to Outdoor School — of course, many years ago — at the same age. Then in high school he went again, when he was a counsellor. Those are the sorts of activities that my grandson is looking forward to now. I can never speak about education in North Van without pointing out the various attributes of Outdoor School.

There is one other great goal that we have, and that is around building the best system of support for people in need. There's just one area that I want to link to my community here, and that is around Sage House. Sage is a transition house in North Vancouver for women who have been victims of violence. Recently they have been putting ads in the paper. These ads have been in the paper basically saying: "You know, we're open for business. We're here to serve you. If you are a victim of violence, please call us. We're here to meet your needs."

The reason they have had to do that is because there was so much adverse publicity that the government had cut programs to women's transition houses. I point out that we did not cut programs to women's transition houses. In fact, we increased funding to women's transition houses by $37 million. I am very disappointed that people in the community have used this service as a political tool to frighten people into thinking that this service is no longer available.

In conclusion, I want to say that I am extremely proud to be a member of this government, and I'm proud to be able to look at what a strong economy can accomplish. I'm really proud that we have the lowest income tax rate for lower-income and middle-income people. I am really proud that we have a higher threshold for Pharmacare than ever before. I am really proud that the SAFER threshold has been increased, which means that thousands more people are going to be eligible to access a SAFER grant.

We have eliminated — eliminated — MSP premiums for 290,000 low-income seniors. We have reduced prescription costs for 280,000 other low-income seniors. Do you know that 82 percent of all registered users of Pharmacare pay less than they did before we made the changes or pay nothing at all?

Finally, we have added over $3 billion to the health care budget, and we keep hearing about cuts. I was a history teacher. I'm sort of reminded of Churchill's speech: some chicken, some neck. Some cut. You know, $3.1 billion in addition is not a cut. That is a lot of money.

Most of all, I think I am proudest that we have now taken our rightful place in Canada and in Confederation. I mentioned earlier how I really, really felt very taken aback when we became a have-not province, and I'm pleased that we are now resuming our rightful place in Canada.

We have taken the leadership on many, many issues. We are taking the leadership on a national Pharmacare program. We took the leadership — I just met with a group this morning — in terms of developing the SARS protocol. That is a wonderful little achievement. It's not a little achievement; it's a huge achievement for B.C. scientists. We are taking the lead in literacy. We are taking the lead in planning for seniors. It's no secret that we are a changing demographic, and yet nothing was done in previous years. We are planning for it. I am very proud that we are taking the lead in opening the door to the Asia-Pacific gateway. That, of course, is something that affects my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale.

Finally, I want to invite all of you to North Vancouver, and I want you to come and visit our Burrard Pier. We have the most wonderful development at the foot of Lonsdale at the site that used to be the old Burrard shipbuilders. It has been developed, and there is a pier that goes out into Burrard Inlet, that goes out further than any other place on the water. It doesn't matter where you come from in the province, I can guarantee you that when you walk to the end of that pier, you're going to be really impressed. You have a whole different feeling about where you are when you stand on the end of that pier. So I invite all of you to come and have a look.

D. Chudnovsky: Hon. Speaker, I want to congratulate you on your election. I look forward to working together with you and all of the members on both sides of this House over the next four years.

Let me begin by expressing my thanks to the people of Vancouver-Kensington who have done me the great honour and given me the great privilege of representing them in this House. I also want to acknowledge, remember and celebrate that our community of Vancouver-Kensington is on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people.

I'd like to speak for a moment about the former MLA for our constituency, Mr. Patrick Wong. Mr. Wong contributed four years of service to our community and to our province, and I know that the residents of Vancouver-Kensington would want me to express their sincere thanks and appreciation for those years of service. I want to pay tribute, as well, to the other candidates who put themselves forward in the May election and particularly to a fine young man, Cody Matheson, who was the candidate for the Green Party in that election. I think if we'd had another couple of months in the campaign, we'd have convinced him to join the NDP.

I want to speak for a minute about the wonderful constituency of Vancouver-Kensington, where Ruth and I have lived for 27 years, where we raised our children Anna Chudnovsky and Benjamin Chudnovsky, and where we have built our lives.

Vancouver-Kensington is one of the most diverse communities anywhere. We in Kensington are Canadian-born, we are immigrants, and we are first nations. We speak English, Cantonese, Punjabi, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Hindi, Korean, Spanish, French, Arabic, Hebrew and many, many more languages.

Our families, too, are diverse. Many in Vancouver-Kensington live together with a mom and a dad and their kids. Lots of our neighbours live in extended families with grannies and grandpas and uncles and aunts and kids under one roof. There are blended families and single-parent families and people who live on their own, and there are same-sex couples and same-sex parents living with their children. We celebrate every one of those families, and we're thankful to each of them for choosing Vancouver-Kensington.

Last spring I had a chance to meet thousands of my neighbours in Vancouver-Kensington. I knocked at their doors, and they were kind enough to answer and to speak with me, and I learned a lot from them. They told me about their hopes and fears, their dreams and their passions for themselves, for their families, for our community and for our province.

Lots of my constituents expressed their concerns and anxiety regarding their own parents. How could they take care of an aging mother or father in dignity and make sure the care that was necessary and to which that senior was entitled was available? Some of their parents required minimal help in their homes — assistance that had been cut by this government. Some needed more comprehensive assisted-living services, and some required long-term care.

It's no surprise that many of the people I met in our neighbourhood were angry that the Premier's promise of 5,000 additional long-term care beds had been broken. Our seniors, the people who built our families and our province, deserve choices. Assisted living is one choice appropriate for some of them, but long-term care is the necessary level of support which many thousands of others need. One level of care does not replace the other.

There was nothing about long-term care in the throne speech or the budget. But my constituents sent me here, in part, to do something about long-term care. I won't forget their instructions.

To a great extent, the election campaign was about the issue of health care. My constituents told me about

their experience with deteriorating cleanliness and food services in our hospitals. They told me about overcrowded emergency rooms and ever-longer waiting lists for surgeries.

A woman told me about her husband who went into the hospital this year for a lung transplant. When he was allowed to sit up after the operation and put some weight on his feet for the first time, his wife was horrified that she had to wipe the dirt off his feet before he could get back into bed. That's the level of cleanliness in B.C.'s privatized, contracted-out hospital rooms after four years of Liberal government.

There was nothing in the throne speech or the budget about beginning to rebuild our public health care system, but my constituents sent me here, in part, to do something about safeguarding and strengthening our public health care system. They understand that health care can be about equity and democracy, or it can be about privatization and two levels of care — one for the rich and one for the rest of us. The instructions of my constituents on this issue were clear, and I won't forget those instructions.

Many of the residents of Vancouver-Kensington are health care workers. They're especially angry with the contempt shown to them by this government, and they told me about that anger in no uncertain terms during the election campaign. As a result of Bill 29 thousands of health care workers were thrown out of their jobs, and tens of thousands more had their salaries cut by 15 percent with the stroke of a B.C. Liberal pen — this from a government which had solemnly promised that public sector contracts would not be torn up.

These are real people we're talking about, and one of them is visiting us today in the gallery. I introduced Jaswant Damrit a little earlier, but I want to tell you a little bit more about her. Like many other immigrant women, Jaswant found work in the health care system. She was a housekeeper at Burnaby Hospital for 25 years and was a member of the Hospital Employees Union.

After 25 years, on February 7, 2004, as a result of Bill 29 — as a result of a choice made by this government — she was thrown out of work. Throughout most of those 25 years Jaswant Damrit was the sole breadwinner for her family. Now that she's lost her job, she and her husband are without an income. The decisions of this government have disrupted her work life and had a devastating impact on her family life.

Now, there are some who would say: "Don't worry about it; she's only a cleaner. After all, she's a woman, and an immigrant woman at that." But Jaswant Damrit and her workmates — the cleaners, the cafeteria workers, the LPNs, the plumbers and electricians, the laundry workers and the rest — were and are partners in delivering quality health care in this province. They do the fundamental tasks that allow our hospitals and other health facilities to function. Without them — their commitment, their energy and their loyalty — our system suffers, and when that happens, we all suffer.

There was nothing in the throne speech or the budget for Jaswant Damrit or her thousands of colleagues. Part of the reason the people of Vancouver-Kensington sent me here was to do something about that situation, and I can assure you, Madam Speaker, I won't forget their instructions.

Last April and May, as I visited with and spoke to and learned from the people of Vancouver-Kensington, I also heard a lot about their concern for and commitment to our public schools. Parents are justifiably anxious about the conditions of learning experienced by their children. They believe in public schools. They value the broad range of experiences to which their children are exposed in our public schools. They know that individual attention to the learning needs of individual students is one important key to success. They also know that as a result of this government's choices, those opportunities for learning and for growth have been undermined.

In 2001 there wasn't a kindergarten student in British Columbia who was in a class of more than 20 students — not one. That's something in which we can all take pride. Parents and students, teachers and school trustees, politicians and bureaucrats: all of us can and should be proud of what we achieved for our kids. Do you know how that happened — how we in British Columbia managed to make sure that every kindergarten student in our province was in a class with 20 or fewer students? We did it through collective bargaining.

In 2002 no child in B.C. in grades one to three had more than 22 students in their class. That was achieved through collective bargaining. Guarantees of counsellors, teacher-librarians, ESL teachers and learning assistance teachers, and guarantees of service for students with special needs: all were as a result of collective bargaining. All of these were achievements for our province, for all of us. They were investments in our future.

In 2002 this government introduced Bill 28, and we need to be clear about the implications of that law. Bill 28 means that today it is illegal in British Columbia for teachers and their employers to sign a collective agreement to improve the learning conditions of children in this province. Who better than teachers and school trustees to work together to find ways to improve learning for our children?

This government has decided to create confrontation rather than to choose collaboration. The results of that law and the cuts to funding — which were choices made by the government — are that more than a hundred schools have been closed, class sizes have increased across the province, specialist teachers have been cut, school libraries have been shut down and services for students with special needs have been reduced.

The people of Vancouver-Kensington support their children. They support their schools, they support their teachers, and they support public education. But there was absolutely nothing in the throne speech or the budget about improving learning conditions or opportunities for our children. The people of Vancouver-Kensington have sent me here, in part, to advocate on behalf of our public schools, and I won't forget their instructions.

Over the last four years this government has treated health care workers, nurses, teachers, education support workers and government workers of all kinds as if they were the enemy. The people of Vancouver-Kensington know and understand that our public servants are not our enemies. They are our neighbours, and they deserve our respect and support for the important and difficult work they do for all of us.

My constituents are very concerned about the environment. They worry about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. They worry that their children and our children and grandchildren won't have clean air to breathe or clean water to drink. That's why, time after time during the election campaign, they called my attention to this issue. People in Vancouver-Kensington are upset with this Liberal government, which — just like George Bush and his government — has not endorsed the Kyoto protocol on climate change and has refused to develop and implement a Kyoto plan.

If you ask them, Madam Speaker, the government will say that we're going to have a made-in-B.C. strategy for greenhouse gas emissions. It's important to unpack that little bit of doublespeak and figure out what a made-in-B.C. strategy means in English. What it means is lower standards and a longer period for implementation. That's what the constituents of Vancouver-Kensington are worried about. The Kyoto protocol was already a compromise, and the B.C. Liberals aren't even prepared to endorse that compromise. My instructions are clear on that issue as well, and I won't be forgetting those instructions.

My constituents are looking for leadership that moves us to alternate sources of energy, to increased use of public transit, to a reduced dependence on fossil fuels. They're looking for 21st-century thinking and 21st-century solutions to the real challenges facing our environment.

Each year on September 22 — today — International Car-Free Day is celebrated by over 100 million people and about 1,500 cities around the world. Car-Free Day is a vital tool in the larger day-to-day, year-to-year process of reducing car dependence in cities. It's a time for celebration, for reflection on the year that has passed and planning for the year ahead. It helps us to change the way we think about transportation. I want to congratulate all of those across B.C. who are participating in Car-Free Day today.

The people of Vancouver-Kensington are among those who built this province. Their hard work and dedication created the institutions, the enterprises and the assets which have made this province the envy of the world. This government seems intent on selling off at bargain-basement prices the British Columbia that our parents and my constituents built. They've engaged in a program of privatization and contracting-out which is both breathtaking and dangerous, and they've broken their word in doing so. No one will forget the solemn promises that B.C. Rail would never be privatized.

The people of Vancouver-Kensington understand that privatization is an attack on democracy itself. They do not want vital public policy decisions about our province made around a boardroom table in Cleveland or Brussels. They understand that accountability and transparency can only be achieved when the people of our province have the option of replacing the faces around that boardroom table. The only way for that to happen is the democratic process.

However unhappy we may be about a particular government — and I know a little bit about being unhappy with a particular government; I'm a Surrey teacher…. However unhappy or frustrated we get, we know that the next election is coming. That's democracy. The people of Vancouver-Kensington stand for democracy and against privatization. Their instructions are clear, and I won't be forgetting them.

I've spoken about a number of things that weren't in the budget, but there is one thing that was in the budget that I do need to speak about, and that's a corporate tax cut amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. A number of my colleagues have already pointed out that even the business community wasn't expecting this massive giveaway from this government.

I want to focus on two other points. First, this is the second time in four years that this government has, as its first order of business, announced a huge tax cut for corporations that they didn't talk about in running for election. In 2001 they ran on a tax cut for ordinary British Columbians and then introduced a cut that went overwhelmingly to wealthy British Columbians and to corporations. This time they didn't even bother to mention a tax cut at all during the election campaign, and then the minister announced her half-billion-dollar giveaway.

That brings me to my second point. The government would have us believe that when they provide services for British Columbians and pay for those services, that's spending. But when they reduce taxes to the wealthiest British Columbians and to corporations, that's somehow not spending. What the Minister of Finance announced last week was a gift, and she's using the taxes paid by the people of British Columbia to purchase that gift. It's spending. She's spending our money. Everyone agrees that government is about making choices, and this government chose last week to spend almost half a billion dollars of British Columbians' money on a tax break for corporations rather than on the services that the people of British Columbia need and deserve.

We on this side of the House offer a different vision, different priorities and an alternate set of values. We believe in building communities, supporting families, respecting working people. We believe in dialogue and discussion and negotiation. We believe that everyone should be invited to the table and that everyone's voice should be heard. We're committed to making decisions based on the social and the economic and the environmental impact of those decisions. It is these values that will guide our work in this House.

There has been much talk about a new tone in this Legislature. I want to add my voice and my commitment to those on both sides of the House who have called for such a change. The people of Vancouver-Kensington have been clear with me on this issue as well. They want us to do the people's business in a respectful and mature and serious way. They want us to focus on issues, not individuals. They want us to avoid personal attacks. They believe that we can disagree without being disagreeable. They're right. We can do all of that.

My constituents elected me for a reason. They expect me to advocate for their priorities energetically and passionately. They expect that I will bring to this House the values and principles I articulated when I asked for their endorsation in the election and when they chose me to represent them, and that's what I will do to the best of my ability.

Let me conclude by expressing my thanks to a number of people who have helped me come to this important new challenge in my life. I want to thank those who were involved in my election campaign, especially Linda Shuto, Dave Aegis, Jim Edmondson and Emily Watkins. I want to thank my colleagues in the British Columbia Teachers Federation, who have always supported me and whose commitment to the children of this province is an inspiration. I'd like to mention two extraordinary young women: Zoey Millaird and Kate Vanier-Maas, my constituency assistants. I thank also my legislative assistant Christine Hunt.

I want to pay tribute to my parents, who taught me everything I ever needed to know about politics and social justice. My children Ben Chudnovsky and Anna Chudnovsky are the light of my life, and I treasure their friendship and their advice. Finally, I must thank Ruth Herman, my best friend, my partner and the best political organizer in the known universe, without whom nothing is possible.

K. Krueger: Like many others, let me commence my remarks by congratulating you and our other Deputy Speaker and our Speaker on your appointments. It looks good on you. It's good to have you in the chair, and we're pleased with the innovations in this House.

I want to welcome the new members and the returning members to this place, which is not nearly so partisan as is commonly believed. Members have very different views of issues and, indeed, of the world, but there is a lot of affection between people here and caring for one another's circumstances.

It was particularly good to see Ed Conroy here on budget day. The member for West Kootenay–Boundary is very closely related to Ed. I and others spent a lot of time in prayer for Ed in the latter '90s as he awaited a liver transplant. Many tears of gratitude were shed when he was able to tell the story of how his young son had gone into a bicycle shop to preview the cycle he was saving for. He'd come running out yelling: "It's here. It's here." His father wondered why he was so excited, when he'd known the bicycle was there to be seen. But he was talking about the new liver, which had arrived in an air ambulance. His mother, our new member for West Kootenay–Boundary, hadn't known how to reach Ed, but she knew they'd be stopping at the bike shop somewhere along the way. The message was waiting — an urgent message — and Ed got his new liver. We're all very thankful. It's so good to see him here.

I'm a pretty partisan guy by reputation and in truth. It's because I believe that our approaches are right and good and in the best interests of my constituents and all British Columbians. I have a habit of saying so and also for stating my mind internally if I think we're heading in a wrong direction. Both habits cause me some grief. But I am pleased with our government — very pleased, on the whole — and who could not be pleased with its results?

Actually, we've been hearing from some members opposite for the past couple of weeks who aren't pleased. Their comments are often revealing. I do believe that most people elected as MLAs enter this beautiful chamber fully intending to do the very best they can for the people who sent them. Their intentions are good, yet often their actions betray those intentions.

We lived through a decade of that in the 1990s. I know that members opposite get tired of hearing about it, but that's the way it was. I was cutting my teeth in this place at that time. I was appalled at what the NDP did to British Columbia and to the well-being of families and individuals who love this province and call it home. Because I am so convinced of the destructiveness of NDP views and practices and I've seen it so plainly, as have millions of British Columbians, I'm repeatedly startled by how much I instinctively like so many people who espouse those views and who long to return to those practices.

My wife and I went to Long Beach at spring break to have a weekend's R and R and to prepare for the trials and tribulations of the coming election. The very first morning, who do we bump into, walking along the beach just like us, but the Leader of the Opposition and her husband, enjoying things just like we enjoy. We had a nice chat, and I thought how I like her and always have. I used to listen to her when she was a leader with the School Trustees Association, and I've always respected many of her views. We want the same things, but we have very different views on how to deliver those things for British Columbians.

This is my tenth year of representing the wonderful people of Kamloops–North Thompson. I've seen a lot of things and suffered many indignities, often by my own hand, like most elected people who dare to tread these halls. Well, maybe more than some of the other elected people.

I'm very intrigued by everybody's expressed intent to behave differently around here — the new détente. We'll see about that. I have a little grandson, who is 15 months old now, who spent the first two months of his life in Children's Hospital having major heart surgery. His name is Noah, and he's one of the great loves of my

life. I'm profoundly grateful to God, the B.C. medical system and the taxpayers of British Columbia who fund it, for his life. He is turning out to be a very earnest little guy. He's happy, but he's earnest. He loves everybody he meets, especially nurses — well, especially young women, having been surrounded by nurses for so much of his early life.

Although we live in God's country, where it is warm and wonderful for much of the year, as the season has come on and his nursery is cooler, his mom — my daughter Keturah — decided recently he should wear sleepers at night. He clearly didn't remember having worn sleepers in the past and was very puzzled by what was on his feet. He crouched down in the sleepers and stared at his feet — which, of course, were sheathed in the sewed-in manner of sleepers. He kept pointing back and forth between them with his brow furrowed. He kept looking up at his mom, and he'd say: "Shoes?" No, no. And he'd shake his little head: "Socks?" No, and again, no. He plainly wanted a word for what these things were on his feet, but nobody could come up with one at the time.

That's how I feel about the new détente. Peace? No, no. War? No, no. At least I don't want to be the one to start it. But if the guy from Cowichan-Ladysmith keeps on the way he started and if war breaks out, he'd better keep his head up along the boards. Actions speak louder than words, as we all know. The bottom line as of September 22, 2005, as I see it, is that we've heard a lot from the NDP about a new style of getting things done in B.C. politics, but so far it's not looking much different — not much change in evidence.

The Leader of the Opposition frequently expresses her intent to hold the government to account. So she should, and so should every member of the opposition. But the people of British Columbia will hold this opposition to account also. Why are they here? What are their goals? I've been dismayed to hear the members deride our government and our Premier and us as government MLAs for the great goals that we have set for the golden decade, and to hear various NDP members repeatedly express their goal — which, they say, is to be re-elected in four years.

Surely the British Columbians who sent them here expect greater goals than that. That was the overarching and obvious goal of the NDP in the '90s. We all know where they took B.C. during that sad decade. It was a golden decade for every place else in North America — every place except British Columbia, specifically because of the same NDP philosophies we're hearing today from across the floor: class warfare; the attitude that business is bad, that profits are evil, that the notional rich should be taxed. Who are the rich? Try to pin an NDP member down on that. It's like trying to pin Jell-O to the wall.

I had a heavy-duty mechanic from Weyerhaeuser call me during the election campaign and say that he would like to know what the B.C. Liberals had ever done for him and his family. I said: "Well, for starters, you're paying the lowest income tax in Canada up to the first $85,000 of your income." He said: "That doesn't help me." I said: "Why not?" He said: "Because I make $100,000." His understanding of tax law wasn't that good, but by the end of a very long conversation, I think he might have voted for me. He should have. But he certainly didn't understand initially, because he had been indoctrinated with those points of view.

Yes, this opposition should feel assured that they also will be held to account. The NDP had better have higher goals than the re-election of their members opposite. How are they going to pursue those goals? The public is watching. Will it be honesty, productivity, constructive behaviour, fairness? The NDP election campaign was none of those things. They and their allies endlessly threw out the false mantra of cuts to health care, cuts to education. I'm appalled to hear members still saying it in the House, when the truth is exactly the opposite. Billions of dollars have been added to social programs, because we can afford it — because we have a B.C. Liberal government.

When we received the reins of government from the NDP, the province was going into the hole — $3.8 billion a year. We made that illegal. We not only eliminated those deficits, but we have added that amount, $3.8 billion per year, in health care funding. Every year from now on and more, we'll be spending $3.8 billion or more on health care than the NDP ever did.

We have given autonomy to school boards and health authorities, as we said that we would. They've adjusted to realities in different ways. One of the members that I have been particularly impressed with opposite thus far is the new member for Columbia River–Revelstoke. It bugs me that he is in the chair, because Wendy McMahon is a great and beloved friend of mine. But there he is, and I like him. Again, you find yourself liking the people regardless of what they stand for.

I listened to him make his response to…. I believe it was the throne speech; it could have been the budget. He talked about things that happened in the constituency — things that Wendy McMahon knew would cost her electorally, like closing the Kimberley Hospital. But folks, it comes down to reality. You cannot afford to have two hospitals fully equipped and with full medical staff 20 minutes apart from one another when you don't have the population to support it.

There was a day when the federal government was able to fund pretty much everything provinces spent on health care and education with 50 cents on the dollar. During those days, NDP governments in Saskatchewan seemed to build a hospital just about everywhere there was a grain elevator. Along came reality, and many of those hospitals were closed, because there just aren't enough doctors, and there never will be, to staff them all up. There just isn't enough money available from the taxpayers, and there never will be, to fund all of those institutions.

Those are the tough realities, and I'm sure nobody thinks that Wendy McMahon felt very good at all about the Kimberley Hospital closing or some of the other things the member mentioned. He mentioned the

closure of an elementary school at Wasa. We had an elementary school closed at Little Fort. I never had one person from Little Fort say to me that that wasn't fair.

People are very practical. They understand that if a school population has shrunk to where you have such a small number of children in the school, plainly you are misspending the money. It's not even good for the kids, because they benefit by having more children around them. Sometimes you have to close schools. Sometimes you have to change benefit plans from being universal to being applicable, as far as government paying for those benefits, to those who truly need them. Sometimes that's the way it is.

If members opposite ever get to be government members again, which I sincerely hope never happens unless they cross the floor, then they're going to find out that there are a lot of tough realities, which their colleagues in the '90s wrestled with but didn't wrestle nearly hard enough.

The NDP tactic during the campaign, Madam Speaker, as you know, was to frighten seniors and anyone else they could into believing that British Columbians needed protection and that the NDP would somehow provide that notional protection. They are still using that tactic today. The NDP Health critic called up the media in Kamloops and made allegations about a reduction in eye surgery, referring to a specific specialist. He said, and I heard it, that people need to be frightened. What a thing to say. People don't need to be frightened. They live in the best province of the best country of the world, and it's leading Canada once again. Why would you ever want to frighten people? If it's for your personal gain, it's utterly shameful, and it shouldn't happen.

The NDP has been frightening people, and they conducted an election campaign that was frightening for many people. My colleague Patrick Wong, a wonderful guy, phoned me when it seemed like my whole constituency was burning down in the year 2003 — terrible, catastrophic, destructive wildfires — and he said: "We're going to help. The Chinese community wants to get a truckload of clothing and food." I said: "Patrick, we've got more truckloads than we know what to do with." He said: "Well, what do they need, then?" I said, "I know they'll need money," and he went out, raised $300,000 for the North Thompson Relief Association and handed it over, no strings attached. Two busloads of Chinese British Columbians came up to Barriere to meet the people who had been burnt out and to hand over that size of a cheque.

During the election campaign Patrick Wong was spat on in lineups in all-candidates forums. His signs were burned. He was harassed and intimidated, and that is no way for anybody to behave in a democracy. I know that B.C. Liberal supporters weren't doing that. Our people weren't doing that. They wouldn't, and I trust they never will. How does that behaviour square with expressions of concern for human rights?

Patty Sahota, another of our defeated members, grew up in Merritt, B.C. — an Indo-Canadian, a wonderful person. I remember her so clearly, standing over there and making her maiden speech in the House after the first throne speech. Know what she said? She said that her mother was so proud, she could hardly contain it, and she said to Patty: "What a wonderful place we live in, where a girl like you, growing up in a family of immigrants, is elected to sit in that Legislature. What a wonderful place we've come to live." Well, Patty Sahota was rebuked by the member for Yale-Lillooet for, in his words, "having failed to represent their race as an MLA." What an awful statement. We don't think like that in British Columbia. We don't like it when people talk like that, but that's what was said. He wouldn't apologize until the Leader of the Opposition, to her credit, made him.

We had a lot of wonderful members who weren't re-elected and wanted to be. I'm not levelling personal accusations against the members who defeated them, but the misinformation was at a global level for four years, fuelled largely by the money and power of union bosses. I think of people like Bill Belsey, Rod Visser, Wendy McMahon, Mike Hunter and others, and they're going to be very tough boots for you folks to fill. I hope you fill them well, because your constituents will be counting on it, and they'll hold you to account.

Bill Belsey represented the city of Prince Rupert, which was economically just a wreck when the NDP were done with it after the sad decade of the '90s. Bill brought proposal after proposal to our caucus, to our cabinet, to our Premier, and it's an organization that listens. As a result, Prince Rupert has a new cruise ship facility and a cruise ship industry. Prince Rupert has a new container port on the way. Prince Rupert has a new college building. Prince Rupert is thriving. I can't for the life of me see how anybody could perform better than Bill Belsey, but I look forward to seeing the new member do his best, and I believe he will. He's another guy I'm impressed with so far.

Those kinds of behaviours, those kinds of things I talked about that happened to Patty Sahota and to Patrick Wong and to many of us through the campaign — that's just not the way anybody should behave if they want to win anything honourably.

The Leader of the Opposition continually says that the people of B.C. sent this government a message, and she's right. They sent the NDP a message too. The message to the NDP is: "You didn't win the election." You are opposition, and you're a darn big opposition — a lot bigger than we wanted or ever expected, frankly. You're expected to do your job in the best interests of your constituents. I know that you know that, but with some of the things I've already heard people saying over there, I don't think they've internalized that. Some have; some obviously haven't.

The people of British Columbia also sent this government a message, and that message is: "Carry on. You have a fresh mandate. We understand clearly where you're going. Carry on." That's what we're doing. But we're listening to them and to you, members opposite, if the opposition is going to present its views, its convictions and its desires in credible ways.

I've been assigned by the Premier the responsibility of chairing what we call the Government Caucus Committee for Natural Resources and the Economy. It is ten ministries of government that pertain to those subjects. We have wide-ranging powers as a committee. We'll be reviewing policy changes that those ministries want. We'll be reviewing their suggested changes to their ongoing service plans, which, as you probably all know, roll ahead three years. We'll be reviewing their budgets. We'll be particularly concerned about any issues that might fall between ministerial boundaries and therefore not receive the kind of attention we'd like to see them receive.

We fully intend to deliver on all five great goals of the golden decade that we're into, and they are great goals. I don't think anyone who examined them objectively could say otherwise or would want to sneer at them the way I've heard some people sneering in the last two weeks.

We could use your help, and as Chair of that committee I would welcome input from members opposite if it's genuine input — if you actually have something that you think is a good idea and would like to contribute to the process — because we're missing some very fine people that used to sit on the benches with us. I miss them dearly. I was a government caucus Whip for four years. I knew them all very well. I knew the struggles they went through, the sacrifices they made in their families, the health difficulties they had.

I felt very, very close to them, and I was angry on election night — not that they lost, but because of the reasons that some of them lost, the ordeals that they had been put through and the misinformation that the people of British Columbia were fed for those four years that we struggled to bring British Columbia out of the hole that it was in when we inherited power.

Those people, my colleagues who were defeated, helped us achieve success for British Columbia, and the NDP members occupying the seats that used to be theirs will be held to account. In this place nothing is a game. Everything matters. You even have to be very careful when you mean to be funny because it's so easy to offend or to be deemed to have offended.

The NDP have a track record. North America had a golden decade. We weren't part of it. Who was in charge? We all know who was in charge. We went from the best-performing economy in Canada to the worst-performing. We had a tremendous exodus of our population. The most valuable commodity we exported in the sad decade of the '90s was our young people. They moved away. It was very hard to get them back. They put down roots and started families and businesses elsewhere.

I tell you, folks, the people who suffer the most when a government is irresponsible fiscally, when a government runs up debt, when a government more than doubles the debt of the jurisdiction the way the NDP did in the '90s are seniors. Government doesn't have money to do the things government would like to do for the seniors or for anybody else. We have had to make some really tough decisions. I've been surprised at the graciousness of the seniors who I represent. Many of them say: "It was great while it lasted, but we know government cannot afford to pay these benefits to people who are relatively wealthy."

They make no bones about the fact. They worked hard. They have saved hard. I believe that 70 percent of the savings of Canadians is under the control of people aged 65 and older. I think that's the right statistic. It's something like that. Those people say, "We know you can't afford it," and they don't hold it against us at all, but we constantly hear this harping, this allegation that the B.C. Liberals have been hard on seniors.

Every change we've made, we've bent over backwards to make sure that we protect the truly vulnerable people in British Columbia. The member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale, who spoke not long before me, rhymed off a number of those statistics: 290,000 seniors who no longer have to pay Medical Services Plan premiums as a result of our changes — 290,000 more than before; 280,000 more who pay lesser MSP premiums than they did.

No senior or anybody else in British Columbia earning less than $16,000 per year pays any provincial income taxes at all. I'm so pleased about that. You heard today that the Finance and Government Services Committee will be out touring the province gathering input for the coming budget. We do that every year. That's another of our innovations. Government has to do that in British Columbia by law.

The government really listens. I was speaking with our present Finance Minister earlier today, and she was commenting on how surprised she actually was that one of the reports of the committee last year said that the public very clearly wants us to attack that debt we've been left with.

Folks, it's ruinous to be left with a debt like that. There were 125 years of B.C. governments accumulating a level of debt. The NDP more than doubled that amount in ten sorry years in office. They left us paying interest on that to the tune of almost $3 billion per year — the third-largest expenditure of government. Health care. Education. Interest. Carrying charges.

Wouldn't we love to spend that $2.9 billion a year on seniors, students, the vulnerable, the poor and meeting our five great goals, which surely all of you would like to see British Columbia meet as well. But we got stuck in quite a hole — all British Columbians did — and we're making our way out.

The NDP leader says, when we talk about the NDP record: "Yeah, those guys were bad, but I want you to see us as something new." But beside her on her right sits a gentleman who I, again, really like — a good guy. The NDP used to refer to him as the Janitor because they said he was always cleaning up the messes that other people made in the '90s, and he did. He's one of those very credible guys — like the Minister of Forests, for example — in our government. He always seems to be able to take a really tough issue and crunch all the variables together and come up with a solution that

just plain makes sense, like having the professionals at B.C. Lottery Corp. administer gaming in British Columbia instead of politicians dabbling in it — like many other solutions he has come up with to major problems that affect British Columbia.

That member — who, I remind you, the NDP themselves nicknamed the Janitor — spent a lot of his time cleaning up the messes that other NDP cabinet ministers made. The present Leader of the Opposition just doesn't want to talk about that record. We've been hard at work cleaning up the mess that the NDP left behind, and what do they have to say for our efforts? "Not fast enough." That is shouted at us day after day after day.

The NDP's leader daily rebukes us for not, in her view, moving fast enough. "Where are the 5,000 beds?" she shrills, and she alleges there's a broken promise. Folks, we committed that we were going to build 5,000 beds by the year 2006. We ain't there yet. It's 2005. How can you accuse us of breaking a promise when we aren't even at the date?

Now, we're an open and accountable and honest government. The Auditor General, who was appointed during the NDP years, has said very clearly — he's no proxy of ours; he is an independent Auditor General — that we set the example for Canada in how to have open and honest accounting of your books.

We are open. We told the public when we realized we weren't going to meet that goal by that deadline. It doesn't mean we aren't going to meet it. We are going to meet it. We've built or rebuilt 4,200 beds already. We've got another 2,700 under construction. We are working like Trojans to get to the goal. We didn't realize…. We never wanted to have to say this, but we flat didn't realize how bad the mess was that we were inheriting.

Again, my colleague from North Vancouver–Lonsdale spoke a little bit earlier about what we inherited. We thought we had seniors facilities with a certain number of beds in them. Well, they had beds, but they were like little dingy, crummy hospitals — eight people, four people, six people in what was called a ward. It was really just a big hospital room.

People don't want to live like that anymore, and we don't want them to have to live like that. They deserve dignity in their golden years, their senior years. They deserve that whole range of options of seniors facilities — not to get warehoused in some dingy room where they can't even get into the bathroom in their wheelchairs. They deserve better. So we had to spend a lot of our money, in the beds that we built, making those people's conditions and positions much more satisfactory — something that British Columbians don't need to be ashamed of.

Now, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that our goal was set for 2006 and that we've built all those beds and that we had to extend our deadline. It's quite embarrassing. We wish we didn't.

I had a woman in my constituency say to me: "When you see her again, I want you to tell the Leader of the Opposition that when she utters a bald-faced exaggeration or misrepresentation, it doesn't help if she does it with a smile on her face and a fetching little querulous tone at the end of what she says." It doesn't help. It's not right if you falsely accuse someone of having broken a promise that they didn't make. Everybody knows what our promise was.

K. Krueger: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In this budget we add $150 million more to what's going to be spent to try and catch up on our obligations to British Columbia's seniors for housing. The NDP leader was in Kamloops recently and was asked: "How many beds did you build?" She said she didn't know. The answer, the truth, is zero. In ten years in office in the entire Thompson health region the NDP did not build one new seniors care bed — not one.

They knew that we have an aging population. We all saw the crunch that was coming, but they didn't do it. It is as foolish for the NDP to make the kind of accusations that are made about us as for the captain of the Exxon Valdez to have rushed about rebuking the cleanup crews.

The fact is we have implemented a raft of positive changes, and we have made the changes, Madam Speaker, that led to you having that seat in this House and others. The Leader of the Opposition said: "We've been asking for that for a long time." Well, the NDP had ten years to do those things and anything else that they thought was important. In fact, Dave Zirnhelt, a cabinet minister of the day, said famously: "Government can do anything it wants." The poor guy has been wearing that ever since. He's another really good guy. That was the attitude. He just had the misfortune of expressing it so bluntly — something that's happened to me from time to time.

The NDP, folks, did double our debt. They had 400,000 people on welfare at one time. They believed in taxing people to the hilt, trying to find the notional rich and tax the life out of them. What did they do? They drove investors out of the province. That's how we lost employment, and that's how we lost our young people. That's how we came to understand that NDP times are hard times. Life's a whole lot better. We're in the new era now. There is hope, prosperity and opportunity for all. A rising tide lifts all boats, and people are much better off.

The member for Yale-Lillooet mentioned the other day that there were 300 people that collected…

K. Krueger: The fact is that there are 9,000 net new jobs in Kamloops since we became government. We're doing well. We'd like your help. We hope you are sin-

cere about the new détente, the new change in how we get things done in British Columbia. There are only 79 of us. Let's do it together.

G. Gentner: To start off, I cannot think of anyone who fills that chair with as much grace, intelligence and dignity as the member for Surrey–Green Timbers.

I am privileged to be here today to represent the constituents of Delta North. I must confess the Electoral Boundaries Commission was a little dyslexic, because people in my constituency refer to it by its historical designation: North Delta, not Delta North. I begin by giving my constituents a hearty thank you. I will respectfully serve and will do my best to meet the expectations and, above all, stand here and present to this House my community's concerns.

I congratulate you, Madam Speaker, but before continuing with further platitudes, I must set the record straight. My name is pronounced Guy “Jentner,” not “Gentner,” or Ginter like a brewery entrepreneur. It's not Ginter.

G. Gentner: Madam Speaker, my name is not Ben Ginter. It is as in "gentleman" or as in "Gentner parity," the propriety of which has been long overdue in the House.

I congratulate all members elected and acknowledge all those individuals who put their name forward during the last election and members of our society who get involved in the electoral process. I believe that we should be concerned regarding the diminishing voting return numbers election to election. When you compare the percentage of eligible voters who voted six elections ago, clearly, we see a huge reduction of voter participation. For example, in 1983, 70 percent voted, whereas in 2005 it has been reduced to a paltry 57 percent.

I believe, my friends, we have a democratic crisis in this province. As a writer, Grant Singleton once wrote: "The apathy of the free man is much worse than the docility of the born slave." Bloody wars have been waged for the abolition of slavery and totalitarianism. My grandfather was gassed during the First World War, and my father enlisted in the Second.

We cannot take democracy for granted. Whatever voting formula we employ — whether first past the post, STV, or second House, representative municipalities, communities, first nations — it will not mean a hill of beans if we as representatives cannot find a better method of participatory democracy that all citizens feel they're part of.

I bring this to the attention of this House because it is the quandary, I believe, of the modern western democracy. No matter how much money political parties spend on elections, the fact remains that over 40 percent of our citizens are turned off by our system and feel as though it is closed.

Madam Speaker, I recognize my predecessor, Mr. Reni Masi, whose polite and pleasant demeanour was a Reni trademark in North Delta. I met Reni for the first time in 1996, when he was gearing up for the provincial election. Reni, of course, taught my sister at Queen Elizabeth high school. Mr. Masi became principal and went on to become president of the Surrey Administrators Association. Mr. Masi should be rightfully remembered in this House for his spadework for the B.C. Liberal Party during the 1980s, a time when it was recognized as a third party and when, perhaps, most of the members across were not even members of that political party at that time.

I know this because of an incident where I was rudely thrown out of a Social Credit convention for heckling the Premier of the day, and I saw many of the members opposite at that convention hall. I digress.

In short, Mr. Masi was a B.C. Liberal Party pioneer, and by the early 1990s Mr. Masi became president of the B.C. Liberals. I respect…. I'm sure the House will bid tribute to Mr. Reni Masi, not only for his service to his constituents of Delta North but for his contributions to the political history of British Columbia.

I also want to take the opportunity to recognize a friend who has assisted me in this malady of provincial politics, Mr. Norm Lortie, an MLA for Delta North from 1991 to 1996. I would be remiss if I did not thank my campaign manager Mr. Bob Turner; constituency president Mr. Ernie Fulton; and so many volunteers — too many to list here today — for their hard work and support; and of course, my local constituency association, which put the community first.

I am a New Democrat. I remember running through these corridors as a child with the children of then member for South Vancouver Mr. Norm Levi after he had won a by-election. I later joined the party in 1973, after seeing the progressive work the Barrett government was accomplishing, especially in regards to that of the agricultural land reserve.

I'm indebted to our leader, the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill; 33 New Democrats were elected on May 17, in part as a response to the extremist doctrine as seen across this floor but mainly because of her leadership. When times were seemingly dark, it was our leader rising to the challenge, giving people hope and building a new partnership that continues to grow today — a partnership that in four short years will be sitting on that side of the House.

Above all, I want to thank my best friend and partner, my wife Shirley, for her enduring support during two decades of shared community activity and the sacrifices she has made for public life. I must express gratitude to all families attached to members in this House, for they are the heroes, the sentinels of personal support and of the reality that truly matters. There's also, my family, who has stood by me: my father, Cliff Gentner, who after losing his wife Verna, my mother, raised his children — Brent, Shelly and myself — when we were still in formative young years. Hardship, though, can meld a family and make it stronger. My father, too, is a hero. Through years of my mother's

illnesses, he had to hold three jobs in order to pay for the medical and pharmaceutical bills.

We are a family that understands the necessity of a health care system that is universal, accessible and comprehensive. We will fight to the end to never return to those sinister, Dickensian-like days of the past. I would also like to thank my new mother Doreen Gentner. Thank you for being a significant person that kept the family together and brought three new sisters Leona, Alanis and Karen to our family. Families are the mainstay of societies, something I suppose Finance Ministry pencil-pushers don't really understand.

When a human life is at stake because of a postponed medical procedure, the anguish and hardship of family and friends cannot be fully measured. Because if it was, corporate tax cuts would never have occurred in this budget before fixing a travesty that is systematically bringing ruin to our provincial health care system. Families built this province, families matter on this side of the House, and families will not allow the deterioration and privatization of our universal rights.

Upon being elected in 2001, the Liberal government began its slicing and paring of our public health care structure. Through its ideological resolve to find the bottom line, the government began a program of regionalizing hospitals, as though hospital services could be conducted like mergers from a corporate boardroom.

In Delta, Liberal dogma got in the way of facts. You see, Madam Speaker, Delta Hospital, with the help of the community, kept the hospital in the black. It never had a deficit, and it delivered good acute care emergency services to over 100,000 people. The Liberals went ahead with this program to downsize, resulting in limited ER capability and a new classification known as "sub–acute care beds." Consequently, doctors resigned, nurses moved on, and triage totally collapsed.

The municipality, at this time, was at its wit's end and received an overwhelming mandate in the 2002 referendum where residents agreed to pay an additional $800,000 to keep the hospital at pre-Liberal levels. But the Liberal government rejected Delta's offer. After an attempted closure, we now have an extended emergency wing being built, fully funded by the community. However, the provincial government continues to remain mute on the provision of assistance for its operations, and there's nothing in this budget to indicate if it will remain a sub–acute care facility. It is crucial that it be restored to pre-Liberal levels.

In my North Delta community the Delta Hospital catchment area overlaps the Surrey Memorial catchment area. As service levels began to decline at Surrey, North Delta adopted the hospital in Ladner as theirs. But now the horror stories grow at Delta Hospital as patients are turned away. Delta Hospital is a necessary component of regional triage and once proudly served as that little-hospital-that-could — a hospital that worked in concert with triage and overflow for Richmond, Peace Arch and Surrey.

How serious is the health care crisis? It is one of negligence if not total abandonment by this government. The tragedy will continue to unfold. The allergic bee-stung patient who was transferred from Delta Hospital because of a lack of space had to move twice again throughout the system — caught in this government's revolving door for patients — only to be returned back to Delta Hospital where, unfortunately, she died. Of course, the kicker was the bill the family later received for the ambulatory transfers to each hospital.

The incidents are voluminous and the suffering indescribable, but the Liberal incompetent heath care system has downloaded provincial responsibilities on my local government. For example, emergency response times have been hampered by insufficient hospital staffing levels, where paramedics are delayed at hospitals attending patients because emergency nursing staff is detained and are maxed, attending an overburdened hospital without freed-up beds.

Ambulatory paramedics cannot get back on the road and do what they do best, and that is to save lives. For many ambulatory workers time is spent transferring patients in the hunt for hospitals. This downtime places greater stress on municipal pocketbooks for the release of municipal firefighters, who are now becoming first-time responders.

When it comes down to health care in North Delta, people are tired of being caught as the meat in the sandwich. We in North Delta would be willing to adopt Surrey Memorial Hospital, but the recent snub…. That's what this budget is. It's a slight to all residents south of the Fraser relative to a broken promise of providing a $78 million upgrade to Surrey Memorial Hospital.

Education in North Delta, too, is in peril. Schools are in disrepair, and school yards are threatened with sale, rezoning and housing development. You want to see the Liberal knife at work? Then come and visit North Delta.

Our schools. In two short years between 2002 and 2004 Delta witnessed a reduction of 38 full-time teachers. The school board has now been placed into a political quagmire. To save money, does it reconfigure curriculum and sell property, or does it borrow more money? In North Delta long-term growth projections for the next 12 to 15 years clearly show a considerable increase in student numbers, but with a funding formula based on per-capita student numbers today, maintaining for tomorrow could very well mean deteriorating schools, more single-wide trailers in parking lots with no playing areas.

In our community Liberal school maintenance is known as ghettoization. I am unabashedly an environmentalist, and I will speak up for the species that cannot vote, habitat that needs protection and our stewardship in order to survive. British Columbia has had a very rich, diverse natural heritage, and contrary to what may have been said in this House, the likes of

Mike Harcourt, Moe Sihota, John Cashore and many others come to mind as leaders that nurtured a significant course for sustainability and a legacy of preservation of our natural stock.

As a former researcher and vice-president of the Burns Bog Conservation Society, I'd like to express my gratitude to the volunteers — individuals coming together — who proved that once again, people can make a difference. With all due respect to all members of this House, Canadian history will bear out that most Prime Ministers and perhaps even most Premiers are best forgotten, while community advocates are best remembered.

I remember the kitchen debate in 1987 regarding the need to save Burns Bog, then considered a wasteland, a repository for garbage that today still houses the largest garbage dump west of Toronto. But an idea was launched, and hats off to all those who stand up. These are the leaders, and as Elizabeth Kenny once wrote: "It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." Of course, this is something the government back bench knows all too well.

I'm proud to have been part of that movement and was relentless. I am equally proud to have been part of a municipal council that led the way by dropping $6 million on the table before any other level of government. The result was an amazing partnership among four levels of government that assembled land as a public conservation area.

This marvel of nature, this domed bog — a carbon sink scrubbing the atmosphere, releasing oxygen, with its diversity on its periphery and its rare, unique but fragile ecosystem in the centre — is not saved yet. In typical tradition the management of Burns Bog, internationally acclaimed by both province and nation, has been downloaded to local government. It is the GVRD saddled with the responsibility of conservation management, and it is the municipality of Delta encumbered with the costs of maintaining the water regime.

Hydrology remains a liability to Delta, and this is of great concern to my community. The installation of weirs and mechanisms of water containment have been deemed the responsibility of the corporation of Delta. The water regime in Burns Bog is poorly understood. Maintaining proper water levels — we've seen it recently with the fire — during dry seasons is a challenge when surrounding farmers are dependent on high water levels in the growing seasons. At other times flooding may occur during times the bog has reached full water capacity.

Delta has taken on a huge responsibility — well beyond its own call of duty, I believe, of any municipality — related to maintaining an internationally acclaimed wetland. I think it's incumbent upon this government to stand up to the plate and do what is right.

Delta is a very special place, but it is under siege by greedy notions of development. At the mouth of the Fraser River estuary, Delta is a great example of smart growth, containing urban development within three communities.

We know what the horrendous Liberal agenda has in store for farmland. One of the first acts of this government occurred with an order-in-council. In fact, the ink hadn't even dried on the Premier's and then-minister's oath of office when it took away Delta's zoning authority on farmland. In fact, that wasn't even good enough. With the stroke of a pen they amended the act to include all regulatory authority of Delta's farmland, removing designated truck routes, allowing landfilling and relaxing setback requirements. On and on it went.

For three years the municipality has tried to work with the Ministry of Agriculture in order to come up with a comprehensive agriculture bylaw, but the Liberals continue to wave its big stick. You see, consultation with municipal authorities and upholding municipal safeguards that would protect the largest migratory flyway in North America were forfeited in the name of the large commercial lobby of greenhouses — a major corporate sponsor of and donor to the B.C. Liberal Party.

There is a great future for the hothouse industry in British Columbia, provided it is sustainable and works with the community it is intended to serve. Why did the municipality want to keep some control? Because unchecked planning means unforeseen pressures on infrastructure that have a direct cost to the Delta taxpayer.

This government, I believe, holds municipal governments in contempt. Simply put, it does not care. Living in the urban shadow, Delta is the envy of the lower mainland. But under this regime, Delta must look sheepishly to a future where politics will play an increasing role in the carving out of the agricultural land reserve. We can see what the Liberals have in store for the Fraser Valley. There will be no remorse, guilt or integrity when all the farmland in the lower mainland is gone.

What is next in this madness? Relaxation of air quality standards for wood-burning co-gen plants that will make more money selling to the grid as opposed to growing tomatoes? So much for the good intentions of the member for Chilliwack-Kent for standing up for Sumas 2.

With all the scrutiny this side can muster, we will put into check a government that will try to rationalize a need to increase particulate and SO2. As ozone stings our eyes and asthmatic children wheeze, we will not allow our environmental health to deteriorate in the name of what the Liberals will deem the competitive advantage.

I see that our hon. adversaries have woken up. Yes, we are back, and we are a partnership — a partnership of the greens; a partnership of labour and yes indeed, of working people; a partnership of communities and small business; and above all, a partnership that puts people first.

As the clock is ticking, let me shift my concerns briefly to transportation, an issue paramount to the future of my community. We know that whatever the wishes of my community, the Ministry of Transportation will foist its will and push freeways through Delta's farmland, igniting the fire of urban sprawl. Roads are not built for traffic alone but are creating a breach for future development.

The Alex Fraser Bridge in North Delta is a case in point. Completed way back in 1984, it relieved traffic congestion and was acknowledged as the panacea for all our

traffic woes. But it also created a new gateway to develop South Surrey, and today congestion in my community is worse than it was 20 years before the bridge was built.

This is not to say that I'm opposed to any new roads or freeways or even to twinning the Port Mann — provided, of course, there is a guarantee that growth can be managed and the agricultural land reserve remains farmland. If it isn't, we know that when it is built, it will become completely obsolete the day it is opened.

Again, we know that this government has a proclivity to develop the Fraser Valley, and it will never twin the Port Mann Bridge with a rider that will contain urban sprawl and protect the ALR and our wild lands. In North Delta we've heard talk of the South Fraser perimeter road now for almost 20 years. With respect to the members from the North Shore, it's Canada's major corridor for goods that move to and from the Pacific Rim vis-à-vis the Deltaport, a container facility that will triple its container traffic by 2020 — a corridor that runs as a two-lane road and is a real pinch point in a major residential neighbourhood.

Residents on River Road have been hung out to dry. They need answers, not platitudes. This project was a major priority, but it's constantly short-shifted by other political expediencies. Bridging the Fraser River up-valley, the Sea to Sky Highway, RAV and twinning the Port Mann all seem to have jumped the queue on a community that is carrying the infrastructure brunt of the nation and this province.

We know it will come, but we need to know when, and we need to minimize impacts to residents and riparian habitat along our river. The government must work with our residents and our municipality, and they have a viable plan. When you look at the budget, clearly the government has bumped this project back yet another year.

My time has elapsed, and I have brought to the attention of the House only a few concerns of my community. I will take another opportunity to address the House in my other capacity. I am the MLA for Delta North, and I'm also the opposition critic for the Crowns.

V. Roddick: Due to the sheer numbers and timing issues, it became impossible for everyone to deliver both a throne and a budget response last spring. I rise today to complete that task.

Firstly, congratulations to our new Speaker, Deputy Speaker and opposition Deputy Speaker.

It is most fortuitous that both Delta South and Delta North delivered budget responses concurrently. How truly fortunate we are to have such well-established democratic governance throughout our country. This is a very proud moment, indeed, for me to rise in the House to support our golden budget.

This budget is all about people. Those grim, gloomy days of extreme socialism and economic disaster are very definitely behind us. The New Era document, on which I ran in Delta South in 1999 and 2001, promised a new vision for hope and prosperity. We delivered on that vision. To rebuild takes time, effort and commitment. Each and every British Columbian has played an important role in achieving this goal. To them I say thank you, and a special thank-you to the positive, focused, tireless volunteers of Delta South.

It has not been an easy four years, but changes were necessary to achieve a sustainable future. Our near-record surplus and balanced budgets have enabled our province to reduce our debt by $1.7 billion. The annual interest saved gives us much more flexibility to deal with the pressing social issues and crumbling infrastructures. It has also brought about renewed interest from the investment and banking world to upgrade our credit rating, which will mean even more interest saved, even more flexibility.

British Columbia is again a place where we can be proud to live, work and raise a family — grandchildren, in my case. In 2001 we reduced income taxes for B.C. families by 25 percent. In 2005 we have followed up with more measures to provide our families with the ability to grow and thrive. We now have the lowest taxes at low-income levels in Canada; improved MSP premium assistance, which will reduce or eliminate premiums for another 215,000 British Columbians; improvements to the first time home buyers program; additional funding for community infrastructure and safety enhancements; return of 100 percent of traffic fines to communities across the province. That means an extra $1 million to Delta alone.

In my budget speech of 2004, I said: "B.C. is back." Balanced Budget 2005 is testimony to that exciting statement. Just as we had the New Era document to guide us for the last five years, we are heading into the next decade with five incredible goals to help British Columbians reach their full potential. Our accomplishments over the last four years and the prospect of the future give me a sense of pride and hope in our great province and the wonderful people who live and work here. In the face of amazing odds, we have overcome BSE, SARS, forest fire, floods, avian flu and softwood lumber tariffs to balance our budget, to bring people back to B.C. and to restore the confidence of British Columbians.

A brief summary of our great goals. Education. Education funding has increased by $2 billion since 2000-2001, in spite of an overall decline in student enrolment provincewide and despite the negative squawks from the opposition. We have also substantially increased our investment in public libraries, the arts and culture endowment fund and the B.C. Arts Council. Because of the enormous importance of education and advanced education, the province is providing student financial assistance, loan reduction, debt relief and loan forgiveness programs, as well as grants for students with disabilities.

Healthy living and physical fitness. This past year, as chair of the Select Standing Committee on Health, we produced the third report of an excellent trilogy, The Path to Health and Wellness: Making British Columbians Healthier by 2010.

Annual health care funding has increased by $3.8 billion since 2000-2001, and that doesn't include the partnerships with agriculture, education and LegaciesNow. We are looking after ourselves. Nothing is more

important to our quality of life in British Columbia than our families' personal health and well-being.

The province, the community of Delta, the hospital auxiliary, the hospital foundation and the Save Delta Hospital Society worked tirelessly to save our Delta Hospital. We worked together successfully, and an expanded ER with the first SARS room and a complete revamp of the hospital is taking place. All of this is a partnership between the community and the Fraser Health Authority. It shows what can be accomplished when we work together.

Persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk, our seniors. Balanced Budget 2005 protects and improves the quality of life for those most in need — adult community living services, social housing, emergency shelters, homeless funding, transition houses, domestic violence funding, child care subsidies, services to children and youth with special needs, reducing taxes, to name just a few of the sectors that we have enhanced or expanded.

Sustainable environmental management, best air and water quality, best fisheries management. A healthy environment is critical to a healthy lifestyle. We are providing an additional $150 million to preserve our stunning natural surroundings in order to increase the capacity of an environmental assessment office, address contaminated sites on Crown lands, establish a B.C. conservation corps, encourage development and the use of cleaner alternative energy with targeted tax changes, implement the Drinking Water Protection Act, protect aquatic habitats, inspect fisheries and support land use planning activities, because we still have to eat to live.

Jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs. Since December 2001, this province has created nearly 200,000 new jobs — the best in Canada. We've created more jobs in small business, forestry, oil and gas, mining, tourism and agriculture, despite the depressing negative comments from the member for Delta North.

You name it, and we've done it. In just four years, as a province we've rebuilt our economy, revitalized our industries and regained our role as a national leader. We have brought back investment, created hundreds of thousands of jobs, strengthened our communities and won the right in 2010 to host the world's most prestigious cultural and sporting event, the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games.

Our province is now moving towards a golden decade, and Balanced Budget 2005 will help ensure that all British Columbians share in the opportunities ahead. "The reason the opposition can't oppose this budget is because it's a powerful, strong statement of vision for British Columbia. It's got good ideas, good program initiatives. It's based on a sound framework of fiscal principles. It's a great budget."

In just four years, the effect of our actions is echoed in spades in Delta South. When I meet with the Tsawwassen first nations or attend the Delta Chamber of Commerce or the Ladner and Tsawwassen business associations and the literally dozens and dozens of community and service groups and fundraisers, growth, confidence and prosperity are front and centre.

There is no question. There is no doubt. B.C. is back. The best is yet to come, because when we inherited a shambles in 2001, what did we do? We supplied a detailed rescue plan in the New Era document. We have successfully completed that rescue operation, and now — just as any family, any community and any entrepreneurial enterprise looks to their future plans for achievement and sustainability — we, as a government, have a vision: five obtainable goals that we can use as our highway to success. I know these goals can be achieved, both provincially and in my constituency of Delta South, with the support of all levels of government combined with concentrated community involvement. As King Solomon said: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Noting the time, I move adjournment of debate and reserve the right to speak again. Is that the correct terminology?

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I've been advised that the Lieutenant-Governor is in the precinct, if members would remain in their seats.

Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took her place in the chair.

In Her Majesty's name, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to this act.

In Her Majesty's name, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth thank Her Majesty's loyal subjects, accept their benevolence and assent to this act.

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that the House at its rising stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Monday, October 3, 2005, and I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until ten o'clock on Monday, October 3.

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