Hansard -- Tuesday, October 18, 2005 a.m. -- Vol. 2, No. 7 (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


Second Reading of Bills		839
	North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act (Bill 7)
	Hon. C. Hansen
	C. Trevena
	R. Cantelon
	L. Krog
	Hon. C. Hansen
	Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust Act (Bill 8)
	Hon. C. Hansen
	K. Krueger
	N. Simons
	A. Horning
	D. Routley
	Hon. C. Richmond
	C. Evans

	Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		855
	Estimates: Ministry of Community Services and Minister Responsible for Seniors' and Women's Issues (continued)
	Hon. I. Chong
	B. Ralston

Hon. B. Penner: In this House, I call second reading of the North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act, and in Committee A, I call continued estimates debate for the Ministry of Community Services.

C. Trevena: I'd like to speak to this bill because it provides much-needed money for our communities. But I have to admit that I do have certain reservations about it. Our communities need this financial investment, but we're talking about $50 million, which is going to be spread essentially from the Malahat to Queen Charlotte Sound. This is almost the whole Island, as well as the Sunshine Coast. The need for economic development is much greater than is provided for in this bill.

The bill is still on the table, and yet I've already had approach from many members in my constituency, many individuals, many organizations, who are looking for financial help. Last week I was travelling around the constituency, and the lists of possible organizations that wanted funding, the list of communities, was extensive. There's the fuel dock in Alert Bay, the possibility of fish processing there; value-added products in Port McNeill; the marina in Port Alice. Port Hardy needs money for economic development. Campbell River has economic and tourist initiatives. And the list goes on.

And then, of course, there is the lack of commitment to those industries which could invest tens of millions into the Island economy. I'm speaking of the specialty cellulose mill in Port Alice, which has been sorely neglected by this government. That mill doesn't need a fillip of $50 million through a fund. It doesn't need government subsidies. It just needs a commitment — a commitment to our remote and rural communities.

As I say, the communities in my constituency all have projects which need funding. But one of my concerns about the funding in this proposed bill is that it could pit community against community vying for those dollars against other projects, both within the constituency with communities down-Island and with communities on the Sunshine Coast.

Communities do need funding, but they also need a vision, an economic development strategy which looks at our resource-based communities and sees where we can go with them. North Island is in transition. Logging has been our mainstay, but there's real concern about how much longer we can see the big forest companies come in with mechanized logging; how much longer they can put workers on the sideline as they manage their cut control to their benefit, not to the community's benefit; and how much longer they can ship the logs out of the region and across the border.

A vision for economic development would show a commitment to value-added production in the regions where the timber is harvested. A vision for economic development would allow the communities to work together to develop a plan which could create large-scale employment for years to come.

As I say, ours is a region in transition. Our wild fisheries are in decline. Fishing families are hugely in debt after this year's almost nonexistent opening. We need a vision which can use the fisheries we have in our own communities, not just big businesses controlling them, and which can develop real alternatives for those people no longer in the industry. We need an economic vision which looks at ways to develop aquaculture without damaging the remaining wild stocks, an economic vision which brings those creative small-scale schemes already being developed, such as the abalone co-op in Sointula, into fruition.

We need an economic vision that is creative, harnessing the alternative energy projects — such as wind power in Holberg, biomass in Gold River, exploration for tidal power — which are already in development. We need an ongoing commitment for our communities where resources taken from the communities are put back — put back year after year, not just on a one-time basis as suggested in this bill. Only this way, with a creative economic vision, can we really develop a strong economic foundation, a foundation which will significantly increase the tax base for our communities, a foundation on which communities can build so that they can develop, so that families can stay there in their communities, so that there is easy access to public health care in communities and so that there is equitable access to public education in those communities.

Another concern I have about this bill is the makeup of the committees and the directors of the trust. When the North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act was introduced, it was done with the understanding that it would be free from political interference. This is a great concept, but who is on the regional advisory committees? Elected mayors, elected chairs of regional districts and MLAs. These are all political positions. The directors include five people appointed by cabinet, which seems to me like a political position.

If these committees are to work, they do need to be free from political interference. They need to look with vision at a region as a whole — a region which has similar needs. The needs of Courtenay or Gibsons are

very different from the needs of Port Hardy or Holberg, which means their visions are going to be different.

My other concern about the makeup of these regional advisory committees and the boards is the notable absence of first nations. Despite the often-stated commitment to the new relationship, no first nations are included. There are 17 bands in my constituency. They won't have a voice under this proposed bill, and yet their needs for economic development are huge. They, too, have ideas for development — from the Cape Mudge band, the Homalco First Nation, the Campbell River band in the south; to the 'Namgis First Nation, the Kwakiutl Band Council, and the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw Nation in the north. All have economic ideas. They have a vision, and they, too, need assistance for economic regeneration.

I would like to conclude that while I support the fact that money will be coming to the communities I represent, and I will try to make sure that they get a fair share of that, I am concerned about the political nature of the regional advisory committees, I am concerned about the fact that first nations are not included, and I am concerned about the lack of vision which is embodied in this bill.

R. Cantelon: I rise to enthusiastically support the North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act. I bring my support from the perspective of a city councillor for six years in the city of Nanaimo. Many is the time we travelled the long road down here to Victoria, cap in hand, to meet various ministers to seek funding for one of our projects in our local area — very successfully on many occasions. In fact, I want to compliment and thank the government for their support of our Vancouver Island conference centre, where they contributed $8.3 million, a significant amount, towards the project in Nanaimo. That's a significant contribution that makes the project viable.

This is an inspired and creative legislation because, basically, the effect of it is to put the money and the power to use it in the hands of the local communities. Now, I referred earlier to the Vancouver Island conference centre, which is a major project in the Nanaimo area. We are going to be building a 40,000-square-foot conference centre. There will be a large, new Marriott hotel, a 16,000-square-foot museum and an auditorium to be used for public meetings, including city halls.

So in looking for funding support, we decided to contact all the local municipalities. Of course, the general idea, and it was mentioned by the previous speaker opposite, that there could be a tendency to pit one community against the other…. Much to our surprise and pleasure, the other communities — including Duncan, North Cowichan, as far away as Port Hardy and Port Alberni — supported the project. The reason for that is they saw this initiative as a strategic initiative that would bring new business and new economic opportunities to the centre part of the Island.

Where I'm going with this is that we learned from that experience that the communities are willing to work corroboratively, that they're willing to work together on projects like that. That's why this legislation is so appropriate to the times. Communities are able to work together and recognize what the strategic impacts are that affect their communities. It's far better, may I say — with all due respect to our own government here in Victoria — than a more remote administration.

This bill, and this fund, gives them the opportunity to set their own priorities. In fact, this bill requires that they do just that. They're not able to act and just cut cheques and send all the money out. They must act within the context of a well-thought out plan that looks at the area strategically, that gives the entire area the biggest bang for the dollar.

The speaker opposite talked about pitting against…. But at the same time, the speaker opposite also mentioned working together. Perhaps it's my optimistic nature that I believe that they will work together, and that's been my experience — that they're eager to work together.

There are many projects in the central Island area that can easily be identified. One of the needs is for a larger airport in the central Island area so that people don't have to go over the Malahat to get on a plane to get to Calgary. That's a key element. Another one that affects the entire Island is the E&N railway project. Certainly, that's a project that this committee may look at. There are others. There are cruise ship terminals. That's up for the communities to decide.

I respect that the speaker opposite said that they want it to be independent, although I notice that she said she'll try to make sure that they get their own support, which would seem to me to be a type of political influence, Mr. Speaker, if I may say. Nevertheless, they will be independent. They'll be guided by the regional boards, and then they will have to act absolutely independently. I expect that they will. It's a great opportunity. It's a wonderful program.

I think they have two approaches. That's one reason that they have to require a five-year plan. It would be easy to dole the money out in smaller amounts and try to fulfil so much for each community, but that is not the concept. The concept is to do projects that significantly impact a broader area and that bring business, whether it be tourism or other economic developments, to an entire area.

In doing that, one of the people we talked to — a banker who may well be a possible candidate for the board, a man with great perspective — indicated that you lever the money. You don't just hand it out. You try to keep the trust money in a working fund so that you can use that to lever other funds, either from private investment or other orders of government, to have a multiplying effect on the fund itself. While it's a $50-million fund, it may have the effect of $150 million, or even more times that, in terms of capital investment to the region.

This is a great bill. This is a groundbreaking bill for the entire Island. This answers many of the issues that we've had over the years about how we get funding

and how we use it. It puts the power in the hands of the community. I'm very optimistic and assured that they're going to work together, because they know their areas the best, for strategic investments that will greatly improve the economic opportunity in their areas.

In closing, I just want to say, again, that I think this is a very innovative bill, a creative bill. It will unleash the creative juices in all those areas. I'm sure we'll see many innovative ways that they use this money to good advantage for their regions.

L. Krog: I want to address, firstly, some thanks to the government and to the minister responsible, the Minister of Economic Development. One is always grateful to receive moneys from the government on Vancouver Island.

I must tell this House a bit of a story. The late Deane Finlayson, who was a well-known figure in the Nanaimo community, told me some years ago that the late Premier W.A.C. Bennett had said to him once: "All those folks in the interior like highways, so they vote Social Credit. I give them highways. Those folks on Vancouver Island all vote NDP. They want social programs, so I give them social programs."

I might say that, happily, that issue of highways was resolved during the ten years with the NDP in power. We got a decent highway which has enabled the Island to somewhat recover from the enormous changes taking place in the resource industry, particularly the coastal forest industry. Although I would not wish to look this gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, I cannot let this opportunity pass to make a few remarks with respect to this particular bill.

Fifty million dollars is not a lot of money, but wisely used by local communities, it may have a significant economic benefit. For that, I think I can say on behalf of the people of Nanaimo that we are truly grateful.

However, there are certain issues around the nature of the trust that do give me some concern. This government has talked a great deal about the golden decade and the great promises. It seems to me that one of our primary obligations as members of this Legislature is not to provide for care, if you will, for people in our society who have already done well or communities that are doing well. Our greater obligation is to look to those communities and those citizens within our society who have not enjoyed all the benefits of the luck of the draw or public education or economic development.

In particular, in my community, in Nanaimo, it is the first nations. We have all heard repeated, many, many times, these statistics surrounding high unemployment, high rates of suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, infant mortality. There's no need to dwell on those today.

I am concerned that this bill does not seem to provide for a seat at the table for first nations. In my community they are a significant population and certainly one of those populations deserving of support and assistance to lift them out of what has been a fairly long and tragic history of poverty and deprivation.

In particular, I want to thump the drum a little this morning and get it on the record that it is my view that Nanaimo, with its interesting history, would be considerably — how shall I say? — improved if there was a possibility of an aboriginal cultural centre much like the one at Duncan, particularly in the downtown core. I give my compliments to the member opposite, the member for Nanaimo-Parksville, who worked so vigorously, long and hard, on both the Port Theatre and on the recently announced civic centre. Of course, I would remind the House that it was the New Democratic government that provided a substantial one-third portion of the funding, as I recall, for the Port Theatre.

It seems to me that it is those kinds of initiatives that are important. Therefore, it troubles me that the first nations are not included at the table. It would be my sincere hope that the directors of the north island–coast development initiative trust will in fact give consideration to that, because surely — and I come back to my initial point — this trust is designed to provide for development, to increase employment and to improve the lives of the citizens of the north Island, and surely, we should try and direct it at those citizens who are most obviously in that great need. That is most certainly the first nations almost across the board, tragically, notwithstanding the efforts that have been made over the last decade.

There is much to be done. Recently in the city of Nanaimo the city entered into a protocol agreement with the Nanaimo first nations, which is a very positive first step, notwithstanding the stall that seems to exist with respect to treaty negotiations.

Having said that — $50 million. It's a reasonable chunk of change, but it's not a lot of money spread out over the significant population and when one considers the enormous problems that exist on the west coast. In particular, I am referring to the forest industry on the west coast, which as a result of the softwood lumber problems; the substantial overcutting over many decades of prime old-growth forest; the overcapacity in mills, which no one seems to really want to talk about on the west coast…. We are in the midst of and have been undergoing significant economic change, and that change often involves what is euphemistically referred to as downsizing.

Clearly, there has been much talk over time, but it is now, I think, appropriate for one of the focuses of this trust to attempt to diversify our forest industry, to ensure that the coastal forest industry will in fact survive and be a generator of employment. We have seen a significant reduction in employment in the coastal forest industry, through mechanization and through tax policies which enhanced that. Frankly, at the end of the day my view is that it's better to have individual employees paying taxes than it is to have one corporation making greater profits and paying what this government seems to be devoted to; that is, a lower and lower rate of income tax on those corporate profits.

When someone is employed in my city, they spend their money in the city of Nanaimo. When Weyerhaeuser or its successors makes a profit, it doesn't necessarily get spent in the city of Nanaimo.

I think what has to be one of the focuses of the trust is to ensure that we are increasing genuine long-term employment. It is not about simply enhancing corporate profits. It should be about encouraging smaller businesses. I have the honour to sit on the Finance Committee, and having toured the province, it is clear from the submissions made to the Finance Committee that what people are looking for is better support for small business, not simply mega-projects. They are looking for increased employment in their communities, and they are looking for employment opportunities that allow the children of families that already live there to remain there.

I think for those of us who had the good fortune to be either born on Vancouver Island or who have made it a living choice, as some of the other members in my caucus certainly have, we want to ensure that people can continue to live on Vancouver Island, but live in economic circumstances that befit living in what is, frankly, the richest part of the globe — and that means economic opportunities.

That also means for most on Vancouver Island a real sensitivity around the issue of the environment, around sustainability. It would be my hope that this trust, the directors of this trust, the regional advisory committees, will be the kind of forward-looking people who take full advantage of this opportunity to do something dramatic and cutting edge.

I also want to compliment the minister for including in the bill the specific provision that regional MLAs be appointed as well, because that cuts across party lines and, in particular on Vancouver Island, means many of my colleagues will be on the regional advisory committees. I trust — notwithstanding the fact they won't be paid for this position, and I'm thinking particularly of the other appointees — that the acronym RAC will not refer to the experience they'll be suffering over their three years of appointment, trying to satisfy the competing requests from various parties in the respective communities. We know that Port Alice, and communities like Port Alice, are in dire need, very dire need, and there will be significant pressure on the committee to ensure that community's needs, in particular, are met.

As much as I appreciate that the bill gives a fairly loose structure to the trust to expend its funds, I think, certainly in committee stage, we may all as legislators wish to look at the possibility of giving a little more direction. I would hate to think that this opportunity would be somehow wasted if not coordinated with other direct government and ministry and municipal spending. I would hope that all of the people involved in this wonderful opportunity will, in fact, take full advantage — to use it in a broader way to ensure that the best bang for the buck, so to speak, is achieved.

The three-year strategic plan that the act talks about for each fiscal year…. One concern I might have is that if the fund itself has to pay for all of the necessary infrastructure, if you will, the staffing that will be required in order to advise what is a volunteer trust may tend to eat up more of the funding than would be appropriate. I would hope, expect and trust that the government, through its ministries, particularly the Ministry of Economic Development, will provide assistance so that we are not simply duplicating and repeating things. There have been a number of economic studies done with respect to the north Island — with respect to the province generally, for that matter — and it would be my hope that the committee will be encouraged and, indeed, receive the direct offers of support from government to ensure that we use these moneys as wisely as possible.

I note also that with respect to the structure and the spending, the trust supports investment in forestry, transportation, tourism, mining, Olympic opportunities, small business, economic development, energy, agriculture. However, it doesn't include either fishing or aquaculture, and I think it's been clear from previous debate in this House this session that those of us on this side, in particular, are not opposed to the concept of fish farming, but we do support the concept of fish farming that is done in a sustainable way and in a way that will not damage the environment or natural fish stocks.

I would have hoped that that would have been one of the things that the government would look at very quickly. We have a significant history on Vancouver Island of a long historical involvement in fishing. I think it would be a wise thing for the government to consider in that regard. There is a lot of generational experience. Many families in my community have been involved in fishing for two and three and four generations. I think it is certainly an area of the economy that is worthy of consideration by the trust, and my friend the member for North Island pointed that out as well. I think it is a very important area.

I'm also somewhat concerned by the fact that there are no spending limits on any particular sector or project. I suspect that every community will have a major project, and $50 million spread amongst all those communities, if it was done equally, might in fact not be enough to fund the kind of project that would provide for the long-term employment that I think should be the focus of the trust.

At the same time, I wouldn't want to see $50 million dropped in one community in the hopes that there would be some economic spinoff. In my own community, city councils over various times allowed for the development of malls in the north end of the city, which has brought Nanaimo the status of being probably one of the lead shopping centres in British Columbia. The downside is that my colleague the member for Nanaimo-Parksville and I are now always vigorously trying to ensure that we get funding for downtown revitalization to correct the problems of past planning

— which seems to be a concern I've noticed, having travelled across this province on various occasions, for all communities.

In any event, to conclude, I want to welcome the money and thank the minister for this proposal. But I would be remiss in my duties as an MLA if I did not provide criticism of it and say that it will probably get, obviously, my support but that there are refinements that could and need to be made.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Minister of Economic Development closes debate.

Hon. C. Hansen: For the benefit of those that are following the debate, either through the telecast or subsequently in Hansard, I just point out that we have two bills that are going through second reading this morning. One is Bill 7, the North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act, which is before us now for second reading. The second one is Bill 8, which we will get to next, which is the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust Act. The two acts are parallel acts. In fact, the wording throughout them is almost identical. As I introduce Bill 8, I will bring some more formal comments to put on the record that really apply to both of these pieces of legislation, given the parallel nature of the two.

Just in closing off the discussion on this particular bill, I did want to follow up on a couple of the comments that were made by members during the course of second reading. The member for Nanaimo mentioned that he had the good fortune of being born on Vancouver Island. I, too, had the good fortune of being born on Vancouver Island — born in Port Alberni.

I, too, come from a heritage of the fishing industry. My father was a commercial fisherman out of Port Alberni, as was my grandfather. I certainly know the challenges that the fishing industry is going through on the coast of British Columbia and the need for us to look forward to the future and anticipate how coastal communities are going to thrive and survive during changing times.

I also have lots of family who have been involved in the forest industry on Vancouver Island over many decades. They, too, are facing some big challenges as we look forward to the future. That's really what this legislation provides for: the ability of individual communities to decide, to help to determine what their economic future might look like.

I know there was some talk about how this money might get divided up among communities on the Island. It would be my hope that those who are administering these funds would look at big-picture solutions, big-picture answers — not just at how any one community can benefit but, really, at how a region could benefit, how communities can work together for everybody's mutual advantage. I think this trust really provides an opportunity for that.

I know that the member for North Island talked about how this was to be free of political interference. I just wanted to reshape that a little bit, because it's not so much being free of political interference but being free of provincial government direction and directive in how these funds should be allocated.

I have huge respect for the political leaders at the local and regional level throughout this province. I think they have great ideas, and I think one of the things that lead to this whole concept of these trusts was a recognition that while local community leaders had great ideas about their economic future, they lacked the financial resources to make some of those things happen. They also lacked a structure which allows them to effectively work together, community to community, on a regional basis with some proper resources behind them. That's exactly what these trusts provide for: for the resources to be at the disposal of local community leaders.

I believe that Members of the Legislative Assembly for these regions also have a very useful perspective. I know that of the 79 members of the Legislature who serve in this chamber, we get a very good perspective on our communities by the inputs that we get at the local level.

While I represent an urban constituency, which is entirely contained within the city of Vancouver, I know that many of the members of this House who represent rural communities have the challenge of the often competing interests of many different municipalities, the regional districts and all of the other political forces that are there within just one constituency. So I think they, too, bring a very useful perspective to how these trust moneys can be allocated.

I think that as we've seen in the northern development initiative, which was established a year ago, this is a real opportunity for those community leaders to build a future for themselves and to create some visions for what the economies can look like.

The member mentioned the need for not having duplication of effort, and I think that that's there. Certainly, the Ministry of Economic Development will be there to assist the trust to the extent that they want that assistance, but I don't want to get in a position where the Ministry of Economic Development is trying to give direction. Again, I think that's contrary to the whole intent behind this legislation. We're there as a resource. We will try to be helpful. We have ministry representatives who are on the ground in many of these communities and in regions throughout the province and who can be helpful.

I also know that these three trusts, working together, will be able to be of mutual benefit. I know that the recently appointed executive director of the northern interior trust has already offered to assist the two new trusts in their development, so I think there are some shared ideas that can help prevent the duplication of effort.

There was a comment about first nations. We are very anxious to see that first nations have a say in how these trust moneys are expended. We looked at several different models as to how to build a formula that is not the provincial government governing these particular trusts but rather that we set up a governing struc-

ture, pulling on various players for the interim boards. I think it's important to stress that — interim boards. We have to provide in the legislation a means by which that governance comes together. It is our intention as a government to make sure that the first nations are well represented on these boards as a result of the provincial government appointees that would be made to these boards. I would welcome input from members on all sides of the House of appropriate candidates that we may wish to nominate to those positions.

With those comments, specific to the north island–coast development initiative, I would like to conclude the second reading debate. When we get into the next bill, I'll provide some more formal comments that really apply to both of these two bills.

Hon. C. Hansen: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 7, North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

The introduction of the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust Act honours a government commitment that was made to communities of the southern interior region in the same way that Bill 7 lives up to the commitments we made with regard to the north Island and coastal region. The new act delivers on our commitment to create a $50 million initiative trust for this region, the same as was the case for the north Island–coast. It is to be free of provincial government interference. It is to develop economic growth and create new jobs for communities throughout this region.

The initiative is based on the northern development initiative model, which was created to support strategic investments in regional economic priorities. The government is funding the provision to the initiative. It is a one-time allocation of $50 million, which is to be administered by the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust board.

The bill enables the southern interior trust to operate as a corporation independent of government, with a requirement to report publicly to the region's residents. Accountability tools and measures include the preparation and publication of strategic plans, annual reports and audited financial statements. The act will undergo a review and evaluation by an independent committee every five years to provide further public accountability.

The trust board will consist of 13 directors, eight elected by the regional advisory committees and five appointed by government. The board is responsible to develop strategic plans, program policy and funding criteria, and guidelines to provide a framework for spending of trust funds. Two regional advisory committees comprised of elected officials selected from the region's mayors, regional district chairs and MLAs will determine the spending priorities within their region and advise the board on applications for investment.

The independently run Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust will invest, manage and leverage $50 million in provincial funding for the benefit of those communities. The initiative is about giving communities the resources and tools they want to pursue their priorities.

The southern interior initiative, like the other two initiatives, will support investment in the following areas: forestry, transportation, tourism, mining, Olympic opportunities, small business, economic development, energy and agriculture. The trust will have the ability to develop partnership investments with business at various levels of government to develop and diversify the economic base of the southern interior.

The act provides a sunset clause for the dissolution of the trust after its funds are spent. The new trust is about giving communities the resources and tools to pursue their priorities. They will identify the opportunities and make decisions, and they will reap the economic benefits with more jobs and a stronger, sustainable economy.

K. Krueger: I rise to jubilantly speak in favour of this bill. Before I start, Madam Speaker, I was just thinking how good it is to see you in that chair. When I listened to you talk about blood donations yesterday, I thought about all that you've been through and the answers to our prayers that we see by having you in front of us today. It's just a real pleasure to see you here.

As I said, obviously, I'm going to speak in favour of this bill. I am delighted to see the government moving in this direction here and elsewhere in the province. I heard a hilarious story some time ago about a teacher of adult ESL classes and an essay that he had assigned to his students. The subject was: how would you spend the money if you won a million dollars? There was one student who was having a particular struggle with writing that essay. Finally, she stomped up to his desk and slapped her work down in front of him and said: "No good, teacher. I need $100,000 more."

Some of what the opposition is saying, in really tough efforts to come up with anything negative to say about these bills, is that it's going to be hard to stretch the money far enough. That just seems hilarious to me, because the NDP performance in office never included

handing over large sums of money to communities to make decisions themselves — autonomously and on their own. It was always the opposite experience. We who represent what we affectionately know as the heartlands — the interior, the parts of the province where the money comes from that drives much of what government is able to do…. Our communities were accustomed to having to go cap in hand to Victoria anytime they needed seed money or development money or any money that they would like to have some unique initiatives with, rather than having a pool of money to decide about for themselves.

The NDP way was always to tax the heart out of the heartlands and spend the money from here — take it all down to Victoria and make us come and beg for it. I did my share of begging when we were in opposition, Madam Speaker, as you'll remember, in the last half of the '90s — five really tough years of slogging. I was begging for things that had often been promised.

For example, the Clearwater hospital. There had been a commitment made eight months before the '96 election when I was elected — a firm and fast commitment that Clearwater would get its new hospital, which they had needed and wanted for decades. They had a really good business case for it, which the NDP in the first half of the '90s had accepted, promising them they'd get it. I was elected believing that promise, and my constituents believed it too.

But I couldn't get it for them. All through the second half of the '90s they had cellophane over their windows in that hospital in the winter, because that was the only way you could keep the heat in. They had to leave the bathroom doors open. Otherwise, the bathroom plumbing would freeze. They needed a new hospital, but that promise was not kept until we became government.

When Gary Collins was Finance Minister, he called me into his office and said: "You're going to be Whip. You're going to be way too busy to advocate for your constituents the way you'd like. What's on your shortlist of what has to be done?" I said that the first thing is the Clearwater hospital. Within a month he had the request through Treasury Board, and we had that hospital on its way. It's the only structure in British Columbia that has my name on a brass plaque. Not that that really matters to anybody but me, but I'm just thrilled that hospital is there.

There's another example. There's a really dangerous place on the highway between Barriere and Clearwater, which the locals called Pigs Corner. This may be the last time I ever use that term in this Legislature. People kid me about it, because nobody really knew what it was. A truckload of pigs had flopped on that corner, and they ran all around the countryside and ended up in people's freezers, which was sort of a funny reason to name it that, of course. I see the member across from me licking his lips. Recently one of my friends told me his little girl had said to him, "Daddy, it isn't fair," because they're raising pigs. She said: "Do you think they know they're made out of bacon?" We always got a kick out of the local name for that.

We were frightened of that corner. Everybody was frightened of it, because trucks were always flopping on it. It was just too dangerous a corner for the traffic that Highway 5 now receives. Larry Bancroft, who was the president of CUPE in the area and a staunch NDP supporter — even contended for their nomination — had written the NDP and beseeched them to fix Pigs Corner. The B.C. association of truckers had identified it as one of the most dangerous corners in B.C. — all to no avail. We just couldn't get the NDP to listen to us and free up money for projects like that.

I'm not saying these funds are of a sufficient size that they can build hospitals or repair dangerous areas on the highway, but we're getting to all of those priorities and initiatives as a government with an orderly way of doing things that actually listens to constituents, to constituency MLAs and to communities, and that gets things done. Our Premier and this minister wanted to go above and beyond that and actually put money into the hands of local representatives, including elected ones and non-elected ones that will be chosen, and give them the chance to deal with some of these things that are priorities to the various regions.

I think this approach had its genesis in the Premier's thinking through a sequence of events that happened in my constituency. A little over three years ago Weyerhaeuser made a decision to close its sawmill in Vavenby. That was a pretty bitter blow for people up there, because it was one of the two major employers in the area — 180 jobs. People were really frightened and angry. They summoned me up to Clearwater to a public meeting, a town hall meeting with 400 people there — the biggest meeting I've ever seen in Clearwater. They kind of raked me over the coals because I was the most convenient guy to do that with, although it certainly wasn't my decision.

And they said to me: "We want you to do things that will help us keep this community alive. We want to see more community forests. We want to see more woodlots. We want to see more fibre into the small business basket. We want to see more allowance to first nations."

This government did all of that. This government listened, but the community was still hurting. It's not Weyerhaeuser's fault. They made a business decision that they had to make. They had four mills. They only had fibre for three. They chose one. We were sorry it was us. It wasn't their fault. They have really worked at being a good corporate citizen. They left legacy money for the community. They did things right. They also found other jobs for all but 30 of their employees. I really commend them. I think they're a tremendous corporate citizen.

But the community was still left without those 180 jobs. Now, Weyerhaeuser, again, really tried to replace the employment, found themselves an excellent value-added partner, sold that property to them, walked them through it and said: "You choose what equipment you can use." They were really good. Sadly, that value-added operator hasn't quite made it financially and is

going through bankruptcy proceedings right now, but we've still got hope that it's going to turn out well for employment in the Clearwater-Vavenby area.

Whether it does or it doesn't, the community is very resourceful. The community includes a lot of wonderful people who have great ideas. They work really hard in small committees, and they initiate a lot of things on their own. They've come up with a lot of really good plans over the years to help their part of the North Thompson Valley survive and thrive economically. You know, the big stumbling block for them for years has been that they never have any money. They pour their time into it, their talents, their resources. They work so hard, but they never have any money.

Well, after that financial disaster of losing the Weyerhaeuser mill happened to Clearwater-Vavenby, a little over a year later the catastrophic wildfires of 2003 did the same thing to Barriere–Louis Creek. The biggest employer in that whole area burnt down. We lost another 180 jobs. To our great sorrow, that employer decided not to rebuild its mill, again because it had more manufacturing capacity than it had fibre. It was facing up to world realities in the forest industry. We lost out, because the fire hit us.

That was really devastating, and people were very frightened for their communities. The present Minister of Forests was the Solicitor General at that time. His ministry, and government as a whole, did an admirable job responding to the catastrophe of those fires, and so did others.

There was a gentleman named George Evans, owner of the Nissan dealership in Kamloops. On his own initiative he started the North Thompson Relief Association. He went after the manufacturer of Nissans and all the other manufacturers. He got $100,000 each from these big car manufacturing companies, and the public responded. He raised over $3 million — fantastic. George Evans received an award as a community leader for British Columbia, an award that the Premier initiated. He's still working with us on all of that. He's actually employed four days a week in Penticton now. He's still running his car dealership and still working with us.

We waited for the federal government to step up to the table. I still believe they're going to, but things happen so slowly with the federal government. The federal government has provided for some ranchers' fencing — a lot of money to tear out the old fencing because it was snaring wild and domestic animals and was dangerous. I really appreciate that. But it takes the federal government a long time to actually come up with money to help after something like that has happened.

Historically, it has taken the provincial government a long time as well. As I said, you have to kind of go cap in hand to Victoria — that's people's understanding and knowledge of how things are usually done and have been done in the past.

Well, our Premier got tired of waiting for federal money. He wanted matching money to do things for the North Thompson. One day the Solicitor General came lumbering into my office and said: "How could we help? The boss wants to know what we could actually do if I had some money for you."

I said: "Well, I would like to have $2 million for hardship grants because even though the North Thompson Relief Association is doing all these things for people…." They did rebuild every house that burned down that didn't have insurance. They built a brand-new, beautiful trailer park to house people in who'd lost their homes. They helped people get back on their feet as far as employment. They did all sorts of things.

But there were people who had losses that just weren't insured. There were small businesses that were just struggling because they'd lost the best part of their summer. There's a really healthy tourism economy up that valley, but their paycheques come in July and August and September, and that's when they couldn't get any customers that year because people thought British Columbia was burning down — and for a while a good part of my constituency was.

I asked the Solicitor General if we could have some money for hardship grants for those people. They cut me a cheque for $2 million. That money was distributed to those who had suffered hardships. Some was left over, and that went into a pool for economic redevelopment.

He said: "What else?" I said: "People need to be retrained, and we've got this wonderful skills centre in Clearwater" — it's not just for Clearwater — "the North Thompson Community Skills Centre. I would like to give them $1 million so that they can stop spending their time on fundraising and, rather, can spend their time retraining people, which is what they're there for and what they're good at." They gave me a cheque for $1 million for them. Those people are still stretching that money out, making it last, doing wonderful things for the whole North Thompson Valley with that retraining money.

Finally, I said: "I'd like a couple of million dollars specifically for economic redevelopment. I'd like to park $1 million of that with the Thompson-Nicola regional district to fund an economic development officer long term — at least ten years." I got that. That money is mostly still there. We've been employing an economic development officer for two years now. He's really worked hard, scared up a lot of opportunity for the North Thompson Valley.

The final $1 million I wanted put in trust with George Evans, with the North Thompson Relief Association, so that we would have some money to get things done as opportunities could be found for the North Thompson Valley. I got that.

I got five million bucks from the Premier, cheques delivered to me by the now Minister of Forests, the then Solicitor General, and we've put that money to work very carefully. There was an expression in my family back in the days of the Depression. If you got any money — they lived on the Prairies — you had to stretch it like a horse blanket. That's what local people do with money like that that they receive. They guard

it very jealously, they question each other, and they make sure that it stretches and that it's there for opportunity.

We created what we called the North Thompson Economic Development Advisory Commission. I chair it. All of the regional district directors elected for the northern three portions of the TNRD are automatically members — whoever's elected. Then we have three great local people, one of them George Evans, who sit as directors.

We've worked along carefully looking for opportunity, listening to our economic development officer, managing his work and just generally pursuing opportunities. We've found quite a few, and we keep finding more. We've still got most of that $2 million there, because the directors watch it like hawks.

We've formed the North Thompson Economic Development Society now in order that we can manage the remainder of the money, because the North Thompson Relief Association had a defined mandate. They're winding up, and they've turned that money over to the society.

There has been tremendous benefit to the way that that minister and this Premier chose to hand the money over. I remember the Premier saying at the time: "Government can spend a million dollars trying to administer a million dollars, and I want this money out there where it helps the people." These funds, these trusts, are similar in nature, and I believe they'll work the same way. People will find a way to stretch that money like a horse blanket and make it pay off for the constituents that it is meant to benefit.

That's a whole new approach — very, very different from what people have ever seen in British Columbia. I remember the disastrous wildfires in Salmon Arm, which preceded those in my constituency by several years. Those people never got any sort of assistance, anything similar to this. Our Premier has always said that local government is the most accountable level of government, and I think that he's right.

My barber, John De Cicco, is on city council — about to be re-elected, I'm sure, for his third term — and if anybody has a beef with what city council's doing, they sure know how to find John De Cicco. They just walk into his barbershop, whether he's cutting hair or not, and he has to listen to them. He's very dutiful in making sure that city council knows what constituents are saying. He has his finger on the pulse and so will the kind of people that'll be administering these trusts. I know they'll get opportunities like we've had in the North Thompson Valley.

The other day my directors, the elected regional district directors, said to me: "There's full employment in the North Thompson Valley." Now, we actually had a café in Clearwater that had to shut down for a little while because they couldn't find any employees, and there's an employment crunch. Everybody who knows what he's doing and wants to work in the logging industry is busy. We've made some major moves, but we made a lot of minor moves too, and all of them have helped.

Each director got a fund, for example, of $7,500 per year to facilitate tourism promotion in the Clearwater area, the Barriere area and the Blue River area, and they're stretching that money — making it last, making it work. We've taken part in beautification projects. We helped fund the purchase of a new groomer by the Wells Gray Outdoors Club, which operates some of the best nordic ski trails in British Columbia and is competing for a site to entertain Olympic teams training for the 2010 Olympics. They can do that because we had some money to help them get another grant to purchase this state-of-the-art groomer, which they'll share all up and down the valley.

I had an elderly lady approach me at the service station one day in Barriere. She and a number of other elderly ladies had come up with a book about the heritage and history of Barriere and Louis Creek area — that whole end of the North Thompson Valley — but they were frightened because they had to make their payment to the publisher, and they hadn't presold enough books to do it. She said to me: "We're just a bunch of scared old ladies at this point. What are we going to do?" We loaned them the money to pay the publisher's bill. Pretty much everybody in the Barriere–Louis Creek area bought one of their books and then bought another one to give to somebody else, and it really helped them.

That's the sort of thing you can do with a fund like this. Now, that's at a very local level, and these are regional funds. I know there will be a lot of healthy competition and discussion for where this money goes. But for all of those people, it's not going to be any more of having to go cap in hand to Victoria because you need a little money to help your communities, and your committees do things that obviously make sense to them.

I can't tell you, Madam Speaker, and I can't begin to tell the Premier how much people appreciate this approach, because it felt bad to have to go cap in hand to Victoria, when you know, for example, that the forest industry still pays for Z\n of everything this government — any B.C. government — funds: one of every six social workers, one of every six teachers, one of every six doctors paid for by the forest industry. We have the forest industry everywhere in the interior. People think: "Well, why should we have to beg when we have something that's worth doing?"

They don't have to beg anymore when a government takes approaches like this. It's empowering communities, constituents and the population to do the things that make sense, instead of the old one-size-fits-all approach that used to be the consistent way that Victoria administered the money it took away from the people of the heartlands. I'm really delighted with this advance. I was thrilled when the Premier said he was going to do it, thrilled when he announced it, and I'm delighted to be a part of making it a reality.

There are all sorts of things that happen for all sorts of reasons between communities. One example I'm

very sad about is what we used to call the KXA, the Kamloops Exhibition Association — beautiful buildings on the Kamloops Indian band reserve. They've been used for several decades now to house agricultural affairs, a rodeo, a race track — all sorts of positive things that are really good for the rural people that I represent in their communities. The city of Kamloops contributed substantially to the operating budget for the KXA over the years.

The city of Kamloops made a decision a couple years ago that they weren't going to do that anymore, and the Kamloops Indian band is struggling to keep that centre alive. They've changed its name to the Mt. Paul Centre, and they're looking for assistance. They need some bridging assistance until they get enough programs going or some changes made in that centre to fund it so they don't have to subsidize it for all the rest of us.

I was very unhappy with the decision when it was made, and I expect the Kamloops Indian band will probably apply to the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust for some assistance. I hope they'll get it, because I see that as the kind of need and opportunity that this fund will be able to meet. It's a whole different way of doing things and just one of the many proofs that this government does what it says it's going to do, including empowering local governments and communities to do things for themselves, the practical things that they know need to be done — very different from our experience in the '90s.

Do you remember, Madam Speaker, in the '90s, when there were a thousand registered professional foresters working for the Ministry of Forests, living and working full-time here in Victoria — a thousand registered professional foresters and zero logging going on in this area, in the ten years that I've been here? We want to work against strange situations like that shaping up in British Columbia. We want to have the resources out where they're needed and the decisions being made by practical people who understand the needs of the area that the money is meant to benefit.

This is a way of making all of that come together. I think we're all voting in favour of it. I think the opposition will as well. Certainly, they've been voting in favour of the brother and sister bills to this one. It only makes sense that they would. I think this is one time when it would be really nice if there were zero criticisms, because this is a great leap forward for communities — something that, frankly, the opposition party never would do, never did do. I think it's nice when people can just say: "Well, there's one thing we do appreciate about you, government of British Columbia." I'd like to hear more of that from them, as an encouragement to the Premier and the minister, and just because it's the right thing to do.

Certainly, it has my support. I want to congratulate and thank the Premier and the minister.

N. Simons: I'd like to thank the member opposite, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, for his interesting and somewhat contradictory words. I'd like to point out, first of all, that yes, in fact, I'm in favour of Bill 8, as I'm in favour of Bill 7 and Bill 6. I believe that it's important to note, as well, that when we do speak from this side of the House, Madam Speaker, and we have constructive criticism, it shouldn't be taken in a defensive manner. It shouldn't be received by the members opposite as if it is yet more of the perpetuation of political competition here.

I would like to point out that anyone reading Hansard will note that the first ten minutes of the member's speech were dedicated to ripping up previous governments, particularly the previous NDP government, and their supposed lack of action on such issues as straightening out roads such as Pigs Corner. Pigs Corner brought to mind immediately…. It wasn't because I was looking at the opposite that I thought of Rat Portage Hill in my constituency. Rat Portage Hill was a dangerous stretch of highway between Sechelt and Gibsons, the site of many unfortunate accidents. During the period of the NDP that road was widened and straightened out.

I think it's a little bit disingenuous. Perhaps it was stated with tongue in cheek — I couldn't quite tell — but I believe that it was a bit of an overstatement for a point. That's fine; that's fine. I appreciate that. I, too, would prefer to look forward and look at how these bills will, in fact, benefit the communities where the money is intended to be spent. With respect to the member opposite, I do think that the comments I'm going to make on this subject are meant to be productive, forward-looking and helpful to all those concerned.

N. Simons: That's right. It's met with a bit of skepticism. However, we shall soon see, in fact. That's fair enough.

I do want to point out that when community groups and organizations approach government for funding, I don't believe that it really should be referred to as begging. I don't believe that community groups and organizations, agencies and non-profit charities, when they approach government for funding, should be thought of as begging and coming with cap in hand to a government that is expecting it to make a case.

I think that this is really just a redistribution of revenue to appropriate groups and projects that are beneficial to communities. I'm not sure why, automatically, there's an expectation that if it's not the provincial government providing funding for programs, it's suddenly not begging. I don't believe it's begging in any case. I think these bills do allow for local control over funding, and I do want to congratulate the government for pursuing this.

I have only a few misgivings that I believe will probably be addressed, at least considered, brought to me by members of local government who — as the member opposite just stated, quoting the Premier —

are most responsive at the local level. I have been approached in my particular constituency by three mayors and two regional district chairs about some concerns they have — not concerns about the government and not concerns about anything other than a fear that perhaps the funding that is destined to be spent at the local level for the numerous projects that are included in the umbrella of these acts will become a competition between small communities.

I know that in my constituency we have many communities of under 500 residents. They're isolated communities, they're remote communities, and they will not benefit in the same way from the economic development initiatives that are going to be undertaken, for example, on northern Vancouver Island.

I believe that if there is an acceptance of the fact that I'm not standing here criticizing…. I'm standing here recommending that possibly there's room for some improvement and some tweaking from this side of the House. I believe it should be taken in that vein. If there are ways of making sure that the trusts are representative of or are of benefit to entire communities, I think that should be taken as appropriate constructive criticism.

That being said, I would like to have seen more representation built into the process for first nations organizations. I know that every first nation is unique and every first nation has their own expectation of what this government will be providing for its economic development opportunities. There's no formal structure for their participation in accessing these funds. I believe it's true that the regional advisory committees will be able to address those to some degree. I'm perhaps suggesting that it would be appropriate to ensure somehow, maybe through whatever mechanism is available, that those interests are formally recognized in the act.

The three bills are similar in many regards. I believe that despite the geographical differences, the local interests of communities will be met — unfortunately, competing with other local interests. To me, it would seem appropriate to have the funds from the initiatives built into a longer-term, broader approach for regional economic development.

I can't go back and say what previous governments did or didn't do. I wasn't a member of any previous government, and I'm just sort of looking at this in an objective fashion. I believe that the opportunity does exist here to provide opportunities for communities, and I'm hoping they don't become mini-competitions between small towns that really do rely on each other for economic development opportunities.

Another particular concern to people in my constituency is the prescribed areas for the purpose of the fund. I'd like to suggest that perhaps it would be possible, if the government sees fit, to include such an economic opportunity as marine infrastructure in the list of appropriate areas for funding, because marine infrastructure in many communities can become the foundation for economic development if it becomes a place for increased tourism, for example, or increased trade. I believe that could be an opportunity for some improvement.

If the member for Kamloops–North Thompson doesn't find my words too aggressive, perhaps he would even agree. His coastal communities are not in need of this same kind of marine infrastructure. Perhaps I'm wrong. I have spent time in the areas he's indicated and, in fact, played for the Kamloops Symphony at one time.

Community amenities of other kinds could also be included in the list of appropriate funding areas.

I'm keeping my comments brief. I believe that the members opposite are correct that we are, in principle, supporting the funds. I believe that people would like to see more commitment to ongoing funding, perhaps to ensure that that becomes an opportunity for communities to see forward beyond a year and two years and three years. Any economic development plan would be nice to have included in a larger plan for the communities.

A. Horning: I'm pleased today to rise and speak to this bill. This government committed to creating this $50 million trust as a stand-alone entity, under local control and completely free from political influence, with the goal of generating economic activity and creating jobs in the southern interior.

I'd like to first take this opportunity to acknowledge that it's a truly unprecedented and innovative move — the creation of this fund and the two other regional economic development funds in British Columbia. Sure, there have been other economic development agencies and commissions, but no other government in B.C. history has invested in local communities on a scale this big. No one has shown the confidence in communities and local leaders that this government has shown by introducing this legislation.

The most amazing thing about this trust fund, and the aspect that draws the most positive comments and accolades when I'm speaking to people in my riding of Kelowna–Lake Country, is the fact that it will be completely in the hands of local representatives. That's right. We're handing over $50 million and saying: "You take the money and you use it to move the economy of the southern interior forward. Use it to create jobs, to support innovation, to create opportunities. It's up to you to do."

That's not all. This trust is just part of the $300 million in economic funding being distributed through three trust funds across British Columbia, each one with the goal of building our regional economies.

The reason we're doing this is because we believe in the drive, the determination and the will of the people of the southern interior. We're doing this because we know that the people in the best position to know what's good for the southern interior are the people

who live, work and raise their families there. That's why the regional advisory committees and the board will be the manager and administrator of this $50 million fund and will be made up entirely of local representatives.

This is not going to be a ship steered by the changes in the political winds blowing out of Victoria. The course will be charted right there in the southern interior. Mayors, regional district chairs and others will guide the use of this unprecedented trust fund and set the priorities. Unlike the regional economic agencies of past governments, the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust will not suffer from a lack of support or an overabundance of interference from Victoria.

Those local representatives will have a host of economic areas they can choose to invest in, including forestry, transportation, tourism, small business, agriculture and more. Personally, I can imagine dozens of possibilities for these funds. The Okanagan, where I live, has opportunities aplenty. I know that our local entrepreneurs and community leaders will be lining up to share their ideas with the newly appointed trust officials. Frankly, I can't wait to hear them.

Diversity. That's a word you hear a lot these days. Everyone knows that our regional economies need to be diverse in order to weather the ups and downs of the world markets and the whims of commerce. The Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust fund is a tool, a tool that the local boards can use to enhance diversity in their regions to encourage ideas that move beyond the traditional economic models, that bays out the old way of doing things and encourages a fresh approach.

That's one of the key aspects of this fund. It's not a flash-in-the-pan initiative. It's an enormous investment that will pay dividends for generation after generation in the southern interior. Years from now the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust fund will still be bearing fruit and supporting programs, projects and initiatives to diversify and grow the southern interior economy.

This $50 million trust is a powerful tool and an impressive legacy for the residents of B.C.'s southern interior. It's a wise person who recognizes their own limitations, and it's a wise government that can recognize when it's not in the best position to decide how best to stimulate the regional economies of the province.

For my area of Kelowna–Lake Country this trust fund will mean new jobs, economic opportunities. One of the initiatives already talked about in my area is forestry. As you know, two years ago we had a devastating fire. Now we can go to these funds and maybe do some cleanup and the underbrush so that we can prevent some of these things from happening. Pine beetle is starting to show up in the area. Maybe we can get that before it gets out of control.

Transportation. We have areas in my riding where roads are narrow and what have you. The idea with this fund is that now maybe they can go and have them widened basically on the basis of safety. UBC has now opened up in my area. Bike paths are something that is really needed because a lot of students will be using bikes.

Tourism. Capitalize on our tree fruit industry, our wine industry, also our golf courses, our ski hills. Olympic opportunities. Kelowna at this present time is building a new 50-metre pool. Kamloops, I believe, has a 50-metre pool. These are some of the initiatives that can happen, and we can use these here as training facilities for the Olympics.

Small business, of course, is the backbone of our local economy, so there'll be a lot of opportunity for small business to create jobs. Agriculture is one of the main industries of my area. We've developed some new varieties of cherries now so that we can compete on the world market. Before, with the types of cherries we grew, we had a two-week period. We had to compete with Washington State — very difficult. Now we have new cherries there that are larger. They're on the market for over a month, and now we can compete worldwide with them.

That's why we put the power to make these decisions in the hands of local representatives, and that's why I support the bill and the creation of the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust.

D. Routley: I rise to speak for this bill but with considerable trepidation about several of its contents. I will congratulate the government in investing money in our rural communities, but this money comes after several years of extreme neglect and starvation of those very same areas.

We see a good investment, but we see a much greater need. We see the positive step of allowing the representation of local MLAs, which on Vancouver Island in particular will mean that several opposition MLAs are included in the regional advisory committees. For that, I thank the government.

But after almost five years now of disinvestment and neglect, of the closure of government services, of the closure of small schools, much of the infrastructure that underlies a good economy and the consistent and continued economic development of smaller communities…. We need to see much more than this.

In small communities in rural British Columbia we need new opportunities, but those opportunities must be sustainable. The commitment to those opportunities must be continued. This bill, unfortunately, is a one-time investment and does not allow, or at least predict, further investment, although I do note the mechanisms for the continuation of the bodies. Therefore, I would wonder whether these bodies may serve as political funding instruments in the future.

In fact, what these small communities need is a continued level of support, a continued commitment that can be leveraged and maximized to the best ad-

vantage of all of these small communities. In the recent election our NDP platform called for a similar development fund but had designated half of the forecast allowance for such a fund. If the government would reconsider that condition of this bill and allow enough funds for these projects to be half the forecast allowance, then we would see a considerable increase in the amount of money designated to these efforts.

Also, I have concern about the structure of the directors of the trust and the regional advisory committees in terms of their initiation. The first directors of the trust — and in particular, the first directors of the regional advisory committees — are quite limited. I think we should start this process with the full contingent of representatives in all of these bodies so that the path and the vision of the committees can be well established right from the beginning.

I would also point out that there will be considerable administration costs incurred by all of the three bills. If the funding is supposed to reach the ground, then I believe the government should definitely provide enough administrative funding to ensure that the funds announced do, indeed, make it to projects.

The scope of the sectors: forestry, transportation, tourism, mining, Olympic opportunities, small business, economic development, energy and agriculture. It's a big list, when we consider that $50 million is meant to cover an entire region, but if we're looking at economic development, perhaps the list must be broader. Perhaps the list should be a catch-all, and perhaps that would put the amount of funding in a position of looking that much smaller.

There are no limits to any particular sector or project, and in my own area on Vancouver Island we have several economic development and infrastructure projects that have gone unfunded but must be undertaken in the near future in order to capitalize on their value — the Ladysmith foreshore development, marine tourism developments in my riding; the Vancouver Island recreational corridor project, which has been considered in the past.

The Pacific Marine Circle Route, which was funded in the pre-election campaign, is an example of how much money it takes to make a significant impact, since a large amount was invested — between $5 million and $8 million — but the outcomes have been very unsatisfactory. Even the local politicians who celebrated the funding are left in dismay now, as the improvements to the road are very limited. It underlines the fact that the infrastructure that has gone neglected for the last four years will require a much bigger investment to be brought up to standard.

The chief concern I have for these bills, and this bill in particular, is that there is no designated first nations representation on the governing bodies. If we look to the Columbia Basin Trust, which was established by an NDP government, all subregions are represented and there is structured first nations representation on that board. Also, the BC-Alcan Northern Development Fund Act, which established the Nechako-Kitimat development fund…. There's permanent first nations representation on that body.

The member for Nanaimo-Parksville mentioned that politicians in the Duncan area supported this fund because it was a strategic vision. In fact, local politicians rarely turn down money, and after having been underfunded for such a long period of time, I'm sure they will welcome this reinvestment, as insufficient as it is, with open arms and hope for a more continued and more substantial investment in their communities.

What they do see in this bill and in the mechanisms for administering it is a mechanism for continuation. Does this mean that we will receive sporadic, politically motivated funding that we drop into these funds when politically advantageous, or will there be a continued and sustained investment in our communities?

We have seen a continued and sustained disinvestment in our communities for the past four years. It will take some time to repair the damage of those years to the infrastructure of our small communities, to the viability of the small communities — their economic viability as their infrastructure has been torn apart. This bill, while beginning that process, does not come close to completing it. Mr. Speaker, I will vote for this bill, but I'll do so with these grave misgivings about its scope and its intent.

Hon. C. Richmond: I would just like to make a few comments in support of this bill. First of all, I would like to congratulate those who put this concept together and, specifically, congratulate the Premier and the minister on a fine job. I think the concept is absolutely terrific. It means that the people in the small communities in the interior and elsewhere will be able to make the decisions. They will not just have a say in what is going on in their region, but they will have the say on what is going on.

Unlike the members opposite, I don't see fault with this bill. In fact, I don't see anything wrong with it. To some of them, it's never enough. The member for Nanaimo even said $50 million is not a lot of money. Well, in my book, $50 million is a lot of money.

I think that the board that will be put together to run this fund will have a tremendous challenge — there's no question about it, especially as the demands for the moneys start coming in. It's going to be an exciting time for them, but it's not going to be easy. They will have to develop a business plan that is workable, and it will also not be easy to apportion the money on a specific basis for specific communities. I envy them the challenge they're going to have, but I don't envy some of the decisions they're going to have to make. As my colleague the member for Kamloops–North Thompson pointed out, look what can be done in his constituency with just $5 million and the things that were done when people worked together to make things happen. So $50 million is a lot of money.

The topics that can be covered in this are exciting. We know the problems that the forest industry is going

through at the moment. A lot of things are totally out of our control — like beetles; the forest fires of a couple of years ago; the softwood lumber agreement, which still hasn't come to a conclusion; and the whole changing face of the forest industry, not only in the interior but in the entire province. That will be a challenge for this board to deal with, because forestry is still the big engine that drives our economy.

Transportation is another one. The infrastructure makes a lot of things happen in this province, not only for industry but for tourism — things like airport expansions, which my community has been looking at for some time. It's very important to our area that we have our airport expanded. Maybe this is one of the topics that this board will be looking at.

The concept of an inland port in our region, specifically in Kamloops, is something else that I would like to see this board take a look at. Maybe they will; maybe they won't. That will be their decision.

The opportunities in tourism are virtually limitless, especially with the 2010 Olympics coming. I think a lot of thought will have to be paid to what we do to improve our infrastructure in tourism and to take advantage of the Olympics.

Another industry that is thriving once again in our area is mining. The exploration dollars alone have quadrupled in the last few years. There are new mines ready to come on stream in the next little while, and there may be infrastructure required to bring some of those new mines on stream. I think that is another exciting thing that this board will be able to look at.

And the list goes on: small business; economic development; energy; new forms of energy; and agriculture, which is a most important component in our area. I think that this is a tremendous opportunity that the trust will have to develop a partnership investment with business and with various levels of government to further develop and diversify and stimulate the economic base of the southern interior.

I just wanted to put my remarks on the record — that I fully support this bill. I think it's a very exciting concept. The $50 million will go a long way to improving the economy, not only in the Kamloops area but in the entire southern interior. I congratulate those who have put their name forward to be on these boards. They will work hard. They will have some tough decisions to make, but it will be an exciting time. Again, I thank the minister and those who put this concept together. I think we're in for exciting times ahead.

C. Evans: It pleases me to rise to speak on what is really a series of bills that have to do with the creation of trust funds and boards in rural areas around the province to assist people to deal with the changes, I think, of rural and agrarian life. Some of the members here have made suggestions that tend to make me want to have a political debate, but I get it that they're just good at pushing my buttons, so I'm going to try to not respond to those partisan buttons, which is very hard for me. Partisanship is as instilled in me as is waking up every morning. But I'm going to try to avoid that because I consider this issue, this subject, what it is that we're debating here, to be hugely important in a public policy kind of way.

British Columbia is organized on a colonial model; it isn't organized on a democratic model. If it was organized as a democracy, we would not have decided to put the capital on an island 20 miles off the saltchuck from the rest of the citizenry. We would have put the capital in the middle, where people could get to it by riding a bus or driving a car or walking. We organized British Columbia this way, I think, because we were following the colonial model of England when she ruled the world.

British Columbia was designed on that idea — that somewhere there would be a group of smart people, and they would govern for everyone else rather than be everyone else. It may have been that we set up British Columbia this way because we knew that we were taking this land, essentially, from first nations people. By putting the capital down here in the lower left-hand corner and across a bunch of water, we could ensure that most of the people who historically had owned the place would not come and bother us with their wishes while we Europeanized it.

But as this building got built and we formed a formal government, became a province and joined Canada, we had an opportunity to change that. At one point people thought that maybe the capital would be in New Westminster, but we liked it over here, and it turns out that our colonial relationship with our citizens today mirrors that early relationship with first nations.

Let's talk about demographics, because "colonial," of course, is a loaded word. It might make people think that I'm speaking rhetorically. But in terms of demographics, the migration from rural areas to urban areas is a worldwide phenomenon, a Canadian phenomenon, and certainly a British Columbia phenomenon. My three children were raised in Winlaw, which is essentially a post office and some houses. They all live in Calgary and Vancouver, and the children of my neighbours….

This urban migration has led to the place where, unlike historic times, you can govern here without ever being elected out there. The citizenry of the lower mainland is now so big and the populations in rural areas are so small that it is unnecessary, politically, to receive votes from people in agrarian and small communities. That has removed from this building, for example, farmers' caucuses in political parties.

We'll remember, I think, that in 1971 the Social Credit Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party all had agrarian caucuses as part of their political organizations. Those have all gone away. There's nobody out there speaking for agrarian life. It used to be that when we elected a Premier, we liked him to come from a small town, maybe even run a hardware store or something like that. But how long has it been since we elected a Pre-

C. Evans: We didn't actually elect the guy. Excuse me, hon. Speaker. I didn't mean to respond to my friend over there, but he had a good point, and I just wanted to set him straight.

Okay, so now I've explained the political model. Now I want to talk about the economic model. We, in this town, in this building, organize our reporting relationship very badly. We collect money from Cominco in taxation. We say, "Here's what they made," and then we ascribe that wealth to Vancouver, because it's the head office of that corporation.

The logging companies that are out there cutting trees from Fort Nelson south tend to be subsidiaries of some Vancouver corporation. So the wealth that those people earn, that is earned by working people who live in Kamloops and Fort St. John and Castlegar, is reported as having been earned by some Vancouver company. Our Ministry of Finance accepts that. We build our models of the gross domestic product, and it looks like the city of Vancouver is actually earning that wealth. So we come in here, and based on who made the money or who the voters are, we respond essentially to urban demands.

Finally, there is the evolution of the media. When we were kids, there were real editors and real publishers in Grand Forks, in Nelson and in Lytton. They put out real papers, and citizens had a panoply of opinions all over the landscape about political life. Today the media essentially reports our deliberations through one or two television channels all over the province, and it is an urban perspective. If anybody happens to read a newspaper, they're essentially reading a newspaper owned by an urban corporation that employs an urban editorial writer, so they get an urban analysis of even the events that affect their lives.

This government, like some governments in the past, has decided to attempt to deal with this consolidation of power — intellectual, economic and media — in urban areas by responding with trust funds.

This isn't the first time. The lovely comments of some members notwithstanding, it's been attempted before. The first time that I knew of where a Premier — I think maybe at the time he was a candidate to be Premier — talked about the need to set up some kind of new power and economic wealth distribution system with rural British Columbia was Bill Vander Zalm. I remember when he was running to be the leader of the Social Credit Party, he talked about his vision — I'm paraphrasing, and decades have gone by and my memory's not very good — but I think he was talking about some kind of county system where school boards and regional districts might be rolled together, and there'd be a regional government and we would have a wealth-sharing relationship with that regional government — in the north, on the north coast, in the interior, in the Kootenays.

I liked it. I wasn't in that gentleman's political party, but I liked the fact that he was acknowledging that demographics and economics had changed and that we had to change our relationship. This colonial system of governance had to stop. He was elected Premier, and unfortunately, when he got here and civil servants took his ideas and put them on paper and came in here and made laws, what we wound up with were regional organizations that had influence by political appointment from this place.

I was part of what was called the regional advisory committee in the Kootenays. As a young person I was on the regional district. I went to those meetings, and in the first six months the meetings, where I lived, fell apart. There was a pot of money, just like we have here today. And we were divvying up who would get sewer investments and water investments and tourism investments and all the things hon. members are talking about, but it didn't work.

It didn't fail because the Premier was wrong. It didn't fail because we were bad people. It failed because there wasn't the perception on the ground that we owned it. You know, when rural people don't think something is ours, instead of behaving responsibly, we move towards parochialism. We say: "Trail shouldn't get this, and Cranbrook shouldn't get that, and it's all how well you know the Premier, and there's some kind of political fix." We assumed it was sort of Duplessis politics, and whether it was or it wasn't, we couldn't overcome that barrier and make the regional advisory committee work.

So a gentleman, Wally Penner — you may know him, hon. Speaker — worked at that time as a civil servant for the Ministry of Small Business. He said, "Well, I think I can make this work. Let me restructure this," and restructured the group so that all of the people who sat on the group were chosen by the local organizations themselves. They wanted a tourism person. He said to the tourism group: "You figure out who to send to the table." They wanted a regional director. He said to the regional district: "You figure it out." They wanted somebody from municipalities. He took all the towns and said: "Pick the person who will represent the towns."

It then began to work. In fact, it worked right until I came to work in this building as an MLA. Then the government that I worked with and for ended the regional advisory committee in the Kootenays — I think because it was an anomaly, because it was working differently than all the other ones, and it's exceedingly difficult in provincial politics to have one thing that operates differently than other things. So the regional advisory committee that worked, the only one that I know of in British Columbia, ceased to exist — as had the others already.

I think if we really wanted to end the colonial system of governance and do this thing differently, we could learn from historical examples. We could learn from this gentleman, Wally Penner, who restructured it to say that local people will believe in it if they get to pick who sits there.

Here's another example — in history. This is not brand new. The Columbia Basin Trust. We created an institution in this building. Every single person in every single political party, save one, voted for the creation of the Columbia Basin Trust.

Following what we had learned from Bill Vander Zalm's efforts, the board was structured so that there were 18 people — enough people so that the little towns and villages all along the drainage, from Golden south to the United States and from the Alberta border west to Castlegar, could send enough people that they could begin to develop a relationship, a conversation, even a culture.

It worked, because of the 18 people, 12 of them were self-selected by the people of the region. They knew that they didn't have to lobby or make some kind of relationship with the government in order to achieve their objectives with the funds.

The second thing that we learned from the trust is that there was an amount of money allotted — 40 million bucks, $47 million, $41 million; I forget exactly — to the trust to invest in the region. Then there were separate investments that had to do with hydroelectric power and the water. What we've seen is that the citizens of the region understand that part of the trust that is related to the natural resources and their wealth creation capacity inside the basin. They don't understand so well that part which is perceived to be $40 million for a board to just invest somehow.

If we learned from Bill Vander Zalm, we'd say: "The board has to be self-selected by the region." If we learned from what worked in the trust, we'd say: "It ought to be connected to the wealth creation capacity of the natural resources."

Here are some examples. When we were trying to decide what to do with the Coquihalla and we thought about selling it to some people in Germany or having it run in Victoria, we could have cut some middle ground and given it to the people of the Okanagan and said: "It's your highway. You decide what the fare will be. You collect half of it and keep it. You create a trust with the Coquihalla."

We have this big debate about offshore oil. Should we or shouldn't we drill off the Charlottes? What if we said, for starters, that if we ever do, half the wealth would accrue to that trust? What if we did the same with timber? There are people who think — I have met these people — that the way we manage timber in the province constitutes, essentially, plunder instead of people in the region getting to make their own decisions.

I would argue that there's a third thing that we might learn from what we have already tried — people on both sides here. Instead of just putting some money in a bucket and saying, "Okay, give it out till it's gone, and then we politicians, based on some electoral strategy, will decide whether or not to replenish the bucket," we tie natural resources to that wealth, so the local people can make money forever. To the degree that they can husband those resources, they will last for the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren. If they expend them in a hurry and cash them in, there will be no farm in the future. We can understand that out on the land.

I think that given the demographics, the media and the economic control that the head office structure in Vancouver has and the political control that Victoria has, unless we do those things, our generation of politicians will fail to deal with the urbanization of this place, of this province, and future generations will have a worse problem to represent rural people than we at present have.

All of these trusts that are being created in this room — and I've heard people from both sides say they're going to vote for them — are a good idea. They were a good idea when Mike Harcourt did it. They were a good idea when Bill Vander Zalm did it. They were a good idea probably 20 years earlier when Bill Bennett Sr. tried to accomplish something along the same lines. You'll remember that he created regional districts, I think, along the lines of attempting to redistribute power and wealth — certainly government power — in British Columbia.

It's still a good idea, and everybody's going to vote for it, but what we're doing is going back…. I'm going to try and use some really nice word that isn't "pork-barrel." Let's see. What kind of…? This is a largesse idea.

Native people have been kind of saying: "Welfare doesn't work. We don't really want you to give us money. We want you to give us land and resources out of which we will make money." That's kind of the idea of the trust. This idea is: "We'll put the money in a bucket, and we'll pick some smart people to decide how to take the money out of the bucket." But ultimately, it's a bucket that comes from this building. It's largesse. It is not the wealth we make with our hands on the land in the communities in which we live.

I would like to make a prediction, hon. Speaker. I'm going to vote for this, all of these motions, just like you guys are. Sure, I am. Only a damn fool, a stupid person, hon. Speaker…

C. Evans: …would vote — and I am neither — against these bills, because it does actually constitute wealth transfer. If I was a federal MP, and I was in Ottawa, I wouldn't vote against bills that were transferring wealth to first nations people. But I would know, in both cases…. If you want it to last and be responsible, tie it to the land and the communities, and then let the people there decide who's going to sit there — not us.

So I'm going to make my prediction. I would predict that we'll all vote for it, and it will pass, and the money will go to the communities that the bill says it will go to. But my prediction is: it will not catch on. Out in the communities that we represent, partisanship and who knows who — at least in gossip…. I don't care if it's the fact. The gossip on the ground will be that who you know, and who's on the board and your relationship with government will determine outcomes.

Even if that isn't true, I predict that when the $50 million begins to be reduced, the people will start to

look at the bottom of the bucket. They'll tip it around and see that it's going to be empty, and then they'll think that who you know decides whether or not you fill up the bucket. I think those of us who live out there and who are worried about something for our kids to do want to empower them, not support them.

We want control of the land base. We want to invest the money, not spend the money. We want to make jobs for ourselves, not just build good ideas. It's investment that drives capitalism. It's capitalism that drives the economy. Everybody knows it no matter what side they sit on. Investment in the region is what will change our lives. So my prediction is: we'll vote for it, it'll happen, and then people will forget it. It will not become part of our lives. The money will be depleted and filled, or not, according to who gets elected. But it will not become viscerally defended by the people out there on the land, because it wasn't when Bill Vander Zalm tried it, or any other attempts, except the ones that are controlled within the region.

So besides a prediction that it may ultimately fail, I'd like to make a recommendation which is: whoever governs when we start to see the bottom of the bucket restructure the thing on a non-colonial model — on an empowerment model — instead of this notion that we come in here, and we give out money as if it was ours.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
COMMUNITY SERVICES AND
MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
SENIORS' AND WOMEN'S ISSUES
(continued)

Hon. I. Chong: Prior to starting today's proceedings, I would again like to introduce staff who are with me, for the benefit of members who may have been here yesterday or new members who are attending today. To my left is Assistant Deputy Minister for Local Government Dale Wall; to my right, Deputy Minister Sheila Wynn for the ministry; behind me, Assistant Deputy Minister Barb Walman for women, seniors and community. To my left and behind is Assistant Deputy Minister of Management Services Shauna Brouwer.

B. Ralston: Hon. Chair, perhaps you could provide some procedural guidance. The minister has made reference to having a vote at this time. Is that my understanding?

B. Ralston: Perhaps, then, I could continue. When we left off yesterday, I'd asked a question seeking a comparison of the category of women's, seniors' and community services in the 2005-2006 plan. I wanted to know how that differed from the category of women's and seniors' in the 2003-2004 plan. The minister had made a commitment to provide that information, so I'm wondering if the minister…. I'm reading from the Blues the last question I asked before we rose at 8:47 last night.

If the minister made that commitment to provide that information, I'm wondering if she's in a position to do so now.

Hon. I. Chong: As I indicated yesterday, there was some restatement, and perhaps it's best to be able to provide some comparisons of '03-04 to the '05-06. I'll begin by stating that in the '03-04, a dollar amount in the budget, there was a reduction in the budget of just over $10 million — about $10.738 million. That was a budget reduction associated with the removal of the Munroe settlement funding. None of this money was spent in '03-04, so that accounts for a substantial portion of that amount not being reinstated into the '04-05-06 subsequent budgets.

What we have in '03-04 for transition house funding was in the amount of about $26 million, which in '05-06 has now been approved for about $33.8 million. For the Children Who Witness Abuse program in '03-04, that was about $2.46 million. Currently, in '05-06 it's budgeted at $3.19 million.

In our Stopping the Violence counselling program, we had about $5.79 million. That has been increased to $6.6 million worth of activity or funding. Prevention activities in '03-04 would have shown up at about

$600,000, and we currently have $2.5 million allocated there. Overall, the restatement that '03-04 dollars to '05-06 are comparable…. We will see that the reduction, as I have indicated, for the Munroe amount…. Those dollars have therefore been directed to these programs that I've listed, and therefore the increases are reflected in the '05-06 budget.

B. Ralston: For my clarification, can you please explain what the Munroe settlement is?

Hon. I. Chong: The Munroe agreement was an agreement that was negotiated in 1999. It had expired on March 31, 2003. It was an agreement that was negotiated to deal with wage redress. As I say, it expired in March of '03, which is why the dollars that were not spent in '03-04 were removed. Therefore, the budget is restated.

B. Ralston: Again, simply for my clarification, it's not something I'm familiar with. Could the minister advise…? You said it's a negotiated wage redress. Which employees is that wage redress directed to" That's perhaps the best way to put it.

Hon. I. Chong: The Munroe agreement was for those in the social services sector. As I indicated, it was negotiated in 1999 and was to provide funding to deal with this particular settlement, and it expired on March 31, 2003. If the member would like more of the historical background and how that agreement came about and the terms and the date of the expiration and that, we can certainly provide more information for him. Staff are willing to provide additional briefing for the member, if he finds that would be helpful.

B. Ralston: Thank you. That mention of the social services sector has triggered some synapses somewhere in my memory, and I now recognize the agreement.

I want to return to transition house funding. I take it, from what you've said, that the total funding for transition housing this year is $33 million.

B. Ralston: Could the minister advise: what's the projected spending for the subsequent two fiscal years, '06-07 and '07-08, for transition house funding?

Hon. I. Chong: That would be the same amount for those two subsequent years.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise why she's not projecting an increase in spending in transition housing for those two years?

Hon. I. Chong: This was the amount that was provided for in the $12.5 million lift to the women's services program in our budget. This was allocated for the next three years out. This is based on speaking with B.C.-Yukon Transition House Society members, when we consulted with them as to what additional services they felt they would like for services in their communities. It certainly will be monitored by our staff over the next two years. If we need to make changes, we can do that. But we certainly wanted to initiate in the first year of our lift the amount that's allocated there and to ensure that those dollars would be available for the subsequent two years.

From time to time a transition house in one community may work in partnership with another or may decide to change the way that services are provided in a community. If that's the case, they may find savings or may choose to offer other programs and services. Certainly, we have flexibility within the women's services programs to see how that can be accommodated, whether more counselling services are provided in the transition houses or not. It may also relate to whether they want to make some structural changes where they add additional beds or even, in some cases, decrease beds. That has happened from time to time. The dollars there are committed for the next three years, and we will continue to monitor them.

B. Ralston: Could the minister please outline the differences between transition housing, safe homes and second-stage housing?

Hon. I. Chong: Transition houses provide supported temporary housing that typically does not exceed 30 days. The safe homes provide temporary housing that typically does not exceed five days in communities where transition houses do not exist. The safe home can be a private home, a hotel unit or a rental apartment. Second-stage housing provides longer-term housing. It is, following a stay in a transition house or safe home, a longer stay for up to 18 months.

B. Ralston: How much money is projected to be spent for safe housing and safe homes in the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year?

Hon. I. Chong: Perhaps I can offer this information to the member. The transition houses that were funded in '04-05 were 61, and the number of programs funded in '05-06 will be 63. Safe homes that were funded through '04-05 were 17 and in '05-06 will increase by 13 to 30. The number of second-stage housing that we have is nine, and that currently is projected to remain at nine.

I can say, though, that with the second-stage housing, it is certainly an area where B.C. Housing as well as CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., are interested in working with us to look at what communities have the capacity to put in second-stage housing — with local government, with local community groups. Sometimes it is a project that requires all three levels of government to come together to find out where there is land, where it's appropriate, and there-

fore be able to implement and start having a new project in a particular community.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that response. However, my question was: what was the funding allocated for safe homes in this fiscal year, and what is the dollar amount allocated for the same program of safe homes next fiscal year?

Hon. I. Chong: The dollar amounts haven't been broken up in that detail, and I'll have to get that to the member. I wanted to just provide him with that information as to the changes in terms of the number of homes and transition houses that had funding in '04-05 versus '05-06. I can certainly get that information to the member.

B. Ralston: If the minister can advise when that information would be provided to me.

Hon. I. Chong: My staff will have that to the member by end of day this evening or first thing tomorrow.

You've given the number of transition houses. How many transition house beds are available in the province today?

Hon. I. Chong: In the past there were 661 beds that had been provided for. With the additional funding, 31 new transition house beds are funded. So 692 is the current number.

B. Ralston: What is the projected increase in number of beds for the next fiscal year and the following one?

Hon. I. Chong: As I've indicated to the member, we have 692 that we are currently funding. That amount will continue to be funded in the next two years as a result of the committed funding that we have. We will continue to monitor that. I think it's fair to state that in the past number of years prior to the increase, 661 beds had been funded for a number of years. That had not changed.

I know, from my visits to a number of transition houses, that from time to time they are creative. If the need arises, they are able to provide for additional beds from time to time. But the number of beds that are actually funded for, which had been constant for a number of years, is 661. It will now go to 692 and will at least be that amount for the next two years.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise how many safe-house beds are available in the province today?

Hon. I. Chong: As indicated, the number of safe homes we have currently is nine. The number of beds can vary in them from time to time, because if there is need to have someone placed in a private home or placed in a hotel or another unit of some type, that can be provided for. I can say that an additional $403,000 has gone to fund new safe-home programs. Five existing safe homes did receive additional funding. So they're able to use those dollars within that safe home to see how they can provide for additional beds if that is what's required.

I don't have the specific number of beds. As I say, that can vary. But I can have staff check and find out, if that's what the member wants specifically for those beds, as to what actually exists in those homes. But I do know, from speaking with those service providers, they will vary from time to time.

B. Ralston: I'm taking that as a commitment from the minister to provide an exact figure as to the number of beds given, subject to the flexibility that she mentioned. But I'd like some idea of scale — whether it's 25 or 50 or a couple of hundred beds for the province. I'm not sure in the response just what scale we're talking about. So I thank the minister for that.

My next question is: can the minister advise how many second-stage housing beds are available in the province today? I appreciate that may have been dealt with in your response to the member for Alberni-Qualicum, but I'd like to just confirm your answer.

Hon. I. Chong: My apology. I originally referred to nine safe homes, but it's nine second-stage. It was 17 safe homes, which has now gone up to 30, so we will certainly get those numbers of beds.

In terms of the second-stage housing, I'm informed that 218 women were served last year in second-stage housing. Because these are up to 18 months' worth of service that is provided through here, how the beds are used can vary from one home to another. I can also get the actual number of beds for the member if that's what he's wanting. But as you can appreciate, if there are nine second-stage housing and there's even the maximum of four in each, that's possibly 36 beds, but 218 women are served as a result. The turnover rate varies from individual to individual, but up to 18 months are certainly applicable to people who are using the second-stage housing.

B. Ralston: I'll take that as a commitment by the minister to provide the number of second-stage housing beds available in the province as of today's date, and I thank the minister for that.

Just to return to the budget allocation, I appreciate that there was a nuanced response earlier. But can the minister advise how much money was allocated in this fiscal year for second-stage housing beds by her ministry?

Hon. I. Chong: When I provided the member with the information regarding the transition house dollars — from $26.84 million in '03-04 to $33.86 million in '05-06 — I should have been more clear in stating that it wasn't just referring to transition houses. It was refer-

ring to all the housing components. That would encompass the transition house, second-stage and the safe-home component. We do not have the breakdown of that; we have it as a global number. I will have our staff get that breakdown for the member.

B. Ralston: Just so my request is clear, what I am seeking is the breakdown of the funds allocated for (a) transition housing in fiscal 2004-2005 — this fiscal year and next fiscal year; (b) the allocation for safe homes for 2004-2005, this year, and 2006-07; and (c) second-stage housing for 2004-2005, this year, and 2006-2007. Perhaps the minister could confirm that that request can be fulfilled and that my question is comprehensible.

Hon. I. Chong: The member has indicated his request on Hansard. Then our staff will be able to provide that information.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise: what was the average length of stay at a transition house in this fiscal year?

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise the average wage of transition house staff in this fiscal year?

Hon. I. Chong: I understand that the wage varies between $17 and $22 an hour. Many of the transition houses are operated by societies. They have their own wage scales in place, and as I say, they also have different qualifications of people who work in the transition houses. They will make a determination as to how many staff they need as well as the qualifications, and they will set their wage scales accordingly.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise: what is the funding formula for transition houses in the province?

Hon. I. Chong: When funding transition houses, we do take a look at them in their own unique and distinct way, because not every transition house is operating in the same way right across the province. We'd certainly look at program costs, and in looking at program costs, we will take a look at items such as utilities or rent. In some cases they have mortgages. We'll also take a look at training costs associated with that particular transition house or the society that provides the service.

We do take a look at staffing costs, but because they are varied throughout, we take a look at that for the benefit of providing dollars towards that. As I say, each house has its own unique and distinct style of operations. Our staff is able to work with every transition house and to take into consideration those that require, perhaps, a more flexible way of funding than another transition house in a different part of the province.

B. Ralston: It would appear from that answer that there is, obviously, a process of assessing applications. Can the minister advise how decisions are made around funding? How is the decision to fund a particular transition house made?

Hon. I. Chong: What I can tell the member is this. I know that in the past there was an attempt to establish a standard transition house funding model. I can say from personal experience, having visited a number of transition houses and having spoken to the B.C.-Yukon Transition House Society, that the attempt to have a funding model was not well-received by all transition houses, because that attempt was meant to standardize and therefore made a one-size-fits-all solution.

The Transition House Society members said that it needed more flexibility. We said that we certainly wanted to be able to provide that. We do have staff in our ministry who are in contact with transition houses from time to time as they call in. Based on need, based on uniqueness or the special circumstances that may arise to transition houses, we have flexibility within our program to make adjustments if that is required. So there is not a standard funding model that is applied, but as I've indicated earlier, we certainly take into consideration items such as the utilities cost, rent or mortgage, training costs — things that are different from house to house.

B. Ralston: The minister, in her earlier responses, has mentioned a number of transition houses in the province. I take it that the arrangement is a contractual one between the ministry and the societies who operate these transition houses. Can the minister advise us how many contracts between transition houses and the ministry are currently in force?

Hon. I. Chong: Just for clarification, I believe I heard the member requesting information on the number of contracts for the transition houses. We currently have 63 transition houses that we provide funding for. The operators of those transition houses are not 63, because I am aware that there are some societies that actually operate more than one transition house. So the member wants a list of all those who are contracted to provide the services for those 63 transition houses. If that's what he's after, I can provide him with a list of those people who are providing those services.

B. Ralston: Yes, that's the list I'm seeking. It would be the number of contracts. I appreciate that some societies may operate more than one transition house. I thank the minister for that assurance that that information will be provided.

Can the minister advise: what is the average length of these contracts and give a bit of a sense of the length of the contract? Is it one year? Is it five years? Can the minister advise?

B. Ralston: Can the minister then advise: what's the nature of the reapplication process? I take it that these

Hon. I. Chong: I just was confirming. I also want to indicate to the member that for the transition houses, their annual reporting requirement is not the same as our fiscal year. It is June 30, and we do require that they do provide us with information, on the financial side, of their use of the dollars.

While the renewal is not necessarily automatic, what I can say is that as a result of the transition house having rather substantial outlays that they put in and investments that they've sometimes made in hiring people and establishing a transition house in a community, we generally acknowledge that. The contracts, while they are not automatically renewed, are in a sense renewed, provided there are no issues that have come to our attention throughout the year.

The contract managers that we have within the ministry do on a fairly regular basis speak to the societies that manage the transition houses. Provided there are no issues that arise, we are in a position to renew the contract with that particular society on July 1. We do not put out an RFP every year because that would cause great disruption in the provision of continuity of services. So the transition house societies know that it's not an automatic renewal in the purest of senses, but at the same time, they know that a renewal is possible, provided they live up to the terms of providing the beds and services which they have been contracted to provide.

B. Ralston: Can the minister give some explanation of the policy reasons that have led to this decision to have an annual renewal rather than a two- or three-year contract with the appropriate monitoring?

Hon. I. Chong: I thank the member for raising that issue. The annual contracts that have been renewed have been in place for at least a decade, so it hasn't been a policy change. But I can tell the member that the ministry is reviewing the possibility of multi-year. Whether that's two or three years is still being investigated. We certainly would hope that as a result of that review, we are able to make a change if the review proves that that would be very helpful.

B. Ralston: Could the minister advise me when that review will be complete, and when the transition houses might be advised of that prospective change in policy?

Hon. I. Chong: The review for the policy change can be done within this year or perhaps before the contracts expire on June 30 of '06. However, the implementation of that may take a bit longer simply because it will require a change in the computer systems that have been set up to bring in the information to do with multi-year contracts and to do monitoring and evaluation of that. However, the decision on that can be made so that we can provide some assurance to the providers — possibly next year. That work is still being undertaken. Again, we are exploring that. Barring no significant objections to moving to that, the likelihood or possibility is very sure.

B. Ralston: Could the minister advise if there are any transition houses in the last review that were denied renewal?

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise how many of the transition houses that are funded under these contracts operate on a 24-hour-a-day basis, and if there is a possibility of intake, if a woman can be admitted there at any time of the day or night?

Hon. I. Chong: My understanding, in speaking to the front-line workers at the transition houses, is that all of them have access 24-7. Some may have different staffing requirements because of capacity, which may require that a person would make a phone call, and then a transition house worker may then meet them and bring them to the transition house. Those happen in a few cases, and those are at the request of those particular communities that have those needs in their area, but my understanding is that all the transition houses that we're funding have 24-7 access and can provide for that.

B. Ralston: Am I to take it, then, that the minister is saying that the 24-hour access is a condition of the contract, or is this something that transition houses are providing voluntarily as part of what they see the service requires?

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that response. Can the minister advise what work the ministry is doing to promote the availability of transition house services to the public?

Hon. I. Chong: I can advise the member that, first and foremost, we do have information on our website for those who are looking to access transition houses and safe homes. Through our Stopping the Violence website there is also a VictimLink provincial help line.

There are a number of self-referrals by calling transition houses directly. Many transition houses do have a telephone number listed under the emergency section of their telephone book.

There are also referrals made by the police, or in some cases the RCMP, in communities that don't have municipal policing. Through a number of other agencies in the community they also provide complementary services to women and children and have informa-

tion regarding our transition houses. As well, because we do provide funding to the B.C.-Yukon Society of Transition Houses, they very much provide information to community organizations for those who may be dealing with women escaping violence who are needing a transition house.

Hospitals and doctors are also made aware. Outreach workers, in particular — which is one of the reasons why we have provided more funding for outreach workers — are able to go out in the community and make more organizations aware of the transition houses that may exist in their community or what services are available. Of course, other transition houses in the area also offer information to the public from time to time.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what work the ministry is doing to promote transition house services to those women who have English as a second language?

Hon. I. Chong: We do have a multicultural outreach service for immigrant and visible minority women. There are currently services in Abbotsford, Richmond and Surrey. Two such services exist in Vancouver. We are also currently negotiating for eight more services in the following areas: Maple Ridge, Mission, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Richmond, Squamish and Surrey, and also for more services in Vancouver.

B. Ralston: Just so I'm clear, then. You mentioned outreach services. Is this specifically to advise of the availability of transition house services, or is this a general outreach advisory about the availability of a range of services? Perhaps the minister could clarify that.

Hon. I. Chong: The outreach services provided in this particular case are to work with immigrant or visible minority women to assess their needs and determine whether in fact they need the services of counselling or the services provided in transition houses, because in some cases they are looking strictly for counselling.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what languages these services are available in besides English?

Hon. I. Chong: I do know that services are provided in Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin. My staff has indicated there are perhaps another 18 or so…. Up to 20 different languages are provided for. We can get that list for the member if that's what he would like to have.

B. Ralston: Thank you, minister, for that commitment to provide that information.

I want to ask, at this point, some questions about women's centres. Can the minister advise if there's any money in this fiscal year to reinstate funding to women's centres?

Hon. I. Chong: The member may or may not be familiar with the decision that was made in 2002 that some of the operational funding that was going to women's centres would be discontinued in March of 2004. That was done. We have redirected funding dollars to direct, essential services. But I can say that a number of women's centres do provide our programs, our services. A number of them still continue to receive funding from this ministry. A number of them receive funding from other ministries to provide those program services.

B. Ralston: I just want to clarify the minister's response. I'd understood that all funding to all women's centres was ended at the end of March 2004. Is the minister saying that some of these centres still exist and are receiving money from her ministry or not?

Hon. I. Chong: The funding that was discontinued in March '04 was funding that was provided for some of their operational costs. A number of women's centres have a number of contracts with our ministry, with other ministries. Therefore, they still continue to receive dollars from our ministry and from other ministries to continue to operate.

B. Ralston: Can the minister then provide a list of the contracts and the names of the women's centres that continue to receive funding from the ministry?

Hon. I. Chong: The women's centres that do receive funding from this ministry — and as I say, some receive funding from other ministries depending on the program or service they deliver…. I'll give a rundown of some of these that continue to receive funding from this ministry.

We have 100 Mile House and District Women's Centre Society; Boundary Women's Coalition; Chetwynd Women's Resource Society; the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre Association; Fernie Women's Resource and Drop-In Centre; Golden Women's Resource Centre Society; the Howe Sound Women's Centre; North Island Women's Services Society; Port Alberni Women's Services Society; Queen Charlotte Islands Women's Centre Society; the Quesnel Women's Resource Centre Society; South Fraser Women's Services Society; Surrey Women's Centre Society; The Tamitik Status Of Women Association, also known as the Bread and Roses Women's Centre, in Kitimat; the Tri-City Women's Resource Society, also known as the Port Coquitlam Area Women's Centre Society, in Coquitlam; and the Westcoast Women's Resources Society.

B. Ralston: The minister said that that was a list of some of them. Is that a list of some of them, or a list of all of them? Just so I'm clear.

Hon. I. Chong: These are all the societies that receive dollars from our ministry to provide our services.

B. Ralston: Can the minister give some idea of the average size of the contract? I appreciate that it may vary from centre to centre. Can the minister give some idea of the average size of contract?

Hon. I. Chong: I thank the member for acknowledging that they do vary from place to place and size to size, depending on what contract. Some have safe houses. Some have transition houses. Some have Stopping the Violence programs.

Just as an example, in 100 Mile House their contract amounts to $125,492. In the Tri-City Women's Resource Society, with the services they provide, $658,833. To Golden, $100,585. Kitimat, $437,702. South Fraser, $255,174. For Surrey Women's Centre Society, $115,438. Queen Charlotte, $150,407.

As the member can see, it's a variety of amounts based on the services that the society provides.

B. Ralston: I'm going to quote a brief passage from Karen Stone, who's the executive director of the B.C.-Yukon Transition House Society. The minister has referred to her consultations with that society earlier. She stated in January of this year: "We find that the cuts to legal services and the cuts to certain health benefits are seriously impacting women and the volume of work at transition houses. Cuts to women's centres and other agencies serving women have…had a real ricochet effect on the transition house sector. Really, all these agencies should be seen as part of a continuum." That's quoted from the Times Colonist, January 25, 2005.

I'm also going to quote from a program coordinator at Amata Transition House in Quesnel, who stated: "The cuts have been really hard over the last three years. For instance, it costs the province $1.37 million to run all the women's centres across the province. For us to get this money now feels a little like taking funds out of our sisters' pockets." That's a quotation from the Cariboo Observer, February 2, 2005.

Does the minister agree with the statement of the executive director of the B.C.-Yukon Transition House Society that it would be more valuable to consider transition houses and women's centres as a continuum of service and properly fund both kinds of service?

Hon. I. Chong: What we have done, as I've indicated to the member, is provided $12.5 million per year in additional funding for the direct services that we provide. I've indicated that those are for a variety of housing that we have and a variety of counselling programs. Those dollars have been welcomed by the service providers to enable them to provide more services in their communities. That's the commitment we have made to those organizations.

B. Ralston: Is the minister not prepared to acknowledge the comment of Karen Stone, the executive director, that the cuts to women's centres and other agencies have had a ricochet effect on the transition house sector? In other words, because of the budget cuts to women's centres and to other services, transition houses have been obliged to take up the slack with inadequate resources to do so.

Hon. I. Chong: I continue to meet with Ms. Stone and others from the B.C.-Yukon Transition House Society and have met with them on the basis of looking at new programs and services that they wish to initiate, and I will continue to do that.

We have made a substantial increase for our women's services program in our budget. I think $12.5 million is a significant lift and has provided for more services for women.

B. Ralston: I'd like to ask some questions about the sexual assault centre program dollars. Is that a program that this ministry funds?

Hon. I. Chong: That would be funding through the Ministry of Solicitor General.

B. Ralston: The minister mentioned in her response a VictimLink line. Is that a service that's provided by her ministry?

Hon. I. Chong: That is through the Solicitor General. We list it on our website as an access for additional information.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise how much funding has been directed towards counselling programs in this fiscal year as well as what is projected for the following two years?

Hon. I. Chong: The two counselling programs…. We provide the Stopping the Violence counselling program. It has $7.423 million allocated for '05-06, and for the Children Who Witness Abuse counselling program, $4.616 million.

B. Ralston: Just so that I'm clear, are there separate dollars provided for counselling programs for seniors?

Hon. I. Chong: There is not a separate amount included in that. In the Stopping the Violence counselling program area, there can be seniors who would access that.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what steps her ministry is taking to promote the availability of these counselling services?

Hon. I. Chong: As I indicated, the information is on our website. As well, our outreach workers are out there in the community making sure community organizations are aware that these are the counselling programs available.

B. Ralston: How many outreach workers does the ministry employ who would be promoting this program?

Hon. I. Chong: The number of programs we fund for outreach services is 56. That's not to say there are 56 workers. We don't have outreach workers directly employed in the ministry. If we fund an outreach service provider, they may have people who work full-time or part-time or a combination thereof. So we don't have the exact number of workers, but we do fund 56 programs for the outreach services.

Hon. I. Chong: Can I just ask the member to clarify what his question was? Was he asking about eligibility for the service or eligibility of a counsellor?

B. Ralston: I'm interested in the eligibility of a prospective recipient of the counselling services. How is that determined, and how are the services paid for? Are they paid for on a fee-for-service basis? Are they eligible for some kind of assistance? Does part of the funding allocation fund the cost of the program for the recipient? I'm just interested in how eligibility of a prospective recipient is decided.

Hon. I. Chong: When an individual meets with a service provider, whether it's by self-referral or they have been referred by someone else, that service provider does an assessment and determines whether the program or the counselling fits with that person's particular needs. If that does in fact occur, then that service is provided to the recipient. There is no fee for service.

B. Ralston: Could the minister, then, just give me a sense of what a typical program for an individual might look like? For example, how many visits would typically take place? It's just to give a sense of what the program provides and over what time an individual would be entitled to receive those services.

Hon. I. Chong: As I'm sure the member can appreciate, it is not possible to provide a typical situation, because it is based on need, and everyone's situation is quite different.

B. Ralston: Well, I appreciate that it is an individual program, but I am interested in whether a person can then be a recipient indefinitely, for years, or if it is a typical counselling program, which may take place over a ten-to-16-week period with a weekly meeting to assess progress and, usually, a targeted completion time with some measurable progress having been achieved. I want a bit of a sense of what the program is about. Given that the minister and the ministry are responsible for expending these funds, I think it only appropriate that there be some sort of response to this question.

Hon. I. Chong: I was not attempting not to provide a response to the member's question. It's just that when he asked for a typical situation, I had to be clear that, unfortunately, there are no typical standards.

The counselling programs do provide, in general, eight to ten one-hour sessions to begin with, I believe. In fact, if a person requires more services and the assessment is made with the service provider that they need additional services, then that can be accommodated, but the service provider will have to make that assessment when the recipient meets with them and make a determination as to what course of action is necessary to provide that kind of assistance.

B. Ralston: The minister had mentioned in a response to a previous question that some services were available in languages other than English. She specifically mentioned Punjabi and the Cantonese and Mandarin dialects of the Chinese language. Can the minister advise whether these counselling programs are available in languages other than English?

Hon. I. Chong: As I indicated earlier, the multicultural outreach services provide information to immigrant and minority women in a variety of languages — and we'll have that to the member. They also are able to provide counselling services, but we don't have a list of those languages for which there are, in fact, counselling services provided. Again, I know that some of the transition houses, which do have workers there who do speak in another language and who also are counsellors, can provide that, but it will vary from community to community and from house to house.

We can endeavour to see what information we can provide to the member, if that's what he wishes. Again, because of the variety of houses and the unique special needs that they provide for, it's not as comprehensive a listing, perhaps, as he would like.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that offer of attempting to put together some review of the availability of those services in languages other than English. I guess my concern would be that the availability of those programs reflects the demographic composition of the population of British Columbia and that, by virtue of perhaps a lack of proficiency in English, women are not being barred from receiving these particular counselling services. That would be my concern, and I'm sure the minister would share that.

I would ask that the minister, as part of a review of this program and its efficacy, undertake some sort of review of the availability of those services in languages other than English. I appreciate that. I see the minister is nodding, so I am going to take that as an affirmative response.

I would like to talk a little bit now about women's employment re-entry programs. I notice in the service plan that you have introduced a program to help women re-enter the work force. Is that a program that had previously existed and has now been revived?

Hon. I. Chong: The employment program that is currently in the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, the bridging program for women, is a program that does provide for re-employment of women,

especially women who have been at risk. That is, as I say, in that particular ministry.

The area that we're looking at in terms of a program in this ministry, which is a new initiative, is one that takes a look at women re-entering the workforce who may have been absent for a long time raising a family or who had stopped working for other reasons and are looking to re-enter. We are still working to put together a program that will assist those women who want to return to the workforce after a period of absence. That will likely entail providing some assessment as to what their skills are, how things have changed. Clearly, if someone has been out of the workforce for ten or 15 years, their computer skills, even their use of technological advances, may be limited. Also, for women who may wish to re-enter the workforce from having left a particular profession and are now re-entering into another, such as the trades in a non-traditional role, again, we want to provide assistance in terms of helping their path into the workforce.

B. Ralston: The service plan refers to a program designed for women who have never been in the workforce. I'm sure that by that what you meant to say was women who have never, perhaps, worked outside the home and/or who are re-entering after a long absence. Is this the program you are referring to? It refers to women who have not worked outside the home and those who are re-entering after a long absence.

B. Ralston: The implementation, according to the service plan on page 21: program design would be complete and implementation would have begun by the end of this fiscal year. Is the minister or the ministry on target for achieving that goal?

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise, then, at this stage of development of the program, if the program would be available for women on income assistance?

Hon. I. Chong: This program, as the title or description states, is designed to deal with those re-entering the workforce — those who have been absent for a while or have not worked out of the home. For those women who are on income assistance, there are a variety of employment training programs available to them through the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. If the member would like to find out more about that variety of programs, then that minister can surely provide him the information.

B. Ralston: I guess my question would be that it would seem, from the description of the program and from the fact that it is proposed by this ministry, that it's intended to be something different than a typical program one might find in the ministry that the minister's referred to — a typical job re-entry program for people on income assistance. Is it intended to be something other than that? Is that the focus of the program? Otherwise, I don't see the rationale for creating the program within this ministry. If it's intended simply for women on income assistance, then it would seem to be a duplication of service.

Hon. I. Chong: That's correct. This is designed to be a new program, a new initiative, because those on income assistance do have the option of looking at employment programs through the ministry that funds them through their income assistance.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what work her ministry is doing to encourage women to enter the trades?

Hon. I. Chong: Certainly. We are wanting to encourage more women to enter the trades in these non-traditional roles. It's something I have been talking to a number of groups about for quite some time. It also entails speaking to those in the industry to ask that they participate. It also entails dealing with the educational institutions that are looking to expand a number of their courses for that.

The program will allow us to focus on having more women engaged, involved, employed in the trades. It will also require that this ministry work across other government ministries to ensure that we do co-ordinate this and then provide those options for women seeking employment opportunity in the trades.

B. Ralston: I'm not clear, then, from the minister's answer, where in the service plan this work is done. Is it done in objective two, participation in the economy? Is that where it's done? If that is the case, can the minister then advise how much money is specifically allocated for the promotion of this objective?

Hon. I. Chong: We have $500,000 allocated in our service plan, in our budget, for what is classed as a mentoring program. Some of those dollars will provide for the opportunity to have women enter the trades.

Certainly, we'll be looking at that from year to year and seeing whether that's sufficient or speaking with other ministries to develop a more comprehensive plan, if that's what's needed. Again, it begins with starting the dialogue with women who are wishing to enter the trades. It still is in its very early stages in the sense that it's still…. To convince and make aware that there are opportunities here, it's still a challenge. We are going to continue to work and outreach with private industry, as well, so that they can encourage more women to enter the trades.

B. Ralston: Again, just so that I'm clear, this objective is going to be accomplished through the vehicle of what's referred to on page 21 of the service plan as the mentoring program. Is that how this goal of encouraging women to enter the trades is going to be achieved?

B. Ralston: Have mentors, then, been selected or chosen who would be specifically encouraging women to enter the trades as opposed to entering small business or some of the professions, perhaps?

Hon. I. Chong: We are still at the development stage and speaking to those who are interested in assisting us. We have not got a list of mentors, if that's what the member is looking for, at the moment.

I can tell you that through groups like WES B.C., which is the Women's Enterprise Society, for example…. They have encouraged women to start their own business, to grow their own business, to enter into a trade which then may culminate into a business. In speaking with groups such as that, speaking with chambers as well, we will certainly have, I think, a good variety of mentors who will want to provide assistance to ensure that we do have a significant amount of women who wish to enter the trades.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what specific contacts the ministry has made with any labour organization or labour union that represents workers in the trades to help achieve the objectives of this program?

Hon. I. Chong: We have not progressed to that stage as of yet, but we will be contacting a number of organizations — labour organizations, business organizations — to promote women in the trades.

B. Ralston: Beyond the mentoring process, is there…? Does the minister envisage this program providing any financial assistance for women who are encouraged by their mentor to enter trades?

Hon. I. Chong: That is not part of the program plan, but I can say, having met with groups such as the Women's Enterprise Society, that they do have contacts. They have a network where they can provide assistance when a woman is looking to enter into either a trade or a business. Certainly, once we are able to connect with all those providers and all those interested parties who want to assist in having a woman enter a trade, we will provide that information so that they can seek out financial assistance.

B. Ralston: What programs, if any, does the ministry support for women working in the sex trade?

Hon. I. Chong: As I indicated earlier, through the bridging program…. That is a program that does provide assistance to at-risk women, many of whom have been victims of violence or have also been in the sex trade. That is funded through the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. There are other organizations that also provide assistance for those who have been in the sex trade.

We do provide funding, I believe, to a group that I'm familiar with here in Victoria: PEERS. I know a number of other ministries also provide funding so that they can assist those who are wanting to leave the sex trade. Through the Vancouver agreement, as well, we provide assistance for the mobile unit that exists in Vancouver, again to be of assistance to women who are in the sex trade.

B. Ralston: I'd like to ask a few questions now about the end of the zero-tolerance policy as regards spousal assault. As the minister may be aware, the policy previous to 2002 was to automatically prosecute cases of spousal assault. That policy was changed and, in effect, directed Crown counsel to prosecute fewer cases of spousal assault. Given the minister's stated concern for spousal violence, why did her government end zero tolerance for spousal assault?

Hon. I. Chong: I can tell the member that since the revision in the policy has allowed Crown counsel to deal with cases appropriately and meet the individual circumstances of each case, the policy is, in fact, having the desired effect of ensuring that more victims are protected by court orders. This is a matter that is reviewed by the Ministry of Attorney General. If the member would like more details on that, I would refer him to that minister.

B. Ralston: What effect has ending that policy had on demands made upon the transition house sector and on the ministry's programs and budget generally?

Hon. I. Chong: I can tell the member that since the change in the policy, I have not been made aware from the transition house society that there has been any change in the way they are able to deliver their services.

B. Ralston: Perhaps I could be permitted one further question before we rise for the morning. Is the minister then saying that the ministry itself, through your staff, has not done any assessment or any research at all into the impact of the policy of ending zero tolerance for spousal assault?

Hon. I. Chong: I can advise the member that when the funding for services for women was increased, the additional $12.5 million was as a result of speaking with service providers around the province to determine the needs and the additional programs and services they wished to provide. During that time of discussion no direct linkage was made regarding this policy. We are looking at those services and programs that have required the attention of this ministry in terms of providing the additional dollars for those direct services.

Noting the time, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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