Hansard — Wednesday, November 16, 2005 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		1847

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		1847
	Our Community Story project in Vancouver-Hastings
	S. Simpson
	Seniors and volunteering
	R. Sultan
	Block Watch program
	R. Fleming
	Bob Harrison
	A. Horning
	Korean War memorial in Burnaby
	R. Chouhan
	H. Bloy

Oral Questions		1849
	Responsibility for outstanding child death reviews
	C. James
	Hon. J. Les
	A. Dix
	Call for reinstatement of independent children's commissioner
	J. Kwan
	Hon. J. Les
	L. Krog
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. G. Campbell
	Responsibilities of property owners for private railway crossings
	D. Chudnovsky
	Hon. K. Falcon
	B. Simpson
	C. Wyse
	Federal funding for immigrant settlement services
	R. Chouhan
	Hon. W. Oppal

Committee of the Whole House		1854
	Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2005 (Bill 11)
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. M. de Jong
	R. Cantelon
	J. Horgan
	K. Krueger
	N. Macdonald
	R. Hawes
	J. Rustad
	J. McIntyre

Reporting of Bills		1860
	Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2005 (Bill 11)

Third Reading of Bills		1860
	Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2005 (Bill 11)

Committee of Supply		1861
	Estimates: Ministry of Health (continued)
	D. Cubberley
	C. Wyse
	Hon. G. Abbott
	G. Gentner
	B. Ralston
	K. Conroy
	S. Fraser

	Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		1882
	Estimates: Ministry of Environment and Minister Responsible for Water Stewardship and Sustainable Communities (continued)
	Hon. B. Penner
	S. Simpson
	R. Austin
	N. Macdonald
	C. Wyse
	B. Simpson
	S. Fraser

Hon. G. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale is not with us today. She is at a memorial for her son, who was killed in a car accident. I hope it would be appropriate for the House to send the member our condolences and our prayers as she goes through this very difficult time.

Hon. I. Chong: I have two sets of introductions today. The first is to welcome a ministry staff person who is attending a parliamentary procedure workshop. Her name is Angela Dibden, and she represents the B.C. Public Service Agency. I hope the House would please make her very welcome.

The second set of introductions, as well, today…. We are joined by some very special guests — actually, a number of young moms who are here with their children today. Hazel Currie and her baby Nelson are here along with Erin Wright and her baby Spencer, who is four months old, and Jacqueline Quinless and her baby Maxwell Palmer, who is nine months old — obviously viewing question period for the very first time. I hope the House would make them very welcome.

Hon. C. Taylor: Joining us as well today, attending these workshops, are a number of my staff that I would really like to introduce to you. It's interesting, because the workshop is intended to provide a greater understanding of parliamentary procedure, including legislative and budgetary processes in British Columbia as well as cabinet and Treasury Board decision-making. I'm not quite sure what they're going to learn from question period. Nonetheless, I would like everyone to welcome Lake Apted, Debra Venn and Patrick Deakin.

Hon. G. Abbott: It's my pleasure to welcome in the gallery today five employees from the Ministry of Health who are also here. I understand that they had strongly expressed a preference to actually attend the Ministry of Health estimates but have been inadvertently forced by the larger group into this session. I can appreciate why they would want to attend estimates in lieu of that. But they are here for the parliamentary procedure workshop.

It's my pleasure today to introduce from the Ministry of Health: Wendy Trotter, Paula DeBeck, Donna Langford, Elizabeth Gronsdahl and Elizabeth Jonkel. I'd ask the House to please make them all welcome.

R. Cantelon: It's my pleasure to welcome two guests in the gallery today: Mr. Doug Backhouse, president of the Nanaimo City Centre Association, and Mr. George Hanson, managing director of the Downtown Nanaimo Partnership. Both have been extensively involved in downtown revitalization, and they've succeeded in winning seven provincial awards for their efforts. I ask the House to welcome them here today.

Hon. M. de Jong: Richard Lawrie is the president of the B.C. Fire Chiefs Association. He is also the fire chief for the city of Abbotsford, and he is here today to witness what I anticipate to be another fine example of the good things that can flow from debate in this chamber. Please make him welcome.

S. Simpson: A remarkable artistic effort is underway in my community. Our Community Story, which runs from October 14 to November 30, is a multimedia project by 14 young interns and six mentoring artists, which tells the tale of three important pieces of Hastings Sunrise history.

Four on Hastings is a film and audio documentary about four unique Hastings Street businesses — Sorrento Barbers, Polonia Sausage House, Wung Wo Tong's Acupuncture and Herbs, and Olympia Tailors — which, interestingly, are also the venues for these performances. Stories on the Waterfront is an animated history of the port based on the recollections of longshoremen, seafarers and longtime residents. Sights and Sounds of Hastings Park is a series of audio booths featuring stories about Hastings Park, including Playland and the PNE, the racetrack and the Japanese Canadian internment, and is hosted at the Sweet Tooth Café, the Grind Café and Gallery, Laughing Bean Coffee House and the Slocan Family Restaurant.

Our Community Story is both a wonderful community-building exercise and a great opportunity for young artists to showcase their talent.

Congratulations to Jaimie Robson and Maya Ersan, who conceived and developed this project, and to their fellow mentoring artists: Igor Santizo, Lea Moss, Paul Bennett and Pietro Sammarco.

A special acknowledgment to the students for their superb efforts: Bruce Macdonald, Camilo Porter, Darnel Colby, Dennis Pierre, Emma Banks, Frank Pacheco, Julie Jones, Karl Fousek, Lucy MacKenzie, Max Knowlan, Mimi Li, Mitchell Vong, Olivia Kempkes and Wendy Chen.

And of course, thanks to the many sponsors, community advisers and supporters of Our Community Story and to the over 40 residents and workers who told the stories that made it such a success.

R. Sultan: At the Premier's congress on aging issues David Baxter, the demographer, reminded us of what

we see when we look around: more and more old folks. Despite improvements in seniors' health, the question goes begging: who is going to look after them? Clearly, it would be a mix of families, agencies and volunteers.

Statistics Canada says that 20 percent of the population are volunteers in one capacity or another. One organization I know something about is West Vancouver United Church's Caring Ministry. It's 77 volunteers and five team leaders in weekly contact with 96 people for home visits, walks in the park, and help with shopping and doctor appointments. With a 1.2-to-1 staffing ratio, Reverend Gouws tells me his team of volunteers is maxed out.

A different approach was described to me recently by a commercial home care operator up the valley. With 1,200 clients and 250 staff earning, all in, $25 an hour, at a 5-to-1 ratio it works out to about $12,000 per client — not cheap.

Or consider the hospital volunteer. For almost 20 years the wife of one of our most prominent North Shore business people quietly volunteered at the Lions Gate Hospital reception desk. One day, without ceremony, she was told to stop coming in. The union had filed a grievance. There was nothing the hospital could do about it. Was reception service maintained? Not that I've noticed. I call this nonsense.

As the seniors population grows, society's capacity is going to be stretched. To borrow a maritime analogy, it is going to be a situation of all hands on deck. It's going to include a huge volunteer component. Let's, therefore, welcome volunteers, celebrate them and keep them. We're going to need them, each and every one.

R. Fleming: I'm pleased to report today on activities that residents of my constituency are taking to prevent crime. In recent years the Victoria police department has increased its support to reinvigorate the Block Watch program that is citywide for ordinary citizens to fight crime in their neighbourhoods. This block-by-block approach is helping to prevent crime such as vehicle theft, graffiti, vandalism of property and the targeting of seniors by perpetrators of consumer fraud. Block Watch is very simply a program of neighbours watching out for other neighbours. It's designed to enlist the active participation of citizens in cooperation with police to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in our neighbourhoods.

Approximately six months ago the residents of Washington Avenue in the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood experienced a rash of break-ins on their street. People began to feel unsafe in their own homes at night and were frightened to leave their homes unattended during the day. A small group of residents of Washington Avenue led by Mr. Paul Chytyk, Cameron Burton and Judy Aldridge took the first step in seeking ways to make their street safer. They attended a Block Watch seminar and heard the message that the key to a safe neighbourhood is to know your neighbours, to look out for one another and know what to do in the event suspicious activity is observed.

Sometimes people's anger from being victims of crime leads to an impulse of vigilante behaviour. But this impulse is not only wrong; it can be dangerous to oneself and to others. Block Watch is about empowering people on their block and connecting themselves to law enforcement professionals. On Washington Avenue the initial efforts of a few concerned citizens have led to the organization of over 100 residents into the Block Watch program, making it the largest group in the city of Victoria. It has already led to the apprehension of suspected car thieves, and charges are being laid.

Block Watch is not a 100-percent guarantee that crime will not occur in your neighbourhood, but it is a proven means to reduce the risk of being a crime victim. As the MLA for Victoria-Hillside, I want to applaud the efforts of Washington Avenue residents and encourage other constituents who think it may be of benefit to them to contact Bev Stewart of the Victoria-Esquimalt Block Watch program.

A. Horning: I'm proud to rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding citizen of my riding — Bob Harrison. Bob passed away March 27, 2004, a week shy of his 70th birthday. He was a leading citizen in our community for more than 30 years, with sports being his passion. Although many know him from his distinguished radio career, it was his volunteer spirit, commitment to the community and love of sports that made this legacy.

This weekend I had the pleasure of dedicating a new Kelowna minor league football field in his honour. It's the first time the city of Kelowna has made such a proclamation to a specific field to be known as Harrison Field.

Bob was a man who was always first in many ways. He was a founding member of the Okanagan Sun Football Team 24 years ago. He even picked the team name and colours. His energy and driving force led to one of the most successful football franchises in B.C. and Canada. He also helped create the Kelowna Minor Football League, bringing together teams from throughout the province. The league is still thriving after three decades. In 1987 he was given the Football BC Builders Award.

Although Bob was larger than life and a fierce competitor himself, it will be his inspiration to our young people that will last. He saw sports as a way to develop discipline and character in our youth. He understood the benefits of team play and hard work. As a person who has participated in sports all my life, I want to thank everybody involved who made this dedication happen.

I think it's important that we all recognize these special individuals who have created better communities throughout our province. In Kelowna we have

dedicated parks and facilities in honour of former Kelowna mayor Jim Stuart, Stuart Park; Councillor Ben Lee, Ben Lee Park; King Stadium for Willy King; Athens Pool for Dr. George Athens; and Edith Gay Park for Edith Gay — just to name a few. All had long and distinguished careers serving the public or a passion for sport or children such as Bob Harrison. I thank the House for this opportunity to pay tribute to these fine British Columbians.

R. Chouhan: On November 11 we paid tributes to the brave men and women who defended freedom and democracy. We shall never forget their sacrifice. To commemorate the legacy of over 500 Canadian soldiers — 36 from B.C. — who gave their lives in the Korean War, the Korean Veterans Association western Canada chapter, the Canadian Korean Veterans Association Pacific Region, the city of Burnaby and its Park, Recreation and Culture Commission have decided to create the Korean War memorial in Central Park in Burnaby.

This will be the second Korean War memorial in Canada. It will remind the citizens of the supreme sacrifice and contribution of over 26,000 Canadians who served in Korea from 1951 to July 1953. It is an important educational project to remind us of the horror of the war and to encourage a peaceful future. Unfortunately, very little attention has been paid to the Korean War in schools or by the senior government. Neither the federal nor the provincial government has made a financial contribution to build this memorial. Meanwhile, the government of South Korea has committed to pay 30 percent of the cost. The Korean community has started a fundraising drive to complete this project. As MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds I strongly urge everyone, including this provincial government, to contribute to this worthy cause.

H. Bloy: I rise to speak on the Koreans and their commitment to our community, as my colleague has. Many Canadians served in this war, often called the Forgotten War. From the outbreak of the Korean War in 1951 until armistice agreement was signed in 1953, almost 27,000 of our countrymen served in the United Nations–led operations. Of the 1,558 casualties suffered by our troops, over 500 Canadians did not return home.

British Columbia's vibrant and flourishing Korean community is not only an important part of our province's enriching multicultural society but also the fastest-growing segment in my riding. Despite coming from Korea, the community has always honoured those who travelled across the Pacific Ocean to defend democracy and freedom in their land of origin.

Right now, led by the fundraising efforts of the Korean community, a project is underway to honour those Canadians who served and died in the Korean War — the Korean War memorial. This is an initiative I fully support and have encouraged. Located in Burnaby's Central Park, this 450-metre plaza is expected to be completed next May. A bronze sculpture of a woman representing peace and hope, called the ambassador of hope, will be the centrepiece of only the second Korean War–specific memorial in Canada. It will be a fitting and moving tribute. Please join me in thanking those Canadians who served in South Korea defending democracy and freedom and the efforts of our province's Korean community in honouring those who served.

C. James: Today we heard the Premier blame the system for the scandal that's consuming his government. This wasn't a systemic breakdown. This was wilful negligence by a government that deliberately — deliberately — designed a child protection system that was designed to fail.

My question is to the Premier. Can he explain how it was possible that no one in his government recognized that there were no child death reviews being done?

Hon. J. Les: I reported to the House yesterday that we would be examining all of those outstanding files. That work is still ongoing. As soon as that information is available, it will be made publicly available. There obviously were issues related to that transition. We want to get at the facts and what happened, and as I said, we're going to report out as quickly as we can.

C. James: I think what's missing in all of this is for government to accept responsibility for their part in this negligence, for their part in the fact that reviews weren't done. This system was designed by the government. The Premier downloaded responsibility for child death reviews onto the coroner's service without the resources or mandate to conduct proper reviews. No one in the government noticed that there was an absence of reviews, because they weren't looking for them and didn't want to see them.

Again, I ask my question to the Premier. When will he accept responsibility for his decisions and government's decisions that created this problem?

Hon. J. Les: I want to be very clear. As a minister, I take responsibility for this file to ensure that it is dealt with appropriately. As a government, we are accountable for all of these issues. That is why we are going through these files to ensure that we get all the relevant facts. I have already committed to making those facts publicly available. When we have those facts, we are going to react to them appropriately.

C. James: I'm pleased to hear that government is now taking responsibility for an issue. But the sad fact remains that no responsibility has been taken for the last five years. It's very clear, when we take a look at responsibility, that the Premier is responsible for these forgotten children. It is the Premier who led the core review process. It was the Premier who changed the system. It was the Premier, in 1996, who said we should all put the care, support and protection of children at the top of our priority list.

So my question is again to the Premier. Why weren't the deaths of these children on the top of his priority list over the last five years?

Hon. J. Les: I just want to advise the Leader of the Opposition that we take these matters very, very seriously. There's no question of that. We expect to set a very high standard with respect to child death reviews in British Columbia. It is clear that there are a number of outstanding files that need to be dealt with, but our commitment to ensuring that child death reviews happen appropriately in the province of British Columbia remains, and we expect to see that achieved.

The child-death review process has been reviewed by a number of people across the country. It has been found to be an excellent process. What we are dealing with is a transition where, apparently, there are a number of outstanding files. I again repeat that as soon as we have that information, we'll be making that available to all members and the public.

A. Dix: Well, I say to the Solicitor General through you, hon. Speaker: I'd like him to name one expert across the country who would say that a government that doesn't know whether they abandoned 80 files, 500 files or 800 files, and when a minister of the Crown can't answer that question in this Legislature — whether any expert in the country would say those are high standards….

My question to the government is this. In 1996 the Premier said: "I can tell you this. This side of the House would not have taken months and found delaying tactics and ministers who didn't care about it to implement the Gove report. We would have put the Gove report at the top of our agenda, and it would have been implemented one step at a time, day after day and month after month."

My question to the Premier is this. When he dismantled the recommendations of the Gove report, day after day, month after month in 2002, why did he or his ministers not pay any attention to the consequences?

Hon. J. Les: I don't want to leave any illusions here. None of us on this side of the House are happy that a number of those files remain outstanding. No one on this side of the House is happy around that fact. However, we have committed to dealing with them expeditiously, and we intend to do that.

We have in British Columbia a coroner's service which I think is second to none. We have a chief coroner in British Columbia that is respected across the country. We have in our various ministries in government a lot of very dedicated staff, who are very dedicated to ensuring that we provide the best possible service to British Columbians. I think that when we come together and take a look at these issues and resolve them, we'll be able to do that in a way that is absolutely appropriate.

A. Dix: The government acts on this question, and the Premier and the Solicitor General act as if this situation is the result of an accident that happened that they witnessed, which they weren't intimately involved with. There are no child death reviews, because the Premier and the government got rid of the Children's Commission. There were no child death reviews, because the Premier and the government got rid of the children's advocate. There are no child death reviews, because the Premier and the government transferred responsibility to the coroner without any funding and, in fact, cut funding to the coroner the year they did it. That's why there are no child death reviews.

My question to the Premier is this. Why doesn't he act today and refer all of these cases to a newly appointed, independent children's commissioner here?

Hon. J. Les: The fact of the matter is that we are acting today to deal with these outstanding files. I've made that commitment a number of times now, and everyone on this side of the House joins me in making that commitment. Every child death in British Columbia today is reviewed. Every death that occurs to a British Columbian under the age of 19 years is reviewed.

What we are talking about is the second-stage child-death review process, which for a number of outstanding files has not appropriately occurred. That is where we are looking for the facts. When we have those facts, the member and every other British Columbian will have them publicly available.

J. Kwan: The Solicitor General says he's doing everything that he can. The government has had three years — more than three years — to look into this situation. The files have passed through a whole array — a team — of ministers, and nothing was done.

How could it be that the Solicitor General and the Premier, the head of the executive council, do not know how many children got lost in the shuffle? How, then, can the Premier expect British Columbians to have any confidence that this government would take

care of the most vulnerable people in our society — children who have no voice?

Hon. J. Les: I commit again to the member opposite that we are engaging in a process that will bring forward all of those outstanding files, together with a complete analysis of those files. When that information is available, it will be publicly available for the members opposite and the public generally.

J. Kwan: Let us not forget that the missing information is about children — children in care like Savannah Hall and Harvey Charlie's granddaughter. The missing information is about children known to the ministry, like Kayla John and Daniel Smith.

In 1996 the Premier spoke eloquently about the tragic death of Matthew Vaudreuil. He wasn't a child in care. He was a child known to the ministry. The Premier demanded to know: how many other children known to the ministry, who are at risk, have died. The government changed the process, let the investigations drop and let the reviews drop. Through the many ministers to date, we have no answers. How can the Premier accept that as a high standard?

Will the Premier accept responsibility, stand in this House, do the right thing by British Columbians and reinstate an independent children's commissioner today?

Hon. J. Les: The member has enumerated some of the types of cases that would be involved in children's deaths. I've already indicated that we are talking, in fact, about all deaths under the age of 19 in British Columbia. These are not just cases of children in care. They are all British Columbians under the age of 19 who have died. Those are all reviewed. I just want to make that point.

We have consistently said that we want to have an excellent child-death review process in British Columbia. We believe the child-death review process that we have set out does that. We also have the Hughes panel, which will be reporting to government in several months. If there are improvements to be made, we will make those improvements.

L. Krog: What is known to every member who has sat in this House in the last years is that this government's process is a far cry from the excellent process that was implemented in this province by the previous government.

For days the Solicitor General has fumbled to get information that his government should have had for the last three years — information that, according to the Premier in 1996, should have been at the top of the government's agenda. The fact of the matter is that this minister has constantly used ignorance as his defence, and ignorance is not a defence. It's negligence. That's a direct quote from the Premier in 1996. Does the Solicitor General agree with the Premier that his government has been negligent?

Hon. J. Les: The member opposite refers to the excellent work that was done by the Children's Commission. I would point out that while the Children's Commission was in existence until January of 2003, in fact it was still dealing with files from 1997. It points out clearly that sometimes these files do take a long time to be processed properly. That is for a variety of reasons. Again, I point out that there are a number of outstanding files around which we have some questions, and we are dealing with those as quickly as we can.

L. Krog: Confusion, changing stories, forgotten children — negligence. It is time for action. It is not an action to wait for some report to tell this government what to do. Everyone in British Columbia, including the members opposite, knows what should be done. So that this kind of scandal will not happen again, will the Premier finally reinstate an independent children's commission?

Hon. J. Les: We are taking action to ensure that all of the outstanding files are appropriately dealt with as quickly as possible. In addition to that, we have appointed a review panel under Mr. Ted Hughes to review the entire child-death review process — to review how that is done — and whether there are any further recommendations that can be made with respect to making it an even better process perhaps. I think we are taking action. We are concerned that in British Columbia we will have the best child-death review process that we can possibly manage.

M. Farnworth: Well, what have British Columbians heard? They've heard that there have been three Ministers of Children and Families, two Attorneys General, two Solicitors General. Three years later, one review, lost files — and no one knows how many there are — and too many questions that remain to be answered. The buck doesn't stop with the minister; it stops with the Premier. It stops at the head of the executive council, the Premier of British Columbia.

So my question is to the Premier. Will he apologize to British Columbians for this situation, and will he restore trust in the system by committing today to reinstating an independent children's commission?

Hon. J. Les: I have already said that no one on this side of the House particularly enjoys what we have discovered over the last several days. We have, however, taken action to ensure that we obtain all of the information that we need to deal appropriately with these issues. We are going to do that. We will be reporting out on the facts that we have found as quickly as we can do that.

M. Farnworth: I appreciate the remarks of the Solicitor General, but the buck stops with the Premier. He is the Premier of British Columbia, and he is the one who is ultimately accountable. So my question is to the Premier again. Does he take responsibility? Will he apologize to British Columbians, and will he reinstate the children's commissioner?

Hon. G. Campbell: Yes, the government does take responsibility. The government believes that every child's death should be examined. Every death of a child under 19 in British Columbia has been examined at least once, and members opposite know that.

Members opposite know that the child death review is a second-stage review. It allows us to aggregate information so that we can provide the public with the results of those investigations carried out by the coroner so we can help prevent deaths in the future.

Let there be no mistake. Unnatural, unexpected cases that take place — suspicious deaths — are investigated immediately by the coroner. The child death reviews include children that die in hospital. They include children that die in accidents. We all want to learn from that. While I welcome the opposition's recommendations for how we can improve the situation, I want everyone to understand that everyone in British Columbia — British Columbians, the government, the opposition, all of us — wants to be sure that we learn from the death of every child. All of us will learn. We'll learn through comprehensive reviews. We'll learn by depending on an independent person like the coroner reviewing that with professionals and providing us with advice.

Let there be no mistake. Every death of every child under 19 will be reviewed in British Columbia, reports will be prepared, and action will be taken, so all of us in this House and British Columbians in general can learn so that we can make British Columbia even safer in the future for the children of this province.

D. Chudnovsky: The Minister of Transportation has repeatedly asserted that nothing has changed since B.C. Rail was sold to CN. Last week we heard that Loreen Tegart has a $30,000 bill she never had before, which is a pretty big change. Today we learned that another landowner is going to have to pay to maintain a fence between their property and the railbed, despite having an agreement signed in 2003 that said B.C. Rail would maintain the fenceline.

Can the minister please explain how this information fits with his assertion that nothing has changed?

Hon. K. Falcon: As we know, we've canvassed this issue very extensively in this House. I think I've made it abundantly clear that whether you're a resident in Newfoundland or British Columbia or Saskatchewan, if you have a class one railway crossing on your property, you are responsible for the maintenance and upgrades of that rail crossing.

I've also made it very clear to this House that I am — and I was and maintain that I still am — very unhappy with the tone of the letter that CN sent out. I've made it very clear that I thought the tone was unduly burdensome and the rhetoric in the letter was totally inappropriate.

I can tell the member that my office has made that clear to CN on numerous occasions. Today I can tell the member that our office has again spoken to CN, and they've suggested that as a result of the review they've been undertaking, which I made clear in this House was underway, they've made some changes.

First among those is that they will be waiving the suggested annual maintenance fee.

D. Chudnovsky: It's about time the people of B.C. got some leadership from their Minister of Transportation, got some advocacy from their Minister of Transportation, got some representation from their Minister of Transportation. It's taken them until today to talk to CN.

D. Chudnovsky: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad you want to hear me. We'll keep asking the questions, and perhaps eventually we'll get the leadership that British Columbians deserve.

Anne Grower of Clinton has lived on the rail line since 1962 and has never paid for fencing. She reports that she was assured by the former MLA for Cariboo South, Walt Cobb, that this Liberal government would continue to repair and maintain fences after the railway was privatized. Is this minister and is this government prepared to live up to that commitment? And if it isn't, who does the minister think these people should turn to for support and encouragement?

Hon. K. Falcon: You cut me off at the best part of my answer, Mr. Speaker. Fortunately I've saved the best part here. As a result of the repeated discussions my office has had with CN, I am pleased to suggest that they have indicated that they will be waiving the suggested annual maintenance fee of $500 a year till at least 2007.

Hon. K. Falcon: No, it gets better. During that time CN will examine all relevant private crossings to determine where and what minimum work needs to be done to meet those federal safety regulations and stan-

dards. Thirdly, they will be reducing the recommended liability requirement from $10 million to $2 million. I might add that that was put there to ensure that the homeowners are protected in the event that they're a third party in any lawsuit having to do with the rail crossing. Finally, they will be reviewing the letters and re-sending new letters out with appropriate language explaining the appropriate rights and obligations of both parties. That's exactly what we've been asking of CN, and that's exactly what CN has delivered. I appreciate that.

B. Simpson: I find it fascinating to listen to the Minister of Transportation take credit for something the Canadian transportation authority intervened in. It's the Canadian transportation authority who is pushing CN to remove the maintenance fee, and it's as the result of the opposition members in this House engaging the Canadian transportation authority, when the government would not, and asking them those questions

So to the Minister of Transportation, another angle for a change: who is responsible for noxious weeds along the rail line?

Hon. K. Falcon: You know, I appreciate the member opposite trying to claim credit for something he had absolutely nothing to do with. But that's to be expected by the members opposite, I suppose.

Actually, the member should know that CN charges those annual maintenance fees right across the country. Everywhere else in Canada they charge that annual maintenance fee. They will not be charging them in B.C. until 2007, until such time as they have an opportunity to fully review the rail crossings and the obligations.

The member asks a very detailed question, and I would encourage the member to actually go to the agreement. The agreement, as I have said from the beginning, is on the website — almost 1,000 pages of fascinating detail that the member can fill in for himself. I'm happy to quote sections. But really, what I'm doing is the homework that that member ought to be doing if he'd take the time to go to the website and find that information.

B. Simpson: It is unfortunate that question period is so constrained, because this is an engaging dialogue. The fact is that I engaged the Canadian transportation authority long before the minister got involved in this and apprised the Canadian transportation authority of both the letter from CN, which had a clause in the agreement gagging British Columbians from engaging them in reviewing that agreement…. It is that phone call that caused the Canadian transportation authority to put pressure on CN to remove the maintenance fee and the liability insurance.

To the Minister of Transportation: will the letter from CN involve an apology to citizens of this province who went through a very, very difficult time as a result of the cost burdens that were going to be put on them? And will the minister finally do the right thing and write a personal letter himself apologizing for not taking a leadership role in this issue from the outset?

Hon. K. Falcon: You know, Mr. Speaker, they brought up the case of an individual in this House — Mrs. Tegart, I believe her name was. Sadly, what they did not do is share any of that information with us. Apparently it wasn't important enough to actually share the information with government or with the minister responsible to make us aware of this situation. So we actually followed up on our own initiative, once this individual's name was raised in the House in that manner.

We followed up with the individual. I can tell you in fact that as recently as just this afternoon, my staff has spoken to Mrs. Tegart. She's very happy with the efforts that we've made on her behalf and very happy with CN's results that came out of the efforts that we made on her behalf.

But I will say this, and I want that member to really understand this very clearly. This does not relieve private railway owners from having responsibility for paying for the maintenance and upkeep of their rail crossings. It exists in British Columbia, and it exists in every other province right across this country.

C. Wyse: I was going to carry on and leave the crossing issue behind, and go on to the new issue of fencing — both the construction and the maintenance of those issues. But the minister here wishes to stay on the issue of crossing — the old problem that resulted from no changes here.

The question I would have of the minister is: from what he said today, does this mean that everyone who has received a bill from CN should just send it over to the minister with a note, a thank-you?

Hon. K. Falcon: As I have indicated, CN will be reissuing letters to all of the private rail crossing owners. CN will be working with all of the private rail crossing owners to identify what the minimum safety requirements, upgrades, are needed to ensure that they comply with the federal regulations which, after all, govern class one railways — whether it's CN, CP or Burlington Northern — right across this great country of Canada. That is the appropriate thing to do.

They will work with the Mrs. Tegarts, they will work with the other individuals that have been raised here, and they will make sure that things are moved forward in a manner that is fair, appropriate and reasonable but with the understanding that they will be under the same obligations that every other private owner is in every other part of this country.

R. Chouhan: The federal Immigration Minister, Mr. Volpe, has said that the B.C. government is set to receive at least $300 million over five years for immigrant settlement services. In the past B.C. has received $30 million from the federal government for settlement services. However, almost half of that money has gone into general revenue. The people who needed the services were left in the cold.

Could the Attorney General assure us that all of the new money received will be used for the needed settlement services?

Hon. W. Oppal: I was in Ottawa two weeks ago, and I had a lengthy conversation with Minister Volpe. After we had the lengthy conversation, he agreed that British Columbia ought to be treated in the same fashion that Ontario has been treated. As a result of that, our grant from the federal government has been tripled in size.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call committee stage debate in this chamber on Bill 11 and in Committee A, for the information of the members, estimates debate on the Ministry of Environment.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 11; S. Hawkins in the chair.

C. Puchmayr: We would like to introduce an amendment in section 1. The amendment is on your table.

C. Puchmayr: It is to alter the schedule to include lung cancer. We've looked at this quite closely, and we are certainly pleased at the direction that this list of amendments is going. We feel very strongly that lung cancer should become part of the schedule. We would like to see that the legislation includes that and directs that to become part of the schedule so that it would then list primary site brain cancer, primary site bladder cancer, primary site kidney cancer, primary non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, primary leukemia, primary site colon cancer, primary site uterine cancer and primary site lung cancer.

Hon. M. de Jong: I wonder if I might, in advance of the discussion we're now having about section 1 and the amendment that the member correctly identified stands in his name on the order paper, just make these observations about what has transpired since October 31 when this bill was originally introduced and subsequently debated at second reading.

I might add, Madam Chair, that in the over 12 years I have been here now, it's one of those debates that come along periodically — lamentably, not as periodically as we would like — where members truly do get an opportunity to offer up ideas. The debate was one that highlighted the degree of support that exists for what is taking place in Bill 11. As a number of members on both sides of the House said, it spoke to the issues about how a good bill can perhaps be made even better. We're going to talk about some of the ways today in which that might occur.

There has been good discourse and debate in this chamber. There has been, behind the scenes, a great deal of work taking place. The member and his colleagues have contributed to that, as have members of the government benches. I would be remiss if I didn't mention, as well, people like Chief Richard Lawrie and the Fire Chiefs Association of British Columbia and representatives from just a whole host of fire brigades and fire forces, some of them entirely comprised of volunteers, some of them comprised of professional crews and volunteers and drawing on paid part-time firefighters. All of them have brought their ideas to bear.

In his remarks in second reading the hon. member from the opposition highlighted three areas that he wished…. A number of his colleagues — and, in fact, some of my colleagues on this side of the House — said they wanted to explore possible changes. We're dealing

now with the first of those. It relates to an expansion of the numbers of diseases — in this case, cancers — that would be covered by the presumption that this creates in favour of firefighters.

My first response — not that I would be accused of being cute in any way…. The government is not accepting this amendment. My comments now hopefully will offer some information about why that is so. I suppose I could preface those submissions by saying that I wish we were in a position to accept the amendment, but I don't think we are just yet.

The other aspect of this, if I can for a moment digress and talk about the mechanics…. The bill is designed in a very purposeful way to have the listed cancers appear in what is technically not — and I'm sure….

Oh, by the way, I do want to do this, and I apologize. To my left, for members of the House, are Michael Tanner from the Ministry of Labour and Annette Wall, to my right. I apologize to both of them. I'm sure the thousands of viewers watching are now much more content knowing who everyone is on the screen.

The bill is designed so that it can actually evolve as the science evolves and the data and the supporting material. The document that I tabled at the time that the bill was tabled on October 31 lists an initial seven cancers that are covered. It's not technically a schedule to the bill but actually becomes a regulation by an order-in-council. That is done purposefully so that as the evidence does accumulate and evolve, we can do the very thing that the member is suggesting, which is to add the lung cancer in a way that doesn't require coming back before the House. But it can be done much more expeditiously via regulation. That is the first and technical reason why I am reluctant to accede to the suggestion that we amend the bill to include a particular disease. In fact, what we want to do is ensure that that can be done and added to the regulation via a different process.

That is only a procedural response to what the member is suggesting. The more substantive response is that I'm not able to come to the House and, in a convincing and satisfactory way, say at this point that I am in possession of the necessary data and science that would allow me to group the cancer that he has listed in his amendment — the lung cancer — with the other cancers that are listed. I hope that if that link exists, that we are in possession of that data and that evidence as quickly as possible. But I'm not now.

While I very much appreciate the spirit with which the amendment is proposed and recognize that in Manitoba, I believe, that cancer has been listed, in a number of other provinces to this point, it has not. That work continues to be done. There is urgency associated with that work. I am hopeful that if the causal link exists, I am put in possession of material that will allow me to conclusively reflect that in a subsequent order-in-council, which would list it along with the other cancers.

C. Puchmayr: Thank you for that brief introduction on this first amendment. Could the minister tell this House if there is any ongoing process at this time with respect to research or the science that is looking at the issue of primary site lung cancer?

Hon. M. de Jong: The short answer is yes. I was reminded by the senior staff here that even in the case of Manitoba, of course, the presumption accrues to those who are non-smokers. So there is that caveat that attaches, not surprisingly, even where it has been listed there. The positive thing about the process that we have undergone to get to this stage, of course, is the focus that it has brought within agencies like WorkSafe B.C., where there very much is now a concerted effort to accumulate the necessary data, assess it, examine on what basis the other jurisdiction…. I think there are two jurisdictions where the expansion or the extension to lung cancer has taken place.

Everything that has happened about this bill — and the process that the member and all members of this House have been part of — has contributed, I believe, to sending a signal that legislators in this province, whether they are government or opposition, believe that this is a priority and needs to be dealt with as such.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister please explain to us what stakeholders may be involved in such an analysis of the primary site lung cancer?

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, I'm reminded that the main repository for the kind of information that would be the focus of the analysis taking place is not just WorkSafe B.C., but, of course, the other WCB organizations across the country. Logically, that would be a place where there is involvement. Of course, just as we have worked with the employer, the fire services, I can assure the member — and I know he knows this on his own — that the Professional Fire Fighters Association has taken a central and acute interest in this. I have no reason to believe that their interest will diminish.

Those would represent the largest contingent of people that would be involved in this. There are, I suspect, other occupational health specialists that might be brought in from time to time. I don't profess to be an expert in how these experts draw the causal links and analyze the data to establish a comfort level that the causal link exists, but at the end of the day that is the task they are charged with — and then coming forth with their recommendation.

C. Puchmayr: I know there are some sciences out there. As opposed to just having those documents there for the different stakeholders to look at and to address, are there actually some mechanics in place that are currently looking at and doing an analysis of those sciences, and if so, when can we anticipate some response to that?

Hon. M. de Jong: I won't endeavour to provide the bibliography here, mostly because I can't off the top of

my head. But there are a series of studies, some of them dated and some of them, I might add, of increasingly limited value, because it was some of those studies that led to conclusions that would not have allowed this bill to go forward. But those studies are being updated, some of them, and I'm happy to provide the member with a reference guide for what they are, and in some cases, the actual studies.

In the case, for example, of the main provisions within Bill 11, it was a particular study initiated in large measure by the Professional Fire Fighters Association in a response to some other work that had been done that ultimately established the comfort level that government needed to move forward. That's a good starting point, but there are some other studies that I'm happy to share, with the caveat that some of them either need to be updated or are in the process of being updated.

R. Cantelon: I would like to move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper on section 2.

Hon. M. de Jong: I wonder if my colleague would be prepared to momentarily withdraw the moving of his amendment so that we might hear from our friend opposite with respect to some suggestions he has around the bill.

C. Puchmayr: On section (b) there are two motions. There is the motion that we put forward to include volunteer firefighters in this legislation. We've had some very good debate in this House, in this chamber. We had some very good debate with respect to the impacts that this type of legislation would have on excluding a segment of firefighters from the legislation. I believe that the members on this side put forward some very cogent arguments as to why volunteer firefighters should be included. I should also note that I heard some very positive overtures from the other side, as well, from the backbenches, with respect to some of the rural communities and some of the impacts that this legislation would have in creating an unfairness between full-time firefighters and volunteer firefighters. I was very pleased with the tone of that debate.

As we know, many communities do not have the resources to have full-time firefighters, and yet some of the smaller communities with entirely volunteer firefighters have significant exposure because of travel time getting to the fires and getting to the events. So a lot of times when they get to fires, they're fully engulfed, and so the exposures are significant as well.

We also have career and volunteer firefighters in some of the growing communities. We have career and volunteers side by side attending every fire, pretty well, together and being exposed to the same toxins as a volunteer versus a full-time firefighter. As we saw, an excellent analysis of that was the Kelowna fire. I know the member for Kelowna-Mission, in the chair, was certainly aware of the impact that that had. We had first nations firefighters, we had volunteer firefighters, and we had forest fire fighters. We had firefighters from communities all over British Columbia who were dispatched to go up there and try to save some of the houses that were engulfed in the flames.

I think there was a very clear understanding in this chamber that it is an issue of fairness and it is an issue of balance. I know there may have been some discomfort with some of the rural areas and not having the equal legislation to respect those firefighters who are putting life and limb on the line in those remote communities.

Yesterday when I opened Orders of the Day I saw the resolution from the member for Nanaimo-Parksville, which is quite similar to the legislation put forward in my name. I read it, and I did have some discussion, and I thank the member for having some discussion with me on that matter. I also thank the Labour Minister for having some discussion with me on that matter. I would now like to yield my motion to the motion made by the member from Parksville. I'm fairly new at this game, but I do know how to count, and so I think the numbers game would play into it.

I think we're trying to achieve something here that's positive for British Columbians. It's positive, and it creates an equal balance. To me, the bottom line is: how do we do it? So I will yield my motion, and I'd like to go into committee stage on the resolution by the member for Nanaimo-Parksville.

R. Cantelon: I, too, am quite new at this. If it's now appropriate, I would like to move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper on section 2.

R. Cantelon: If I may just acknowledge the member opposite. He did call me, and I think we're all of a unity of mind on this. Not only is it the intention of this amendment to make this available to volunteer firefighters throughout the province, but there are many on-call firefighters as well, who are paid and who do good work. In fact, in my hometown of Nanaimo almost half of the roster are on-call firefighters. I think when firefighters attend a fire, they take the same risks. They inhale the same toxins, and therefore, they're entitled to the same benefits that are provided under this act.

I also acknowledge the minister. I think in his generosity he responded to the concerns on both sides of the House. I think in spirit both of these motions accomplish what we jointly wish to press on the minister.

J. Horgan: I, too, want to echo some of the comments from my colleagues here today. It's this sort of interaction and sense of cooperation in the Legislature that all British Columbians want to see.

The Minister of Labour said at the beginning of this committee discussion that a good law could be made better, and we're doing that today by cooperating on this amendment. I think it's a great step forward for politics in British Columbia, it's a great step forward for this Legislature, and more importantly, it's a great step forward for firefighters, whether they be volunteers or full-time.

In my comments at second reading of this bill, I made it clear that I have many family connections in the professional side. It was brought home to me in my community of Langford, where we have a mix of professionals and volunteers. We can't have these people going into a fire with different rights and different obligations. So I applaud the member for Nanaimo-Parksville and the member for New Westminster and, most importantly, the Minister of Labour for listening to both sides and coming up with a dynamic compromise that will serve us all very well.

K. Krueger: I wish to briefly add my voice to those of the members who have just spoken. At the time that we were debating second reading, I had spoken with the minister about the possibility that we could include volunteer firefighters. He made it clear he wanted to but wasn't sure there was sufficient evidence to proceed at the time.

Things have happened very quickly — a lot more quickly than I think they generally happen when legislation is enacted. When I spoke with him about it, I had in mind a young man, a firefighter named Schapansky who died in a tragic fire in Clearwater not long ago. All of my fire departments outside Kamloops are volunteer — 100 percent. These people take tremendous risks, and I know they'll feel really good that they're included. I wish to join my colleagues across the way and on this side of the House in thanking the minister for being so willing to accommodate and doing so, so quickly. Congratulations.

N. Macdonald: I just want to join with everyone else in commenting on two things. First, I very much appreciate what has gone on here. I realize that for the minister to make the change…. It was something that I know you'd wanted to do. You said that in your initial statement.

I very much appreciate the fact that it's taken place. I commend compatriots mainly from rural areas, but for anyone who has a volunteer force, the opportunity to make the change within the Legislature is appreciated. It's what people like to see — that there is debate that leads to a better conclusion. I've had a chance to talk to all of the fire chiefs. They feel very strongly that this is the way to go in my area, and they're all professionals with mainly a volunteer force or with a few professionals and the rest volunteer. I commend the members across the floor and on this side and the minister. I think you deserve all the credit that you're going to get here for making this adjustment, and I thank you.

R. Hawes: I, too, would like to thank the minister. I would like to thank the firemen who were very persistent in coming to us year after year to make sure that we understood this issue and that we acted on this issue. On behalf of the volunteer firemen and paid-call firemen in both Maple Ridge–Mission and the electoral areas of the Fraser Valley regional district, I'd like to say thank you to the minister. I know that every one of those firefighters who we rely on for safety and for the protection of our lives and our children and our assets…. Every one of those guys risks their lives every time they go to a fire. They do breathe the same toxins as the professional firefighters, and they do deserve the same coverage. I'm extremely pleased that they are going to receive that coverage.

To the minister and to all members of the House that worked so hard to get this to happen: thank you on behalf of the firefighters that I represent in my constituency.

C. Puchmayr: Actually, New Westminster has firefighters that are women as well, and maybe Maple Ridge doesn't.

On section 6.1 there is an added sentence, which is subsection (3), and there's an added (a). I'd like to explore some of that with the minister, please: "…has worked as a firefighter for…." This is the volunteer firefighter who has worked for a period prescribed for the disease, which is straightforward — "which minimum cumulative period may be defined differently, and be different, for different categories of firefighters." I would like some explanation as to that language, please.

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks to all members whose generous contribution and passion for this subject have allowed it to become a reality, and to Chief Lawrie. I hope you will convey to your colleagues and members the extraordinary contribution they have brought to effect this amount of love in this chamber in the course of this afternoon. For those of us who have been here for many years, it is gratifying to see the degree to which positive things can emerge out of debate in this chamber. I am happy to have been in a position to be the conduit for the will of the chamber in this instance.

To the specific point, and we should not lose sight of what's taking place here, because we are first and foremost by virtue of the amendment that is now on the floor, which I obviously commend to all members…. Passage of the amendment will ensure that the benefit of the presumption extends to all firefighters — part-time, full-time, paid, unpaid volunteers — effective April 1 of this year. It does so upon passage and proclamation immediately.

What I discovered, and what the senior staff and advisers were able to bring to me as we were exploring this over the last week and a half, is that in a couple of the jurisdictions where this coverage does extend to volunteers — and I'll pick Nova Scotia because it's the one that comes most readily to mind — the legislation, either in the legislation or at a regulatory level, creates some expectation. So for the coverage to apply as per the regulation around the presumption to a volunteer firefighter in Nova Scotia, that firefighter has to at least establish that they have been involved in 20 percent of the callouts.

At a certain level, one can understand the wisdom in that, because the principle that I heard in this chamber, that stuck with me and that ultimately led me to want to pursue the matter more fully is when members on both sides of the House pointed out anecdotally — reminded me, actually, because I'm from a community that has both volunteer and full-time — that there are particular areas where those people are fighting fires side by side on a regular basis, where the risk they are exposed to is essentially the same.

The proposition I ultimately did not want to argue against was that people who are experiencing similar levels of risk should enjoy the benefit of similar coverage and similar evidentiary burdens — or in this case, reverse evidentiary burdens, as it were. That struck me as being a very compelling argument that was made in eloquent fashion in this chamber and by firefighters and their representatives.

It is possible, I suppose, that as we go forward, we will decide, or a future government will decide, to adopt something akin to the Nova Scotia model, and that is a regulation that says: "Well, if you're going to enjoy the benefit of this as a volunteer over the course of your tenure, we want to establish minimum levels of participation." I will say to hon. members today that I'm not sure how workable that is from a practical point of view, and I'm not even sure today whether the evidence would support that approach. So we're not going to do it.

What we are doing, however, by passage of the amendment that is before the House now is saying that a future government may want to have that option and that if it is going to exercise that option, there needs to be a power within the act that allows it to do so. That, in a nutshell, is what the added phraseology that the member has referred to that exists in the member for Nanaimo's amendment we are now debating….

But the two points that I want to make are that, unlike a scenario in which we were putting volunteers on hold until some regulation was developed — and that was one of the options — that is not taking place here. The benefit of the presumption accrues immediately for volunteers and part-time firefighters upon proclamation of the bill, and it will be for other governments, perhaps other — well, most certainly other — ministers, based on additional information, to decide whether or not to make use of that additional regulatory authority to do something like they did in Nova Scotia.

C. Puchmayr: Well, I'm pleased to hear that this could only be a threat from future governments, and so we'll do our best to ensure that that doesn't happen.

The other issue that I have some concern with is the identification of the firefighter, and it talks about someone being primarily in fire suppression. I do have some concern with respect to the inspectors. Aside from what my community does, where they have a progression through suppression into inspection, I've been instructed that many communities don't have that protocol, or they don't have that formality for inspecting fires. Therefore, the fact that there have been some very serious incidents of primary-site cancers in all the categories that we have identified in schedule B from off-gassing after the fires have been extinguished…. I think there's an example of a test burn in Richmond. Out of eight inspectors, I believe, six of them have succumbed to cancer from off-gassing.

So could the minister please explain his interpretation of the "primarily to fire suppression" clause? I believe it's section 6.1(1)(c).

Hon. M. de Jong: I do want to explore that with the member, but I think that, technically, we are now off

the amendment, and I wonder if we might first deal with the amendment. I don't know if there are any further comments on the amendment. Apparently, there are. Then we can, perhaps, come back to the member's question.

C. Puchmayr: The other question I have with respect to the drafting of this section of the bill…. I just want to know who drafted the bill, and what consultation was derived in drafting the bill?

Hon. M. de Jong: Right. I can tell the member that insofar as the bill, in its entirety, within the policy division of the Labour Ministry…. Two of the officials that were intimately involved in that are here with me. There are legislative drafts people that are involved in the drafting of a bill of this sort, so hopefully, that helps.

C. Puchmayr: Then the consultation in drafting that — is that information available for us?

Hon. M. de Jong: So, two stages, I think, to the consultation process. One, in terms of the substantive public policy — again, largely engages contact with WorkSafe B.C. or WCB in this province and other agencies across the country. Obviously, none of this took place without some pretty intensive discussions with the professional firefighters.

I should say, as well, that communities…. The member will know about resolutions from UBCM, so there was a degree of input from there. All of this, ultimately, in April of this year gave rise to a conceptual announcement by government, and contact with those agencies would have continued. Then, when we get to the stage where a bill is actually being put together, it involves contact with other legislative drafters, looking at what other jurisdictions have done in terms of the language that they have used.

J. Rustad: I just wanted to rise and speak to the amendment to say that I have professional firefighters in my riding, but I also have a significant number of volunteers as well as on-call firefighters in the communities of Vanderhoof, Fort St. James and Fraser Lake and even, to some extent, in other areas in my riding.

This amendment coming forward and the spirit of cooperation in this House really speaks to democracy. More importantly, it speaks to the work that the firefighters themselves have done. I had an opportunity to speak with a great many of them, and their comments to me were: "This is great. We really appreciate the work that the government is doing. We really appreciate them hearing our concerns." They advocated, as well, for the on-call and volunteer forces to be a part of this.

So I'm very pleased that our government has been able to respond to this, and I thank the minister for the timeliness in bringing this forward. This is a great effort by the entire House to bring forward on behalf of those great professionals and the services they provide.

J. McIntyre: I'm not going to be able to do this. I just wanted to add my voice of support — if only I could. Sorry.

C. Puchmayr: Section 2(c) is the amendment on retroactivity, which has been submitted in my name. It is to extend the retroactivity to 1985.

C. Puchmayr: The current bill, the way it's presented, has a retroactivity date that states that the first disabled are as of the April 11, 2005, and our amendment is to strike that and back the retroactivity up to 1985.

Hon. M. de Jong: It's one of those frustrating circumstances in which, having decided to adopt a course of action, which is really designed to correct some-

thing, we would all like to be able to rewrite history and say it wasn't so — for a firefighter a decade, two or three. Armed with the same evidence, presumably, the same presumption should have followed. It didn't because it wasn't there. The hurdle they were forced to overcome in making a claim was higher, and in certain cases, they did not overcome it.

I can't stand and argue, nor will I endeavour to do so, that the firefighter who faced precisely the same circumstances ten, 15 or 25 years ago would not benefit or would not have benefited by having the advantage of the evidentiary presumption that this bill creates for firefighters. They didn't.

The difficulty with anything this chamber does retroactively is that the date one picks is arbitrary by its very nature. Whatever date one picks, ultimately and inevitably, someone can come along and say: "You missed me. If you'd just go back a little bit further, you would capture me. Isn't that fair? Why should I be excluded?"

I know I don't have a convincing answer for that person who is being missed. What I can say is that it is difficult to rewrite history. The government obviously came to a point in April of this year where it was satisfied that the evidence compiled by officials, by occupational health experts, by the firefighters themselves was sufficient to warrant making an announcement and made an undertaking to ensure that any legislation that was presented to the House would be retroactive to the date of that announcement, and that's what's taking place here.

Sadly, I'm not in a position where I can indicate that the government will be supporting the member's amendment. I should say, because of the spirit, I know, with which the amendment is being proposed, that I don't necessarily wish to hang my hat on this, but I am advised, as well, that the rules of the chamber would preclude a motion of this sort from being passed and that it is technically out of order.

I think it's important, though, that we have had the discussion because there will be a few people who look at this and say, "You missed me," and I'm sorry about that. I wish that previous administrations had been in possession of the evidence the government came into and were in a position where they thought and did act on that information. They didn't, and if anything, it acts as a sober reminder to all of us in this chamber that the work we do is important and that responding to evidence, as it becomes available in a timely way, is important.

I am in no way offended that the member would bring the suggestion and the proposition to the chamber. Regrettably, the rules suggest that it's not one we can properly act upon, and it's not one that the government, in any event, is in a position to act upon.

The Chair: Members, the Chair rules that the amendment would have the effect of creating an impost by opening up liabilities of the workers compensation fund going back 20 years. Such an amendment requires a recommendation by the Lieutenant-Governor under Standing Order 67. Therefore, the amendment is not in order as presented.

C. Puchmayr: I'm not surprised, and frankly, this makes an interesting argument. I appreciate the minister's comments on it, and I appreciate the minister allowing it so that he could make some comments on it. I certainly appreciate the dilemma with respect to that defining line and who's on the side of presumption and who's on the side of nothing, or of non-presumption.

I think the science behind our thoughts on this is that the further back you go, at least you capture more people, especially when a bill is introduced that is so short in time of it actually applying.

I appreciate the Chair's comments on that, and I will not continue further on it.

Hon. M. de Jong: Madam Chair, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Bill 11, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2005, reported complete with amendment.

Bill 11, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2005, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. de Jong: In this chamber I call Committee of Supply — for the information of members, the estimates of the Ministry of Health.

D. Cubberley: Just for the minister's information, what we would propose is to finish off a couple of questions on ambulance service, which carry over from yesterday. Then we would like to go into hospitals and P3s.

C. Wyse: Good afternoon. Yesterday we were talking about a possible redesignation of rural ridings to urban ridings. My question to you is whether several rural designated stations will be, or recently have been, changed to an urban status.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his follow-up on his question of yesterday. Of course, there can be revision from remote to rural. We discussed the one case, and apparently, there's only been one case to date, which was Houston. That's the one that's changed from remote to rural.

There have been ten, I'm advised, that have moved from rural to urban. They include Ladysmith, Agassiz, Squamish, Powell River, Nelson, Quesnel, Terrace, Prince Rupert and Fort St. John.

Now, in the area of supplies and ambulances. Apparently, paramedics are performing procedures without adequate equipment and supplies. I will specifically name the information that I have: drugs that are being borrowed from hospitals, ventilators that are inadequate and Propaks that are not available. My question: what funds are being provided to address these concerns?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll answer the member's question in respect of drugs and ventilators, which are the two elements that he mentioned. But to set this in context, I should note that the emergency health services budget for 2004-2005 was $220.602 million; for 2005-2006, $253.523 million; and for '06-07, $259.572 million. So there has been no reduction in budgets; there have been substantial increases in budgets.

Further, I'm advised by the director of ambulance services for British Columbia that he is entirely unaware of anything out of the norm in terms of how drugs are managed on the ambulances. They have normal warehousing procedures and safeguards around the drugs that they would routinely use on ambulance calls. When those get into short supply, it is protocol and procedure for those to be restored through the hospitals. There's nothing unusual in doing that. It is, in fact, expected. Similarly, when ambulance crews are expecting to be taking on a client or a patient that requires a ventilator, again, it is normal procedure to access that equipment through hospitals. So I don't know where the apprehension comes from that the member is expressing. I presume it was expressed to him by someone, but again, from what we've heard so far, there is nothing out of the norm in terms of protocols and procedures.

C. Wyse: To the minister: I have a very tight agreement to stay on my questions within a time frame, and so I just wish….

C. Wyse: I wish to advise you that I don't worry about it, but I will be following up on these items, and I just mention as I pass through that Propaks, which I asked about, weren't referred to.

But I'm going to go on to my third question — critical care transport. In a region like where I'm from and across the rural part of the province, this becomes an integral component from where the ambulance is going to pass their patient over. A time delay for patients requiring critical care transport becomes integral in this system. What funding is provided or available, if you prefer, for critical care transport of patients, be it by air or ground?

Hon. G. Abbott: I hope this will address the member's questions. The B.C. air ambulance service has been in place for some time, as I'm sure he knows. But just to get a sense of the volume, Airevac, 7,380 patients transferred in 2003-2004 and 7,600 — I presume that's a rounded-off figure — in 2004-2005. That's kind of the volume.

In terms of new initiatives involved around critical care transfers by ground, I'm advised that there are two pilot projects underway in the interior of British Columbia that are using critical care ground transfers. One pilot program involves the Kamloops area, which involves paramedics only. A second pilot involves Trail, and there it is paramedics plus critical care nurses. That's the current work that is being done on ground transport.

D. Cubberley: With that, I'd like to swing over to things to do more with hospital capital funding and P3s. I just want to open up the discussion around the way in which the formula or approach for approving and funding hospital capital projects may have changed after the health care reorganization into the five authorities.

What I understand from experience back in local government is that in the past, there was an established formula of 60-40 as a cost-sharing ratio between the provincial agency and the regional hospital district for major capital projects. I know from my own experience on a hospital district that there's some confusion now about how new hospital facilities are approved and funded and the application of the formula. That may be because health authorities are going through some transition.

I'm interested in that, and I guess a question that might lead it a little bit is: do health authorities have annual capital allocations that they're given with latitude to negotiate with hospital districts around priorities? Or does the minister/ministry approve major capital projects for new hospitals across B.C. and then advance money for them to the health authorities?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again we salute the member for his multi-textured, multi-levelled questions which invite such involved answers from me.

A lot of things remain the same around how a project would generally move from concept through to construction. Many things remain the same. So for example, notwithstanding the reorganization from 52 health authorities across the province down to six, the basic funding distribution of 60 percent provincial — i.e., health authority — and 40 percent regional hospital district remains the same — that same basic breakdown.

There is a difference, though, as the member probably knows, in the Greater Vancouver regional district, where — I believe it was under the former government in the late 1990s, or possibly the early 2000s — there was a shift made as the devolution of B.C. Transit occurred. So the situation is different in the Greater Vancouver regional district, but apart from that, across the province the 60-40 funding formula around capital remains.

In terms of the relationship between the health authorities and the regional hospital district, we touched on this a little bit yesterday. We think in most cases, if not all cases, there would be a working relationship probably embodied in a memorandum of understanding that would reflect how the discussions would proceed between the health authority and the regional hospital district in relation to new projects. Clearly, it would be in everyone's interest for the discussion to be extensive so that the regional hospital district and the component municipalities and electoral areas of that regional hospital district have a clear understanding of why a new facility might be required — maybe the age of a facility, or perhaps there's been extensive population growth, or any other number of combinations of factors that may come into play in convincing the health authority that a new facility or a retrofitted facility is needed. When that happens, obviously, the expectation is that they will bring the local governments along in terms of their understanding of the problem and why it needs to be revised.

There is an assumption when that proceeds that there will be a 40-percent sharing by the local authority — the regional hospital district — but the health authorities have the ability, should they wish, to vary the terms and conditions around the participation of the regional hospital district. I think that has historically been the case, and that remains — that when they sit down with an RHD, they will go through all of those things. Once the determination of a priority has been made by the health authority and they've done the due diligence and the discussion with the regional hospital district and they have what they believe to be a workable project, they would submit that to the Ministry of Health for our consideration. Then, should that consideration be successful, it would be submitted to Treasury Board for consideration under major capital funding.

So that's kind of the process. But if we've missed any of the important pieces in terms of the member's original question, we'd welcome supplementals, obviously.

D. Cubberley: No, I think that was good. It's helpful. It is interesting, as a commentary. The minister has mentioned a couple of times now the idea of a memorandum of understanding between a health authority and an RHD. It's not something that in my period of time on the capital regional hospital district board that I was ever aware of as a possibility. So I think that bears some exploration, and I may come back to it with a further question, but it's an interesting avenue to explore. Certainly, as a practice it might help. If it were institutionalized, it might help to ease some of the tensions that can arise between the two entities. We will perhaps come back to that.

I want to pursue the way in which a project gets shaped. In particular, I'm interested to know whether it's now a formal requirement that a new hospital project being proposed by a health authority be considered for development as a P3, whether there's some kind of trigger that says that this should happen, whether it's simply a requirement that all major capital projects be considered as potential P3s.

I want to lead on to the question of whether establishing a business case, which I would assume would be a requirement in the event that…. There should be a business case for any proposal in any event, but if there is a business case being prepared for a proposed P3 hospital, whether there's a requirement that it be compared with the assumptions that would apply to the same hospital presented as a not-for-profit entity…. So, is there a requirement that it be a P3? Is it a requirement that a P3 be considered prior to something else being considered? If a P3 is being proceeded with, obviously there would be a requirement for a business case of some kind. Is there a requirement that the assumptions of the P3 be tested against the business case for a not-for-profit hospital facility?

The pivotal document in terms of answering the member's question is one that was created and published in 2002, which I'm happy to share with the member if he doesn't already have it, called Capital Asset Management Framework: Overview. That goes through the framework, the guideline and tools, the principles that underline it, and so on. It probably provides a pretty good picture of what the capital process is from looking at the different methods of procurement through business cases and capital asset management plans, consolidated capital plans, etc.

That would be a useful document, I think, for the member to be in possession of. This is a pivotal document in terms of understanding the shift that is occurring within the culture of capital spending in the province.

As the health authorities are building rigour around their capital planning process, this is more and more the framework that is being incorporated into those projects. For example, Shuswap Lake General Hospital — if they wish to do an upgrade there, they would have to look at the framework and principles around that in developing the plans for consideration by, initially, the health authority and then subsequently by the ministry and by Treasury Board. That would be the expectation all across the province.

We do what are termed public sector comparators so that we have a very strong evidence base on which approach should be adopted in terms of the construction model. It's our expectation that all options will be considered to ensure that, in fact, the public benefit is maximized, again to ensure that every taxpayer dollar — and there are a considerable number of taxpayer dollars that come into play here — achieves the maximum public value.

It's interesting. I think that document probably needs to circulate more widely than it has been circulated. There are people sitting on a nearby regional hospital district board who have no knowledge of that document. Given that they are charged with the responsibility for overseeing 40 percent of the funding that goes into these major capital projects, I think it would be very, very helpful to local decision-makers to have a sense of how the provincial framework has changed.

I do understand that when you go through a process of transformation, especially if you are aggregating up into very large units, obviously lead executives have a great deal to deal with. But there is not a clear sense, clear signals around how priorities are being set and projects are being moved forward at the level of the RHDs.

It may be different in other health authorities. I'm speaking based on knowledge of one, but it is based on some knowledge of it. I think that in the interests of creating a clear sense of where the ball is, it would be very desirable for that framework to be presented to that level of decision-maker, because 40 percent is not negligible. It's important that people understand how priorities are created and how frameworks are set.

I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about the determination as to whether a hospital should be a P3. Just from reading a little bit about the legacy project in Vancouver, it seems that Partnerships B.C. plays some role in the creation of a P3 hospital project or the approval of it. I'm interested in the decision-making phases that the minister outlined in skeletal form, where Partnerships B.C. comes into it and what role they play in theory.

I know that the sole shareholder, I believe, is the Minister of Finance. Does that make them in essence an agency of the Treasury Board? And are they acting on behalf of the Treasury Board with what they do? If you could give me a sense of how that fits into the picture, that would be helpful.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member's suggestion of more widespread distribution of this is a good one. I am pleased to advise that should any of the members opposite or any of the thousands and thousands of viewers watching today be seized with interest in this matter, they can go to the Ministry of Finance website, where they can find this material. And of course, on request, it could be provided by mail as well, but it is available on the Ministry of Finance website. So that's useful.

In terms of how, in a general sense, one would get a sense of what would be determined to be a priority within that range of projects that might be desired either by a health authority, a regional hospital district or, happily, by both…. I think that commonly it would be both. But typically, the age and condition of a facility is going to be, in large measure, the determining factor in where it will sit on priorities. Our hospitals in this province vary and range from one being built in Abbotsford right now that is not even brand-new — it's under construction — to St. Paul's, which is probably in the neighbourhood of 100 years old. I've heard estimates ranging from about 95 years old to 111 years old, but it is a very old hospital that is in very considerable need either of extensive retrofitting, which may or may not be practical, or replacement. That's the legacy project which the member mentioned.

In terms of how Partnerships B.C. might be a part of the consideration by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Providence Health Care about issues around St. Paul's and its remediation or replacement, Partnerships B.C., which reports to the Ministry of Finance, would only get involved where they were requested to do so by the health authority. What Partnerships B.C. bring to the table is a pool of expertise in respect of public-private partnerships. There's extensive knowledge there of national and international P3s that can be brought to bear in discussion of potential projects. Effectively, Partnerships B.C. act as consult-

ants to the health authority where they are requested to do so by the health authority.

D. Cubberley: I'm just interested, briefly, in a question that came up in listening to the minister's comments regarding whether the regional hospital district has an ability either to say no to a project in the shape that it's being proposed or to put a project on the agenda where it believes that a project is necessary, and how that gets adjudicated if there is a difference around what the priorities should be.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member raises what is, essentially, a kind of hypothetical situation about what would happen if there should be a situation where a health authority and regional hospital district had fundamentally or somewhat different views in respect of a potential new facility or the potential remediation of an existing facility.

The way we'd answer it is this. I'm always foolish enough to try to risk answering these hypothetical questions, so we'll try it again. Our expectation would be that the health authorities will have the principal role in identifying what they believe to be the priorities within that health authority's physical geographic area. We further expect that they would — as they identify those priorities, and as we believe they do in identifying those priorities — undertake extensive consultations, including with the level of government, the regional hospital district, which is going to be expected to pony up some 40 percent of it.

There are going to be very important discussions occurring between the health authority and the regional hospital district. We do believe the culture of that kind of close cooperation is being strengthened, whether it's sort of expressed as a memorandum of understanding or just expressed as a better working relationship between the organizations. Clearly, it is important that the two organizations be on the same page in terms of their understanding of what's needed and why it's needed.

Again, it's our expectation that the health authority has the lead in terms of identifying the priorities. If the regional district had a different concept of what's a priority, it's our expectation that they would take that to the health authority and try to work that issue out constructively and sort of progressively, as opposed to trying to play off the province as a third party. It's vital that they work out and resolve those kinds of things constructively within the health authority itself.

The challenge, I think, that would often make this hypothetical situation one that will be unlikely to be seen too many times by us is that over the past 30 years…. We're talking historically, and I'm not pointing at any particular government. I'd say that historically, over the past 30 years, we have not done the reinvestment in hospitals and hospital infrastructure that we should have. As a consequence, we have a considerable backlog of health facilities, including major hospitals, that demand either serious remediation or replacement. The quantum of that demand is in the billions.

Clearly, if a health authority and a regional hospital district want to see something done, the last thing they want to be doing is fighting in front of the province, because there are finite resources, and there is a huge demand. It's our expectation…. I think we're seeing all the time where the two levels, the health authorities and the regional hospital districts, work together constructively to identify their priorities, agree on them, then bring them to the Ministry of Health and, ultimately, to Treasury Board.

D. Cubberley: Thank you. That's helpful. Just one more question on major capital projects, and then I'm going to go to my colleague for some questions.

On major capital projects over $50 million, it says in the service plan update, the business case must be made public. I don't want to complicate it, but I have two questions. One is just in general. Should not the business case for a new project be a public document that goes public irrespective of whether it's a $50 million project or a $40 million project?

I'm looking there for some comment on the advisability of sharing the planning direction before it becomes a tax hit and on allowing some opportunity for public discussion. The question there is: is it passively available as a public document if it's only applicable to $50-plus million, or is it actually presented in some fashion publicly so that people know that you are moving towards a decisional point in facility planning?

Hon. G. Abbott: The member is correct. For projects that are at a $50 million value or more, there is a value-for-money report done, and those are posted on the website for public consideration and information should they wish scrutiny. This is a departure from the past. I understand that up until this new provision was put in place, there was very limited transparency around any project of any size in the province. So this is a big step forward, a big shift in the culture, to actually have a value-for-money report done and to have it posted to the website.

In terms of the projects less than $50 million — I hate to call them small projects because $45 million is a pretty big amount of money — there is, I think, some diversity of arrangements within health authority regions. Certainly, it's our understanding that all capital project plans, including those below $50 million, are now shared with regional hospital districts and enjoy their consideration and scrutiny. Just as a matter of public information, I think that more and more of these plans are being taken to the public as well.

It's difficult to be sort of prescriptive or descriptive around exactly what each is doing, because there's probably a fair bit of diversity in terms of the processes that are undertaken for those relatively smaller projects, but we do know that all of the strategic plans for

health authorities are posted on their websites. People certainly get a sense, for example, of when a project is under consideration in a geographic area and what the next steps are going to be in terms of the development or consideration of that project. There is, I think, increasing transparency around those issues, but I think the member's point is a good one in terms of the continued shift in the culture of transparency around these things.

G. Gentner: To go right to the heart of the matter relative to projects, there's been a report on the minister's desk for some time relative to Surrey Memorial — the anticipated expansion or the possibility of another facility. My question to the minister is: what role does the minister anticipate Partnerships B.C. to play in these expansion recommendations coming from the report?

Hon. G. Abbott: Just so the member understands, we had a brief discussion with one of the member's colleagues from Surrey yesterday in respect of the Surrey report — or the Fraser Health report, more precisely. Just to advise the member, I received the final draft on October 31 from Fraser Health in respect of their consideration and recommendations around either expansion of or potential additions to Surrey Memorial. Those decisions have not been made yet.

We understand, as we noted with the Health critic here a short time ago, that Partnerships B.C. will, at the request of a health authority, be engaged by them in their consideration of potential projects. We understand that in the case of Fraser Health and their current consideration of Surrey Memorial and potential additions to it, Partnerships B.C. have been engaged, at least on a limited basis, in terms of consideration of the project alternatives there. I do want to emphasize that no decisions have been made in respect of Surrey Memorial — additions to it or a hospital addition to the Fraser Health region.

Once that decision is made or once that final report is secured, which we expect to be somewhere around the end of November…. At that point, the ministry will again be looking at this in terms of the next steps on that potential project.

G. Gentner: Some revealing thoughts there indeed — especially to realize that the minister has been engaged with Partnerships B.C. on this project. Could the minister please elaborate what he really means by having been engaged with Partnerships B.C.?

Hon. G. Abbott: Just so we don't get too Perry Mason here in a hurry, I said that Partnerships B.C. had been engaged in some capacity by Fraser Health to this point. I just wanted to clarify that with the member, and I'm glad to review his question.

G. Gentner: This engagement with the Fraser Health Authority — did this occur after the report was received by the minister?

Hon. G. Abbott: Just to advise the member, Partnerships B.C., of course, have been working extensively with Fraser Health Authority on the development and construction of the new Abbotsford Hospital and Cancer Centre, so there is a strong relationship there. We know that Partnerships B.C. have offered their expertise, as they routinely would, to Fraser Health in terms of any project that emerges in and around Surrey Memorial Hospital. But in terms of the level of those discussions and the timing of those, the member, if he has a really compelling interest in this, may want to ask the Minister of Finance about it. We don't have that detail here.

G. Gentner: With no disrespect to Perry Mason, I'll probably move on to another topic. But I will take that as an answer — that there has been discussion with Partnerships B.C. relative to any expansion at Surrey Memorial.

I want to quickly talk about Abbotsford, since the minister did bring the Abbotsford project up. The original cost — costed out, I think, way back in 2001 — was $211 million. We now have a cost estimated at $355 million. Could the minister please explain: why the overrun?

Hon. G. Abbott: To put the member's mind at ease, there has been no overrun on this project. There has been a conscious expansion of the size and scope of this project. It is now Abbotsford and region hospital and cancer centre. The original estimate of $210 million, which was developed by the former government in late 2000, did not embrace a cancer centre and was also smaller in size and scope than the facility that is being built today.

Among the important changes that were made in terms of size and scope: clinical best practices improvements around increased education and academic areas, changes in approach to infection control, four bedrooms became private or semi-private, the number of isolation rooms was increased to 50, the intensive care unit and coronary care unit were separated, and a rehabilitation room was added to the surgical floor.

As well, a second area — and there are four areas where scope expanded — was in the creation of a digital facility. Two of the eight operating rooms will be equipped with OR1 technology, including video and teleconferencing facilities, a part of our telehealth opportunities. The potential to accommodate paperless operations is also a part of the digital facility.

A third area is facility and environmental improvements, including separate entrances for ambulatory and cancer and emergency, and the adoption of a green facility designation aiming to meet LEED silver standards, both setting a positive environmental example and achieving energy-efficiency savings.

Finally — I won't say most importantly but certainly very, very importantly — are the cancer centre enhancements, including enhanced chemotherapy and systemic cancer care programs and new breast and

Those are the principal drivers in terms of size and scope, but to reinforce the point, there is no overrun on this project. Conscious decisions were made to expand it. If the member opposes that or some of his colleagues do, I'd be delighted to hear about it. But I'm sure they won't.

G. Gentner: The service manual from Partnerships B.C. states that the project was approved with the same scope but as a public-private partnership. The capital estimate was revised to $251 million — $8 million due to inflation, and a replacement of contingencies with a more accurate estimate of the expected value of risks that might arise during the procurement and construction of $31 million.

Hon. Chair, since the minister has brought up a few issues relative to the expansion, how much of this expansion will be leased out to commercial or private clinics?

Hon. G. Abbott: Our understanding is that while there may be room on the site for some commercial or retail opportunities, it's subject to Fraser Health Authority thinking that is wise and appropriate. We have no idea whether they would think such a thing to be a good idea. In terms of the expansion of the size of the project, there is virtually no commercial and no retail space within the body of the expanded hospital.

G. Gentner: Could the minister give us an explanation or allocate what the difference is between the costs of the expansion and that of the change as set out at the business case with Partnerships B.C. — the difference of about $40 million?

Hon. G. Abbott: Staff is uncertain as to what the member is asking, and if he could either direct us to a document or just give us further information about what exactly he's looking for.

G. Gentner: I'm reading from Partnerships British Columbia Service Plan Update 2005/06-2007/08, September '05, page 12. It does a comparative graph from the business case of '01 to the changes in '02, the RFP of '03 and December '04. Perhaps the minister would like to contact me sooner than later, within 30 days, as to answering that question. I would appreciate it. I can go to another question and defer it, knowing and understanding that the minister will come back with a reasonable reply — however defined, of course.

The project was originally, I understand, supposed to be completed by '05. I think that was a little ambitious — at least by '06. Now it's slated for completion by 2008. Is there a reason why?

Hon. G. Abbott: We're not sure where a promise or an attempt to open this hospital in 2005 may have come from. To staff's knowledge May 2008 has been the goal for an opening date for some time. If there was a promise made earlier on, we stand corrected, but we're not familiar with any promise or commitment to open it in 2005 or 2006. Again, we'll stand corrected if the member can advise us.

Part of the confusion may be that this, in fact, is a facility that has been promised on numerous occasions over the past 15 years — including, on a number of occasions, by the former NDP government, who were never able to actually bring the project together and get it commenced. I guess if there's a promise been made, we'd be glad to hear it, but I hope there's not been any confusion stemming from an unfulfilled promise by the former government.

G. Gentner: Now we've reached into a P3 agreement, whereas before there didn't have to be any legal largesse, so to speak. My question now is: what will be the total payments for lawyers and consultations with contractors before the end of the 35-year contract of the service agreement?

Hon. G. Abbott: We're talking procurement costs here, including design, legal, etc. Procurement costs, including the cost of transaction and legal advisers, were $14.5 million to financial close.

G. Gentner: Now the partnership that's going to be involved here…. My question to the minister is: what code of ethics is the Abbotsford Hospital and Cancer Centre Inc. board going to follow — that of the Ministry of Health or that of the private provider?

Hon. G. Abbott: The owners of the Abbotsford Hospital and Cancer Centre will be PHSA for the cancer portion and the Fraser Health Authority for the hospital portion. As a consequence, the board or boards that may assist in the governance of the facility would be responsible to the code of ethics, same as Fraser Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority.

G. Gentner: Well, time is of the essence, and I won't get into the debate about conflict here, but I do want to quickly move into another project. But before that, I have one last question. When will the Legislature receive a full audit on the project we're now discussing?

Hon. G. Abbott: Our province's Auditor General is the auditor of record for the Fraser Health Authority and by extension the auditor of record for this project. It's also important to note that the Auditor General has done a comprehensive review of our value-for-money report and did issue a positive audit report in respect of that.

G. Gentner: Yes, I know there was a review, but I don't know how complete it is, relative to being a full audit.

I want to ask the minister about one other project before I segue into the St. Paul's project. The academic ambulatory care centre will provide up to 40 percent commercial space. How much of that will be leased out to private health care clinics?

Hon. G. Abbott: So there's no confusion around terms and what the space is being used for at the academic ambulatory care centre in Vancouver — which, for those who don't know, is located at the corner of Oak Street and West 12th Avenue in Vancouver, obviously in proximity to the Vancouver General Hospital…. That proximity is an important thing in terms of understanding that.

The overall total space is 352,796 square feet. Of that, 216,798 square feet is described as (a) space leased by VCH for hospital clinics and academic facilities, including a lecture theatre, library, meeting halls and support space for teaching physicians and (b), which is 75,376 square feet, a teaching physician space, including teaching space for undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. A third area, (c), at 46,670 square feet, is space for other health-related organizations. For example, the Vancouver General Hospital Foundation might take up space there, but we don't have the detail on that. The final area, at 13,961 square feet, is hospital-related retail or commercial facilities. We understand there might be a pharmacy located in the building — that sort of thing.

Again, I'm not sure that we have all of the detail around that, but clearly, the lion's share of this — all except possibly close to 14,000 square feet of the 353,000 square feet in this building — is devoted to building on the expansion of the UBC medical school to provide lecture theatres, teaching opportunities and opportunities for credentialed physicians to be closer both to VGH hospital and to their opportunities in a teaching role for that institution.

Perhaps the member can ask further questions if we didn't hit on what he needed.

G. Gentner: Yeah, I'm fine with that answer. I think I know where we're leading with that one. It just seems to me that there is a potential for private clinics at the said site.

The province, through the ministry, has provided a grant — I believe a million dollars — to Partnerships B.C. to do a business plan for the future St. Paul's. There's a whole host of suggestions as to what the minister is going to do, what direction the ministry is going to go. My question to the minister is: if the province is seriously thinking of decommissioning St. Paul's and building a new hospital at the station site, why would not the province buy the land itself instead of a separate company or society purchasing it?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm a little concerned with what this member appears to be reading. The province is not proposing to decommission St. Paul's or any other hospital. He should be careful with his rhetoric around that point, because I think what's being undertaken, in fact, is a very responsible process by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and by one of the most respected and long-lived denominational providers in this province, Providence Health Care.

They are looking, and rightly, at what their options are in respect of St. Paul's Hospital, which is…. Again, we talked about this a little earlier. The varied estimates of its age are somewhere between 95 and 111 years old. This is a facility that is in great need either of very substantial — probably very, very substantial — remediation or replacement.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Providence are not leaping to conclusions. They are undertaking a comprehensive, inclusive planning process to ensure that they make a sound decision that is going to serve their constituents well, hopefully for the next century. I know there has been considerable consultation to date. I know that Vancouver Coastal and Providence are planning on more, and we look forward to that. Clearly, we want that kind of planning work to be undertaken as a business case is being prepared by VCHA and Providence in terms of: should they attempt to remediate this building? Should they attempt to replace it? If they're attempting to replace it, should St. Paul's be reconfigured in some way or should there be some heritage management of it? These are all very important questions, which I think are being dealt with in the most responsible way possible.

I think the member, near the conclusion of his somewhat snippy remarks around this, was suggesting that somehow there was something nefarious going on with Providence Health Care and VCHA in terms of the purchase of potential properties for replacement of St. Paul's. Madam Chair, I think that VCHA and Providence are acting very responsibly in this. To assign any kind of nefarious motive, as the B.C. Health Coalition has done on this, is grossly irresponsible. If the member wants to make further suggestions in that regard, we'll hear them, but I want to make it very clear that I think that Vancouver Coastal and Providence have been acting entirely appropriately and responsibly in managing this very serious challenge.

G. Gentner: I take it, therefore, that if there's a decision to move St. Paul's, the ministry itself will purchase the property at a new site — correct?

The Chair: Minister. Minister, I didn't hear you say "grossly irresponsible" — did I?

Hon. G. Abbott: If I said something in my rhetorical flourish which any member of the House or the Chair found offensive, I'm glad to withdraw it.

We will need some clarification from the member in respect of what exactly the question is that he is asking us to answer. Is he asking whether the province has been requested to purchase, or has purchased, a piece of property? What exactly is the question that he wishes answered?

G. Gentner: Just a very quick commentary. It seems to me that with the P3 movement in the new era, the province seeks property and then enters into an agreement with a third party. It's been suggested by many that this could be very much a significant change, where a third party could purchase property and then lease it to the province.

The Vancouver Esperanza Society — it's my understanding — did buy property. Is it not correct that Providence Health Care has an option on it and that, in fact, this was done March 31 of '05? Has the ministry entered into any discussion or agreement with the society?

Hon. G. Abbott: We understand that Providence Health Care has the first right of refusal to purchase the site from the Vancouver Esperanza Society for $24.8 million. The province has not been involved in any way around the negotiation of that, but I would like to advise the member that, again, we are dealing with a denominational service provider that has a long and honoured relationship with the province and the city of Vancouver.

We often see cases where non-profits or denominational service providers own the land where we deliver the services. I don't think there is anything unusual here. I know that the B.C. Health Coalition, as they so often do, have tried to assign some nefarious motives to this, but I'm sure that the member opposite would not include himself in that group.

G. Gentner: Yes, since the minister has talked about the B.C. Health Coalition…. The coalition has asked for, through a freedom-of-information to the ministry and Partnerships B.C., information relative to the review that was completed as of the fall of '04. They've been denied several times. In fact, they were told that it could be provided to the coalition at a cost of $20,000, because of the time to search it out. I have the documentation here. My question to the minister is: why would the ministry deny the B.C. Health Coalition a copy of the business case assessment to rebuild or relocate St. Paul's Hospital?

Hon. G. Abbott: To advise the member, our Ministry of Health, just like every other ministry of government, operates strictly and entirely under the terms of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which was constructed by his former government and which has since been embraced by all governments. We operate entirely within the bounds of that act, and as the member probably knows, should the B.C. Health Coalition or any other group be dissatisfied with the decision of the statutory decision-maker — which is certainly not me, in respect of the Ministry of Health — around how their FOI complaint was handled, they should submit their complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and he can adjudicate as to whether the application was managed responsibly and appropriately or not.

G. Gentner: I have one last question to the minister. Will this new hospital be completed by the year 2014?

Hon. G. Abbott: The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and the Providence Health Care Society are in the throes of a planning project. They have not completed that planning project. They haven't completed the consultations. No decisions have been made about either the remediation of St. Paul's or the replacement of St. Paul's by a new facility, so clearly it would be premature to speculate on when a project will be completed that hasn't been yet identified as a project.

That is challenging in its own right, so I think what's being undertaken here is entirely appropriate. The planning work is being done, and a balanced, informed decision will be made at the end of that. At that point it's subject to Treasury Board approval and all of the other associated processes. At that point some useful speculation might be undertaken as to when it could be completed, but that would be premature at this point.

D. Cubberley: Just one tag on the St. Paul's thing, and I apologize if this was covered; I had to go out for a moment. There is funding in play to finance a business case? Is the business case going to be reaching completion soon, and will that become a public document at that point in time?

Hon. G. Abbott: Yes, the province did support the planning that has been undertaken and the subsequent development of a business case. The planning is still underway as I've noted, so, of course, the business case is still in development. I can't speak to what stage in development it may be. It may be early, mid; I don't know. That would be a question, potentially, for Partnerships B.C. or Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, but we know the business case is being developed, and we're supporting that.

Once it is completed — and we don't have a time line around when the business case will be completed — it will be made public in accordance with all the statutory and other provisions around the publication of those things.

D. Cubberley: When it's completed, will that be a matter of passively listing it on a website, or would

there be a public announcement of some kind so that the many stakeholders of St. Paul's would have a sense that we've reached a point where we're looking at completion of a portion of a planning process?

Hon. G. Abbott: As the member knows, there has been extensive public interest in respect of even the early planning around the potential remediation or replacement of St. Paul's. I have no reason to think that that public interest will abate, and certainly when the business case is completed and is posted on the web, we would likely release either an information bulletin or a news release to make people aware of that, given the volume of interest around this.

D. Cubberley: Thank you for that undertaking. I appreciate that. I think it would be in everybody's interest if it happened in that manner rather than that it was discovered.

Just for the minister's interest and consideration, that brings us for the time being to the end of that part of questioning. There are some small pieces of other things that I will want to try and pick up in the time that remains to me personally. There are two other health critics, and as of this evening, we would anticipate going into the seniors area, so that you can do a little bit of planning around that. There may be a few questions after the break before we start seniors, depending upon how much we get through now. There are some questions I wish to ask, but there are also some other MLAs who wish to ask questions.

The next set. The MLA raised some questions in the Ministry of Agriculture estimates around meat inspections and was referred to…. I believe the Deputy Minister of Health was identified as the logical person to answer questions about meat inspections. I'm presuming you may have the staff on hand, but I just wanted to give you an opportunity to confirm.

B. Ralston: I appreciate this, and it's probably appropriate as we head towards the dinner hour that we have some questions about food. These were questions that were posed to the Minister of Agriculture and Lands, and he advised that this is a jurisdiction that is shared with the Ministry of Health. My concerns are specifically about the promulgation of the new meat inspection regulations and their impact on rural economies in British Columbia. Some of the questions I'm simply going to ask again in the same form as I asked in the previous estimates.

A number of areas of B.C. and some livestock sectors — particularly poultry, rabbits, pigs but also small ruminants — have no slaughter facilities for which it would be economically viable to upgrade to the building standard required for provincial licensing. So my question is: how does the government intend to ensure development of the appropriate community-based, financially viable meat processing infrastructure for these geographic regions and livestock sectors?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for raising the important issue around meat inspection regulations and the food safety issues associated with that. In terms of framing the context in which this current regulatory discussion is underway, we need to remember, first of all, the devastating economic impact of the BSE crisis that we are coming through.

Actually, I have my little cow pin on here today that the Minister of Agriculture and Lands…. Actually, all the members over there do as well — that's excellent — I gather, reflective that the restrictions around the export of beef under the BSE ban have actually come off today. So that's great. BSE was definitely part of the context in which the meat regulation discussion has occurred.

The other factor that comes into play in terms of context is that relative to other provinces, we have lagged in terms of having an appropriate regulatory framework in place for meat inspection. The member, though, rightly notes that this can be a challenge for some of the smaller slaughterhouse operations around the province.

With credit to the officials who have undertaken this, they've taken a very pragmatic approach to working through these challenges. They have specifically been working on a regulatory framework that would embrace flexibility in this, particularly for the smaller operators that might be challenged around this. A vital point around trying to find an appropriate balance here is that whether you are a large slaughterhouse operation or a small, perhaps mobile slaughter facility, the waste disposal issue is a critical one. We can't afford, obviously, to endanger public health through either a BSE-type crisis or a more localized food safety crisis that would jeopardize the broader agricultural industry in the province. That's very important.

In terms of how we went about it, recognizing that B.C. is lagging other jurisdictions in terms of developing that appropriate regulatory structure, there has been extensive consultation around this. About two years of consultation preceded the new regulatory framework. Further — I think this is a very important point, and I want to stress it — a two-year period was also provided so that we could ensure that an appropriate balance was found and that no safe, secure smaller or larger slaughterhouse facility was adversely affected by this. The implementation period for these regulations runs until September of 2006.

I know our staff from the Ministry of Health, in consultation and in cooperation with staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, have gone out to different corners of the province and met with operators to identify what specifically their challenges are, and to determine whether there are ways that the province can assist in helping them conform to the new regulatory environment without a severe financial

penalty that might push them out of business. The last thing we want to do is see them go out of business, because they are very important to our economy and to the agricultural community in our province.

B. Ralston: I appreciate the concern about human health. Obviously, no one is going to want to be on the side of being opposed to proper consideration of that part of our regulatory scheme.

But on the other hand, what small producers advise me is that there's certainly been — and I invite the minister to confirm this or not — no human health concerns raised by small producers and small operations as opposed to the more industrial-style meat and particularly poultry production systems. That's where the problems have been. I'm wondering if the minister is prepared to confirm that view of small producers or if some health complaints have been made that I'm not aware of.

Hon. G. Abbott: In terms of whether large producers versus small producers or small producers versus medium-sized producers have been particularly targeted as a health concern versus another scale of operation, no. There is no producer of any size that is automatically exempt or immune from health concerns and health challenges. That can occur in any scale of operation. That's why we're trying to put a meat inspection regulation in place that is flexible enough to meet the scale of either small-scale producers or larger-scale producers.

What this means is that slaughtering of meat that is entering the food chain must be subject to basic sanitation standards and oversight. Slaughterhouses must meet sanitation standards to be licensed, and the animals must be subject to pre- and post-slaughter inspection for the detection of disease. This is important for small-scale producers, large-scale producers and the industry as a whole.

Historically B.C. has had some of the highest rates of reported enteric infections. I guess those are E. coli–type infections. The latest Health Canada report on this area shows B.C.'s reported per-capita level of enteric infections associated with consumption of contaminated meat to be significantly higher than the rest of Canada. So there is an issue here to be resolved.

Slaughter inspection of cattle is key to ensuring that body parts linked to the transmission of BSE are removed and destroyed as required by federal law. This is a very important public health measure — BSE prevention for B.C.

Slaughter inspection also provides important traceback capabilities to determine an animal's origins, allowing prompt action to be taken where a meat safety problem is traced to a herd or flock. The importance of traceability has been highlighted by BSE, as I'm sure the member knows.

It's also important to note, in terms of any upgrades that may be required, that upgrading may be less expensive and more economically viable than people think. What we're talking about is basic sanitation and food safety measures. For example, some think that expensive materials like stainless steel are required throughout a licensed slaughterhouse. To note, the regulation does not require that, but simply that the materials be durable and easily cleaned. So it's a flexible standard that can be met by a variety of materials.

Those are some of the important points to be made here. This is not a case of government imposing without consultation, because the consultation has been extensive — and continues, most importantly. This is, I think, a thoughtful and sustainable attempt to find what should be the appropriate balance between ensuring that the public is protected in terms of the meat they consume; ensuring that the industry as a whole is not hurt by the failure of a large or medium or small or any operation that failed to meet appropriate standards, driving down the reputation and sustainability of the industry as a whole; and finally, ensuring that the regulations are flexible enough that they can accommodate those smaller producers.

When I was at UBCM — to give you an example — I met with, I believe, some representatives from the Sunshine Coast regional district who had a small-scale producer up in the Powell River area who was concerned about these regulations. In tribute to staff, they committed to going up and meeting with the producer. They've done that, and we understand that once everyone understood clearly what was being proposed, a lot of the apprehension around this has gone away.

What I'm happy to commit to the hon. member today — because I think it is so very important — is that if the member has heard from any small, medium or large producers that they have a concern, we will get our staff and Ministry of Agriculture and Lands staff out into the field to meet with those producers to ensure that they have a very clear understanding of what's being proposed here.

B. Ralston: What I am concerned about, and the concern that's been expressed to me, is how the flexible regulations will actually work.

One of the suggestions has been what's called a mobile abattoir, but I'm advised that mobile abattoirs will be required to engage in their operations in what's called a docking station. A docking station requires running water, an appropriate method for disposing of waste and certain standards that will naturally require some capital outlay. There is another alternative of going from farm to farm, and apparently that's been rejected.

I put that question to the Minister of Agriculture and Lands, and he directed me to this ministry. So I'm asking: are there any regulations that will either permit or not permit that proposal? I'm referring specifically to the Food Safety Act, section 23(4)(a), which provides the possibility of regulations that differ for different

classes or types of person, food or food establishments. Subsection (b) provides for different regulations for different geographic areas in British Columbia.

The suggestion that's being made is that the objectives that are set out can be achieved through the device of regulations which achieve that goal through a somewhat different means in the form of differential regulations. I'm asking the minister for his comment on that.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question. I'm learning fascinating things about the slaughterhouse business that I never, ever thought I would know or perhaps not even claim for a moment to understand. But thank you for the question.

The mobile slaughterhouse, typically a smaller facility, as the member notes…. Those, we believe, will continue to have a future under these regulations. I'm happy to report that there is not a great body of prescription around the docking station. I think what the member is reflecting is the apprehension by some of those small producers that there's going to have to be an extensive and heavily prescribed concrete pad with capital amenities that are going to make it very difficult for them to operate.

In fact, as I understand it from staff, all that is being required under these regulations is that the mobile slaughterhouse will have to be either equipped with an ongoing potable water supply in itself or more likely — because it would typically be a less expensive option — have the facility known as the docking station where it can access water at different locations — clean water, obviously, that is usable for this purpose.

If, for example, they go to Farmer Jones's farm to slaughter lambs with the mobile slaughterhouse, it's not necessary that the mobile have the water on board, and it's not necessary for Farmer Jones to have an extensive docking facility, but only that Farmer Jones be in possession of clean, potable water to help with the slaughter or the management of the meat post-slaughter and, again, that the mobile have either on farm or elsewhere an appropriate place to dispose of the offal from the slaughter.

B. Ralston: So is the minister then describing draft regulations that he intends to put into force, or are these at an earlier stage?

Hon. G. Abbott: The regulations are in place. The period we're currently in is the transitional period — the period of grace up until September of 2006 — wherein, hopefully, a lot of those kinds of issues will be resolved.

Again, I do encourage the member to forward to us names of any concerned members of the industry who would like more information, because we think that's the most effective way to resolve these. We'll actually have our staff in the field go out, meet with them and talk about these issues just to make sure that everyone is responding to the same understanding of what's embodied in those regulations.

B. Ralston: The other issue that was spoken of was pre- and post-slaughter inspection. I'm advised that quite often what happens is that the federal Food Inspection Agency inspectors are charged out at $39 an hour under a contract to provide that inspection service.

I guess the concern that's been expressed to me is that if a small producer is slaughtering a couple of animals, as they sometimes wish to, it becomes economically impracticable to have to pay for the cost of the inspector coming out, making the pre-slaughter inspection, the travel time, the post-slaughter inspection…. I'm wondering, in implementing these regulations, what thought has been given to that particular concern since the minister has stated that pre- and post-slaughter inspection is required.

Hon. G. Abbott: Thank you for masking your obvious impatience, Madam Chair. I'll just answer this question and then do something appropriate.

Just to note that the CFIA inspectors are located in a number of areas around the province, but it's very important to note, as well, that the function of the CFIA inspector can be delegated to a local veterinarian. For example, if the producer wanted to arrange an opportunity to do some of these slaughter activities, they could arrange with the local vet, as delegated by the inspection agency, to do that.

The other important thing to note is that we currently do not charge. If the veterinarian goes out to supervise a slaughter, we do not charge. The province bears the cost of that. The producer will not have to bear the cost of that. That's important, and we think that from a health perspective and an industry perspective, it's a reasonable thing for us to be doing.

Hopefully, that is satisfactory to the member. We'd be glad to continue the discussion and certainly are glad to assist wherever we can, where people have concerns.

D. Cubberley: Well, that was an extraordinarily quick supper. It's always interesting to have slaughterhouse questions before you go and have your meal.

I'd like to embark on a relatively short line of questioning around Maximus. We haven't covered that at

all yet. I'm going to try and keep it as brief as possible because we have a lot to get through before we swing over into seniors.

In schedule one of the Maximus contract, under "Definitions," it says that Maximus is to receive $9,140,919 in transition fees for the period it took them to get the operation up and running. The questions are: was this amount paid, was it this exact amount, or was it more?

Hon. G. Abbott: The figures consistent with the terms of the contract are…. I think these are the ones the member has. The transition cost was $9.14 million, and the shared cost on any technology or other overrun is $477,000 — again, consistent with the terms of the contract.

D. Cubberley: Earlier this fall it was announced that Maximus had hired 88 additional staff. I'm interested to know whether those staff are temporary or permanent.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member is correct that an additional 88 staff have been engaged by Maximus in part, at least, to deal with the paper backlog around MSP applications, etc., and also to bring the turnaround time for telephones down to below the service level requirement of three minutes. We don't know, nor would it be appropriate for us to suggest, whether those 88 will be retained permanently or to speculate about what Maximus's plans might be. We suspect, but only suspect, that the majority of the 88, at least, likely would be retained in the future, but that is a decision that Maximus would make. It's not something that we direct.

D. Cubberley: Also under schedule one of the Maximus contract, it states, under clause 4(c), that transition period and year-one and -two cost overages and underages approved pursuant to section 4(a) will be shared by the ministry and Maximus on a 40-60 basis, I believe.

I know that the minister mentioned in his response to my first question an amount of $477,000. I'm interested whether the ministry is paying or has paid for any cost overages, including the hiring of the additional staff.

Hon. G. Abbott: There have been no shared risk payments apart from the $477,000 which I previously cited. The incremental staff costs that the member mentioned are not transformational shared risk issues. Those are decisions that Maximus makes to fulfil the terms of their contract, and we do not reimburse them in any way for that.

D. Cubberley: One more question along this line. Also under schedule one, it establishes the monthly fee amounts that the ministry pays to Maximus each month. In the first year it's said to be $2,486,540. I know the minister will appreciate this. Can the minister confirm whether Maximus has received a monthly payment of $2,486,540 each month since April? That would be, if it has a total of $17,405,780 to the end of October….

Hon. G. Abbott: Just to note at the outset that there is a document that's rather sexily entitled Health Benefits Operations: Project Summary, which was released on November 4, 2004, which accompanied our news release around this project and lays out a lot of the issues that we've been talking about to date.

Hon. G. Abbott: Sorry? I haven't seen it. I'd be glad to table a copy and allow you to see it. It's been posted on the website for the period since November 4, 2004, and can be readily accessed by those who are interested.

The figure which the member cited would be a typical monthly payment to Maximus, subject, of course, to issues like change orders or penalties deducted — that sort of thing. But that would be a fair reflection of a monthly payment.

D. Cubberley: So it would have been netted down for the penalties that were assessed in each month?

D. Cubberley: One more set of questions. The fines that have been levied against Maximus are directed to the Health budget or to general revenues? And if they're to the Health budget, where would they fall in the Health budget?

Hon. G. Abbott: The penalties are deducted from the monthly payments and therefore are retained in the ministry.

D. Cubberley: Would they show up at some point in consolidated statements at the end of a year, or would that simply be too fine a level of detail for us to drill down into?

Hon. G. Abbott: The sum will show in a total aggregated way in the line budget.

D. Cubberley: Thank you, minister. I appreciate the responses. We're going to scroll through some things now for a while before getting into seniors estimates, when we'll have a more stable area of questioning.

A couple of questions in the area of prevention. The first one has to do with the Ministry of Health's goal of reducing the incidence of HIV infections by 50 percent over a five-year period beginning in 2003. A subset of that was the goal of increasing the proportion of HIV-

positive individuals who are linked to appropriate care, treatment and support service by 25 percent over that same period of time. I'd like the minister to comment on that in light of funding available to groups who are working in the field to control the rate of HIV infection.

Hon. G. Abbott: I appreciate the member asking this very important question. To begin to just set out a couple of the key facts around the challenge that is HIV infection, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which is a very important player in terms of helping us try to manage this enormous health challenge, estimates that as many as 13,000 British Columbians are currently living with HIV. They also report that 457 people tested newly positive for HIV in 2004. That gives you some sense of the magnitude of the challenge.

In terms of moving to meet that goal, one of the factors that comes into play in terms of us knowing the number of people who may actually be affected by HIV, on May 1, 2003, HIV was added to the list of reportable conditions in schedule A of the Health Act communicable disease regulation in accordance with the recommendations contained in the provincial health officer's report on HIV reportability that was released in 2002. The consequence is that we are seeing more HIV cases reported with that reportability requirement coming into play.

We continue to work towards those ambitious goals. I certainly confirm that those are ambitious goals, but they're ones that we are going to work tirelessly to try to meet. There are a number of things that are being undertaken. Some very excellent work is being undertaken by health care professionals and others across the province to try to eliminate the spread of HIV.

In particular, there are some harm reduction programs underway which we believe will bear short-term and long-term benefits and results for those who might be threatened with HIV — among them, the needle exchange programs, which are now a feature in most of the large urban areas in our province. As well, the member will know that in recent years there has been the addition of a safe injection site in the downtown east side of Vancouver, which is part of a larger federal and provincial assessment of whether that will, in the long term, constitute an important part of how we might manage the spread of HIV in this province and in this nation.

We also have been working with the health authorities, with each authority developing its own plans in relation to meeting the HIV challenge in their areas. A good example of the kind of excellent work that is flowing from the HIV planning done in conjunction with the health authorities is a prenatal HIV screening program which is not only underway across the province but is working effectively. Our officials believe that now very close to 100 percent of pregnant women are being effectively screened in respect to this.

There is a lot of great work that is being undertaken. Again, these are ambitious goals, but I think we all believe that we owe it to society, and certainly, we owe it to those who might be potentially threatened with HIV to work rigorously and tirelessly to try to meet those very ambitious goals.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate the continuing commitment to the goal, which is a worthy goal and obviously one that's important to us because the costs of each additional person…. Quite apart from the human suffering associated with it, the direct costs to society for each new HIV infection are estimated at between $188,000 and $225,000 per person.

The challenge we're facing is that the pathways for infection are diversifying. I think the minister touched on one of those in referring to IV drug use, and that has obviously become one of the main sources that has enabled the disease to begin to make its way more into heterosexual populations from where it began and become a disease that any part of society may face.

One of the other challenges is that the incidence of HIV infections is actually rising, and that, of course, is of grave concern. In light of the target of achieving a reduction by 50 percent, we may well, at this point in time, despite very good efforts in many directions, be moving in the other direction.

A lot of the preventive work and a lot of the kind of community-based prevention care, treatment and support work for individuals who have contracted HIV is supplied through organizations like AIDS Vancouver Island or the Vancouver AIDS organizations. The funding to those kinds of organizations has remained essentially the same for probably a decade. So the question really is whether the ministry is considering, through health authorities, making a more sustained investment in those kinds of organizations as part of a plan to bring down the incidence of new HIV infection in society.

Hon. G. Abbott: I want to be very cautious in the way that I express this, because the member raises a very legitimate concern around the incidence of HIV, and we share the profound concern with that increase that's been expressed. Not to diminish the challenge, but it was certainly the strong advice of the provincial health officer when, on May 1, 2003, reportability was attached to HIV, that we would see some bump in the number of known cases of HIV. So part of it will be the reportability, but some unknown portion of it may be an increase in the incidence of HIV as well. Obviously, we need to be concerned about this, and we are.

We also believe, as the member obviously does, that HIV/AIDS organizations play an important role in helping us to deal with this challenge, and we have added an additional $60 million to our budget for the public health area over the next three years for health authorities to work with AIDS organizations to assist

us in trying to meet the very ambitious goals that have been set out. I do hope that we achieve it, but we may not. If we don't, then it will be disappointing. The $60 million is for public health, not just for AIDS, but AIDS is an important part of it.

In terms of additional funding, I should also note that there has been very strong growth of anti-retroviral drug coverage in this province. It has moved from $12.9 million in '96-97 to $22.5 million in '97-98 to $26.6 million the following year; $30.2 million, $31.3 million, $35 million in '01-02; $36.8 million in '02-03; $37.9 million in '03-04; $47.2 million in '04-05; and $61.3 million in '05-06. So, as you can see, there have been very substantial incremental investments year over year in the anti-retroviral drugs as well, which are an important part of trying to manage this very important health challenge.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate the comments, and I also appreciate the reiteration of commitment. I recognize that a 50-percent reduction is an ambitious goal, but I think it is a good goal to set, and I think it's one that we should make every effort to reach.

I want to press the minister a little bit on the matter of funding. I'm very appreciative of the money that's going into the drug side of it for people who have the disease, and with all of the elements of the health system working on their parts of it, I think that's a good thing.

I want to come back to the community-level organizations and ask the minister very directly, in a soft way, if he and the ministry are willing to consider increasing the funding to the community-level organizations that are a direct point of contact both with people who are contracting the disease and with many populations who are at risk — and whose services, through the distribution of clean needles and the like, help to protect people from acquiring the disease. There has been no significant increase to funding in a decade. That's not the entire responsibility of the government today, but in light of the importance of it, I would ask the minister to consider increasing funding to those organizations.

Hon. G. Abbott: Just to clarify a few points and to address the member's important question, the anti-retrovirals are not simply a matter of maintenance or managing the disease but are also an important part of prevention. In fact, I understand from staff that the drugs in question will be an important part of reducing the incidence of infection of others and are, thereby, an important part of prevention as well.

The $60 million over three years that I mentioned is incremental to the funding that is already in place. I'm not going to make statements in the House about how the health authorities should make their allocative decisions. Indeed, they will receive their share of that $60 million, and they will be making important allocative decisions about exactly where they believe the greatest public health benefit can be derived.

With the health authorities holding contracts on this with community organizations like AIDS Vancouver and so on, we know that they can make those allocative decisions in light of their meetings and submissions from those organizations. The health authorities recognize that organizations like AIDS Vancouver and so on are an integral part of meeting the challenge and, hopefully, of stemming the tide of HIV infection. We encourage the health authorities to work with the community organizations and vice versa, because that's a little closer to the ground, and thereby, hopefully, the wisest and most productive use of those incremental public health dollars will have its effect.

K. Conroy: Keeping with the blood-borne viruses, I wanted to ask some questions about hepatitis C. I was interested in the numbers, Mr. Minister, that you brought forward about HIV, but for hepatitis C, it's estimated that 65,000 British Columbians already live with the disease and that 1,500 to 2,400 new infections are going to be occurring annually. In fact, B.C. accounts for 30 percent of Canada's infections.

Along that line, I know in the framework that the ministry put forward for the provincial chronic disease prevention initiative, when that was tabled, there was very little mention of hepatitis C. So there's a huge opportunity for the ministry to be looking at prevention and implementation strategies. I'd like to ask the minister: specifically, what is the response to the hepatitis C epidemic and the actual dollars that are earmarked specifically for hepatitis C?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll try to at least begin to answer the member's very important question. In British Columbia our response to hepatitis C is done primarily through B.C. Hepatitis Services, which is a division of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. It's through them and through the Ministry of Health and assorted agencies that our response to this is developed and managed.

In terms of the magnitude of the challenge, we're advised that approximately 55,250 British Columbians have been confirmed as infected with hep C, based on antibody testing. About 25 percent of those infected with hep C are known to spontaneously clear their infection. Therefore, at the present time about 41,000 of the 55,250 are antibody-positive individuals likely to have chronic infection with hepatitis C. An estimated 20,000 British Columbians are currently infected with hep C but have not yet been diagnosed as having chronic infection. Therefore, the total number of people currently living with hep C in British Columbia is, as the member noted, approximately 60,000, or approximately one in every 70 people in British Columbia.

In terms of senior government support for this, the multi-year federal government–funded hep C initiative ended on March 31, 2004, but there have been subsequent extension announcements which will take us through to March 31, 2006.

The member can maybe ask me, if she's interested in this. According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, 3,062 people were newly tested as positive for hep C in the year 2004. We do have a regional breakdown of those 3,062 persons, but I will leave that detail and be glad to provide it if the member wishes. But otherwise, I won't go through it now, in the interests of time.

In terms of the provincial response to this, we spend in excess of $100 million a year on hepatitis C. That estimate has been developed by the B.C. Hepatitis Services at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control — over $100 million a year on hep C. That would cover important programs like the cost of antiviral drugs, immunization, education activities, hepatitis testing and a range of other services for persons who have been afflicted with hepatitis C.

K. Conroy: I would appreciate the regional breakdown in writing. If we could get that at some point, that would be great.

It's also my understanding that the federal dollars are specifically for pilot projects. I would wonder what the ministry is going to be doing with those pilot projects in March 2006 when the federal dollars end, if the ministry will actually be supporting those projects. Because it's also my understanding that those projects are quite critical out in the province and have been doing a lot of preventative work. I guess my other question to the minister would be the actual preventative work that the $100 million is being spent on.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member is correct. There are pilot projects underway which are community-based and aimed at prevention of the spread of hep C.

There are five pilot projects in different corners of the province that are being undertaken as Centre for Disease Control projects in concert with health authorities and then community-based in partnership with, I'm sure, local hep C support groups and organizations of that character.

The member's question was: what will happen when the federal funding is discontinued in a year or two? It is our hope, after some considerable discussions with the federal government around this, that federal funding will in fact continue for the foreseeable future. I would stand somewhere between cautiously optimistic and boldly confident that we will get a continuation of that funding from the federal government, and we look forward to continuing our dialogue with them.

S. Fraser: Being mindful of the time, I'll be as brief as possible, and I won't have any lengthy segues.

I'd like to go fairly local here, if I could. In my constituency, Alberni-Qualicum, which I'm honoured to represent, the West Coast General Hospital in Port Alberni is a relatively new facility, just a few years old. There have been some challenges there. There have been some deficiencies, and they're related to underfunding over the last few years. Some of those deficiencies are being…. I've worked on remedies now, so I applaud the people from the health authority and the local SOS, the staff at the hospital and the communities for working on this.

Nine care beds. They're quite famous for being underfunded, but they were actually being utilized for a large amount of the time, according to the chief of staff and the hospital employees there. They were actually able to utilize the beds, even though they were not being funded. That is now being worked on, so I applaud those efforts.

Other problems were with staffing. There was minimum staffing there. At one point they lost the internist.

These issues are being worked at in a fairly progressive way now. Can the minister help me by just letting me know what funding changes with the West Coast General Hospital…? Are there any increases anticipated to deal with those historic deficiencies?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question in relation to West Coast General Hospital.

My answer may be more exhaustive than anticipated. I thank the member for his brief question. I apologize for my answer not being brief, but I hope it will be useful, in addition to it being probably a little longer than the member anticipated.

First, in terms of the provincial allocation to the Vancouver Island Health Authority, if we begin there. For VIHA the budget allocation for '04-05 is $1,019,783,000, increasing to $1,071,892,000 in '05-06 and increasing to $1,110,294,000 in '06-07. So appreciate that is the umbrella under which VIHA is working. As we've discussed at numerous points in these debates, the health authority actually makes the allocative decisions within that umbrella. Of course, that's the important thing that they do on behalf of all of the citizens in the Vancouver Island Health Authority area.

In terms of issues and changes that have occurred specifically at West Coast General Hospital, I think there are a number of positive things to report — in terms of physician issues, for example — at WCGH.

Internist recruitment. There have been concerns about the coverage of internists following the resignation of one internist in June 2005. I'm happy to report that two new internists have been recruited, with one to start shortly, and that recruitment for a third is underway. In fact, I would suspect the first has started at this juncture, this fact sheet being dated early August.

Emergency room coverage. Currently, local general practitioners provide ER coverage but have expressed

concerns in regards to office and weekend coverage. Discussions are underway between VIHA and Port Alberni physicians to resolve these concerns around ER coverage, so we're optimistic that that can be resolved as well.

In terms of access to alternate level of care — patients and residential care beds. VIHA reports a need for more residential care beds in the community to reduce ALC days — that is, use of acute care beds by folks who should be in residential care or assisted living. They've undertaken a number of strategies aimed at reducing the number of those incidences, including hiring a social worker to assist with the transition of patients out of acute care, and 18 supported housing units have been opened for mental health and addictions clients, which is very substantial for that corner of Vancouver Island. Four transitional care beds were created using four existing beds at Westhaven Multi-Level facility attached to WCGH. Additionally, five interim residential care beds have been purchased at Fir Park Village and Echo Village until March 31, 2006. Additionally — and I'm sure the member particularly delights in this — 20 new assisted living units will be built in Port Alberni in 2006.

Additional capital equipment and projects. The regional district at Port Alberni and VIHA have recently come to an agreement on the purchase of capital equipment. The agreement is to cost-share in the purchase of needed capital items for West Coast.

If the member has any additional questions, I'm very pleased to answer them. But I think the important thing, again — and this really flows from the very constructive discussion that the Health critic and I have enjoyed to this point — is that the gross number of acute care beds is not always the best indicator of how well or how efficiently the health care system is working in a particular jurisdiction. Acute care beds are one thing, and of course it's essential that you have acute care beds proportionate to need. On the other hand, if you have taken steps to ensure that acute care beds are not inappropriately occupied by folks who should really be in residential care or assisted living, it does allow some additional flexibility around the distribution of those beds. That is, I hope, a reasonable answer to the very good question the member raised.

S. Fraser: Thank you to the minister. That was very helpful. I wouldn't mind getting some of those statistics at another time, if that would be possible.

Just a last question on West Coast General. This has come into the constituency office with a number of people. I'll use one gentleman's example. He had some diagnostic work done at the West Coast General, and the resources weren't quite there to continue that diagnostic work, so he was forced to go to Nanaimo, which was the next closest facility that could handle that. Consequently, he's had to go there for further diagnostic work and treatment — cancer, in this case. The costs to the gentleman were quite significant — the distance travelled and sometimes overnighting.

What is available, if anything, to help offset those costs for someone that's put in that situation where there's a facility there, but it doesn't have the equipment or the personnel or the resources to handle diagnostic or treatment work? What's available to offset those costs of having to travel?

Hon. G. Abbott: The issue of travel is a very important one. One of the challenges of a health care system in a province as geographically huge and as sort of demographically diverse as British Columbia means that on occasion we will have folks who live in rural, remote areas who have to travel in order to access the health care services that they need. So I do thank the member for raising this very important issue.

There has been a program in place for — staff is guessing — at least 20 years called the travel assistance program, which I gather, involved reduced fares. Actually, it was introduced in 1993 to facilitate eligible travel under the MSP plan and involved a range of partners like Central Mountain Air, B.C. Ferries, Harbour Air, Angel Air, VIA Rail, Pacific Coach Lines, Malaspina Coach Lines and Island Coach Lines and involved a fare reduction to assist those folks. That still is in place.

We have added, more recently, what is termed the health connections rural travel assistance program, and the ministry is providing $4 million annually to the Northern Health Authority, $1 million to the Interior Health Authority, half a million to the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and half a million to the Vancouver Island Health Authority to develop and implement travel assistance programs within their respective regions.

In terms of VIHA specifically…. This is a program that has application, this note points out, to Port Alberni. VIHA has contracted the volunteer transportation service entitled Wheels for Wellness to provide door-to-door van transport up and down Vancouver Island. The operator has expanded the size of the van pool and the number of drivers, and has increased trips from 11 to 30 per week. It's expected that Wheels for Wellness will obtain additional operating funds through donation, strategic alliances and other service arrangements.

In phase one, which is June to December 2005, the implementation service area is northern Vancouver Island to include but not limited to Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Alert Bay, Sayward, Campbell River, Quadra Island, Gold River, Powell River, Comox Valley, Denman Island, Port Alberni and Tofino. Phase two, which is January to May 2006, will expand the geographic scope to cover the whole VIHA area. So this is the first improvement to travel assistance programs since 1993, and we're looking at it with great promise.

S. Fraser: Thank you to the minister for that. I have so many more, but I am being told I get maybe one quick one. Tofino General Hospital, west coast of Vancouver Island, district of Tofino, less than 2,000

population — a small facility. There are always fears of closures or shutdowns or cutbacks there, and warranted or unwarranted, those rumours keep flying. Just to be fair, the small size of the community…. It also is the hospital that deals with Ucluelet, Ahousat, Opitsat, Esowista — a number of first nations communities — and up to a million tourists over a year that are visiting that wonderful part of the world. Can the minister let us know what short- or long-term plans we have for the Tofino Hospital as far as its existence and longevity and prosperity to continue?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question in relation to Tofino Hospital. I certainly share the member's assessment of the spectacular beauty and attraction of Tofino. I vacationed for many years with my younger family in Tofino and know the community well and the challenges of a community in that location. Obviously, while it's a growing and, I think in most ways, prospering community, it is remote in the sense that it is some distance removed from Port Alberni, for example. So it does come with some of those unique challenges that one finds in communities that are, relatively speaking, remote from larger centres.

To their credit, I'm happy to report that VIHA is working, I think, very hard and very well with communities like Tofino to identify better ways of delivering health care in those communities. We know, as well, that part of the equation moving forward will be building stronger relationships with the first nations, the Ahousat in this particular case but first nations generally, in and around remote communities like Tofino. We will be building stronger relationships with them and with the federal government, which has some fiduciary responsibilities and constitutional responsibility in terms of health care for first nations. So that will be an important part of the equation as well.

We're not aware of any substantial changes that are in mind for Tofino Hospital. The information we have suggests that a 24-7 emergency department will continue to be needed there. There will be an out-patient focus — as we're trying to develop, really, in all of our hospital facilities — and a strong focus on mental health and addictions for that community and that hospital as well. I hope that gives a general sense of what we're proposing to do.

K. Conroy: We're going to move on now to seniors issues in the health system. First, I'd like to thank the minister and the ministry staff for their commitment to health and to ensuring a healthy lifestyle for all British Columbians. I think those are goals that all of us in this House can agree to. However, there are issues in this province that need to be addressed and questions that need to be asked tonight.

As the critic for seniors health, I receive correspondence daily, actually, from seniors and their families from across the province in all constituencies, expressing concerns on many issues. In light of the time tonight, I will try to keep my questions concise and to the point in order to give the minister the opportunity to provide the much-needed answers that we and the seniors in the province are requesting. I'm hoping the minister will reciprocate.

Our general line of questions will be focusing on seniors and the issues that their families face, including residential care and assisted-living issues; the act in which seniors housing is now legislated, the community care facilities act; palliative care; home support; and falls prevention. Just to start off, we want to ask the minister about a breakdown of some of the health care spending. The first one: within continuing care, can we break down between long-term care, assisted living and home support?

Hon. G. Abbott: It's not possible, without sort of doing a detailed aggregation of how this is broken down in different health authorities, exactly what the numbers would be…. But this certainly provides an order of magnitude in terms of the breakdown: over all, about $1.6 billion in the range of programs which the member referenced. About $1.1 billion of that would be for residential care and health interventions in assisted-living units; about $500 million is for home support, palliative care and seniors programs in communities, such as seniors day care and so on. That's an approximate breakdown of it. As I say, it's difficult to get a more accurate aggregation of that without getting details from the health authorities.

K. Conroy: If it's possible at some time in the next few weeks, could we get in writing what the breakdown is per health authority? That would be helpful. Thank you.

The dollars that were allocated in your February budget were a range of care services, including home care, residential care, palliative care, mental health and addiction service. What was the breakdown in that budget?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, we're not entirely sure just how broadly the member is casting the net around here, but I'm presuming that she's looking for some detail around, specifically, home care and issues of that character. In terms of the budgetary allocations, there is approximately $92 million for a range of services like home care, palliative care, pre-acute mental health support, post-acute mental health support and so on.

Also, with the September update and the additional $150 million that, generally speaking, is directed towards improved care for seniors, we canvassed this to some degree last night. We talked about some of the ways that that funding would be used by health authorities, such as the purchase of equipment; purchase of beds and lifts for improved patient care and comfort and avoidance of strain and injuries to health care providers; facility improvements to accommodate higher levels of care; training for case managers in the use of new assessment tools; enhanced home care capacity and ensuring adequate home care and residential ca-

pacity exists as we add the balance of the 5,000 new residential care, assisted living and supportive housing units by December 31, 2008.

Those are some of the things we can tell her about, but I'm not sure, apart from reading out all of the budget lines in the budget, what exactly the member may be looking for.

K. Conroy: That helps, minister. Again, what would be helpful is to get that in writing, perhaps, per health authority.

You've raised the whole issue of long-term beds, and we definitely need to look at that. I understood from your comments that you are dealing with the 5,000 new beds, and I think we need to just talk a little bit about that, starting from 2001 on.

During that time you had said you were committed to building and operating an additional 5,000 new intermediate and long-term care beds by 2006. In 2003 we heard that you were well on your way to meeting the commitment to providing 5,000 beds by the year 2006. Then during the last election you said there would be 5,000 new residential care and assisted-living beds by 2008, including 1,700 new beds already under construction.

Now we hear in the throne speech that there will be 5,000 new beds for seniors across the spectrum of assisted living, residential care and independent housing. The dollars in the September budget were in the range of care services, including all of those spectrums of care: long-term care, assisted living and supported housing. What I would like from the minister is the actual breakdown on those three levels. What I'd like to know is the actual number of long-term care beds that are being built — just long-term care beds.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her question. I'm glad to provide her with all of the detail that she might like around the numbers and form of those beds.

To begin, though, let me remind the member about the challenge that we faced when we became government in 2001. The situation for at least a few thousand of the care beds that existed in this province was in some cases deplorable. There were many instances where the facilities met neither the Fire Code nor the Building Code. Nor did they contain important safety provisions that one would expect in facilities of that kind.

The facilities were, on average, more than 30 years old. They were overcrowded. They didn't have basic care needs, such as mechanical lifts and wheelchairs. There were flaws in flooring, wood seals, air flow and air conditioning. Common features of some of these outdated residential care facilities were: narrow doors; small washrooms; narrow and congested hallways; poor or non-existent security; and limited lounge, dining, activity and social spaces.

There was a very grave need for remediation of many of the facilities. Not only did they not meet codes in many instances, but in fact the facilities survey indicated that close to 50 percent of the beds in the existing facilities, effective 2001, were not equipped, were not built, were not of satisfactory condition to meet the level of care need that was being provided to the patients who were in them. There was a substantial challenge there. The members opposite may wish to diminish or disparage the size of that challenge, but it is real and substantial and verifiable.

Similarly, a part of the challenge was that over the ten years that the former government was in office…. During that period there were 1,400 beds that were added, which simply didn't meet need. Most important was the condition of those units, those beds. In many cases, as we moved to remediation of those facilities, we converted eight-bed wards into either individual or two-patient units and modernized those facilities. It was a very important work that we undertook and work that I'm very proud of.

I'm also very proud, as a former Minister Responsible for Housing in this province, of the Independent Living B.C. program, which we undertook. As I recall, my budget for programs like that — through my period, at least, as minister responsible — was $153 million a year. We were making huge investments in assisted living.

As we discussed last night with the Health critic, what we have in place and what we are increasingly adding to is a continuum of care which extends from home care to supportive housing for seniors to assisted living and to residential care, with the number and form of that housing support reflecting the acuity needs of the population in a given community or region or health authority. All of that is very important, and I'm tremendously proud of the work that we have done.

I will certainly acknowledge that we did not achieve the 5,000-bed commitment. I say that boldly, given that it was, in fact, one of the principal centrepieces of the government-in-waiting opposite during the last provincial election campaign that we hadn't achieved that. I suppose that in some respects, there was a political price paid for that. I've explained some of the reasons why that commitment was not achieved, but we did not. Certainly, we admitted that it was not and have been held accountable for it — and fair enough.

I have a responsibility, moving forward, to ensure that we do meet this commitment by December 31, 2008, and I'm glad to provide some detail around that. In the instance of those openings that we expect to see in place by December 2006, the number for residential care is 3,682; assisted living, 3,729 — for a total of 7,411; plus 609 of supportive housing with home support — only those supportive housing units with home support layered on are included in this figure — for a total of 8,020. From that, one would deduct a net of 5,258. That number includes some residential care, some assisted living and no supportive housing. The net change, effective at the end of December 2006, will be plus 2,762.

Additional openings, then, to bring us to the total between 2006 and 2008. It is going to include residential care with net openings, 1,815, and net closings, 174. In some cases one has to close a facility in order to remediate it, so that's what some of these closure numbers are.

Assisted living, 592. Supportive housing with home support, 58, for a total of 2,465, and net closings of 227, for an overall net change of plus 2,238. So that's where we get the 5,000.

I'm confident that in conjunction with the many non-profit partners we have across the province…. I'm hopeful that we can, in fact, exceed that, but that is the plan. I welcome the member's further questions on it.

K. Conroy: Yes, we've heard the minister's lesson in history, and we have heard the promise that hasn't been kept, of 5,000 beds. In fact, I visited some of those facilities that have been shut in this province, and I've heard of some of the people who've talked about some of the facilities that have been closed, facilities that were in rather good condition, facilities that people were very happy living in because they had a facility to live in.

Now some of those same seniors are in acute care facilities in hospitals or in assisted-living facilities that don't adequately provide the services they need, which they were getting in residential care facilities. Perhaps some of those facilities were shut down a little too quickly around the province before there were adequate services available for those seniors. I also know of some facilities that were closed that have now opened by private facilities and are being run by private facilities without any renovations to them. An example in point is Gorge Road Hospital here in Victoria.

You spoke about the Independent Living B.C. program. My question to the minister is on the component that the provincial government receives from the federal government per unit for housing. What is that from the federal government?

Hon. G. Abbott: I know that often the easiest thing in these instances is to say: "Oh, the facility is perfectly fine even if it doesn't meet building codes, fire codes and other safety codes. You know, the residents there have become accustomed to all the deficiencies in the premises; therefore, let's do nothing and have everyone be very content with that." The fact of the matter is that as buildings age…. They certainly were aging. Again, on average, the facilities were more than 30 years old, effective 2001. The need for remediation expands every year, and the condition in which people live deteriorates year by year. At some point the physical stock without remediation continues to deteriorate on an even more rapid rate.

I know some don't like to conceive of this, but often it is necessary, in order to achieve remediation, to have a closure. It's preferable if the closure is preceded by an opening, but sometimes it's necessary to have a closure. The fact of the matter is that the member is dead wrong in terms of her contention that there are more people occupying acute care beds inappropriately than was the case when her government left office. That's simply not the case. We discussed this last night. The inappropriate use of acute care beds by ALC patients declines every year. That's clear, and we discussed this last night.

In fact, if the member wants to know all of the facts, I'll point out to her that the wait time for assisted-living, residential care, alternate-level-of-care beds has been reduced from approximately one year — when the former government left office and we took office — to now, on average, between 17 days in Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to a high of 88 days in the Interior Health Authority. But in every case, the wait period is down very, very substantially.

In terms of the member's question about how much was contributed to B.C. Housing for assisted-living projects by the federal government, she would have to canvass the Minister of Housing in regard to that. We don't have those figures.

K. Conroy: Due to the time, I'm not going to get into any kind of a discussion with the minister on the benefits and what's happened in the last four years around the closures and the fact that seniors have had some facilities closed and have been rather upset about them closing. We could go on all night with that discussion, but I am glad that you've raised some issues around the whole issue around long-term care beds and the facilities.

You had promised to work with non-profit societies to build and operate the additional 5,000 new intermediate and long-term care beds, and it's our understanding now that the majority of the new beds and assisted-living units in the private sector are being built within the private sector and through P3s. My understanding is, also, that the majority of the facilities, especially in the Interior Health, are being built by for-profit corporations, companies, as opposed to non-profit. I just want to know. Is it now the policy of the government to provide the majority of the funding for privately financed and constructed long-term care facilities to these for-profit corporations?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her question. Whether it is an Independent Living B.C. project, which is a partnership between B.C. Housing and the Ministry of Health to provide support for the frail elderly in assisted-living or supportive seniors housing units, or whether it's residential care facilities that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, either alone or in combination, we all look for the maximum public benefit that can be achieved through the expenditure of each public taxpayer dollar that we have the honour to manage as a government. So we're always looking for the best deal.

I was always enormously impressed by the remarkable staff at B.C. Housing and the remarkable staff at the Ministry of Health as they put together what were excellent leveraged agreements with the federal government, with the local non-profits, with denominational societies and with local governments that produced really remarkable facilities. I'd be glad to furnish the member with a list of them, because there are lots of them all around the province. There are some 52 projects where shovels are in the ground and that are in various levels of completion that will be coming on stream in the days, weeks and months ahead as well.

But again, I know that there's been a little bit of sort of black magic associated with that P3 term, at least in the minds of some on the other side of the House. I don't think the Health critic shares that view, from his comments, but I know some have some apprehension about P3s. But the fact of the matter is that even under the former government there were public-private partnerships between the government and the non-profit sector — and, on occasion, the for-profit sector — in the provision of housing in this province.

A common partnership between the government, whether it's B.C. Housing or the Ministry of Health, and the private sector would be a partnership, for example, with the Salvation Army, with the Union Gospel Mission, with any number of denominational societies, with great community organizations like Rotary or Kiwanis or the Lions. These have all been very, very active in P3 partnership arrangements with provincial governments. Similarly, if one wants to look at facilities like Nikkei Place in Burnaby, a fabulous partnership with the Japanese-Canadian community, or a very specialized housing and health support centre like the Dr. Peter Centre in the west end of Vancouver that I had the pleasure of being a part of the opening of a few years ago now….

There is a range of very, very exciting projects that have been undertaken, and I think I'm very satisfied and very proud that the kind of partnerships we've put together have been able to achieve what we set out to do, which is to provide the maximum public benefit for every taxpayer dollar we expend.

K. Conroy: This question is over the last five years for your government. How many non-profit versus for-private long-term care facilities and beds have been announced?

Hon. G. Abbott: We know it is a mix of partnerships with for-profits and not-for-profits. We don't have a precise figure, but we will attempt to secure a more precise figure for the member after the conclusion of our discussion tonight.

K. Conroy: Can the minister please provide examples of where it has approved and provided capital funding for the construction of any long-term care facilities in B.C. since 2001?

Hon. G. Abbott: To assist the member, first, when we have a partnership with either a non-profit or a for-profit, the cost of that tends to show up on the operating side rather than the capital side, because the capital generally would show up off-book with the partner organization, not on our books as capital. But for the member's guidance, if she looks to page 7 of the service plan update, September 2005, and goes to the line "Regional Health Sector Funding," that would be one point of entry. That describes the portion of the operating costs. On page 8 one would find the prepaid capital allowances for capital spending in the more traditional sense of a direct government expenditure. She'd find that under "Capital Plan, Health Care Facilities."

K. Conroy: So what I'm hearing the minister say is he can't give specifics on the actual specifics of the construction — that this is in the budget, but it's in here with other potential capital projects.

Hon. G. Abbott: The health authorities get a capital budget, and they get an operating budget. From that, they make decisions in respect to the allocation of those funds to particular projects. If the member has an interest in particular projects, she could identify them to us now, and we'd attempt to find some additional information on them overnight. But in the absence of that, I'm not quite sure where she'd like to go with this.

As far as the government policy on the construction, just in general government policy, has the ministry done any projects that have been solely financed by the ministry, or is it the habit now to use non-profit or for-profit in all of the construction?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm not sure if the member was present for the discussion that we had earlier with the Health critic and others around the continuing role of regional hospital districts in the funding of facilities. Where we were doing straightforward residential care facility construction, where government was paying the full cost or something approximating the full cost, the regional hospital district would, in all likelihood, be a partner to the extent of 40 percent, which is standard in these things. However, that is not the current way, by and large, that these things are done, because one doesn't build the leveraged partnerships that one can in more modern kinds of arrangements.

We still do these kinds of facilities on our own on occasion, particularly in rural, remote areas where there may not be partners that could come on stream to be partners in such a thing. In those cases, we would look to a partnership with the regional hospital district and expend directly.

Only in a few instances does the province provide direct capital funding. An example of this is Omineca

Lodge, a new 50-bed multilevel care facility in Vanderhoof, where the province is paying $6 million of the $7.6 million cost. Hopefully, that's a useful explanation for the member.

K. Conroy: I'll move into the operating and get away from the capital, because it seems not to be in the budget. Is there a difference for the ministry in the costs for contracting a private bed versus a not-for-profit bed in the facilities? If you're contracting a bed in a for-profit as opposed to not-for-profit, is there any difference in the contracting and the fee paid out?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for her question. As we understand her question, the member is asking if we have reliable figures which would suggest whether having us build a facility ourselves and having it managed and operated by health authority employees would be cheaper or more expensive than if we were to go to the marketplace and secure comparable services in a comparable private-owned facility. I understand that to be the member's question, and she can correct me if the staff and I have misunderstood her question.

The answer, in fairness, we think, is that in the first instance, it is difficult to get apples-to-apples comparisons in these things, because arriving at a final, comparative figure will depend on what you include in your formula. The things that we rightly think should be included in the cost structure around a per diem are things like care costs — what the services are that will be provided and at what rate, either with health authority staff or buying comparable in the marketplace — and whether things like financing and amortization costs ought to be included in the mix as well.

If one were to contract, for example, with the Salvation Army for services in one of their facilities, one would expect that they'd have to build the costs of their facility into the contract rate that they proposed to us. In fairness, we should be doing the same when we are looking at publicly owned facilities and employees of health authorities.

It's a very, very difficult judgment to make, and that is why, when we are considering an extension of health care facilities or the addition of new health care facilities, we look very closely at the partnerships that we may be able to form. We look very closely at the figures that they bring to the table. We assess them against our best understanding of what it might cost us to do something comparable, and we will form the appropriate conclusions based on this mass of evidence and information that we assemble.

In some cases…. I mentioned the Omineca Lodge in Vanderhoof. Obviously, after all the due diligence around that, a decision was made to do it on sort of a traditional government-buys-and-government-operates process. Another case, one of the best examples that I know of, is the partnerships that we've formed in Salmon Arm, Penticton and elsewhere with the Good Samaritan Society. They're a large denominational non-profit noted for the excellent care that they provide and the excellent environment that they create for the patients in their facilities. In that case, clearly, the best alternative was to go with a large denominational non-profit. In other cases, it may be a for-profit organization.

We can't go into those discussions with a set of ideological blinders on that say public partnerships are a bad thing or private partnerships are a bad thing. We go in saying: "Where are we going to extract the best deal for the taxpayer and for the health care system in British Columbia, either in forming a partnership with a profit or non-profit organization or in doing it as a sort of old, traditional government-builds kind of approach to it?"

I think that's the best, most honest answer that I can give to the member around this. It's not simple. Staff assure me that they can bury me and the member in hordes of details should she wish, but I hope that is a satisfactory answer to her.

K. Conroy: Just to clarify, when we're talking about a per diem for a bed in a facility and we're talking about any bed in a facility in B.C., you're telling me it's a judgment call based on evidence that you gather, based on what kind of facility it is?

Let's compare apples to apples. If we have two facilities in a community that are close to each other — one is run in a hospital and is attached to a hospital; one is run by a private organization like the Good Samaritan Society that the minister referred to — the per diem that the ministry would pay for someone in a residential care bed would be based on the evidence that…. It's a judgment call? There's not a set rate?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm pleased to advise the member that we never, never need to make judgment calls because we are always able, after the extensive work that is undertaken by our staff and others, to make informed decisions. We don't have to make judgment calls. We make informed decisions.

We put a project out to tender, and we do that. It will go up on the World Wide Web, and we look forward to hearing expressions of interest from the for-profit sector, from the non-profit sector and from anyone else who might be interested in submitting. Everyone is free to submit a bid.

What we will do is a tremendous amount of due diligence from the initial request for proposal or request for qualification to tightening down and really narrowing down the field and, ultimately, choosing what produces the greatest public benefit for the best public cost. That's an appropriate way to do it. In the negotiation of the service contract, some of the issues around the per diem rates and so on will be an important element, but they will not be the only element in making an informed choice about what can be offered.

This is some of the information I think the member was looking for earlier. I think these figures are since

2001. We have done 80 partnerships with the for-profit sector, producing 5,800 beds or units, and 79 partnerships with the not-for-profit sector, producing 8,200 beds or units. Okay, the numbers are not since 2001; they're current breakdowns.

Noting the time, hon. Chair — and time flies when we're engaged in these very, very interesting debates — I move we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENVIRONMENT AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR WATER STEWARDSHIP
AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
(continued)

Hon. B. Penner: Seems like only about two weeks ago that we left off, and I guess it kind of was. I would like to just begin today by clearing up a couple of things that were raised two weeks ago when last we were debating the budget estimates for the Ministry of Environment. I apparently misspoke when mentioning the number of endangered species residing in British Columbia. There are in fact across Canada 345 that are listed under SARA, the federal legislation, and of those it's 134 that reside in British Columbia. I had said that there were 134 species across Canada. In fact, there are 134 in British Columbia out of 345 across the country. So British Columbia is home to the largest single number of endangered species in the country.

A couple of other things came up as well, as I recall. The member from the opposition was seeking a briefing, I believe, on climate change, and I'm told now that one is in the works for December 16. Hopefully, that will take place. Also, a question pertaining to the south Fraser perimeter road was raised. That's a transportation project, and it's my understanding that that project is now in the pre-application stage with the environmental assessment office. There is a lot of detailed information available on the environmental assessment office website. I won't give you the full address that will refer you to that specific project, but you can find it if you go to the environmental assessment office website. There's a lot of information on a variety of different projects and processes there including, I believe, this particular project.

S. Simpson: Thanks to the minister for the clarification around endangered species. I do look forward to the briefing that's been offered in mid-December.

As we all know, the clock is running on the session here. We're going to probably have a little bit less time to discuss this ministry's estimates than I would like, but we're going to do the best we can to see how far we get. We'll touch on a number of issues, and maybe we'll have an opportunity in the spring to delve into them a little further.

I'd like to deal first with some questions related to the message from the minister and the accountability statement in the service plan. There are some quotes and some items out of that, and I'd like the minister to clarify some of those. In the service plan the minister says: "…we are renewing our commitment to ensure that all parts of the province meet or exceed Canada-wide standards for air quality." What I'd like to know is: are there new objectives being set around what those air quality standards will be that will exceed Canada-wide standards?

Hon. B. Penner: On page 22 of the service plan you'll see it states that by 2010, our target is for 100 percent of communities monitored to achieve or continue to achieve the Canada-wide standards for fine particulate matter and for low-level ozone. So that is a commitment that we're adhering to. We've taken a number of initiatives in pursuit of that. We're looking at other options as well. I believe — I may have the number wrong because I don't have it in front of me — that we have been working on air monitoring stations in 141 different communities across the province. If my staff are watching this right now, I'd ask them to get me that note. I've seen that number in my materials, but they don't appear to be here on my desk.

Could the minister tell us how you anticipate meeting this standard of air quality? What actually are the plans that the ministry plans to engage to be able to meet or improve its air quality?

Hon. B. Penner: On page 21 of the service plan, under "Key Strategies," it indicates we will continue "working in partnership with other levels of government to support the development of a climate change strategy to ensure the province's interests are addressed in a national strategy, and encouraging incorporation of environmental technology and clean energy by industries, businesses, households and government."

That's by way of saying that we will work with communities to address air quality problems, because they are often local in nature. They do often transcend individual municipal boundaries, but they originate ultimately in urban settings in many cases — not always, but in many cases.

This past summer I had the opportunity to visit Prince George for the unveiling of some new air monitoring equipment that was installed on the roof of the Ministry of Environment office there. This equipment represents a technological advance because it can help us determine not just the amount of air pollution or fine particulates in the air, but apparently it is able to actually track back and identify the source of those fine particulates. So rather than having to guess which industry or which business or what the exact source is of those pollutants, the ministry officials tell me we will be able to determine the actual industry causing certain types of fine particulates, and then we can zero in our efforts at reducing the pollution at source.

In the past we would be able to identify the general level of PM, fine particulate matter — whether it was PM10 or PM2.5 — but it was a bit of a guessing game as to which particular refinery, sawmill, pulp mill or other industrial activity was the culprit.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us what the anticipated costs are going to be, to be able to put this system in place by 2010 and have it fully operational?

Hon. B. Penner: While my staff endeavour to get me the information I asked for a moment ago via this technology or this medium, and they bring that binder up here quickly, I'll just mention to the member that airshed planning processes have been initiated in a dozen communities or regions since 2000. That's ongoing. That's to help meet air quality targets in the context of increased population and economic activity. This particular program provides about $300,000 per year to support regional and local governments with airshed planning and management. There is direct support to multi-stakeholder groups, or it's in the form of supporting tools that reflect the best available science. These tools include emissions inventories, modelling and analysis of ambient monitoring data.

The member is looking for more information. We'll endeavour to get that as soon as possible.

A second quote out of the minister's accountability statement says: "We are further defining our approaches to water stewardship, the protection of water resources, our expanding role in coastal marine management and the sustainability of ocean industries." I wonder if the minister could explain what "further defining" means in the case of each of those items.

Hon. B. Penner: This question goes back to the reorganization of government that took place on June 16. As the member may know, prior to June 16 responsibility for water rested in 11 different ministries. Different ministries had different components or different aspects of the responsibility for water stewardship. Post–June 16 of 2005, those responsibilities are consolidated with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health still plays a role in regulating the safety of drinking water for human consumption. Virtually all the other responsibilities pertaining to water now rest with the Ministry of Environment. For example, water licensing moved to the Ministry of Environment. Previously it was housed in the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management.

I think you asked about oceans or coastal marine management. That, too, is a new addition to the responsibilities of the Ministry of Environment. About two weeks ago I had an opportunity to speak with a group in Vancouver which is an alliance of organizations that base their living off the ocean resource — primarily fishing and fish processing — and asked them to help us develop our mandate as we move forward having the lead responsibility for government for our ocean strategy.

The Ministry of Environment is now the lead agency from the provincial government responsible for liaising with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and if anyone has had experience with dealing with DFO in the past, you know that that can sometimes present a challenge. So we're looking for suggestions and ideas from stakeholder groups and individuals across the province for how they would like us to approach that responsibility with the federal government.

S. Simpson: Could the minister possibly take a moment and explain what he views the expanding role of the ministry and the provincial government is on issues around coastal marine management? As the province has an increasing role in that, what is the expectation around what those responsibilities will be?

Hon. B. Penner: In addition to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, other federal agencies that we would be liaising with include Parks Canada, as they

have jurisdiction in terms of the land base that they've acquired in different parts of our coastal communities, and Environment Canada.

The new oceans and marine fisheries division in the Ministry of Environment is responsible for the overall leadership of provincial government strategies and initiatives related to ocean resources and marine fisheries. As I was attempting to explain in my previous answer, they have established a number of goals for that particular division — sustainable management and development of British Columbia's ocean resources and marine fisheries in a manner that protects the health of the environment, supporting a thriving economy and healthy communities as well as greater provincial involvement in the management and/or influence of management of Pacific Ocean resources and marine fisheries.

The division objectives include facilitating sustainable management and development of ocean resources, influencing the federal management of Pacific fisheries to ensure that provincial objectives are reflected through collaborative decision-making processes, and encouraging the development of a growing, vibrant and sustainable seafood industry.

Those are a few of the challenges or goals that have been set for the oceans and marine fisheries division.

S. Simpson: This is just a clarification with the minister. I just want to check. I see a new staff member has joined the minister. I'd just confirm whether this would be the person who would be providing the minister with advice related to marine matters. If so, I'm willing to have some of that discussion now.

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, I should introduce some of the staff that are here. Seated to my left and to your right is Deputy Minister Chris Trumpy. To my right and your left is Assistant Deputy Minister Nancy Wilkin. She's the ADM responsible for environmental stewardship. Then behind me — oh, it's not Jacquie Kendall; it doesn't even look like Jacquie — is Eric Partridge, an assistant deputy minister. Also just joining us now is Bud Graham, assistant deputy minister responsible for the oceans and marine division.

S. Simpson: Since Mr. Graham is with us, I'm going to shift a little bit and deal with some of those ocean and marine questions now. We'll get those out of way, and then Mr. Graham will be free to go on to other duties.

Could the minister tell us where and how many marine protected areas exist today?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that there are about 140 provincial ecological reserves, provincial marine parks or anchorages along the coastline of British Columbia.

S. Simpson: Maybe the minister could tell us: are there additional areas currently in planning stages, or are any of the existing ones under review for any change of their status?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not aware of any additional ones that we are proposing. There are, apparently, some thoughts being given to changing the status of some of the existing 140 or so that I mentioned. Not all of them are marine. They could include ecological reserves that go down to the waterline.

S. Simpson: On those ones where there is some consideration of changing the status, which the minister spoke about, could the minister tell us which marine protected areas there are and what the consideration about a change is? What is the nature of that change?

Hon. B. Penner: The federal government has expressed interest in expanding their national park system. For example, there was a transfer — I don't know exactly when — from the Gulf Islands provincial park. The federal government is now operating that as part of their national park system.

This summer federal minister Stéphane Dion and I had a chance to visit that area. I know the federal government has expressed some interest in expanding the size of their national marine park system. Presently, as I mentioned, there are about 140 B.C. ecological reserves or provincial marine parks and anchorages. It may be that the federal government is looking at some of those. It's apparently a discussion that's ongoing and that will take some time to conclude. I suspect that one of the areas the federal government is interested in is in the southern Georgia strait.

S. Simpson: Just to confirm, the discussions around change of status are pretty much exclusively around potential transfers to the federal government. They don't include any discussions of removal of current protected areas from protected status.

S. Simpson: A question in relation to first nations and marine protected areas. We've heard that some of the first nations — I believe the Haida, Haida Gwaii, and others — have talked about looking at some of the marine areas and activities there. I'd be interested if the minister could tell us about that relationship and how that works with the new relationship that's been put in place by the government and what the relationship is with first nations around some of the marine protected areas.

Hon. B. Penner: Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the first nations chief that joined me and Stéphane Dion this summer when we visited the Gulf Islands park. But as I recall, that particular first nations representative was quite supportive of the transfer and the process that had taken place. It's my understanding

that it's an existing policy of both the provincial and federal governments that where park designation or other kind of protected designations are being contemplated, potentially affected first nations who may see their traditional uses changed or limited in some way are consulted.

S. Simpson: Just one more question on that. What we do know is that there have been a number of discussions with first nations. My information is that, for example, the discussions around the central coast–north coast agreement with first nations talk a lot about what these new areas that might be parks would look like. First nations are looking for a slightly different status for them. I'm sure that will be discussed when that material comes out.

The question to the minister is: is that same kind of discussion going on with first nations now under the New Relationship document in terms of who would have jurisdiction over marine protected areas and who might be able to have what kinds of activities in those areas?

Hon. B. Penner: I was just consulting with the staff to see if my answer could be close to accurate.

We're not aware of any ongoing or currently occurring discussions about specific marine or coastal parks involving first nations. There have been some broader, higher-level discussions about how we would approach the dialogue, if we were to get to that stage, about a specific parcel of land in a specific area.

Throughout the province and different places we have in certain provincial parks established collaborative management regimes involving first nations. That's a model that has been around for a number of years; I'm not sure exactly how many. At present I'm not aware of any new discussions taking place about a specific ecological reserve or marine provincial park, but that's not to say it wouldn't happen in the future.

Could the minister tell us, in regard to marine protected areas, how the minister and the ministry see reconciling the interests of protection of wildlife and protection of those marine areas while still addressing the needs of guide-outfitters and of communities and industries that rely on sea life for economic purposes. How does that work?

Hon. B. Penner: Depending on the area or the particular resource that you're interested in maintaining or protecting, we devise different regimes or different restrictions on the activity that's permitted. One of the specific division goals that I mentioned earlier is making sure there is sustainable management and development of British Columbia's ocean resources and marine fisheries.

Whatever we do when we're authorizing a particular activity, whether it's hunting on the mainland or fishing in rivers and streams, we want to make sure that the amount of the catch, of the natural resource, isn't so great that it takes away from the ongoing sustainability of that wild resource — whether it is wildlife, whether it is aquatic creatures or whether it happens to be flora or fauna.

S. Simpson: Just to follow up on that a bit, what kinds of enforcement…? What does the ministry do? What kinds of staffing or resources does the ministry have to ensure enforcement of marine protected areas that you, in fact, accomplish those goals around — whether there are fishing limitations, or with divers, ensuring that they're not upsetting wildlife in that habitat?

Hon. B. Penner: Probably a range of different personnel would be involved in enforcement and compliance. It's my understanding that fisheries officers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans would play a role in terms of monitoring fishing activities on the ocean itself, in conjunction and cooperation with the conservation officers. In the case of ecological reserves — for example, Robson Bight Ecological Reserve — there would be provincial park rangers, as well, that would be deployed and that would get involved in, at times, checking people for fishing licences, catch limits and/or determining if their diving activity is taking place in a way that's offending various restrictions or regulations.

S. Simpson: Other than relying on the federal government through Fisheries and Oceans to provide some of that support, could the minister tell us…? Among the conservation officers — that particular department — or the park rangers, are there actually marine teams that are on the water dealing with these matters?

Hon. B. Penner: The answer is yes. I should also add that there would be Parks Canada staff involved now — for example, in the Georgia Strait where the national park has been established. This is why it's important that we have a good cooperative and collaborative relationship with our federal counterparts so that we can maximize our presence on the water and on the land.

S. Simpson: I might be corrected on the exact number, but I believe the number of conservation officers we have in British Columbia is in around 115; maybe a few more. I'm sure the minister will have the correct number. Could the minister tell us: how many of those conservation officers are designated for marine activity and are on the water?

Hon. B. Penner: The conservation officer service does have a marine team. They have a number of ves-

sels that they use. Because we also have a cooperative relationship with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which owns more vessels due to their bigger size, we do have an arrangement where our staff can at times partner with them and use their vessels or join them on their vessels. We have an information-sharing arrangement as well.

S. Simpson: Again, maybe just to be more specific, how many members are there on the marine team?

Hon. B. Penner: I don't have that specific number, but we can try and track that down.

S. Simpson: A question related to marine protected areas and climate change. I know we're going to discuss that further on another day, but in relation to this, can the minister tell us what analysis and work the marine team in the ministry is doing to determine the effects of climate change on our marine habitat and ecology, and the effects on marine protected areas?

Hon. B. Penner: The ministry has contracted with a number of scientists to do some work on a number of aspects, looking for information pertaining to climate change and possible effects on ocean species — including sockeye, for example. That's one specific project that the ministry has undertaken. I believe there will be more detail made available on December 16 for the briefing that pertains to climate change, because I don't think we have all our people here working on that file.

S. Simpson: We'll get back to that a little bit later. We might talk a little more about that, but I'll let that go for the moment. I have two other questions related to marine-related issues — or two other areas.

Offshore oil and gas. What is the role…? I believe that the government still has an offshore oil and gas team working through Energy and Mines. Could the minister tell us what role the Ministry of Environment is playing in any discussions around offshore oil and gas?

Hon. B. Penner: The Ministry of Environment has been tasked with developing a comprehensive ocean strategy, as we talked about earlier. As part of that, we are considering a range of potential uses and activities and things — such as marine transportation, ecotourism, oil and gas, fishing and other things — with conservation as our key objective because, of course, there are unique ecosystems up and down the coast that we want to make sure we protect and maintain going into the future. That's the high-level policy of the ministry.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: has the ministry done a risk assessment based on what it knows about the potential of offshore oil and gas — minimum to maximum risks that might be there from offshore oil and gas exploration?

Hon. B. Penner: This is a new unit within the Ministry of Environment. That work that the member mentioned has not been done, to my knowledge, but I would expect that if oil and gas were to take place, then such a risk assessment or something similar to it would take place.

S. Simpson: Maybe, then, the minister could tell us what work is being done by the ministry in that unit now as it relates to offshore oil and gas, if it isn't looking at an environmental assessment of the potential of that activity.

Hon. B. Penner: No specific projects have been brought forward, so I don't believe the environmental assessment office is looking at anything currently. But I would suspect that, given the size of potential projects, if they were to proceed, or at least be submitted, they would be caught by a requirement to be assessed by the environmental assessment office.

S. Simpson: This is a question, and the minister may not have the answer to it because it's not his ministry, but possibly his staff would because they are in discussions. Does he know how many people are on the offshore oil and gas team? Does it take in people from other ministries like MOE?

Hon. B. Penner: The organization that you're referring to is housed within the Ministry of Energy and Mines. I don't know the exact number of people assigned to that organization, but I am advised by my staff that we have frequent communication with that organization, so they are collaborating across government.

S. Simpson: Then I'm going to go back again, because now I'm just a little bit confused. The minister said a minute ago that there are no specific activities, so the ministry isn't moving forward on any specific work at this time. Yet the minister just said that there is ongoing collaboration there between the oil and gas team and members of the ocean strategy team or the team in the ministry. What exactly are they collaborating on?

Hon. B. Penner: What I said earlier is that there's no specific proposal that's come forward from industry in terms of oil and gas that I'm aware of and, therefore, there isn't a project that's being reviewed by the environmental assessment office. If one were to go forward or come ahead, I would suspect — although I don't know, and I'll see if the associate deputy minister responsible for the environmental assessment office will correct me — such a project would be caught by the regulations and would be required to be taken through an environmental assessment process through the environmental assessment office.

Hon. B. Penner: Apparently, the answer is on its way. It's not as quick as by way of a BlackBerry, but by the traditional method, which is much slower.

At this point there is no specific proposal that's been received by the EAO. In terms of the nature of the conversations, dialogue and consultations between the offshore oil and gas team — if that is, in fact, what it's called — and Ministry of Environment personnel, the ministry is consulting with that organization and others about current and potential uses of the ocean that would need to be included in any ocean strategy that we put forward going into the future.

S. Simpson: Maybe I'll have a discussion about that further with the Minister of Energy and Mines. I want to move on, because I know time is important.

One last question that relates to marine-related issues. Invasive species. I know the ministry does a lot of work related to invasive species and plants as it relates to the land base. Could the minister tell us what work, if any, in marine protected areas is being contemplated or done in relation to the potential of invasive species or plants in marine protected areas?

Hon. B. Penner: British Columbia is a member of the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers, and one of the issues that the organization does address is the issue of invasive species in aquatic settings. There was a meeting on this topic a few weeks ago in Saskatoon, and I had an opportunity to attend. A lot of the focus has been on the east coast and in the Great Lakes, where there's a more dramatic problem.

That's not to say we haven't experienced non-native species occurring in B.C. waters. Some of the better known examples are Japanese oysters, which many people harvest in British Columbia but, in fact, I'm told are not native to British Columbia. Another creature known as the varnish clam was probably brought here by ballast water, and now there's a commercial harvest that takes place of that particular species — again, not native to British Columbia, but it has now become part of the commercial harvest. It's something that we do monitor, but at this point we're not aware of any particular invasive species in the marine environment that's posing a significant environmental risk. If it's brought to our attention that there is, then we will take some action.

S. Simpson: In terms of the monitoring, could the minister tell us how that monitoring is done, by whom and what kind of staffing resources are applied to that?

The primary responsibility for monitoring the occurrence of invasive species that affect commercial fisheries, for example, rests with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We have ongoing dialogue, as we've already talked with that agency, out of the necessity of comanaging resources along our coastline that we all depend upon.

Just for clarification, is the minister saying that other than a communications relationship — which, obviously, is the exchange or provision of information from DFO — there aren't necessarily science or scientific officers or biologists or whatever involved in the direct work from the Ministry of Environment itself?

Hon. B. Penner: At this point the ministry's focus has been, particularly in provincial parks or ecological reserves, on terrestrial invasive weeds or species rather than in the ocean environment, where the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has primary responsibility.

S. Simpson: I know from reading the service plan that the ministry has plans to take a more active role around the marine area. That's certainly my interpretation of the service plan. Could the minister tell us whether there are plans over the next couple of years to, in fact, change that situation and to apply additional resources to ocean and marine issues?

Hon. B. Penner: At this point we don't have any plans to do what the member suggests. I'll just go back to one of my previous comments. We're not aware of any significant environmental threat. If there were to be one that emerged, then after consultation with stakeholders, including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I suspect we would want to target resources in that area.

S. Simpson: That, for the moment, ends questions I have around the marine-ocean area. I will say that I believe it's possible that the member for Skeena, our fisheries critic, may be back after dinner with some questions related to the fisheries, so I'll let the minister know that.

I do have some questions related to water. I don't know whether Mr. Graham is the appropriate person. Otherwise, I'll just set those aside for the moment.

We'll move back to the accountability statement for now. Actually, one of the statements that's made in the accountability statement says: "We are continuing to pursue excellence in freshwater fish, wildlife and habitat management by promoting stewardship and shared responsibility." Considering the current situation, considering what we've seen in terms of reduction in resources since 2001 that have been applied to the ministry, would the minister characterize his government's management of freshwater fish, wildlife and habitat as excellent at this time?

Hon. B. Penner: There is always room for improvement, but I think we are pursuing excellence. I'll give you one example. We have established a $7 million living rivers trust fund. The Premier has made a commitment to triple that amount to help fund rehabilitation and restoration works along watersheds in British Columbia.

I know the ministry has worked to identify a number of rivers where some imaginative things have been implemented in terms of permitting use of those rivers for fishing to try to limit the amount of pressure that the fisheries incur or the amount of congestion that takes place along the riverbank so that anglers actually experience a better experience rather than having to jostle with counterparts lined up and down the rivers. We're trying to identify certain rivers and charge a higher daily rate for angling opportunities in order to preserve the resource and make sure the experience is one that people will come back for.

S. Simpson: I'll ask this question. I will be back, certainly, a little bit later to discuss this in somewhat more detail around staffing matters. Could the minister tell us: is he confident…? We've seen some reduction in staffing since 2001 in what was his predecessor ministry, Water, Land and Air Protection. I know there have been some small increases in seasonal employees in this last budget, but is the minister comfortable that he has the staffing complement necessary to accomplish the fourth great goal?

Hon. B. Penner: It's not simply about staff in terms of getting to that goal of having the best air and water quality management and fisheries management, although that certainly plays a key role. I should point out that it's true the ministry went through a reorganization and there was a downsizing that took place as we endeavoured to get ourselves on a sound fiscal footing as a province after inheriting a very weak economy — the worst in Canada, actually — and having the provincial debt doubled during the 1990s.

We are now on a more sustainable economic footing, and we're leading the country in economic growth with the best job creation record in Canada. As a result, now we're able to add some additional dollars back into the ministry.

One of the other changes that took place — and it would have been reflected as a drop in the number of FTEs — was that the responsibility for things like fish hatcheries has moved to a new entity known as the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. That work is ongoing, but it's in a different format. There's a different regime in place. Everyone I've talked to, as I've travelled around the province, has complimented the good work of Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., saying that it's working very well and accomplishing its goal of making sure that our fish hatcheries are properly managed and delivering on the needs of recreational fisheries and fish conservation in British Columbia.

S. Simpson: Maybe we'll have some of that staffing discussion now and just do it, since we started there. The significant objectives the ministry has…. Clearly, the fourth great goal of the government is to lead the world in sustainable environmental management with the best air quality and water quality and best fisheries, bar none. I would say to the minister that this is a very ambitious goal. Once we add the "bar none" in, it makes it quite an ambitious goal.

What I would ask…. My sense, from having looked at the information I have been able to see, is that the ministry, when it was Water, Land and Air Protection, from about 2002 through 2004 lost about 320 positions in total. Of those 320 positions, over 200 of those came from science officers — a whole range, including scientists, biologists, park assistants and conservation officers. They were very important positions — not that the other jobs weren't important, but these were particularly critical positions.

My question to the minister is: is he confident, with those kinds of reductions…? I would note that in the three-year service plan, I don't see any indication of those being put back in any significant numbers, based on the budgets. Is he actually confident that he can achieve the fourth great goal, bar none, with those cuts?

Hon. B. Penner: I was just trying to unscramble some of the omelette, which is the combined estimates after the reconfiguration of government, so that I could give apples-to-apples comparisons about the increase in the '05-06 budget compared to the '04-05 budget.

Overall, the budget shows a fairly dramatic increase. Some of that is caused by the movement of things like the water stewardship division, which was not previously housed within the Ministry of Environment — and oceans, for example, and things to do with water licensing, which were housed in a different entity altogether. For example, environmental stewardship, in the budget that we're debating here today, shows a $5 million lift year over year; things like environmental protection, a $5 million lift; and the compliance operation, up by $1.8 million.

As well, as I mentioned, there's the $7 million living rivers trust fund. B.C. Parks this year is investing more than what has been invested in over 15 years in park capital improvements, totalling $12.2 million this year. The service plan calls for $20 million over three years, as we're trying to catch up with some of the aging infrastructure. There have been a number of other areas where the funds have gone.

In terms of the lift in compliance operations and so forth, that has helped us fund the new B.C. conservation corps program. At last report I'm told that 153 students are recent graduates that participated in that mentoring program, doing very meaningful work around the province and getting to share time and experience with senior employees of the Ministry of Environment and other agencies, including the private sector. That's a program I'm very excited about. You're going to hear more about that in the future. We've had 26 more park rangers in uniform this past summer than we did the year before.

The member referenced the fact that there are more conservation officers this year, and that's correct. We didn't manage to hire all the ones we had money to hire, however, partly because the job market is booming, and it was tough to attract qualified people. In the past the ministry would not have had much difficulty, I think, in finding plenty of qualified people applying for those positions, but with a strong economy, people have choices. So there were two positions that went unfilled this past year.

We're hopeful that with us getting an earlier start in the recruitment process and through vigorous efforts, we will be able to fill those additional positions and perhaps more. The service plan contemplates an additional five FTEs, I believe, next year for conservation officers. So there have been a number of enhancements to personnel. That's part of the answer.

It's also important to note that we are doing things differently in the ministry. I mentioned earlier about the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. That's one example. We've tried to reduce some of the administrative paperwork burden that conservation officers face, so they can spend less time behind their desk in an office and more time out in the field engaging in enforcement activities and being the eyes and ears for us.

With a province the size of British Columbia, we're always going to count on individuals — fishermen, hunters, all four million British Columbians — to report, record and contact us when illegal activity is seen. That's been the situation in British Columbia for more than 100 years — that government agencies count on law-abiding citizens to help us identify those who are not respecting our laws and bring that information to the authorities so that appropriate action can take place.

S. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's comments, but I wasn't discussing last year's budget. I'm talking about what's happened since the government took power in 2001. We can see what has been a consistent erosion of support for the environment. That's reflected in radical cuts in staff and resources since 2001.

I wondered when I looked at those numbers this year, and I said: "Well, maybe those folks have moved to Forests or to Ag and Lands, other ministries that have some environmental responsibility." I took a look at what's happened in terms of staffing levels in the three ministries combined — and their predecessors, Forests, Environment and Agriculture — since 2001 up to the September budget. What I found is that whereas in 2001 we had over 7,000 people in those ministries doing the work, we now have 5,400 people — a 23-percent reduction over those three areas of forests, agriculture and environment, from what they were in 2001 to what they are today. There has been a radical cut.

Now, there can be a discussion about whether there are efficiencies there, and it might be a legitimate point to make. But you're going to be hard-pressed to convince a lot of people that 25 percent or 30 percent of the staffing levels constitutes an efficiency or that 200 biologists and conservation officers and science technical officers disappearing off the face of the map constitutes an efficiency.

A question here. The minister, in his answer, talked about trying to get conservation officers out from behind their desks and out doing the work they need to do. Could the minister confirm that in a number of the offices, the stand-alone offices, the administrative support staff for those conservation officers were cut so that they, in fact, have to do the paperwork that they used to have support to do?

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, it's true that we did look for a number of efficiencies. As I said, we did inherit a weak economy in British Columbia. Even when the rest of the western hemisphere was experiencing an unprecedented economic boom, British Columbia was dead last in economic growth in Canada. We inherited a provincial debt that had doubled in just ten years. So it's true; we were looking for ways to save money.

One of the things we've done is found, in a number of office locations for conservation officers, an opportunity to share administrative functions with other arms of the ministry. We combined office locations. Administrative functions are shared, for example, in some locations with the environmental protection division.

As well, there's the new 24-hour call centre, which didn't exist before, for the four million British Columbians who are concerned about the environment to report illegal activities or things that cause them concern. This has reduced the burden on conservation officers to field these types of phone calls and complaints. They're centralized. They go through this 24-hour call centre and are identified or screened at that stage. Those are some of the efficiencies that we've been able to implement.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: are there stand-alone offices? I appreciate that conservation offi-

cers work in offices that provide other services of government, and there's the ability to share some clerical or support services. Could the minister tell us: are there any offices with conservation officers that are stand-alone offices where, in fact, the conservation officers have primary responsibility for their own clerical or administrative work?

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us how many offices like that there are around the province?

Hon. B. Penner: I don't have the precise number, but it could be a significant number. I don't know how many.

S. Simpson: Could the minister give us some idea of what "significant" means? I don't need a specific. I'll take a range — from here to there.

S. Simpson: Then, how many other offices are there, other than those 20 or so, where we have conservation officers working — either one or two officers, I'm assuming; maybe more — in an office with no clerical or administrative support to allow them to be out in the field? Could the minister tell us: in how many other offices are there conservation officers working where they're, in fact, sharing support?

Hon. B. Penner: We don't have the precise numbers again, but an estimate would be that about 24 offices operate on the basis of either shared or dedicated support staff.

S. Simpson: Half the offices have no clerical support or administrative support. Maybe, then, the minister made the comment about looking at ways to improve that situation so that conservation officers could get out from behind their desks and not have the same kind of challenges, particularly in those 20-odd offices. Maybe the minister could tell us how he expects that to be accomplished, unless of course he's going to tell us he's going to put the staff back in the offices.

Hon. B. Penner: In addition to the 24-hour hotline for people to report incidents of concern that they want conservation officers to be aware of, we also are looking at other information technology solutions — use of laptops in vehicles, for example. Police are starting to use them in different municipalities. A number of other technological changes are being discussed by the senior staff.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us. There must be…. Maybe there's not, but I'll ask the question, and I look forward to the answer. How does the ministry and the government determine what is the appropriate number of conservation officers in British Columbia? What's the formula? How do you decide that we need X amount of conservation officers, for example, in order to deal with this diverse province?

As the minister, I know, acknowledged the last time we had a chance to speak here on these estimates, the biodiversity of this province is very unique, probably to any other place in Canada — certainly to our friends in the rest of the west and others. How do you determine what is the appropriate number that you need to accomplish the ministry's objectives? The fourth great goal of the best stewardship, bar none?

Hon. B. Penner: There is no specific or simple formula that you can just plunk in like a mathematical equation. As the member was talking about, it's a large province. You could hire an infinite number of conservation officers, and you might not be able to guarantee that you would prevent people from doing something they're not supposed to do on the land base.

Stewardship, and this is all part of our vision, is a shared responsibility between government; users of the resource, whether it's hunting and fishing groups — the B.C. Wildlife Federation, for example, has a great program amongst its members to report and record activities that they think are suspicious; and individual citizens. All have a responsibility. It's not just somebody else's job. We're all in this together.

Speaking of being in it together, the various arms of the ministry — environmental stewardship, environmental protection, water stewardship, and the oceans and marine division — all converse internally and discuss where they think the priorities are for the conservation officer service to place additional resources to focus their energy in specific parts of the province. There are about 120 FTEs allocated for conservation officers in three different regions and 44 different offices. The chief conservation officer, in consultation with the various divisions that I've just mentioned, makes a determination every year about where those resources are best to be allocated and, in consultation again with counterparts in the ministry, whether additional resources are needed.

S. Simpson: Is the minister telling us that…? Maybe it's not. I appreciate and would agree with him, actually, that you don't just set a formula, say that the formula is X and drop people in based on that formula. Because obviously, different regions are unique, and they have different demands and requirements.

Having said that, I would expect there's some kind of criteria that the ministry might have in place. Now, you might not be meeting the standards, but you still must have some kind of criteria that says: "We can reasonably expect a conservation officer to have responsibility for X amount of hectares of land or a park ranger for X amount of hectares of park," or "If we are experiencing more than X number of visits to a park, then we anticipate more demand for a park ranger." There must

be some kind of criteria that the ministry uses. I can't imagine that it's just some wild guess that's made or that it's at the whim of somebody. I'm sure the ministry doesn't act that way at all.

Maybe the minister could tell us: what are the criteria that are used to make those determinations, even if it's not a rigid formula?

Hon. B. Penner: Consulting with the staff here, they advise me that they're not familiar with any kind of particular matrix or formula that was in place during the 1990s. This has been the situation for as long as anyone can remember. There's a range of different factors that get considered. It's perhaps more of an art than a science in terms of deciding what kind of needs need to be addressed by personnel.

Some of the factors, for example, are from the conservation officer service. In the interior of British Columbia you might have operational needs around regulating hunting, so if there's more hunting activity taking place in a particular area or you have a particular population of wildlife that's under threat, you may decide to allocate additional resources in that area.

Conservation officers aren't necessarily married to their offices. The conservation officer service has at times been able to move staff to different parts of the province for particular periods of time in order to address additional needs that have been identified.

In terms of park visitations, the member's absolutely right. You don't simply have a formula based on the number of hectares, because different hectares are different in British Columbia. Some parts of our land base are frequently visited, and they may be a relatively small number of hectares, whereas other parks may be very vast in size yet have very few human visits. There isn't a strict formula based on the number of hectares or even a specific formula based on the number of visitors.

Throughout the time that B.C. Parks has operated, they've had to try and assess where it is best to allocate their resources in terms of staffing and, I suppose, other resources too — whether it's infrastructure, vehicles, building facilities and that type of thing. It's an interesting challenge for the ministry. I'm sure that other ministries face it as well, whether you're working in the Ministry of Forests and wondering where to send your personnel or you're working in the Ministry of Environment and wondering where to allocate your personnel.

S. Simpson: Well, I appreciate the minister's answer. I just want to be absolutely clear about this answer. The minister is saying there are no criteria, there is no formula and there is no approach here taken to determine staffing requirements. We are going to meet the fourth great goal of the government — to lead the world in sustainable environmental management with the best air quality and water quality and best fisheries, bar none — and we have no criteria, no formulas, no levels and no standards to determine what the staffing requirements are to meet that objective?

Hon. B. Penner: I think it's important that the hon. member not confuse inputs with outputs. A prescriptive approach or simply measuring your performance by how much you are spending on doing something doesn't necessarily guarantee a good outcome. That may have been a traditional approach to government in the past, but the amount of money you spend on something doesn't necessarily guarantee your outcome. The number of people you have working on a project — I hate to pick one, but it leaps immediately to mind: fast ferries — doesn't necessarily guarantee a good product or a good outcome at the end of the day.

We recognize that in terms of meeting the objective — for example, the great goal of the best air quality possible for British Columbia — it means working with a variety of stakeholders. It's not simply going to be done from Victoria.

We're going to need local governments, industry and individuals to take responsibility and to participate with us in reaching that goal. The member may want to talk to some of his colleagues that sit with him in the Legislature who served in government in the 1990s and ask: did the Ministry of Environment then have strict criteria or a quota or formula that they applied for hiring and staffing in B.C. Parks or for conservation officers? I suspect I know the answer, Mr. Chair, and you might be able to provide it to the member. The answer would be no.

It has always been a matter of the different divisions within the ministry consulting with each other, sharing their information, identifying where pressures are being encountered — whether it is hunting in one part of the province, whether it is water quality problems in the Fraser Valley due to agriculture operations or whether it's the need to do more industrial investigations in Greater Vancouver. Decisions get made about where to allocate the staff.

As we work with our partners across the province in terms of accomplishing our goals, we will dedicate the staff in a way that helps us meet those objectives, working in a collaborative approach with communities, individuals and industry.

The Chair: Notwithstanding the minister's cheeky comments about the Chair, I would remind the members that this is estimates, and I'm not responsible for providing answers to anyone. But thank you, minister.

I appreciate heading for the '90s again. Since May, when we got elected, and since the session started, I have become quite comfortable with whenever there is not an answer to be had, we head for the '90s.

I'll try again with the question, and the question was this. And I would remind the minister, just as an aside, that when 2001 came around and the govern-

ment changed, there were 160-odd conservation officers in the province, not 120. The question I have, and I'll try again for the minister, is: is the minister saying that the ministry has no criteria, no formulas, no standards that it sets based on any measurable things as to what is required in terms of numbers of conservation officers, park rangers or other such staff? We'll start with conservation officers and park rangers.

Hon. B. Penner: I think we're maybe getting caught up in semantics. I think we've agreed that it wouldn't make sense to have a strict formula. I think the member agrees to that. A strict mathematical equation doesn't work and has never been implemented by any party that happened to form government.

I have been advised that, for example, this past summer when we had 26 additional rangers in uniform, the allocation of those additional rangers was based on a variety of factors, including visitation and including risk identified in various parks and the types of activities that take place in those parks. That is how those decisions get made. It's a whole range of factors that get considered, not one — not a simple mathematical equation you can put in your calculator or BlackBerry, if you are happening to use it.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that. There is some sense of a standard, a consideration at least, around things like hectares or visits or those kinds of things. Well, that being the case, I'd like to…. Maybe the next question would be: based on some of those considerations, are the minister and the ministry satisfied that the critical levels are being met in terms of staffing, particularly with conservation officers and park rangers? Are we meeting the standards that we need to meet?

Hon. B. Penner: One of the things that we look at is satisfaction, for example, for park users. We're currently in the process of conducting a household survey of people about their impressions and experiences in B.C. parks. This is referenced on page 31 of the service plan, where we identify a target of having an 80-percent approval rating. We're waiting for the results of the survey to come back. Based on that survey and the results that come back, ministry staff will discuss amongst themselves again what kinds of strategies we need to employ in terms of maintaining or achieving the objective that's set out in the service plan on page 31.

S. Simpson: Maybe one of the things that we'll find…. I'll be interested whether the minister has a comment in relation to what I understand the Standing Committee on Finance, which tabled its report yesterday with the House….

One of the 21 recommendations that I believe are made in that report is a restoration of that support around environmental stewardship and around parks, including restoring funding and restoring staffing. Of the 4,000-plus people they heard from, they heard from a significant number of people in outlying areas who were frustrated and dissatisfied with exactly those services that the minister talks about, to the degree that the Standing Committee on Finance, which obviously has a majority of the minister's members on it, found to make that one of their recommendations — to restore those funds. Will the minister be supporting that recommendation?

Hon. B. Penner: I haven't had a chance to read a copy of the report, but I'm interested to review it. I'm not surprised that members of the public want to see dollars invested in parks. I do too. It's been said before, and it's true, that during the 1990s the park system in British Columbia was expanded in size, but the budget to fund it was actually reduced. We fell behind, particularly on the capital side.

It's easy for us as people to forget that infrastructure doesn't last forever. Things built in the 1960s and '70s, when a lot of the park infrastructure was put in place — be it water systems, sewer systems, bathroom facilities, picnic facilities, even the roads through campgrounds in provincial parks — are aging.

Our government did a survey early in the mandate after 2001 and determined there was at least a $40 million infrastructure backlog that had been inherited. Even though we're spending $12.2 million this year, which is the most in 15 years in catching up with that capital infrastructure deficit, it doesn't get us up to snuff — not in my view. I had a chance to go around to many parks this past summer, and I'm continuing to try and do that. What I see is that as we are repairing facilities, other facilities are still aging. It is going to be a constant process of trying to renew our capital, because a lot of that investment did take place in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and it's aging.

One example close to Victoria is Goldstream Park. There's a covered picnic facility. You see these in certain parks. Cultus Lake, for example, has them. The last time that roof was worked on was 25 or 30 years ago. The roof is rotten. It poses a public safety hazard. It could collapse. The beams are not what they should be, and it's leaking, so it's not providing the service it's supposed to. That roof is currently being replaced. It's a fairly expensive undertaking, and I'm sure there are other buildings around the province that will need that work.

We have a very big and extensive provincial park system in British Columbia — more than 600 provincial parks. Not all of them have buildings and those types of facilities, but many of them do. So it's a very big undertaking to try to stay on top of those capital needs, and if additional dollars are available, I'm certainly interested in utilizing those to the best advantage we can in terms of making sure our provincial parks remain an attractive place for people to visit.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that, and we'll get a chance to talk about park capital maybe in a little while.

I want to get back to some of the staffing questions for a minute. On the question of conservation officers, the minister is saying that there are a number of considerations there but that there's not a strict criteria or anything. So I want to ask him…. I looked at comparing some numbers between ourselves and our neighbours to the east in Alberta and our neighbours to the east of that in Saskatchewan, looking at how they deal with these matters. I think the minister would agree, in terms of conservation officers, that the biodiversity of British Columbia is probably more complex and takes more attention than our friends in Alberta or Saskatchewan, who probably have a simpler challenge in terms of their ecology in some ways — not in all ways, but some ways.

Now my understanding is that in Alberta…. We're in British Columbia. We had as the standard in 2004, 115 FTEs of conservation officers, which meant they covered an area that was about 826,000 hectares per conservation officer or a population of about 36,000 British Columbians for every conservation officer. Now let me compare that with our friends to the east in Alberta, who have 221 staff doing a comparable job, covering about 300,000 hectares per officer and about 14,000 staff. The question I'd have for the minister is: does he think that Alberta's overstaffed, or does he think we have a ways to go?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm tempted to ask the member if he thought the previous NDP government was understaffed, because by his numbers there were 160 conservation officers, and he says that Alberta had 221.

There are many other ways to measure outcomes besides how much money you are spending on accomplishing your goal. In British Columbia — throughout the last four years, certainly, and maybe even before that — we have tried to find more original or unique ways of accomplishing our objectives by working with stakeholders.

I think that on a per-capita basis across government, in Alberta they spend more per capita than virtually any other province in Canada. It might be because they're happening to sit on unbelievable oil reserves. That might be one reason, and it might be because during the 1990s while the provincial debt in British Columbia was doubled, they went the other direction and eliminated their provincial debt, and now don't have to make any interest payments on their debt, unlike we do here in British Columbia.

We work with a variety of stakeholder groups. I've already mentioned the B.C. Wildlife Federation, which is very aggressive in promoting compliance amongst their members. They take a very dim view of those people out there who would choose to go fishing or hunting and ignore regulations or cause harm to the environment, whether it's through pollution or other activities that degrade the natural environment. It's through cooperative arrangements with a variety of stakeholders, I think, that in British Columbia we get more bang for our buck.

S. Simpson: I would agree with the minister that Alberta is pretty flush these days. Let's look at Saskatchewan, because Saskatchewan's not so flush — not compared to us. In Saskatchewan they have 180 conservation officers, which is about one per 362,000 hectares. Because their population's quite small, it's about one per 5,500 people. This isn't just a question of the rich folks in Alberta. Saskatchewan probably, financially, has more challenges than we do today, but they certainly find environmental stewardship a higher priority in terms of those questions.

The question, then, that I have for the minister in relation to that…. Let's move, then, to the question of parks. The minister spoke about parks, and he talked about what we do in our parks. Would the minister tell us whether he believes that current staffing in the parks…? I'm interested particularly in full-time staffing, because I'm interested in not just the questions around the heavy-use periods but the stewardship of parks generally. Would he say that staffing in our parks is sufficient today?

Hon. B. Penner: Mr. Chair, good to see you in the chair. The Chair is constantly changing.

We have a variety of ways of delivering services in provincial parks in terms of employees. The member will know that in the 1980s there was a move towards contracting for support services and service delivery in parks. There are now, I'm told, 24 different park facility operators operating in more than 200 provincial parks, providing services on a contract basis to government to accomplish our goals. In addition to that, we have staff still working directly for the Ministry of Environment in the B.C. Parks branch.

S. Simpson: Maybe the minister could clarify for me. Those operators who are in our parks — are they providing park ranger or conservation-like services? Or are they providing other kinds of services, like the operation of lodges or facilities?

Hon. B. Penner: The short answer is that there's a range of different things their employees provide in terms of services. They're primarily responsible for front-country operations in terms of running campgrounds and everything associated with that, from the raking of campsites and picking up of garbage to collecting camping fees, providing information, being eyes and ears and watching for violations, day-use areas, maintenance of bathroom facilities, and visitors services.

In addition, I learned this past summer that in some of the parks the PFOs also assist on occasion in the

back country. So there's a range of services that they provide. They do not have law enforcement capability. What would typically happen is that a park facility operator or employee that sees something taking place that shouldn't be taking place, depending upon their own assessment of the situation, could take it upon themselves to ask a camper: "Don't park your vehicle in the bush; make sure it's on the pad in the campground." If the situation becomes more difficult, then they would be directed to contact park staff directly and have a park ranger get involved.

In the 1980s when there was less contracting of support services, whether it be operating campgrounds, maintenance or other types of things, the maintenance employees working for B.C. Parks would typically operate in a very similar fashion and report violations, problems or difficult campers — people who did not want to comply when it was pointed out to them that they were in non-compliance — to park rangers.

S. Simpson: Just to be clear here, we're not talking about the…. Those personnel who have the statutory responsibility — the enforcement responsibility — are the park rangers. They are the officers within the park. They enforce the Ministry of Environment's regulations, and they are the authority on behalf of the Ministry of Environment. That's correct.

I'm interested in knowing: how many full-time park rangers do we have in British Columbia today?

Hon. B. Penner: There are 175 FTEs devoted to B.C. Parks. That comprises everything from park rangers to area supervisors to planning section heads, recreation section heads and parks and protected areas section heads.

S. Simpson: Maybe the minister could tell me whether he believes these numbers are accurate. I'm going to go back and look at some numbers around full-time staff in parks. When I look at some of British Columbia's provincial parks…. If I look at Mount Robson Park, a pretty important park, I see that we have one full-time staff per about 166,000 hectares. That would be almost a third of a million visitors a year to that park. In Strathcona, it's one full-time staff to 250,000 hectares. There, there are over 200,000 visitors a year.

In Manning, it's one for about 91,000 hectares. That's a busy park, so that's about one park ranger for about every 850,000 or 860,000 visits.

Now, that compares to a couple of comparisons. If I look at our friends again, in Alberta — I know Alberta has lots of money — and if I look at Kananaskis Park, they have one full-time staff person for about 3,400 hectares, or one for less than 5,000 visitors. If we look in British Columbia itself, even at our federal parks, our national parks, the Glacier and Mount Revelstoke National Parks in B.C. have one full-time staff for every 4,384 hectares, or about one for every 16,000 visitors. Ontario is not quite as good as Alberta but not bad: it's one for 16,000 hectares at Killarney Park or one for about every 12,000 visitors. Could the minister tell us whether he thinks that maybe our national friends, particularly in B.C., are overstaffing their parks?

Hon. B. Penner: You can do a lot of things with numbers, and they can be very misleading depending on how they are represented or presented. To suggest that there's one person — I know he didn't say that, but the inference for people listening would be that there's one person — in Manning Park in the middle of the winter is simply incorrect. The numbers mentioned by the member — I don't know if they're correct in terms of park rangers. But I can tell you this: on any day of the week, if you drive through Manning Park, the vast majority of people when they want to interact with someone, they go to the lodge. The lodge on the highway is staffed year-round, 24 hours a day, by people working in the private sector through the park facility operator.

Similarly, if you're going to the ski hill, you're going to find all kinds of people working at the ski hill. Those people don't work directly for government; they haven't since the 1980s. It doesn't mean you don't have personnel, you don't have people actually on the ground. Strathcona Park in the summer…. I remember the BCGEU putting out a news release. They conveniently forgot to mention all the number of people working for the private park facility operator in the park in the summer, and yet those people will be interacting with people coming into the park just as someone would have if they had been wearing a government uniform versus a uniform belonging to the private park facility operator. That's been the system that's been in place since the 1980s.

The NDP was in government for ten years and had an opportunity to change it. They didn't. In fact, funding was reduced for parks during the 1990s, even while responsibility was increased because the land base that Parks were responsible for was dramatically increased.

What have we done in the last year? We have increased by 26 the number of park rangers in uniform that were out there this summer, which is the busiest time for our parks. We've increased the budget. We're trying to catch up with the infrastructure deficit that was left to us during the 1990s. It's a difficult task; it's ongoing. Even as we're repairing one building, other ones are aging at the same time. So it's going to be an ongoing process. It's not easy, but you need to keep in mind that the bulk of our government staff, as well as our private sector staff, you'll see out in the field in the busy summer months because that's when the majority of visits happen.

Mount Robson. I was there in the summer, and it was a busy place. I suspect if you were there last week,

like friends of mine were, there wasn't much going on because it was snowing, it was cold and not very many people are endeavouring to get up into the back country. A few diehards are, but for the most part, those are very experienced people, and they're not looking to have either a private sector person or a government person holding their hand. They are experienced mountaineers, maybe with their own guides, going out into the back country.

We have to be careful how those numbers are presented because it might leave the impression that there's one person that's working there in all of Manning Park, for example, on any day of the week. In fact, the number is much more significant than that.

S. Simpson: I certainly don't want to leave the impression that there's only one person in Manning Park at any given time. But, as the minister might agree — and maybe he won't, but I suspect he will agree — when I walk down the street in my neighbourhood and I look and there's a fire hall at the end of the street and there are six firefighters in there, I don't count everybody else who lives on the street to say the block's okay for fire protection because there are a 100 other people living on the street with the six firefighters.

What I'm talking about here are the people who actually are charged with responsibility for the park. That's not the privatization that's gone on within the park. It's not the people who are running recreational operations within the park or collecting tickets or, for that matter, cleaning up campgrounds. It is those folks who, in fact, have that statutory responsibility. They would be park rangers, I believe.

I don't want to leave any misunderstanding, so maybe the minister could tell me. In winter — as he said, he didn't want the people who are listening to believe that there's only one person in Manning Park — how many full-time park rangers are there in Manning Park?

Hon. B. Penner: In fact, the member is incorrect. The park facility operators sign a contract with B.C. Parks. Those contracts are fairly extensive, and they include responsibility for a variety of things, including maintenance, but also making sure that there is compliance within the parks that they are responsible for operating. Where they have difficulty gaining compliance, as I explained earlier, they contact park rangers. If park rangers have difficulty ensuring compliance…. I used to have to do this. There are times when you have to make a risk assessment: am I going to take this person on myself or am I going to have to call in the RCMP to back me up? In situations where I confronted people who had handguns or firearms, I generally chose to call in the RCMP to back me up rather than try and tackle it myself.

With the park facility operators, they are responsible for making sure there is compliance in the areas of the parks that they are responsible for operating. So if you go to Manning Park on any day of the week, whether it's summer or winter…. That happens to be a park that is more busy in summer in terms of total number of visits but is still very busy in winter because of the winter recreation facilities that are operated there from the lodge — cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and the downhill ski area. You will find numerous employees working for the park facility operator. That's who's operating those facilities, and that park facility operator has obligations under contract to B.C. Parks to make sure that certain standards are followed.

Those are the people that are in the park, in addition to government staff. I don't have the precise number of staff. It's true there are fewer park rangers working at Manning Park in the winter. There are certainly fewer back-country visits in winter than there are in summer.

S. Simpson: Maybe I'll try again, and maybe the minister can get somebody to deliver an answer for this. The question I have…. I clearly distinguish between those park operators and their staff. They have a role to play, and I understand that, but they don't have responsibility for enforcing the Ministry of Environment's regulations. They may need to be told to be in compliance, but the bottom line, I'm sure, is that when it comes to that enforcement, they call a park ranger to enforce, because nobody pays them to do that job.

The question I have is: will the minister tell me how many full-time park rangers do we have in Mount Robson Park, Strathcona Park and Manning Park in the wintertime, when as the minister says, there's not just one person in the park? And I wouldn't want to leave that illusion for people.

Hon. B. Penner: It may be in the case of Manning Park that there is one full-time employee working as a park ranger in the winter. That may well be correct, but as I was saying, there are other people in the park who are working in the park and dealing with the public and who have responsibility through their contract agreements — first with their employer, then the PFO with the ministry of parks — for making sure that standards are followed. It is the role of the Ministry of Environment and the B.C. Parks branch to make sure that those contracts that the PFOs have signed are adhered to. The role of the parks personnel is to supervise the enforcement or the application and implementation of those contracts.

S. Simpson: Now we have one full-time park ranger in Manning Park. Could the minister tell us how many full-time park rangers there would be in Strathcona and Mount Robson Parks in the winter?

Hon. B. Penner: I don't know how many park rangers would be in those parks in the winter. Just to go back to Manning Park…. It may be that there's one person working full-time in the winter, but I can tell you this past summer there were five, perhaps six park rangers in uniform at Manning Park — in addition to perhaps as many as 35 to 50 employees working for the

park facility operator, providing services to people using Manning Provincial Park.

S. Simpson: Let's follow up on that. I would ask the minister to get me those numbers for Strathcona and Mount Robson.

But following up on the comment that the minister just made about there being five or six park rangers in Manning Park during the summer: was that five or six full-time park rangers for the summer period?

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, during the summertime they would be working full time. Under the BCGEU collective agreement, that would typically entail a 35-hour work week, five days a week, seven hours a day.

The busy season at Manning Park starts around the middle of May or late May, after the Queen Victoria long weekend, and typically runs into early September. I know that working with my deputy minister, we were able to find ways to extend the season for a number of park rangers in parks throughout the province, and I think Manning Park was one of them.

Mount Robson was another, where we heard that it remains busy past the Labour Day weekend until maybe the middle of September or late September when the weather turns. But there is a huge, huge drop-off in attendance in parks come the end of September. When the weather turns, it dramatically affects park attendance. That's why our staffing levels are set the way that they are, so they ramp up during the busier times of the year, which is typically the summer season, and then there are fewer staff working over the winter — government staff, at least.

S. Simpson: I realize the minister said he didn't have those numbers readily available. I would ask: would the minister make available the numbers of FTEs among park rangers in provincial parks in British Columbia, certainly for the winter season and for the high season in summer?

S. Simpson: I'm going to move on from some of these staffing questions and talk a little bit about the mission and objectives of the ministry, based on the service plan. I'm going to page 17 of the service plan. I believe we may do a little combination here to get a couple of things done together.

When I look at page 17 of the service plan, it lays out the goals and the key objectives. If I flip over to page 18, it seems that those objectives are there and then there are some measures listed. Those are — I'll just clarify — all the same objectives that we're seeing on the previous page, page 17, just repeated with a set of measures attached to them. I may flip back and forth a little bit between the two pages, between 17 and 18.

Part of the reason for that is that I went back and looked at the '04-05 service plan of Water, Land and Air Protection, which was the predecessor to the Ministry of Environment, and they had a similar page to that of page 18 — with one change. They had an additional column in the '04-05, which was called "Results," where they actually listed the status of how we're doing with achieving those objectives and implementing those measures. There was an additional column in the '04-05 service plan that actually talked about how each of those measures were doing. I'm going to ask some questions to get that information for the current service plan, since that column doesn't exist in the current service plan.

When I look at the mission — and, again, it's laid out among the great goals — the first one, of course, is: "To lead the world in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management — bar none." Then it lays out the goal, to "protect the environment and human health and safety by ensuring clean and safe water, land and air."

It then lists a number of objectives. The first of those objectives is to "streamline standards and improve monitoring, reporting and compliance." I wonder if the minister could tell us what he means, what the ministry means, by streamlining standards and improving monitoring, reporting and compliance.

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that over the last 35 years a bit of a patchwork of different standards had developed for acceptable levels of toxic substances in different settings. It didn't always make sense, was inconsistent and sometimes conflicted with federal standards. So the ministry has moved toward trying to streamline those things so that the levels of, say, toxic A that would be considered acceptable in one setting — i.e., somebody's back yard — would be the same as it being in a different type of setting, because if it's toxic, it's toxic.

In terms of improved monitoring, I believe that refers to some of the additional dollars. I think it's half a million dollars or so that we're spending on additional air quality monitoring that I mentioned about an hour ago. All of this is geared towards trying to reduce that backlog of contaminated sites that has been persisting for some time.

S. Simpson: On the question of contaminated sites backlog reduction, I notice that in the '04-05 service plan under the results, it says that the target was not specified. Has there been a target specified for the current year in terms of reduction — how many sites there are, what the backlog reduction is to be? Has it been achieved? What's the status of that?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm told that the ministry has made substantial progress in reducing the backlog, particu-

larly of medium- to low-risk sites. There had been a backlog of as many as 150 or so of these types of sites that were awaiting attention. I'm told that backlog is virtually eliminated. There are additional sites that constantly come forward for review by the ministry — apparently, as many as 20 a month. There are constantly new cases or new sites that have to be worked on by the ministry, but they're being dealt with. No further backlog is accumulating, and the previous accumulated backlog has been dealt with.

S. Simpson: I'm going to move through and touch on some of these, because we do have time limitations. If I look at the question around "limit air pollution and lead British Columbia's efforts to respond to climate change," the percentage of communities achieving the Canada-wide standard for particulate matter and low-level ozone is what's established here as the measure. Again, I note that no targets were specified in the previous year. Have targets been specified, and how are we doing in terms of those communities?

Hon. B. Penner: In fact, there is a target identified in the service plan on page 22. Again, I referenced this, I think, near the beginning of our discussions shortly after three o'clock today.

Our goal is that by 2010, 100 percent of communities monitored will achieve the Canada-wide standard for fine particulate matter of 2.5 microns in size and for the level of ozone. According to the figures I've got, in 2004-2005 it looks like 14 out of 16 communities that were being monitored for PM 2.5s were achieving that objective. That's an 87.5-percent compliance rate with that objective. In terms of low-level ozone, 28 out of 29 communities were meeting the objective — 97 percent of communities — where low-level ozone is monitored and where there's sufficient data available to generate the statistic.

S. Simpson: I'm going to move down to the fourth one on the list: "Reduce and remove toxins and wastes that contaminate land." I read here that the measure is products with industry-led product stewardship.

Maybe the minister could explain, just to be clear, what that measure means, how we're doing in terms of reducing or removing those toxins and the role of industry as the steward. I believe this is part of the results-based approach that the ministry is taking in a number of areas of its endeavour. Maybe the minister could say how we are doing in terms of getting industry to, in fact, accomplish those goals through industry stewardship to remove those toxins.

Hon. B. Penner: One of the areas I'm very excited about is the whole area of product stewardship. It's a big priority for me and for the ministry. In '04-05 we added waste oil as a component of the product stewardship initiative, and I'm told that industry has been relatively enthusiastic about that.

In '05-06 we hope by next year, and we've just released the intentions paper…. Actually, I guess that was more than a month ago now, so the comment period has just closed on our intentions paper around tire stewardship. We've also just released and the comment period has just closed for electronic stewardship. Previously, for example, in British Columbia there was not a recycling program provincewide for large electronic goods — big-screen TVs, computers, terminals, printers and that type of thing. Many of those types of electronics do contain toxic substances — mercury, for example, or perhaps lead or zinc and other components — which you really don't want getting into the groundwater but which could if they keep going into landfills. That's what has been happening.

My objective is to work with industry. We had a meeting with certain representatives of industry just the other day, and they're encouraging British Columbia to take a leadership role in Canada so we can set a trend and a model for other provinces that don't have these kinds of stewardship programs in place. Ultimately, I think it will be a benefit to everyone and, hopefully, even to industry if their products can be successfully recycled. In computers or certain electronic parts, as many as 70 percent of the components can be reused, but you have to be able to get them out of those products. If they go into a landfill, you can't do that.

We're hoping to get that program up and running, certainly in terms of the new tire stewardship program, by next year. The electronics piece may take a bit longer, but from what I'm hearing, both NGOs as well as industry are looking forward to this approach because they have a say in setting it up. NGOs like to be able to talk about it in other jurisdictions and say: "Why don't you follow the lead of British Columbia?"

S. Simpson: I appreciate the comment about electronics, and I have met with a number of organizations who are very enthusiastic about the need to fill that gap and acknowledge that that is an important area. I'm glad the ministry is heading into that area.

The next question. I'll spend a little bit of time — we've got a bit of time — around the effective response to high-risk environmental emergencies. As the minister knows, we've had a few of those over the last few months.

S. Simpson: I figured the minister…. Every time I turn around, I see him in a helicopter somewhere. There's a couple of them that I want to talk about in particular, and let's start maybe with Abbotsford. Could the minister tell us what is the status of the investigation into the Abbotsford situation?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member will know, there were 11 charges laid against a company known as CPC, or Canadian Petroleum Corp. Those charges were prosecuted and took a while to work their way through

the courts. I think it took at least two years before it ended up in court in June of this year. There was a conviction on two counts. The Provincial Court judge imposed a fine of $10,000.

I think in July a pollution prevention order was issued by the ministry. That order did not appear to be responded to in the way that the ministry was hoping, and so in August I signed an emergency order. Well, first of all, the ministry took some steps to go on site. Certain other products were identified, which triggered some alarms. As a result of that, I signed an emergency declaration giving the ministry more powers to access contingency funds and to take control of the site and neighbouring properties. A number of those neighbouring businesses and properties were evacuated for a period of time while the ministry hired contractors to come in and test all the different liquids and chemicals that were on the site, and all those materials were removed from the site. I'm advised that the cleanup effort was concluded towards the end of September. So all the materials have been removed from the site.

In terms of additional charges, it's too early to say. The investigation is ongoing. In addition to the convictions under previous charges, it's possible there will be additional charges, but this current investigation is still underway.

S. Simpson: The minister, I'm sure, will clarify for me whether some of this additional discussion has to be limited because of additional legal proceedings.

One of the issues that I'm interested in exploring is…. We know there was a report in, I believe, the Abbotsford News — and I think we had some discussion in question period about this — in regard to some evidence of hoses into the sewer system. I read this story in the Abbotsford News, and I know I discussed this with a journalist from Abbotsford who said there was some confirmation of that. I wonder if the minister could confirm whether in fact there is any evidence of these hoses.

Hon. B. Penner: I've been very concerned about those particular allegations as well as other things that have come to light on that site. The conservation officer service has been specifically asked to investigate those particular allegations, but I'm not at liberty to say at this moment what the outcome of that investigation is.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that that's ongoing. Could the minister give us some indication of when he expects to be able to talk about this and to have information that he can make available?

Hon. B. Penner: The investigation is being conducted by the conservation officer service, which is a very professional organization. Depending on what they conclude, any recommendations they would make would be forwarded to Crown counsel, who have the say about whether or not charges are actually laid. It wouldn't actually be the conservation officers themselves that would initiate charges.

In British Columbia — whether it's the police, conservation officer service, park rangers or other law enforcement agencies — they prepare what's called a report to Crown counsel with the information that they are able to determine, including witness statements and other forms of evidence, whether it's photographs or documentary evidence about samples from soil or liquids. Then that gets forwarded to Crown counsel for a decision about whether there would be a prosecution.

I'm reluctant to try and impose a time limit on the investigation lest that somehow compromise the thoroughness of the investigation, but I'm certainly anxious to see it concluded as soon as it can be concluded in a way that does everybody a service.

S. Simpson: I look forward to that information as well. As the minister will know from question period, I'll be very interested to know whether there's any substance to some of the suggestions that have been made around evidence gathering — and when the evidence was or wasn't gathered — and when decisions were made to act based on what was known. But I appreciate that we'll wait until the investigation is complete and until the ministry has finished its work.

In regard to the Cheakamus situation, could the minister tell us what the status of that is in terms of CN and in terms of any charges with CN?

Hon. B. Penner: In some ways it's a similar answer. The Cheakamus Canyon spill is being taken very seriously, and I'm pleased to report that the conservation officer service has dedicated specific resources to this particular investigation. Certainly I've said publicly, and I'll say it here, that wherever the evidence leads, it will lead. If charges are appropriate, then they should be laid. Whether it's under federal legislation or provincial legislation, if laws were broken and there's evidence to support that, then I think charges should be laid. But ultimately that decision would be up to Crown counsel. The conservation officer service would forward their recommendations to Crown for their review and determination about whether or not charges are appropriate under the circumstances.

In addition to that quasi-criminal process, there is the cleanup. Under the spill cost recovery regulation in British Columbia, those who have caused a spill are responsible for paying the cost of the cleanup. The Minister of Transportation and I met with senior officials from CN not too long ago here in Victoria, and I made it very clear that it's our expectation that CN will pay for the cost of the initial response and cleanup. They indicated that it was their intention to do so, so I've directed my staff to send a bill to CN Rail. I'm told that that bill has now been submitted. I'm calling this an interim bill, because this is not the end of the matter as far as I'm concerned. This interim bill was in the amount of approximately just shy of $50,000.

The other part of the conversation I had with the senior officials from CN Rail is that they can expect a bill from us for the ongoing remediation efforts that are underway because, as the member will know, a sizeable number of fish were killed. There's been damage done to the fish stocks, and a number of experts have been combining their efforts through a task force that the province and the ministry are leading to determine the best recovery strategies for those fish stocks. I expect CN to play a major role, if not the ultimate role, in paying for the cost of that recovery process in addition to the costs of the initial cleanup.

S. Simpson: I appreciate the comment, and I support the minister's efforts there. I'm glad to see $50,000 isn't it, because that's minuscule, I suspect, in relation to what the real costs will be in terms of the fishery and the ecology and restoring the ecology.

I believe that the CN ended up investing something in the range of $20 million to clean up their Alberta mess at that lake in Alberta. I've been told that their investment there is in the $20 million range by the time they are said and done. They put significant dollars there. Whatever the number is, I would hope that we'll ensure they invest the same kind of attention and resources needed to fix our problem here, whatever it might be when all is said and done.

Hon. B. Penner: I'll just add that I've directed my staff to compare notes with our colleagues in Alberta through their provincial ministry of environment so that we are learning from each other about how best to respond to these situations — both caused by CN Rail, both involving spills into water.

Some of the circumstances are different. Because the chemicals involved were different, some of the impacts were different. The initial response was different. B.C.'s was more coordinated initially. We were more successful in getting timely information in British Columbia about the substance we were dealing with than they were in Alberta. There are some differences, but there are also some similarities. I'm interested in learning from that experience and seeing what we can apply here in British Columbia in terms of our investigation and recovery efforts.

I want to take the opportunity to thank all the different groups that did come together. It wasn't just the Ministry of Environment. There were federal agencies involved but also local first nations, people from Squamish including the local government and volunteers, Squamish-Lillooet regional district and, I'm sure, other people. Streamkeepers is one organization I know I met when I was on the river.

I said you were going to hear more about it, so you'll get a chance to hear about them again right now. The B.C. conservation corps is a new program. They had a number of their young people, recent graduates and students, on site helping collect evidence — some of the 4,000 fish that were picked up and retained for evidence — for testing in case there is a prosecution in the future. So I want to thank everybody for their efforts in responding to a very serious situation.

S. Simpson: One quick question, and then we'll move off this topic because we'll be done for the moment. I don't want to get into the details of it so much, but there were some questions at the time of the Cheakamus spill around the communications that went on initially at the outset of the spill and whether the communications happened in as timely a manner as might have been desired.

My question to the minister is: is the ministry looking at those questions around communications and coordination of communications, and do they have any insights in ways that it might be improved should we face such an unfortunate circumstance again?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm going partly by memory here because it's been a few months since this issue was front and centre. As the member has noted, there have been a number of other issues that have leapt to the forefront in the meantime. My recollection is that the Ministry of Environment was contacted at around eight in the morning of the day that the derailment took place. Within just a number of hours we actually had Ministry of Environment personnel on site. It's not all that easy a site to get to given the rather rugged terrain in the Cheakamus Canyon, but we did have ministry staff on site within a few hours, and there was a process that unfolded in terms of notification. Part of the responsibility did rest, I think, with the coastal health authority in terms of notifying people about water quality from a human health perspective.

It is standing ministry policy that after an incident of this nature there be a thorough review done internally, a debrief of the communication process and other issues that emerged. I'm told that such a review did take place. A number of improvements have been suggested. I think the ministry moved pretty well. Everything I've heard, including from my provincial counterpart in Alberta, is that we were able to respond more effectively to this derailment than they were in Alberta.

There is a review underway right now in Alberta by the provincial ministry of environment looking at their response approach. I don't know what they'll conclude, but it's possible they'll adopt our model where in the initial hours after an event, it's the Ministry of Environment that plays the coordinating role. We take the lead. We don't wait for the private sector industry entity to take the lead, as they did in Alberta at the time of the derailment in August. Rather, in British Columbia the Ministry of Environment takes the lead.

I've told all our staff, "Keep all the receipts," because we're going to tabulate the costs, and the bill is going to go to CN. I'll just repeat it here for the benefit of staff who may be reviewing these remarks later. In terms of the ongoing recovery effort of the fishery re-

source on the Cheakamus River, keep all the receipts because I want to be able to document what our costs are so that when we send the bill to CN, we can defend the bill, justify the bill and force them to pay the bill.

S. Simpson: I just want to go through a few more questions in the next few minutes, and then I'll inform the House that some of the other members have some questions that they'll be asking over the next while. If we have time, we'll get back to me.

I did want to ask just a couple of questions in relation to parks and to privatization in the parks and lodges in particular. I wonder if the minister could tell us how many parks in British Columbia have private lodges in them.

Hon. B. Penner: I don't have a precise number, and it depends partly on how you define what a lodge is. To some people, a cabin can be classified as a lodge. For example, about two years ago the Alpine Club of Canada opened the Kokanee Glacier cabin. It's a pretty nice cabin. Some people might characterize that as a lodge, so it all depends on how you want to define it. I'm told that nearly 10 percent of B.C. parks have some form of roofed accommodation including fishing lodges and resorts, back-country cabins and lodges, front-country lodges, guide-outfitter camps, lodges and downhill ski facilities.

This summer one of the more interesting trips I got to make was to Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park. I can recall hiking there as a teenager. At that time, there was a private facility operator operating the lodge facilities and the cabins at Cathedral Lakes. It's still operated in the same manner today. I think the management may have changed hands, but it's still operating in essentially the same manner as it was more than 25 years ago when I was there last. Of course, Manning Park has a very significant lodge. It's operated by Gibson Pass Resorts Inc., a private park facility operator that took over the operation of that lodge sometime in 1984-1985, or maybe even earlier — maybe it was 1983, somewhere in that era.

That's the rough number. I'm told about 10 percent of parks have some form of roofed accommodation.

S. Simpson: I'm going to move to another question related to parks. Could the minister tell me who is responsible for park planning?

Hon. B. Penner: The Ministry of Environment is responsible for planning activities related to provincial parks in British Columbia. Within the Ministry of Environment there's the environmental stewardship division that heads up that responsibility. The environmental stewardship division has a total of 12 FTEs dedicated to park planning. There are nine located in regional park offices in different parts of the province, and there are three FTEs housed at the headquarters facility here in Victoria.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell me how many parks have completed master plans for the park that deal with sort of the comprehensive questions around the park?

Hon. B. Penner: We're having a hard time putting our finger on the precise number. What I could do is offer the member a briefing at a later date about the number of master plans that have been created for different provincial parks in British Columbia. I think it's a significant number, but we can't put our finger on the precise number.

S. Simpson: I appreciate that, and I'll take the minister up on his offer. Maybe just a couple of questions about how the plans get put together rather than the specifics. Could the minister tell us: when a plan is being put together, who gets consulted in that process, and how does that process work to put a plan together?

Hon. B. Penner: I haven't had an opportunity as minister to work through a master plan or a planning process for a particular park as yet, but there are a couple of different types of plans. Management direction statements are more limited in scope and shorter in length than the other type, which is a master plan. The management direction statements are more purpose-oriented and will be more focused in the consultation with specific user groups that are interested in that particular park.

In contrast, the master plan is a more comprehensive document. It can be quite lengthy, and it involves consultation with communities, including local governments, first nations, user groups and a variety of stakeholders and can, at times, take years to complete.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: when a plan is in place and operating, what is the process and time line for review or update of that plan? How does that work? How might the public be able to have input into urging review of a park master plan?

Hon. B. Penner: There is no set time period that would trigger an automatic review of an existing master plan or management direction statement for a particular park. Rather, park staff, if they receive requests, would consider that. Or, if they themselves determine that there's a change in the type of use in a provincial park…. Over time things do change. If they're noticing an increase in a certain type of activity and a decrease

in others, they may recommend that it's time to initiate a review process in order to renew an existing master plan or management direction statement.

S. Simpson: I have one more question related to parks. It relates a bit to that review process. I believe that in 2004, before my time here, there were changes made to the Park Act. It's my understanding — and I certainly could be corrected — that one of the changes that happened around the Park Act was the allowing of resort development within parks — in 2004 with the changes to the Park Act. Could the minister confirm whether that in fact occurred? Because of that change, does that mean there has to be a revisiting of master plans that were developed under a previous act or model?

Hon. B. Penner: There were some amendments that I'm told were made in order to clarify what had already been the practice in British Columbia, which is that there were lodges, as we've already talked about, in a number of parks. In fact, up to 10 percent of B.C. provincial parks currently have some form of roofed accommodation. Manning Provincial Park, which we talked about, Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park and Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park all operate lodges within park boundaries.

The legislative amendment was intended to clarify what was already taking place. If there is an existing master plan or management direction statement for a particular park and that particular plan or management direction statement does not contemplate roofed accommodation and there was a desire on the part of B.C. Parks to have roofed accommodation in that particular park, then that would necessitate a review or renewal of either the master plan or the management direction statement.

S. Simpson: At this point I want to thank the minister. I hope I might get a few minutes with him later. Time will tell. I'd like to turn the floor over to the member for Skeena.

There are other things that may occasion the updating or renewal of master plans or management direction statements. I mentioned the change in the type of use or comments from the public and B.C. Parks staff feeling that it was appropriate to update master plans. Another occurrence would be natural in its nature, and that is the pine beetle epidemic. When we're seeing natural occurrences like pine beetles or major forest fires taking place, that could necessitate a revisiting of existing master plans or management direction statements.

R. Austin: I'd like to ask a few questions with regard to the fisheries management portion of the minister's responsibility. I'll begin by saying that many times during the last few weeks and months we've heard the Premier and the minister speak about the best fisheries management bar none. Has the minister charged his staff with coming up with such a plan, and will the minister let us in on just what that plan is?

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, I have directed the staff to put together a strategy. It's a work in progress. We did have a brief conversation about it a couple of hours ago. We are consulting with a variety of stakeholders and asking people to provide their input. It is a work in progress. When the strategy is complete, it will be public.

R. Austin: Has the minister hired a consultant to help put this plan together?

Hon. B. Penner: The strategy will ultimately be written by ministry staff. It is possible that the ministry will retain a consultant or a contractor to help facilitate discussions with outside groups or even to help facilitate cross-ministry dialogue as we put together the strategy.

R. Austin: One of the recent changes, of course, has been to divide some of the responsibilities for fisheries from Agriculture and Lands over to the Minister of Environment. I'd like to ask the minister whether separating one side of fisheries management from another side of fisheries management helps to attain the goals of the government — and how does it do that?

Hon. B. Penner: I think virtually everything to do with fisheries management as it relates to the provincial government has been consolidated with the Ministry of Environment. That was part of the government reorganization that took place on June 16. The piece that remains with Agriculture relates to aquaculture. That ministry, Agriculture and Lands, has the responsibility for administering aquaculture in British Columbia. But other issues to do with fisheries management as it pertains to provincial jurisdiction rest with the Ministry of Environment.

R. Austin: Could the minister explain to me how two or more divisions of fisheries people are able to work more closely with each other, more closely with the industry and be of the best benefit to British Columbians when they are separated by ministry and separated by their reporting procedure?

Hon. B. Penner: I'll just try to clarify my previous answer. All responsibility for wild fish, as it pertains to provincial jurisdiction, rests with the Ministry of Environment. All forms of agriculture, including aquaculture, rest with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

R. Austin: Could the minister explain the role of the oceans division within the Ministry of Environment?

Hon. B. Penner: We did canvass this a little bit earlier this evening or this afternoon, but I'm happy to go over it again, because it is new to the ministry since the June 16 reorganization of government. The oceans and marine fisheries division is responsible for the overall leadership of provincial government strategies and initiatives related to ocean resources and marine fisheries. Stated differently, the Ministry of Environment is tasked with being the lead provincial agency responsible for liaising with the federal government, particularly the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We have other responsibilities beyond that, but that maybe helps people understand what the role of the ministry is in that particular division — interfacing with DFO in terms of provincial interests and priorities.

R. Austin: As the ministry is now working closely with DFO, does the minister see our wild ocean fisheries as both environmentally sustainable and economically viable?

Hon. B. Penner: It's certainly our objective to have a sustainable ocean resource, including marine fisheries, for all of us to count on. Whether from an environmental perspective, for a thriving economy or for sports recreation, certainly it's one of the standards against which I think our ministry's success will be measured.

I'm aware that there are…. It varies on the year, and certainly every year there seems to be some kind of challenge. This year we were particularly concerned about the late return of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River. It was more than a month late, which I think is a record, so that does give us some concern about what is happening with the fishery. We had expected, I think, about 12 million sockeye to return. Then partway through the summer that number was radically downsized in terms of the forecast by DFO officials. Ultimately, I think about eight million or so sockeye returned, which is still less than had been predicted earlier but more than was predicted partway through the summer. I think that number is ultimately a sustainable one. For this particular run, eight million sockeye returning should make sure that this run is renewed as the salmon take part in the annual ritual of spawning. But different species are facing different fluctuations in different years.

R. Austin: Could the minister advise me as to what agreement exists between the province and the federal government around the implementation of our hake fishery on the west coast?

Hon. B. Penner: The primary responsibility for managing the hake fishery rests with DFO, the federal government, but there is communication and a consultation process with the province. There is a back-and-forth communication with respect to the hake fishery.

R. Austin: Bearing in mind that there is some consultation taking place, could the minister advise me as to how much of the hake fishery is landed in B.C. for processing and how much is handed to the offshore processors?

Hon. B. Penner: We don't have the precise numbers, but I believe a majority of the fish that are caught, the hake fish, are processed in British Columbia. There are a number of offshore vessels that also do the processing, as the member is aware. That would represent a minority of the fish, we believe. But if you want the precise numbers, I could ask my staff to send those to you.

R. Austin: Could the minister advise me as to what criteria is used to select the offshore processors which, of course, I guess are the beneficiary of our resource in terms of jobs?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that the allocation of where the fish are sent for processing is worked out between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and something known as the Hake Consortium. The Hake Consortium itself comprises processors and fishermen from British Columbia, I would presume.

R. Austin: Do these factory ships, once they have been granted these contracts, comply with B.C. shipping and environmental requirements?

Hon. B. Penner: In terms of the fish that are landed in British Columbia for processing, they would be subject to standards set by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and subject to monitoring by that agency. I'm told that it's a world-class organization. It seems to do a pretty good job, at least from reports that I've heard.

In terms of the responsibility for regulations pertaining to shipping or transportation, it's my recollection from a long time ago — from my law school days, constitutional law — that under the division of power, it's the federal government that has sole jurisdiction to regulate navigable waters, particularly oceangoing vessels. So the federal government would have responsibility for regulations pertaining to the transportation and shipment of vessels in marine waters.

R. Austin: Are there any plans to process salmon on factory ships in B.C. waters?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that to date we're not aware of any oceangoing vessels doing the processing of salmon off the waters of British Columbia. If there were to be an application from a processing ship to do that type of processing — that is, of salmon — they would have to apply to the Department of Fisheries

and Oceans. They would have the jurisdiction, I'm told, to issue the relevant permit or licence.

R. Austin: I'd like to ask a question. It does pertain to some time past, but hopefully, once I give the question, you'll understand why.

In 2001-2002 the then-minister responsible, the member for Abbotsford-Clayburn, did away with the program Fisheries Renewal. Could the minister please advise me as to what happened to the dollars that were left in that program at the time?

Hon. B. Penner: We're just trying to re-create the history here about what happened. Apparently, there was about $7 million that was remaining when Fisheries Renewal was wound up. Of that, $2 million went to the former Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection for the establishment of the living rivers trust fund. That was the initial $2 million. Government subsequently added another $5 million, so there is currently a total of about $7 million in the living rivers trust fund. I'm hoping to see that number grow in the future.

Of the balance, the $5 million that was left from the wrap-up of the Fisheries Renewal organization went to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries at the time and was allocated to do two things at the University of British Columbia: to set up a research chair into sustainable aquaculture and to fund ongoing scientific research into aquaculture-related activities.

R. Austin: Did any of that money go into stream and environmental habitat remediation?

Hon. B. Penner: Yes. As I was indicating just a second ago, $2 million went into the establishment of the living rivers trust fund, which helps provide funding to undertake a range of restorative projects in watersheds throughout British Columbia. That fund is now at about $7 million. The Premier made a commitment this past spring, during the election campaign, that we would triple that amount to $21 million to help fund ongoing projects to stabilize banks and improve the fish habitat around the province.

R. Austin: How much money does the minister spend on the development of finfish aquaculture?

R. Austin: How many FTEs are working for the ministry in the aquaculture industry?

Hon. B. Penner: For aquaculture development, we don't have any FTEs assigned to that particular task. However, the ministry does play a regulatory role with respect to waste disposal, and there are staff in the ministry that obviously work in that area of endeavour, particularly as it pertains to aquaculture sites.

R. Austin: How is the minister going to proceed to get to environmentally sustainable finfish aquaculture?

Hon. B. Penner: The short answer is it's not the job of the Ministry of Environment to worry about growing the finfish aquaculture sector. The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands has primary responsibility for that particular sector. As I was mentioning earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands has responsibility for all forms of agriculture, including aquaculture. The Ministry of Environment has the lead responsibility for wild fishery in British Columbia.

R. Austin: My understanding, though, is that within the aquaculture sector the Minister of Environment is responsible for everything that's outside of the net while the Minister of Agriculture and Lands is responsible for what's inside the net. Is that correct?

Hon. B. Penner: Keep in mind that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has primary responsibility under the constitution for oceangoing fish. For things outside of the net, DFO would certainly have a significant role to play. Under the net, we have established world-leading regulations pertaining to waste management practices, so we are involved with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands in terms of helping set those standards. If there are problems with compliance, ultimately the Ministry of Environment may be called on to take enforcement action, particularly as it pertains to those standards that we set for the waste that may be deposited beneath the nets.

Hon. B. Penner: My understanding is that every fish farm or aquaculture site in British Columbia is inspected at least once per year by B.C. government staff, and in addition, DFO may send their personnel to also inspect individual fish farm sites. I don't know their frequency of inspection, but they also have that authority, and I'm told they do exercise that authority from time to time.

R. Austin: If there is only one inspection done by the provincial ministry, does the minister believe that that is sufficient in order to provide regular enforcement?

Hon. B. Penner: As I was saying earlier, there is a minimum of one inspection per fish farm site per year by the provincial government. In addition, the operators of those facilities must file reports on a monthly basis with the Ministry of Environment. If during the course of those annual inspections or upon report from DFO or if there is something that turns up in the monthly reporting that looks askew, then additional

visits will be forthcoming by the provincial government to those particular aquaculture sites.

R. Austin: The annual checks that are done: are those spot checks or are those prewarning checks? Does someone phone up from the ministry and say, "We'll be there next week," or does someone just show up for these annual checks?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that there is no advanced warning given to the sites that are going to be visited.

R. Austin: Of course, the big debate in the broad public here is whether finfish aquaculture damages the wild stocks. There are many in the province who believe that going to some form of closed containment, separating finfish aquaculture from the wild stocks, would be more environmentally sustainable. In the minister's view, is environmentally sustainable aquaculture compatible with the industry's view of an economically sustainable finfish aquaculture industry?

Hon. B. Penner: I think there's an opportunity for finfish aquaculture to play an important role in the sustainability, environmentally and economically, of coastal communities. But there are a number of other people looking at that. Specifically, John Fraser with the Pacific Salmon Forum that's been established by the Premier will be working on that in the coming months. I look forward to the information that comes out of that effort.

As well, the member may have already been appointed — I don't know — to this special committee that is being struck, chaired by the opposition. The opposition will have a majority of that legislative committee to look at the role that aquaculture can play in the future for coastal communities and where the balance is to be struck there.

But certainly my overarching objective is to make sure that whatever takes place is done in a way that's environmentally sustainable and does not compromise our wild fisheries. We want to have sustainable fisheries, whether it be the wild fishery — and that's certainly our objective — or if there's going to be aquaculture, that it's also done in a way that's environmentally sustainable, in a way that can provide benefits for communities indefinitely into the future.

R. Austin: In the estimates for the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands I was informed that there are currently 12 applications in the process for new finfish sites. Could the minister tell me at what point in the approval process is Grieg Seafoods application to put a finfish farm at the Bennett Point site?

Hon. B. Penner: The responsibility for permitting individual applications rests with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, so I don't have that information.

R. Austin: Could the minister advise me as to where the request came to allow salmon farmers to grow black cod or sable fish?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not familiar with this topic. I believe this is one that rests with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands too.

R. Austin: Have there been any environmental studies done to show that placing black cod or sable fish in open nets alongside salmon is not detrimental to either species?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has done a risk assessment and that they have shared the results of that assessment with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, as they have responsibility for aquaculture.

R. Austin: I would like to thank the minister and his staff for answering those questions and pass the floor back to my colleague.

N. Macdonald: I only have a few minutes. I know that you have a tremendous number of files that you're dealing with, and as I mentioned before, I was just going to ask about the conservation officer in Golden and the plans for next year. In the last correspondence I had with you I discussed the idea of having a full-time equivalent position there, and I thought that was the way to go. I'm sure you've had opportunities with the staff to talk about it. I just would like to know the plans you have for next year.

Hon. B. Penner: Prior to us getting ready for the next busy season, we hope to have a review complete of the seasonal conservation officer program which started this past year. Hopefully, by January or February we'll have a review done of how that turned out this past summer.

As we discussed prior to the dinner break, it was the government's hope that we would have hired 15 seasonal conservation officers this past year. Due to a booming job market, it was more difficult to recruit than we had expected in terms of securing qualified personnel. We will start our recruitment efforts earlier this year and hope to fully staff that allocation of 15 conservation officers on a seasonal basis.

I know the member's question pertains to the desire to have a full-time year-round conservation officer based in Golden. I'm advised that that decision hasn't been nailed down yet. That will depend upon operational needs, and we had a discussion about that, too, how those decisions are made. The conservation officer service will work with the ministry to determine what their needs and priorities are, and that decision will be made by the spring.

N. Macdonald: I thank the minister for the answer. Just very quickly to the complications that existed this

year in terms of posting, the need to have somebody experienced with a potentially inexperienced seasonal worker is going to exist again next year. One of the advantages to having a full-time position is, of course, that you could then attract people with more experience.

One of the points I would make is that it would be important for the community that the seasonal worker would not be based in one of the neighbouring communities and therefore come into the area. That's something that many in the community feel is important, and there are other benefits to having a full-time position — that I hope, as you look into this year, you would take into consideration — around getting to know the community, getting to know the people involved. You're going to have to have office space and re-establish some sort of centre there for it to work. All of that makes more sense, based around a full-time position. So I realize that's a decision you're going to make in the future, but I certainly would not like to see running into the same problems around seasonal workers that you found this year.

Hon. B. Penner: Just to reaffirm that it will be an operational decision that the conservation officer service has to make, based upon their assessment of needs and priorities around the province. One of the benefits to the seasonal program is — because preliminary reports I've had are that it has worked out fairly well — that if we're successful in having those conservation officers who worked on a seasonal basis this year return for next year, they now will have some experience.

In addition, I can tell the member that I had the pleasure of encountering a few of the seasonal conservation officers over the summer months. In at least one instance I know that the seasonal CO I was talking to had actually quit a full-time job in Saskatchewan as a conservation officer in order to take a seasonal position here in British Columbia, because British Columbia is where they want to live and where their family members live. That particular seasonal CO is actually a fairly experienced conservation officer, having already worked full-time in Saskatchewan and, as I recall, also having experience working in Alberta and now having returned back home to British Columbia.

N. Macdonald: To finish off, then, there were complications around finding seasonal postings, complications I think unique to Golden in terms of the facilities that were there. So the assumption, then, is that the minister is going to instruct staff to work through any complications that existed last year that prevented the position being filled. I guess I'm asking you to give your commitment that that will be worked through and that if there are positions that are filled, Golden will be one of them.

Hon. B. Penner: Again, it will be an operational decision that the conservation officer service will have to make based on their assessment of the needs and priorities they're facing. It's my hope that by getting an earlier start on the recruitment process, we will be successful in filling the additional spaces we weren't able to fill this particular year.

We had funding to hire 15 seasonal conservation officers. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the CO service said that only 13 candidates met the qualifications for the particular jobs that were available, so that meant two positions went unfilled. It's my hope that by starting earlier in our recruitment efforts in terms of attracting people from Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba — wherever, as long as they're qualified — we're happy to have them come to British Columbia and go to work for us.

C. Wyse: Good evening, hon. minister. I have three very brief questions, I believe. The first two will be around the proposed Ashcroft landfill site. I would like, through the Chair, to thank you for the briefing you arranged for me on October 4. It was very much appreciated. I would also like you to be aware that I attempted to follow up several different times with questions I had that arose out of this particular meeting, and I was advised that I had already had my briefing — therefore, the reason for these two questions here tonight.

I was left with the understanding that the Ministry of Environment does have a process on how the proposed Ashcroft landfill site would progress and that I would receive a copy of the time line of that document. My first question is: does this time line planning document for the proposed Ashcroft landfill site exist in the Ministry of Environment?

Hon. B. Penner: Ultimately, the GVRD is responsible for establishing time lines they want attached to their process. In doing so, however, the ministry has provided advice at the staff level, working staff to staff with the GVRD. I'm told that the GVRD has now just completed drafting a proposed process, including time lines, and that they are consulting with a variety of stakeholders over the next week or two or, perhaps, a little beyond that.

They are now engaged in that process of taking out…. Pardon me; I'm using the word "process" too much. They have a draft process in mind. They're consulting with stakeholders on that proposed process, and we'll see what comes back. There is regular dialogue between officials at the GVRD and officials with the Ministry of Environment, and we're providing advice and assistance wherever we can.

C. Wyse: I did listen very closely to the information I was given. I'm not at all certain if I understand whether the Ministry of Environment does have this document and the planning process that goes around it, because ultimately, the say will come back to you. I will follow up with that.

My next question that came out of my meeting of October 4 was around first nations involvement in this process. Once more I refer to this time line process

document. I was advised at that meeting that first nations were in agreement with this process I've been referring to.

On October 5 I followed up with a phone call to Chief Mike Retasket of the Bonaparte First Nation, and he advised me that he was not aware of any meeting referred to. He then referred me to Chief Stewart Phillip, because there was a possibility that discussions had taken place with him.

I was finally able to have my conversation with Chief Stewart Phillip on November 9. He advised me that he had been involved with the GVRD for a very brief meeting at the Waterfront for about 40 minutes at the UBCM. He also advised the GVRD at that time that he was not the group to be talking with and suggested that the people would talk with the nations tribal council of that area. He also conveyed to me that he's concerned that this follow-through is not happening. Therefore, my question is: are first nations in agreement to the time lines and process that have been referred to?

Hon. B. Penner: This almost sounds like I'm repeating hearsay — as a former trial lawyer I'm alive to that difficulty and the challenge that presents — because it's the GVRD that's in charge of the process of setting up a process. What I'm told — again, it's hearsay — is that apparently, the GVRD has been endeavouring to meet with three different first nations that expressed interest or concern around this proposal. It has been difficult to get everyone's calendars and schedules to align, and that may be why the member is hearing some of the comments that he is. That's because the GVRD has apparently had some difficulty in arranging the meetings with the three different first nations, as they've been endeavouring to establish time lines and get feedback on their proposal.

I just got a copy of an e-mail here that my staff had sent to the member on October 18 just reaffirming that specific questions around the process that the GVRD is attempting to establish in terms of time lines are probably best taken up with the GVRD so that we don't get into the hearsay situation.

C. Wyse: Likewise, I have had those conversations with the GVRD, and they were equally surprised when I attempted to talk with them with regards to this time line process. Now, that has been a few days. It's taken me, likewise, some time to track down this issue.

I now have conveyed the information to the minister. The minister is, I already know, very much aware of the significance of this particular topic that is here in front of us tonight. He's very much aware of the rationale for why there were three postponements of the decisions around this particular item. I now have his response, and I am very much appreciative of that. Now I'd like to leave those two easy questions and go on to my third one, which is much more difficult to deal with.

Once more, I'd like to acknowledge the response I already had from you with regards to disability passes. You responded to inquiries I made exactly as I had done. However, the issue of the pass for parks isn't, also, just one of disabilities. It is one of seniors with disabilities also having access to the parks.

Subsequent to our conversation, through the mail I have received further inquiries from a member within my riding with regards to an individual that has a physical disability with MS. This individual must travel to doctors' appointments, and it would greatly assist his expenses in overnight stay if he were able to use the provincial parks in order to camp rather than needing to take out accommodation.

My question to the minister is: would his ministry be looking upon a review of the availability of park passes to include this type of usage being provided in the future?

C. Wyse: Disabilities as well as seniors with disabilities and that type of an issue — whether your department would review it and consider making it available to people across the province.

Hon. B. Penner: I'm prepared to have park staff take a look at this issue that the member raised. Just for the record, I will point out — and I think this was in the correspondence I sent to you, but for the benefit of other members — that the Ministry of Environment continues to provide persons with disabilities with benefits under the B.C. employment and assistance program. It's based on income. Rather than just assuming that a person who has a physical handicap or physical challenge of some kind is automatically deemed to be poor, we have moved to a policy or process where it's actually determined whether or not that person does face that kind of financial hardship.

Just anecdotally, I do recall that a few years ago, after a change was made to seniors camping rates, a certain senior citizen did pay a visit to my constituency office to express his displeasure. I asked him how much that motorhome cost that he pulled into my parking lot with, and it was something like $80,000. I asked him how much it cost him to drive to the nearest provincial park to go camping, and he pounded the desk and said: "I can't believe it. I can't fill up this vehicle for less than $100, but I don't want to have to pay $18 or $20 to camp overnight in a provincial park."

Not all seniors are necessarily impecunious. Some, obviously, are more fiscally challenged than others. Clearly, I recognize the challenge of the situation that the member has brought to our attention, and I will ask the staff to take a look at it. I am advised, also, that the ministry has been planning to do a review of park fees, as they apply to camping, in about three years. So that's

C. Wyse: Some of those people more than likely don't have money, either, but I think that's what you were trying to tell me. I would like to thank you for your time on these questions.

B. Simpson: I have to go look that word up, because I'm not sure if I'm impecunious or not.

Thank you very much and thank you to the staff for another late night helping us to understand these things. I have a few questions that are about interrelationships between the ministry and other ministries and am trying to understand where we're going on some larger planning issues.

The first thing I would like to start off with is the mountain caribou — where we're at with the strategy for that. As I'm sure the minister is aware, there are a lot of people concerned about that, including the Forest Practices Board, which has written a number of times that we need a more robust strategy there. If the minister could update me on where we are that with that and where it is going.

Hon. B. Penner: We did canvass this issue at some length about two weeks ago. I think the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows raised a number of questions in this area.

The species-at-risk coordination office, which is housed in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, has the primary responsibility for coordinating the recovery efforts for three particular species, one of which is the mountain caribou. They do that by consulting across government. The Ministry of Environment plays a role there in terms of providing input.

The actions taken in the last year, just to bring the member up to date. I think it was in October of 2004 that the province provided about a million dollars in funding for recovery planning related to the mountain caribou. In the spring there were a number of actions taken. I think a million hectares or so were put off-limits to additional resource development or use. A number of tenures have not been renewed or have been suspended, I think. I'm just going by memory here, so don't hold me to this.

There have been a number of activities taking place while the scientific team has been assembled, which includes experts from the United States, Alberta and British Columbia. They had posted on their website several weeks ago a document to help facilitate more debate and discussion amongst the stakeholder groups they've been talking to, and they shared their draft with those groups. They're now receiving feedback from those various groups and other stakeholders. I expect that they will prepare a report and some recommendations and send it off to government for consideration sometime in the next few months.

Again, I stress that the coordination function is housed in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

B. Simpson: Thank you for that. I'll check the Hansard for that previous discussion.

One of the points I wanted to address in here is: when you have an agency like the Forest Practices Board raising an issue around a species or biodiversity, which I want to talk about shortly, how does the ministry — because this is a newly reconstituted ministry — relate to an external body like that, which is a formally constituted body funded by the government? Is it a formal relationship there, or is it that you can just pay attention to it or not pay attention to it? What's the formal relationship between this ministry and the Forest Practices Board?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member probably knows, the Forest Practices Board is established in legislation and operates independently. The Minister of Environment does take the report seriously and responds to suggestions or recommendations in writing. We do respond formally. I'm told we generally have a pretty positive working relationship.

B. Simpson: Thank you for that. In the event that the Forest Practices Board raises issues with the Ministry of Forests and Range around the fact that the Forest and Range Practices Act, FRPA, may be undermining biodiversity…. They've raised that concern. They've raised concerns, for example, that salvage logging for mountain pine beetle may actually be undermining multiple use and multiple values on the land base. Those are not direct recommendations to the Ministry of Environment, but they're something that the Ministry of Environment should, maybe, be paying attention to and working with the Ministry of Forests and Range around.

Does the ministry look at those kinds of things, as well, with a view towards engaging both the Forest Practices Board and the Ministry of Forests and Range in those conversations? If we're going to lose that multiple-values forest stewardship and species stewardship on the land base because of an act that the government has enacted, will this ministry intervene in those cases?

Hon. B. Penner: The Ministry of Environment does work with other agencies of government, including the Ministry of Forests, to respond to concerns identified either by the ministry itself or by the Forest Practices Board.

B. Simpson: I'm looking for something a little bit more specific: somebody in the Ministry of Environment actually looking at the findings or the correspondence of the Forest Practices Board and deliberately looking for situations where an act under a different ministry may be impinging on the very foundations of what the Ministry of Environment is trying to accomplish in other areas, and getting the red flag — "Hang on a second here; we may need to go back and look and see if this is legitimate." It seems to me that if you

work at cross-purposes, we could be expending a lot of public dollars trying to achieve a strategy in one ministry that's being undermined by legislation in another ministry. That's a deliberate relationship that needs to be established, not one that's happening ad hoc.

Hon. B. Penner: First of all, in the drafting process, the Minister of Environment was consulted on the Forest and Range Practices Act. In fact, the minister is specifically named in the act for having responsibility for a variety of particular topics.

There is an ADM-level joint steering committee between the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. They meet on a regular basis. In fact, just two weeks ago, I think, they had somebody from the Forest Practices Board presenting to that committee, identifying whatever issues were germane of the day. Ultimately, it's in all of our interests to make sure that the Forest and Range Practices Act is properly applied and serves the interests of all British Columbians.

B. Simpson: Two things come to mind in the minister's response that I'd like clarification on. First, are the minutes or proceedings of that meeting at the ADM level an available public document?

Secondly, my question wasn't whether or not we were fully applying FRPA. My question was: if you have an act that is undermining what we're trying to accomplish elsewhere, will the ministry suggest that we change the act? That's what the Forest Practices Board has said a number of times — that it's quite possible that FRPA is the problem. So the act is the problem. What I heard the minister say is that they're engaged in a process of making sure we fully implement the act. If you use that logic, then if you fully implement the act, you compound the problem if the act is the problem.

Is that assistant-deputy-minister level public? If so, how do we get access to that? Secondly, will the Ministry of Environment, as the guardian of our environment, step in and say: "Maybe we need to change the act"?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that the ministry is involved on an ongoing basis in reviewing the implementation of the Forest and Range Practices Act, because we are a named participant in the legislation. If the ministry becomes aware that there are problems or challenges from our point of view, if it's not meeting the objectives that we have, then that is certainly advice that we'll share with the rest of government in terms of recommending changes to that piece of legislation.

To date, I'm not aware of any such recommendations or opinions coming up from the staff level in the Ministry of Environment. I'm told that it's still a work in progress and that the implementation of the Forest and Range Practices Act is still underway.

The officials I've just conferred with aren't sure they necessarily share the member's characterization of the Forest Practices Board's comments with respect to the act. They believe that it's a challenge of implementing the act as it was intended and getting it up and running, rather than saying that the way it's drafted poses a challenge. Rather, it's a matter of implementation.

We're engaged in this thing on a regular basis. If it becomes known to the ministry that changes are desirable, then that is the advice that the ministry would provide to government.

B. Simpson: The minister may or may not be aware that the licensees in the Quesnel forest district are struggling with this issue. They have engaged a consultant. They're looking at the whole issue of how we recognize multiple values on the land base when we're in the process of liquidating the pine as a result of the mountain pine beetle. It's an ongoing, iterative process, and I would hope the Ministry of Environment watches that and does intervene, if necessary.

Here's a question for the minister, then. He's indicated that staff will float those questions up, but in the case of a number of districts it is actually Ministry of Forests and Range staff who have been tasked with monitoring environmental impacts because of insufficient staffing from MOE. The Forest Practices Board did make a finding in the case — I think it was in the Fort St. John district — saying that this is okay but that there has to be sufficient training. The Ministry of Forests and Range staff have to understand what it is they're protecting in terms of the environment.

I'm not certain that there is sufficient ground-level staffing of protectors of the environment who can engage in a discussion, as the minister is suggesting, watching the implementation of the Forest and Range Practices Act. Is that one district representative of the rest of the districts in terms of the staffing arrangement you have with the Ministry of Forests and Range, or are other districts more robust on the ground with Ministry of Environment staff?

Hon. B. Penner: It's been a while since I had a detailed briefing on this particular report. I do recall it being brought to my attention. My recollection of the summary or the conclusion of it was similar to the member's characterization, in that the Forest Practices Board found that in that particular instance things were being properly handled. They did make some recommendations around making sure there is adequate training and understanding of the rules and processes.

The Ministry of the Environment has a number of reciprocal agreements with other government agencies in order to extend our reach. We try to have our staff focus on what are deemed to be high-risk situations or endeavours in the province. If it comes to our attention that there is a particular forest licensee or forest district where there are a greater number of problems than elsewhere, then I would expect the ministry would shift their focus and put additional Ministry of Envi-

ronment staff on the ground in those areas to engage in compliance and enforcement operations.

Where the harvesting is more routine in nature or we're not aware of previous complaints or there's a lower level of angst, then the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment have established some form of reciprocal arrangement where Ministry of Forests personnel undertake some of the day-to-day monitoring. I think that's what the Forest Practices Board was getting at, saying, "That arrangement seems reasonable, but make sure that those staff from the Ministry of Forests that are out there doing the work know what kind of things the Ministry of Environment staff would like to hear about," so that they do hear if there is a problem, and then we can send our staff there to do further investigation.

B. Simpson: I agree with the minister's characterization of that. One of the struggles I have, of course, is that Ministry of Forests and Range staff are stretched very thin, so it's an additional burden to them, and it may fall through the cracks.

At the minister's indulgence, we have a briefing tomorrow on a Bowron Lake situation. If I could add the situation around OGMAs, the old-growth management areas, there's an issue there with spruce and fir bark beetle. If we could carry this over to that, because it's an emergent issue just now, it would be helpful. I'm seeing nodding.

My final question is one that goes back to, again, who owns what. We have a situation with ponderosa pine in the Okanagan area. It has been infested with western pine beetle. The western pine beetle is a two-flight beetle: it's going to make the mountain pine beetle look like it went at glacial speed. The unfortunate thing is that it's not a merchantable species. It doesn't fall under Ministry of Forests and Range. It's on a mix of private and Crown land. I've asked the Minister of Agriculture and Lands; he's not sure if he owns it. It's an issue that's going to get away from us and exacerbate a drought situation that we already have.

What we need is somebody to be able to fund pilot treatments of this disease, because there's no registered treatment in Canada. It's the first time we're seeing it. Is that something that this ministry would be able to engage in and look at facilitating — getting those pilot treatments done so that we can stay on top of the leading edge with this bug?

Hon. B. Penner: The member is correct. This is an emerging issue. I'm not fully briefed on it. One of the ministry staff people has brought it to my attention over the last couple of months. I believe it's in the Okanagan region where this particular pest is manifesting itself.

I'd certainly be interested in looking at the feasibility of doing a pilot project in a provincial park, for example. We're trying to do some of those now with the mountain pine beetle. If there are provincial parks affected by what you call the western pine beetle, I think it might be appropriate to look at what we can do for a pilot project in a provincial park and use that as a demonstration project. But I'll have to await a further briefing. Just as you are looking for a further briefing on this, so am I.

B. Simpson: I can bring in contact information tomorrow for someone who is prepared to move on that fairly quickly, so I will do that. Thank you for your time.

S. Fraser: It's depressing — the steroidal version of the mountain pine beetle. It just gets worse.

My question, to begin with, to the minister, if I may…. There was, I think, some confusion on a question period question I asked a week or so ago. I addressed it to the Minister of Environment, but the Minister of Agriculture and Lands answered the question. Because of the time line, I asked the question on the 31st. It was regarding the E&N Railway and the proposed spray program for herbicides.

My understanding, at the time of the answer from the Minister of Agriculture and Lands…. When he gave the answer, the proposal had already been approved — amended, but approved on the 27th. It has already been, to my understanding, approved by the Ministry of Environment. Can you confirm? This is the Streamline Environmental Consulting proposal to use pesticides, amongst other things, or herbicides on the E&N Railway.

Hon. B. Penner: I think what happened when the member raised the question in question period was that the word "weeds" was heard and interpreted as noxious weeds, because that's definitely on our minds as we try to grapple with yet another problem. That's why the Minister of Agriculture and Lands got up to answer the question. He felt it pertained to noxious weeds or invasive weeds, and he wanted to talk about some of the things we're doing to address that challenge.

In terms of the E&N Railway application, the member is correct that under the Integrated Pest Management Act and accompanying regulation, the company submitted a pesticide use notice to the Ministry of Environment on September 28, 2005. The notice indicated that the E&N Railway had completed their pest management plan and had revised it considerably based on public input resulting from the public consultation period, which I guess had taken place over the summer.

The ministry confirmed receipt of the notice of that revised plan on October 27. The member's correct about that date. I'm told that the notice is valid for a period of five years.

What's important to note here is that there is a difference, I think, between herbicides and pesticides. The two words sound kind of the same, and they rhyme, but they're significantly different in their meaning. One

of the more controversial things that I remember hearing about over the summer, when I was getting e-mails from people concerned about the proposed plan by the E&N Railway, pertained to the proposed use of 2,4-D.

I'm told that the revised plan received from E&N has dropped the use of 2,4-D. They will be looking at a range of alternative measures. They'll try those out to see if they'll accomplish the objectives.

Nevertheless, I did some checking, because I was curious about how this worked. I was told that the original products proposed to be used by E&N Railway are regulated and approved for use by Health Canada. Anything that E&N had proposed to use would have had to have been approved for use by Health Canada, but even so, they have dropped the proposed use of the 2,4-D in their application. I hope that goes some way to meeting public concern.

Part of the intention and objective of the new Integrated Pest Management Act was to find alternatives to pesticides. Wherever pesticides are required to be used, the act calls for the pesticide to be used with the least impact on the environment. Obviously, I'm pleased that the railway is going to try some alternative measures here, and I hope that goes some way to meeting the concerns of the member's constituents.

S. Fraser: I appreciate the alternative methods also. I think it's the way to go. I do not believe it will come anywhere near addressing the concerns of not just my constituents but the entire Island.

Every municipality, every regional district, every first nation, every group that I've spoken with and heard from has spoken as one on this in opposition to the use of the deleterious substances that were suggested in the original plan. Now, taking 2,4-D out is certainly, I think, a no-brainer. There are people who suggested that was in the plan so it could be removed. It still includes Garlon 4, Roundup — substances that are particularly bad on things like amphibians. This is going through aquifers and such and even through, basically, in my area, people's back yards, where kids play.

There are concerns there. There is the ability of the ministry, I understand, under the Integrated Pest Management Act to overrule the use of those under section 8. Will the minister consider doing that, considering the 100-percent opposition to the use of these materials, and instead encourage things like steam and the other physical means that were proposed originally?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that the substances proposed for use in the plan are all approved and registered for use according to label directions by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Health Canada, something I talked about a bit earlier. Under the legislation in British Columbia, the ministry can only intervene or overrule the use of a particular substance in extraordinary situations where that had not been contemplated during the review period.

This particular proposal has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate. I know the member has received many e-mails, and so have I, over the last number of months.

If this gives any comfort to the member's constituents, it's worth noting that under the regulations there's a requirement preventing the release of spray into any body of water, and there's also a requirement of a specified setback distance to ensure that water is not contaminated. Those distances will have to be respected by the E&N Railway or the company they hire to apply the substances. If there are any infractions, then that would be a violation of their permit.

S. Fraser: I wonder about the enforcement of that or if there's any record of enforcement or fining, or who is going to be monitoring this. Health Canada has approved many things that have not necessarily, at the end of the day, turned out to be right. The public wasn't listened to on this, so I don't think we've heard the end of this.

Just a quick question, if I could change. Lastly, I was just wondering…. My understanding is that the ministry is reviewing the policy to pay for provincial park user fees in the parks. I've got a request to find out when that review might be completed. The coming tourist year is coming up, and there are a number of problems with the one as it exists, because it's not being enforced. In a lot of people's opinions, it's not handling operators fairly as far as their uses of operating in the parks commercially — tourism or small buses and stuff.

Hon. B. Penner: First of all, going back to the issue involving E&N Railway, I have directed my staff to make sure that spot checks are done to monitor for compliance with the requirements in the plan that's been submitted to the ministry by E&N Railway.

On the second issue, just to clarify, the fees that are currently under review by the Ministry of Environment pertain to parking fees for day-use areas — not fees for various licensees operating in parks, but for actual parking in day-use areas. We want to have that particular review back and digested in time for the next busy summer camping season.

S. Simpson: I just want to rise to thank the minister and to say that it's unfortunate as time pressures come on, as we get close to the end of the session, that we didn't have a little more time. I do want to thank the minister for his offer around the briefing on climate change that we'll have coming up next month, and also the offer that was made today around a briefing related to parks issues. I guess I just ask that as part of that briefing maybe the ministry could talk a little bit to us about the approach that's being taken around the pine beetle in parks and how the ministry is addressing

Other than that, I want to thank the minister and especially thank his staff for all of their cooperation.

Vote 46: Environmental Appeal Board and Forest Appeals Commission, $1,955,000 — approved.

Hon. B. Penner: I move that the committee rise, report resolutions and completion of the Ministry of Environment estimates and seek leave to sit again.

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