Hansard — Monday, February 19, 2007 a.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


Private Members' Statements		5347
	Homelessness and poverty
	D. Routley
	L. Mayencourt
	Managing the environment
	V. Roddick
	S. Simpson
	A biofuel challenge
	M. Karagianis
	B. Lekstrom
	Building a future together
	M. Polak
	J. Horgan

Motions on Notice		5355
	Olympic Winter Games impact on single-room accommodation (Motion 35)
	J. Kwan
	J. McIntyre
	D. Thorne
	R. Hawes
	S. Simpson
	L. Mayencourt

D. Routley: I rise today to speak on the issue of homelessness and poverty. Homelessness and poverty are words that are incongruent with the message that is coming from the government these days. These days the government talks of booms and job creation. It doesn't talk of the many thousands of people who lie in our streets, sleep under our bridges and suffer in the cold and the wet.

We as legislators find ourselves here this morning in this warm chamber discussing the very intellectual qualities of governance of this province while the practical reality of governance of this province is being experienced on the cold, hard streets and sidewalks of our cities and even our smallest towns.

My first critic role in this House was that of housing and homelessness critic. I have to say that, personally, I have never witnessed a greater dichotomy between the issues of housing and the issues of those who have no home; between the issues of those who hope for a warm place to sleep and raise their children, raise their families, and of those who have no such hope.

I saw a made-in-B.C. building boom driving our economy, a made-in-Asia resource boom driving our economy, a made-in-North-America housing boom that this government has coupled with a made-in-B.C. poverty boom.

We have seen the number of children living in poverty continue to grow in this province. We saw a seniors budget and speech from the government that promised great things to those seniors who feel so vulnerable — barely able to provide for themselves in terms of housing and now barely able to feed themselves, making the choice between food and medicine on a regular basis.

We saw that budget and that speech, and what we saw after that time was seniors leading the homeless, leading the growth in homeless. Seniors are the largest growing demography amongst the homeless.

The many slogans that the government adds to its throne speeches and the many slogans that the government advertises to the people of British Columbia ring hollow to the ears of those seniors who were promised much and delivered little, who now find themselves the fastest-growing group of homeless people in this province.

We saw a children's budget that was followed by two years of this province leading the country in child poverty rates. This is unfortunate. This is a crime. This should never happen in British Columbia, particularly while we experience a made-in-North-America housing boom and a made-in-Asia resource boom.

The vulnerable of this province — those who struggle with literacy, those who struggle with poverty and addiction, those who struggle with mental illness — are the last to benefit from any economic upturn, and they will be the first to be punted out the door when the cycle turns. Homelessness and poverty and illiteracy are signs of failed social policy, signs of failed policies and choices, signs of wrong priority on the part of this government.

We've had six years of the rule of this Liberal government, and still we lead the country in child poverty. Still we find seniors being the largest growing group of homeless, and there is no action.

There is an economic imperative to take action to end homelessness. There is an economic imperative to address homelessness and illiteracy. Our workforce must be made more efficient. We as people, as workers, must be made more competitive.

To do that, this government must begin to invest in literacy, must begin to end child poverty, must begin to bring an end to the mistakes that it caused with choices — when they ran bulldozers through the programs of this province with their core review, slashed the benefits to the people of this province and set up the barriers that have been the obstacles to the success of the very people I'm talking about today. It's this government and its choices.

The local realities — we know them well. It wasn't long ago that people from the small towns of this Island travelled to Vancouver and were shocked to see the odd person living in a doorway. But now we see it in every community, even the smallest, and the people who live on the streets are becoming ever more desperate. Their health is becoming ever poorer. All of those things lead to crime, and they lead to greater use of public services, like public health services.

This government's own figures will tell it that it must act, that it pays much more for a person who lives in poverty on the street. But they have refused to address these issues. They have refused to build the housing. They have refused to remove the barriers from social programs that have kept people from succeeding.

It's time that the government recognized its own role in its own failed social policies and added funds and resources to the literacy programs of this province and to the lunch programs in schools, reduced the sizes of classrooms, addressed the early childhood needs in the K-to-12 system. These are the foundation stones of ending poverty, and this government fails to see it.

I hope the government will recognize that it is in the interest of every British Columbian, including the most wealthy, that this problem must be addressed. We pay for people to be homeless. We pay for people to live in poverty. We must stop paying for that. We must invest in people.

We must hold out the hand. It will be grasped, and we will help people. But unless this government recognizes that it must build social housing, that it must

address the social needs of this province, we will continue to see homelessness grow. We will continue to see desperation grow. Unfortunately, poverty in British Columbia will become a deeper and deeper fact of life.

It is not a problem that we can just add water to and end. We've had five years of inaction. I'm calling on the government to step forward and address the needs of the most vulnerable British Columbians. They are meant to govern for everyone in this province. The people huddled on the cold sidewalks are every bit as important as the captains of industry are every bit as important as the captains of industry who fund the Liberal government.

L. Mayencourt: I thank the member opposite for his words. I think that he delivers them with a great deal of passion, and that's a very healthy thing. Individuals who come to this Legislature need to look at the very significant challenges that British Columbia's most vulnerable citizens have to face.

I want to address the first point he makes, which is that this government is silent on issues relating to poverty. That premise is wrong. The reason I know that is wrong is because I have sat in this chamber for six years and have worked with colleagues on both sides of this House to try and address the issues of poverty, to deal with the issues of homelessness, to deal with the issues of those who are more vulnerable than others — those people living with mental illness, those people living with addictions and so on.

The government has been very vocal. As a matter of fact, about a year and a half ago at the Union of B.C. Municipalities the Premier of this province, the one gentleman in this House who actually speaks loudly and clearly for this side of the House, said: "I do not accept that we should live in a province where people would have to live on our streets. It is not acceptable to me." Those are the words of the Premier. Those were bold and important words — words that need to sink in, in this chamber and out on the streets of British Columbia.

It is not acceptable, and it is not acceptable to this side of the House any more than it is acceptable to the other side of the House. There are things that happen in this chamber that bother me, and one of them is prejudicial belief on the part of the NDP that they own compassion. That is a false premise. There are members from every community in British Columbia that are affected by poverty, who know what it means in their own communities. Each and every one of us needs to come to this chamber every day remembering that and working forward on those things.

I want to say to the members of the NDP: I am very proud of the work that you did in the '90s when you were building the approximately 60 units of social housing every month, but I am doubly proud of the B.C. Liberal record of building 120 units of social housing each and every month. Since 2001 the B.C. Liberal government has built 4,000 units of Independent Living B.C. housing, 3,400 units under the provincial housing program, 1,600 under the community partnerships initiative, 1,000 through the provincial homelessness initiative, and in the conversion of 700 units of social housing. All told, we put in just a little under 11,000 units.

That's a government that's doing something very important. As a matter of fact, the commonality is that in the entire history of the NDP through the '90s, ten years, they built about 10,000 units. In six years we've built 11,000. I think that what we have here is an opportunity to work towards solutions for poverty.

One of those projects that we undertook with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance is the family self-sufficiency program, which teaches families that are living in poverty how to do things like budgeting and learning financial awareness — or financial literacy, as the member has put it. That's an important initiative.

If the member was interested in seeing what B.C. Housing is doing about poverty, he would note that we have a program we are beginning negotiations on now, which will allow for families to actually start saving towards a down payment for their own home. Those savings would be matched by federal, provincial and civic grants. Those are initiatives that do more than just provide housing. They are actually teaching people a whole set of skills that will make their lives a lot better and allow them to provide for their families more substantially.

I mentioned that there's a provincial housing initiative, and one of the programs I'm very proud of is our homeless outreach program. Never before in the history of British Columbia or in Canada, under any NDP government or otherwise, has a government sent social workers out in the middle of the night to tap people — to talk to people sleeping on the streets and say to them: "Listen, come have a cup of coffee with me. I'm going to help you get onto welfare so that you have a steady income, so that you can afford a rental accommodation."

Never before has a government, within 24 hours, found not only welfare but also housing, mental health and addictions support for their people. Our government speaks loudly and clearly on the issues of poverty, and we'll continue to do so in this House.

D. Routley: Thank you to the member. The member has pointed out several facts that need to be challenged. But the member underlines a very important point, and that is that this government needs to do more than talk. It needs to act. This government has been silent.

We heard the member say that the Premier has said that homelessness is not acceptable to him. It's one thing to say it's not acceptable. It's not acceptable to anyone in B.C. that people should live in poverty and homelessness. Obviously, this is not acceptable, but the Premier should do a lot more than talk. He should reverse some of the policies that drove people into homelessness, the barriers that he put in front of women, single mothers on assistance — barriers to literacy programs, barriers to assistance.

The government will have to face their own role in these problems eventually, but right now they could do

a lot more than just talk about shelter beds. Shelter beds do not reduce homelessness.

The government's measurement of good performance in homelessness is to count the number of nights the homeless shelters are full. Shouldn't success in dealing with homelessness be the number of nights that shelters are empty?

The member has mentioned independent living units and assisted-living units. These are all funds that were taken from housing in British Columbia, taken from social housing to paper over broken promises of 5,000 new long-term care beds. The people of the province who need social housing, those families who are living in poverty, those families who could elevate the circumstances of their children with the help of this government — they suffer for that choice.

For this government to advertise homeless shelter beds and independent living beds and assisted-living beds as an answer to the housing crisis in B.C. is an atrocious insult to those 15,000 people, families waiting on the list for social housing. The government should drop this attitude. The government should stop downloading its responsibility onto the municipalities of the province. Step up to the plate. B.C. Housing is meant to provide housing for the people of British Columbia, not to paper over broken Liberal promises of long-term beds.

The people of the province have had enough of stepping over their compatriots in the doorways of businesses. We've had enough of watching families walk with shopping carts with all their belongings. We've had enough of it. We've had enough of the excuses from this government. The municipalities have had enough of the downloaded cost. We've had enough of homelessness. This government should act.

V. Roddick: Green is certainly the buzzword of today. I'm proud to say our government has been working on this challenge for years, starting with our renewable energy commitment outlined in the 2002 energy plan — the cleanest and greenest in North America. In 2004 we introduced a 40-point climate action plan, B.C.'s first such plan.

But how do we actually deliver? Environment has just about as many definitions as the word "sustainability." That is why we have to apply careful and thoughtful planning to this whole issue, using proper management techniques. Our environment includes absolutely everything on the planet, so it's certainly not just green.

We as a society have been caught up in a swirl of accelerating so-called progress. We in the western world, as it is referred to, have become spoiled beyond belief. We have for the most part become ungrateful and demanding. The world owes us a living. The world must look after us from the cradle to the grave. Above all, the world must supply us with an abundance of food — cheap — and we are treating water with the same blasé attitude as our food supply. As urbanization gathers momentum worldwide, necessary irrigation water is being diverted to condominium and factory owners. Canada so far has plenty of water. The rest of the world as a whole does not. We need to recognize and value this terrific asset.

Thankfully, we are turning a page and recognizing that we also have to contribute to our well-being in all respects, and not just take. Our environment includes air, water, soil, wildlife, birds, fish and humans. Our environment includes mountains, forest, deserts, prairies, habitat — different habitats for every species. We are recognizing that we cannot create too big a footprint.

Perfect examples of footprints are on the farm fields in Delta, eaten and trampled by thousands upon thousands of geese, ducks and swans. Here enters management in the form of the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust field set-aside program to feed birds over the winter, plus technology by the way of tile drainage and laser levelling of the fields so that they do not puddle and subsequently ruin the future crops — an excellent start from a management point of view.

We also have been brilliantly successful in revitalizing and enhancing our wildlife, on the one hand, but have discouraged hunting and hunters, on the other — much to the Canadian Wildlife Service's dismay. Lack of management in controlling our wildlife is just as hard on the environment as lack of human management.

We also need to embrace new higher technology to help us control our emissions. That goes for every level of our existence. We are literally guzzling everything we touch — energy of all forms, commercial goods, food. Technology is just one source of solution, albeit a large one. But the most important is identifying the real enemy, and as Pogo so aptly put it years ago, the real enemy is us. We need to accept that and hit the education button hard.

Buy-in from industry is imperative. Asking people to give up their cars overnight is simply not going to happen, but educating the industry and consumers to design and drive smaller, better-emission-control cars is a good start. Our manufacturers of all goods and services have the ability to deliver. They must accept responsibility, as well, for the well-being of our province and our planet.

British Columbia is taking the lead in Canada. We designed a foundation in the throne speech to build a workable plan for the province. A climate action team will determine the most credible, aggressive and economically viable targets. It will also be asked to identify practical options and actions for making the government of B.C. carbon-neutral by 2010.

A new citizens' conservation council will be established and funded. In fact, a total of 33 achievable initiatives have been laid out clearly for all to see and to hold us accountable. It's bold, it's courageous, and we will find the resolve to ask more of ourselves than we demand of others. We as a province are leading the way. Government emissions of carbon dioxide equiva-

Yet the NDP voted against the living rivers trust fund twice, the contaminated sites fund, the exempting of hybrid vehicles from PST. They voted against PST relief on alternative fuel vehicles. They voted against exempting energy-efficient home heating projects from PST. They voted against the Canada line, which will take ten lanes of traffic off the roads. They voted against clean energy projects such as the Cascade and Ashlu run-of-the-river projects, showing that the MLA for Nelson-Creston was right when he said that the party has no idea how to deal with climate change.

The disappointment here is the partisanship. Climate should not be a partisan issue. It is up to all of us to work together. We work together; we will succeed. I look forward to my colleague's comment on this powerful issue.

S. Simpson: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to get up and make a couple of comments in regard to the last presentation. The first thing we have to understand is that the challenge here is not about talk, but it's about action, and there is no action on the government side of the House.

What we saw here in the throne speech was exactly that. We saw a speech, not a plan. That's become painfully evident. What's also become painfully evident in this speech is that there was very little behind it. It's become painfully evident that this plan was cobbled together in the last couple of weeks by a government that was desperate to get on top of an issue that they had no position on. That becomes even clearer when we hear from the Minister of Finance, at the end of last week, that there will be no resources in the budget to deal with this question of climate change, to deal with the government's plan. I suspect that's because the Premier forgot to tell the Finance Minister what he was doing in his office.

This plan gets through the 2009 election and does little else. This government hasn't been credible on this issue from day one. It's this Premier who, along with the Premier of Alberta, got up and condemned Kyoto. It's this Premier who told people that, oh, we don't have to worry about those coal plants because our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions are minuscule, so let's not worry about it.

Now we've had the conversion on the road to Damascus. It's not sincere, and what we're starting to see already is this plan unravel in the eyes of British Columbians. I figured it might take a few weeks. It's taken a few days, and we're already seeing the plan unravel for British Columbians. It started when the plan was first introduced — 13 years before there's any kind of commitment to a target.

If we've learned anything in the discussions with the experts around climate change, it's that action needs to be taken now — not in 13 years but now. There is nothing, absolutely nothing here that commits to that action now.

When we look at the substance of this, we know the consultation process was flawed. We know the business community has told us that nobody talked to them about this — Jock Finlayson standing up saying: "Nobody talked to us about this."

We know that the opposition…. This was the partnership, not partisanship, government over here, but what they've done is decided this will be closed. It will be secret. It will be another Premier's committee that the public will not have open access to, unlike a legislative committee where this would all be on the record. No, this process is going to be hidden away in the Premier's office where his staff, his fixers, can figure out how to get through 2009 without having to do very much. That's what we're facing here.

We heard the Environment Minister talking about beehive burners last week. Well, there was a commitment on the government to close beehive burners, but what do we hear? We hear that while the five tier 1 beehive burners will be closed, the 40 tier 2 beehive burners…. Well, that's another matter. We may not close those.

What did we hear? We talk here about oil and gas. Oil and gas is going to be a big piece of this. We know that the Premier and the Minister of Energy and others have cheered about the fact that they've deregulated this industry, put this industry much closer in line with what's happening in Alberta. Well, I want to hear the Minister of Energy and the Premier stand up and say we're going to re-regulate this industry so that, in fact, we can accomplish these objectives. We haven't heard that yet.

The devil is in the details on these things. That's the reality of these plans. There is no plan. There's a speech. Sadly, we haven't seen very much. We're going to see a budget tomorrow. We'll be looking for all of the things that will be in that budget related to this. We'll be looking at an energy plan to see if there's anything in that energy plan that works, but so far all talk and no action. We'll see what comes in the future.

V. Roddick: Interesting comments from my colleague across the way, seeing as how he's the leading opponent to the Ashlu project of independent power.

We are establishing in this throne speech a foundation to build a plan. We want extensive input and proper planning, not knee-jerk reaction. British Columbia has over the last six years made significant strides to reduce emissions and promote clean energy. We have shown, supported and followed through on key environmental acquisitions to improve air quality — a perfect example being Burns Bog in my riding, the lungs of the lower mainland.

We have made major strides in improving our parks, rivers, wildlife and wetlands, and are making significant strides to help our transportation sector and communities be more environmentally sustainable. We're promoting environmental research through our post-secondary institutions and through encouraging research investment, taking action decisions in our

forestry sector, promoting environmental excellence in our aboriginal communities and promoting environmental values through our K-to-12 school system.

I would like to close by quoting one of the lead authors of the United Nations report on climate change, Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria. Mr. Weaver, who helped write the recent and devastating report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that none of the throne speech goals were out of reach. "They haven't said anything that's not doable," he said. "I think they're all doable. Some people try to dismiss the issue as a one-of-a-kind, left-wing attempt to undermine capitalism, etc.," he said.

"It's never been about that. It's about doing the right thing based upon what the science has been saying, and the right thing involves the marketplace, it involves solutions, and it involves marketing those solutions to a world where every person is a consumer of energy. We've had enough delays. It's time to do something. It is the most progressive plan I've ever seen anywhere in North America for a start, and one of the best in the world," he said. "This is the way to go. This is great leadership. It's really super."

M. Karagianis: Well, last year at almost the same time I stood here in the House and extolled the virtues of using biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuels. I proposed it as a potential bridge from conventional fuel to whatever the future may hold — hydrogen, electric — because in reality, options like hydrogen for the ordinary consumer are years away. We need to provide easy and realistic alternatives in the meantime — now.

Of course, a year ago there was still quite an extensive debate on whether climate change was real. What a difference a year can make, as we've heard this morning. Suddenly the energy-efficient light bulb has gone on, and presto, governments are stumbling all over themselves trying to get green and get a plan.

B.C. is the most recent convert, although we've heard now that there is no real money this year in the budget to do anything. But I would like to propose something that we can do right now — a challenge for this government.

This past winter I spent a week in Maui and rented a car, a brand-new VW Jetta, and drove all over the island. I put about 800 kilometres on the car and did not burn one single drop of fossil fuel. Instead we fuelled up at Pacific Biodiesel, just like an ordinary gas station with an ordinary gas pump, but it was 100 percent biofuel, reused cooking oil collected from cruise ships and restaurants in Maui. Our rental car ran perfectly.

Here in B.C. we still struggle to get biodiesel because it's not readily available for the consumer, but it's coming. My husband and my constituency staff are now all running biodiesel in their vehicles. It's only B5 because that's all we can get here on the Island. B10, B20 and B40 are available on the mainland, and I think it's only a matter of time until we get it here on the Island.

When B.C. gets serious about encouraging and using biodiesel, perhaps we can get B100 like they do in the U.S. As a side note, this province only offers tax incentive on biodiesel up to B50. I would say that one first action is to get on top of a tax incentive that's real and encourages B100 and usage in between.

This could be part of the Premier's new energy plan with the U.S. along with the hydrogen highway because, in fact, no one will have a hydrogen car for years to come. But lots of people have diesel engines, and they could and should start using biofuel right now.

In fact, I believe the consumer wants to do that. Hundreds of cities across Canada and the U.S. have and are running test projects using biodiesel. Toronto and Guelph transit and others have driven millions of kilometres on this for their bus systems and are using it in all diesel-operated vehicles. The San Francisco Fire Department has been conducting a program to use B20 in its fire trucks and ambulances. They have plans to go citywide by the end of 2007.

Many municipalities have taken on the challenge, and we see more and more transit buses switching to biodiesel or to hybrid engines, including right here in the capital city. But let's take this one step further. Biodiesel can be used in all diesel engine applications except aircraft — cars, trucks, home heating. We've seen Columbia Fuels here in the capital region get on board and launch bioheat for homes. Heavy-duty equipment has diesel engines. Boats, ferries — ah, B.C. Ferries.

I want to talk about the B.C. Ferries fleet, and here is my challenge to this government. I would like this government to implement a test pilot using biodiesel on a ferry route here in British Columbia. I would suggest that that ferry be a short one like perhaps the Saltspring Island ferry run.

This is not a new concept. Elsewhere in the world this is being used by many, many organizations and ferry operators. I would say to our newly minted green government: I think the timing couldn't be better.

Washington State Ferries' clean fuel initiative is currently doing a test project using biodiesel on their ferries. In San Francisco the West Coast Diesel Emissions Reductions Collaborative is working to build biodiesel infrastructure for marine and ferry use. They say, and I'll quote from some of their material here:

"Ferries and other commercial harbour craft operate on diesel engines and are producing ten to 100 times more pollution per passenger mile than cars, buses or mainland transit. As a result, passenger ferries directly expose passengers to harmful diesel exhaust while contributing to degradation of the regional air quality. In San Francisco Bay and elsewhere, existing ferries operating on uncontrolled diesel engines produce large volumes of deadly particulate matter, smog-forming and nitrogen oxides. Because ferries are long-lived, their engines will not be replaced for decades and cannot be converted to cleaner technologies. The first U.S. EPA regulations for ferry engines won't go into effect until 2007."

Sounds remarkably applicable to British Columbia, does it not? We have the same emissions and fleet challenges, and although it's unclear what the B.C. government's new regulations will be and how emissions

Price and availability are also stumbling blocks here in British Columbia, but they do not have to be. If government has the will, anything can be done. In Kentucky biodiesel is widely used in vehicle fleets, on ferry boats and even in snowplows on their international airport. In Maine marine biodiesel users include boat tours, cruises, coastal barges and even the Bustins Island ferry — all running with great success.

Test projects for biodiesel on ferries are occurring across the U.S. from California to New York — the Staten Island and even the harbour ferries in New York City. In Australia, Sydney Ferries commenced a trial of biodiesel on a selected ferry in 2005 and is currently running an 80-percent biodiesel trial. The results will be known later this year. A 100-percent biodiesel trial was to be conducted between November and December of this past year.

B. Lekstrom: I would like to thank the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin for speaking on this issue that I think is of vital importance not just to the people in this Legislature but to all British Columbians.

I come from the Peace River area — Dawson Creek. Peace River South is my riding, and I can tell you that what you've spoken about creates great opportunities for our agricultural sector. They have faced significant challenges over the last number of years, and this is one more opportunity for diversification.

I'm going to speak to biodiesel briefly. We are presently working with the B.C. Grain Producers, who have received a $75,000 grant to look at the feasibility of a biodiesel plant in the Peace River area. That study is ongoing, but it is looking favourable. This is a product that will be made from canola, which we grow massive amounts of. I believe that we in the B.C. Peace country have enough to provide for a plant to be established in British Columbia, and we can be world leaders.

I guess I'm a little taken aback that many members on the opposite side think this is a newly minted green government. I think that if you go back and look at the energy plan of 2002….

Rather than get into the partisanship, because I think we can throw that out…. I don't know a person that couldn't look at that throne speech and put partisanship aside and say: "You know, that's a great direction."

I don't think we have to worry about if there are going to be dollars in the budget tomorrow to see if we can fund this. The reality is — and I've heard it from members from the opposite side of this House — that industry is going to be responsible to carry the largest burden of this, whether we're talking about flaring or we're talking about the new gasification and coal technology.

For the years that I've studied politics, people have always said: "That's not government's responsibility to fund this. Industry is." So when I read through that and look at what we're going to develop in the years coming and as we move forward, I anticipate that industry, who are responsible members of our society — I work with them every day in the oil and gas industry, particularly when it comes to the flaring issue — is also looking at ways to curb that.

Back to the point. Bioenergy and biofuels — there are great opportunities. Our forest industry is shifting in British Columbia due to nature and something we can't do anything about. The pine beetle infestation is devastating our forests right across this province. Rather than look to the negative side, I think there's great opportunity.

If we can use the pine beetle for bioenergy production, which we're already looking at and moving forward on, that's a very positive sign — not just for government, which will stand up and say, "Yes, we've supported this," but for our people who work in the forest industry, for our forest-dependent communities who are going to see a significant shift over the next ten to 15 years when it comes to forestry.

In 2004 our government amended the Motor Fuel Tax Act to make the biodiesel portion, which is the mix we're going to use, exempt from the motor fuel tax. We've also exempted ethanol from that.

Ethanol is another thing that the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin — although she, I'm sure, supports the production — possibly didn't have time to mention. It's another great opportunity when we look at the diversification for our agricultural sector, as well, with grains being used for that.

There has been a great deal of work over the past…. Gosh, I've probably been involved in that for 12 years, going back to my days as an elected official in the Peace region. I believe that each and every day it becomes a little more economically viable to produce it, certainly through corn right now. Grain production is something I've worked on with proponents on that, and I hope to one day see an ethanol plant as well as a biodiesel facility built in the Peace country, which will benefit all of us.

The issue when we talk about the biodiesels, the bioenergy, the ethanols, is one that all of us — each and every British Columbian who drives a vehicle, who utilizes energy — are going to have to embrace. We want a better environment. Whether you're on the New Democrat side or the B.C. Liberal side, whether you're in federal or local or provincial politics, we all want to ensure that our environment is looked after for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren.

We do, without question, live in the most beautiful place on earth in British Columbia. Can we keep it that way? Most definitely we can. Do we have a vision? Yes, we do. But that vision…. Rather than play partisanship with it and say, "You have no plan. You've said you're going to do it; we don't believe you," let's get together.

I hear both sides of this House talking about cooperation and moving us forward as British Columbia. There has to be a point in time when politics in this province can put partisanship aside and say: "You know what? This is a great idea. We're going to work together to ensure the future of all British Columbians."

The member for Esquimalt-Metchosin has brought forward an excellent idea that I think we can all work together on, and I congratulate you for that.

M. Karagianis: To the previous speaker: thank you very much for your vote of confidence on my challenge to government. I will definitely discuss this with you later and maybe look at a collaboration.

Hon. Speaker, the public is ready to support the shift to biofuel. It's the government that is lagging behind. Historically, there's been a lobby by the oil industry to thwart biodiesel here in Canada and to oppose tax incentives. I'd like to call on the government to implement as soon as possible more tax incentives on blends above B50, because I think it will actually help us move forward to larger concentrates of biofuel for the public.

Since the oil industry owns the delivery system for fuels, if we are really going to take climate change seriously and if we are going to try and provide opportunities for the public to access the opportunities, then we are going to have to take the other step, which is mandating a biodiesel blend at the pumps. We did it for leaded gasoline. We can do it for biodiesel.

I know that the Premier talked earlier in a speech about his vision for 2007 and said that everyone could afford a hybrid car. But that is, in fact, patently untrue. It demonstrates how out of touch the government is with what real people are able to achieve in their own lives. Working families cannot as a rule afford hybrid cars. Heck, I can't even afford a hybrid car. But consumers can and will use biodiesel if they can get it at the pump, and they will applaud the government for showing a real initiative by testing biodiesel for B.C. Ferries use.

In a recent Alberta government biodiesel marketing profile, I found the following little initiative. "Government affiliated users are the most likely markets for biodiesel. Examples include Calgary transit, Edmonton transit, ENMAX, etc. B.C. Ferries and Vancouver transit are potential markets." So Alberta sees our ferry system and our province as a potential market for biodiesel. We need to be out ahead of them. They are there. Why are we not there?

I'm calling on the government today to immediately begin to implement a challenge of using a B20 blend in at least one ferry route here in British Columbia. I in fact will work with the member from the other side of the House who supported this to try and collaborate, to get government to move forward and accept this challenge. In fact, I will be writing to B.C. Ferries to engage them in this as well.

M. Polak: In 1947, Saskatchewan was the first province to establish public universal hospital insurance. Decades later in 1984 the Canada Health Act was passed into law by our federal parliament. But a lot has changed since 1947. New procedures, new technologies and new demands have changed the face of health care in British Columbia, in Canada and around the world.

In 1947 the population of B.C. was about one million people, and health care costs were $4.6 million, or 1.2 percent of the provincial budget. In 1965 the population of B.C. was about 1.8 million with health care costs growing to $123.2 million, or 19 percent of the provincial budget. In 1975 the population of B.C. had grown to 2.5 million with health care costs coming in at $745 million, or 22 percent of the provincial budget. In 1985 the population of B.C. reached 2.9 million with a cost of health care pegged at $2.6 billion, or 28 percent of the provincial budget. In 1995 the population of B.C. was 3.7 million, and health care costs had risen to $6.8 billion, or 34.1 percent of the provincial budget.

Now here we are in 2007. The population of B.C. is about 4.2 million. This year, with the addition of $885 million, the health care budget is over $13 billion. That's $400 per second, $24,000 per minute, $1.5 million per hour, $35 million a day, or 43 percent of the provincial budget. Imagine 43 cents out of every dollar of taxpayers' money in British Columbia, and that cost continues to grow.

Since 2001, B.C. has increased health care funding by 25.5 percent. Next year's increase of 7.3 percent is three times the rate of inflation. In fact, if the current rate of increase in health care spending is maintained, health care will represent 70 percent of the provincial budget in ten short years.

With 30 percent of the provincial budget dedicated to education, there will be no funding left for child care, for social assistance, for housing or for transportation infrastructure. Indeed, there will be no funding left for the wide array of provincial programs and services that British Columbians expect and depend on.

There is no doubt that the sustainability of British Columbia's public health care system is at risk. In last year's throne speech a question was posed to government, to opposition and to all British Columbians: are we prepared to change to face up to that fact? Are we prepared to accept that the escalation of health care costs is not sustainable?

I'm proud to say that through the Conversation on Health, British Columbians are answering yes by the thousands. As of today more than 6,000 people have registered for an opportunity to take part in regional public, patient and professional forums. More than 70,000 have participated through the website. British Columbians recognize the need for fundamental changes in order to protect our public health care system, and they are ready to be a part of that.

For the first time British Columbians are being given a chance to provide direct input to government on health care. They are giving of their time, sharing their experiences and assisting us as we wrestle with the many challenges facing us for the future. We will have the benefit of the collective wisdom of patients, professionals from the front line and members of the general public as we act to move our health care system forward sustainably.

Nevertheless, no new initiative is without its critics. The opposition has tried to portray the dialogue as

One example is from Deb Ducharme, B.C. Nurses Union regional representative and participant in the Kamloops forum. She's quoted in the Vancouver Sun as saying: "They certainly set it up to allow input…. There was no guiding. People could go where they wanted on a subject. I just encourage people to participate."

The opposition has further attempted to turn this into a battle of public versus private. Truly, the stakes are much higher than that. At stake is the very survival of public health care in British Columbia. Surely the sustainability of our public health care system is as important to us, to the opposition and to British Columbians as the sustainability of our environment.

For this government, there's no question that the protection of our public health care system is of paramount importance. We are committed to working in partnership with all British Columbians to build a public health care system that will still be there for our children and grandchildren.

The Conversation on Health is one more way in which this government is working together with all British Columbians to build a bright future for our province. It's part of a Pacific leadership agenda that will take us forward into a Pacific century with B.C. at the forefront, leading the way through innovation and change.

I want to encourage all British Columbians to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity. Visit the Conversation on Health website, call the toll-free number or provide a written submission. Be a part. Be a part of protecting British Columbia's public health care system, and be a part of building for the future of British Columbia.

J. Horgan: I'm pleased to rise and follow the parliamentary secretary for the COC, which is an acronym, for those in the gallery, for the Conversation on Health. As the head booster for the COC.…

J. Horgan: COH. Thank you very much. I got my acronyms mixed up. I'm usually best early in the morning. I know the minister is aware of that.

It's encouraging to hear the head booster for the conversation speak in glowing terms about it and talk about partnerships. We've heard a lot about partnerships in the past week. Certainly on this side of the House, we're encouraged by that.

Whenever I hear the member for Peace River South speak about partnerships, I know him to be sincere when he says it. So I am encouraged by that. But when I hear partnership discussed and then all British Columbians discussed, and then a line is drawn…. It's, well, all British Columbians except for those on this side of the House, the founders, the party that founded health care in Canada — the New Democratic Party. That can't be included in the discussion. That can't be included in the dialogue, whether it be on climate change or whether it be on health care.

Certainly, we had an exhaustive royal commission in Canada. That's a parlour sport, I know. Whenever there's a difficulty, the federal government will appoint a royal commission. In the case of health care, they appointed former Premier Roy Romanow to tour the country and meet with thousands and thousands of Canadians to talk about the challenges we face in the health care sector. I certainly don't dispute for a minute the stream of data that the member for Langley recited earlier on.

We have an aging demographic. Everyone understands that. We're living longer. There's an expectation that that quality of life will be sustained through access to the public health care system, whether it be a new hip or another joint replacement — whatever it might be. The public has every right and every expectation that the system is going to be there for them. But what we are concerned about on this side of the House is that the public in public health care not be threatened and not be challenged by the conversation that the member referred to.

I'll go back, as she did, to the throne speech last year. With much hype and fanfare, the Premier announced that he was going to tour Europe and other jurisdictions and look at systems and hybrids of public and private, and bring them back to this Legislature for discussion. That was 12 months ago, and it hasn't happened. I think there was a brief swing through northern Europe, a couple of stops — one in Finland and then a meeting at Heathrow with a few doctors, friends of the Premier — and that was the extent of it.

So I'm encouraged by the parliamentary secretary's enthusiasm for her new task, and I will personally commit to her to support her in any way I can to promote and preserve and protect public health care in this province. But when the line is drawn and the profit motive is inserted to meet the interests of the funders of the party on the other side, that's where certainly I and my colleagues will draw the line.

Public health care is a right in Canada, and it should always be a right in Canada, and those on this side of the House will do everything we can to ensure that that stays in place.

M. Polak: I am indeed encouraged to hear that there is support for having this conversation. It's always challenging to discuss ideas that are deeply rooted in our Canadian culture and have different meanings for each one of us. In terms of the Canada Health Act, as was laid out in last year's throne speech, there are some principles that are worthy of support but also worthy of exploration by British Columbians. Universality. Accessibility. It needs to be comprehensive. It needs to be publicly administered, and it needs to be portable.

We need to hear from British Columbians, and we are hearing from them as to what those things mean to

them. What are the fundamentals of a public health care system that they support, demand and deserve?

We also know that sustainability is going to be a key part of supporting all five of those principles of the Canada Health Act. We have decided as a government that these principles are important enough that they need to be sustainable for our children and our grandchildren.

I want to also point out a distinct difference between the Romanow commission, as mentioned by the member opposite, and the Conversation on Health. Part of that is the numbers in terms of direct discussion through regional forums with individuals in British Columbia and, in the case of the Romanow commission, across Canada.

The member may be interested to know that across Canada in terms of regional forums, the Romanow commission spoke with fewer than 500 people. In British Columbia it was about 40 people. So the Conversation on Health in terms of its scope is absolutely unprecedented.

Certainly, there are other methods by which we want to hear from people. The regional forums are one, as they were with the Romanow commission. We've seen British Columbians certainly taking us up on that offer and were really encouraged that British Columbians — in the forums I've been to and been introduced and walked around and spoken with people before they began — were ready to work on solutions, not just take positions.

I want to ensure that we are communicating to all British Columbians, and it certainly isn't something where we want to say that it is only this side. The member is concerned that those in the opposition have somehow been discouraged from participating. I'm encouraged by his support.

In the past I would say that what we've heard…. The only group loudly opposing participation in the forums has been from the opposition side. Truly, even leaders of major labour organizations in British Columbia have been encouraging their members to sign up. So I'm encouraged to hear that there is support from the opposite side for continuing this conversation.

I want to also provide some reassurance with respect to the desire on the part of this government to have a free and fair hearing from British Columbians. This is a report from the Kamloops Daily News, an editorial with respect to the Kamloops forum and commenting on their view as to the utility of that forum. The editorial says….

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 35 without disturbing the priorities of the motions preceding it on the order paper.

The motion is standing in my name, and I'm delighted to actually engage in the debate about this motion.

By way of a backgrounder, as part of Vancouver's bid for the 2010 Olympic Games, VANOC — that is, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games — signed an inner-city inclusive commitment statement that included a statement and a promise to protect rental housing stock, to ensure that no residents are displaced, evicted, made homeless or face unreasonable increases in rent as a result of the games. The provincial government has formally adopted this commitment.

Now, since June 2003 approximately 714 SROs — that's single-room-occupancy units — have been lost from the downtown east side. There are only three projects underway to replace these units, and the total number of rooms created will, in the best-case scenario, be only 172 units by 2007. The conversion of single-room-occupancy units into condos or other high-cost housing is the reason behind the closures.

One of the commitments in the 2010 inner-city inclusivity commitment is to protect rental housing stock. Let me put on record what the statement says. It reads, under the heading of "Housing":

"(a) protect rental housing stock; (b) provide as many alternative forms of temporary accommodation for Winter Games visitors and workers; (c) ensure people are not made homeless as a result of the Winter Games; (d) ensure residents are not involuntary displaced, evicted or face unreasonable increases in rent due to the Winter Games; and (e) provide an affordable housing legacy and start planning now."

The document goes on to say, under the heading "Input to Decision-Making," and under item (c) in that heading: "Work with and be accessible to an independent watchdog group that includes inner-city residents." It goes on to say: "Document opportunities and impacts experienced in inner-city neighbourhoods in a comprehensive post-games evaluation with full participation by inner-city residents." Those are the commitments by that statement, and as I mentioned, we're losing the single-room-occupancy units right now in the downtown east side.

As of November 2006 approximately 424 units of low-income housing have been eliminated in the downtown east side, including the closure of the Lucky Lodge, which is 50 units, in July; the Burns Block Hotel, 18 units; the Pender Hotel, 36 units in March 2006; the

closure of the Marble Arch, 148 units; the St. Helens, 100 units, to low-income residents. It has been recently announced that the Empress Hotel will also close, and that's a loss of 74 units. And on February 14 — very recently, just last week — it was reported on Global TV that another hotel is evicting residents now, the Golden Crown Hotel.

The loss and the rate of loss is astounding. I haven't seen anything quite like it since, well, when we witnessed Expo 86. We actually saw residents being evicted in the community as our hotels were being lost at an unprecedented rate — people displaced, people homeless. In fact, there was a social housing project under the previous government that honoured a person who died, who was evicted from one of those hotels as a result of Expo 86. We call him Mr. Solheim, and there's a project in the downtown community called Solheim Place.

Currently, VANOC is holding discussion tables with inner-city stakeholders. However, there has so far been no commitments made as to how the inner-city inclusive agreement will be measured or how it will be honoured. The Olympics inner-city inclusive agreement is a public relations document so far, which is light-years away from the reality of what is happening in the downtown east side.

Affordable housing has been cut from the Olympic athletes village. Homelessness, in the meantime, has more than doubled in the GVRD between 2002 and 2005. Accommodation hotels have been lost due to conversions since the Olympic games were awarded, and another 800 units were lost in the lead-up to the Olympic bid process along Granville and Pender streets.

VANOC's own social impact review notes: "The literature cites the potential for rental conversions of boarding houses and for low-rent hotels and caravan parks in the vicinity of venue sites to be threatened. However, vulnerable housing types anywhere within commuting distance of games sites may be affected."

The Golden Crown is slated to be shut down, and that's effective March 31, 2007. It is projected that homelessness will be nearly three times what it is today by 2010. The cost of homelessness between 2002 and 2005 rose 49 percent for Vancouver taxpayers, from $25 million to $51 million. These figures are based on the government's own cost assessment of services that include hospital, ambulance, police incarcerations, emergency shelters and food aid.

The question that I have for the government is: how is the government ensuring that the commitment is met in terms of ensuring that housing and the protection that is necessary in the community are in place? How is that being measured? I would submit that the best way to do that is to support the motion that I've put forward.

British Columbians can make the most out of our opportunity to host the Winter Games by leaving a legacy of affordable housing beyond 2010. We cannot allow for a repeat of the 1986 Expo games, where people in our community were tarnished by the eviction of thousands of low-income residents. The final bid book which won Vancouver the chance to host the 2010 games included commitments outlined in the Olympic inner-city inclusive statement, promising low-income residents would not be displaced as a result of the Olympics.

In the February 2002 plebiscite, Vancouver residents supported that bid, reported as being socially, economically and ecologically sustainable. The commitments in the Vancouver-Whistler bid that won the support of the International Olympic Committee were the same promises made to the people of B.C.

The government of British Columbia has the responsibility to ensure that its promises are kept, and I would ask the House to support the call for the Auditor General to make certain that B.C. is using due diligence in ensuring that VANOC lives up to the Olympic commitments that a number of SROs, single-room-residency hotels, in the downtown east side that have already been closed — with more buildings anticipated to convert into higher-cost housing — be stemmed. We cannot allow that to continue to happen.

Almost every property in the downtown east side has changed ownership in the last year. As Vancouver's real estate market continues to heat up, the government must make sure that people living in these hotels are not left in the cold.

The city of Vancouver, in fact, estimates that at least 1,400 people sleep nightly without a home. Vancouver's homelessness number is expected to be tripled when we open the games in 2010. We want to invite the world here to watch the games. We must take care of our community and make sure that those commitments are in fact realized.

The city of Vancouver states in their own housing plan that they need 800 units each year to address the issue of homelessness. Last year this government announced 600 units of affordable housing to be built for the entire province. So put those numbers in perspective for just one minute and think about it in terms of what that ramification would be.

I'm going to close by saying that we need to act immediately to work with the city of Vancouver to realize their housing plan. The government needs to immediately at least make up the loss of affordable housing that they did not build in the last six years, and that's a housing gap of 2,500 units of affordable housing.

We need concrete tools to be in place to stem the tide of single-room-occupancy units being converted into other forms of housing before 2010. Otherwise, when the games open, we will see more than just the games. Let us be clear. We will see Vancouver's, British Columbia's Olympic shame — Olympic shame of homelessness in our community if these commitments are not met. I urge this House to support this motion today.

J. McIntyre: I couldn't wait to respond to this motion, because not only do I think it's not an appropriate request of the Auditor General's office but perhaps reveals the extent to which this member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has an ideological bias that impedes progress and government's drive to find in-

The Auditor General, as an independent officer of the Legislature, has terms of reference that extend to provincial entities. For example, the office reviews the Olympic secretariat as part of the Economic Development Ministry, but not VANOC per se. So to ask that the Auditor General monitor VANOC's relationship with a municipality that is also clearly outside of its jurisdiction, I suggest, is off base.

The issue of declining numbers of single-room-occupancy units, or SROs, in the city of Vancouver — and notice that's jargon for hotels, motels, boarding-house rooms — is a municipal issue, an issue that has been the subject of debate for many years as the city of Vancouver endures its growing pains, as it transforms itself into an international, world-class city.

In fact, city hall has for a number of years been monitoring the number of SRO units. They monitor the numbers. They also monitor the conditions. It's already audited, in a sense.

Granted, the topic has again bubbled to the surface in conjunction with the city's preparations, plans and commitments for hosting 2010, but it's really stretching it to attach this as a cost for the province. Now, I agree, no one wants to see price gouging or lower-income people cruelly displaced as a result of staging a major event — as some fear. But the city of Vancouver has its own arrangements, and as the member clearly points out, they're heavily involved in partnerships, including representation on the inner-city inclusive work group — in this case, a very special one dedicated to the housing issue.

They're already developing specific recommendations to design innovative solutions for more affordable housing and steps to aid in transition. Let this group do its job. In fact, the inner-city initiative provides the very opportunity to use the 2010 Winter Games as a catalyst to enhance positive community development and leave lasting legacies. This is glass-half-full thinking as opposed to the continuing NDP view of the glass half empty.

For this member — in fact, herself a former city of Vancouver councillor — to take a stance that places more obstacles or further impediments to upgrading, enhancing, renovating or sometimes replacing substandard housing with healthier, cleaner alternatives is definitely part of the problem, not the solution.

The SROs that this member wants to protect as housing stock, some of it for her very own constituents, everyone knows are mostly run-down — they don't want to admit it — often squalid places with an average size of 100 square feet with no private bathroom and no kitchen.

We actually have a time in history now to have the opportunity, to take the opportunity, to revitalize Vancouver's downtown, including the Woodward's site, which we know has a social housing component that many members of the NDP have long supported. Suddenly the interest created by that very redevelopment, which is encouraging other private sector investment in upgrading in the area, is a bad thing. Now it's a bad thing.

In fact, some might interpret that the declining stock of the SROs, as they exist in downtown Vancouver today, is a good thing as long, of course — it is very important — as we are allowed and permitted by municipalities to build decent alternatives in their place. The ability and the opportunity to upgrade city housing stock should be a barometer of our success as a society, and attempts to hold that back and penalize reinvestment in redevelopment is retrogressive — and maybe, I dare say, a little self-serving.

The city of Vancouver has rejected a call from a former NDP MLA and now Vision Vancouver councillor to place a moratorium on these conversions, because staff know that it won't fix the problem. Evictions can't be controlled by their bylaws — right? Even just the other day, last week, council wisely rejected a call to increase the development fee from $5,000 to $50,000. They wanted to up it ten times, and they realize that would be punitive. But I must admit, they did triple the fee.

This government is moving in the exact opposite direction. We are clearly now asking municipalities to stop increasing these development cost charges and other taxes and regulations that actually add to the cost of social housing. They make it unaffordable — like the unreasonable requirement of two parking stalls and the now-famous story of the car wash attached to the seniors facility. We're encouraging local government to exempt small-unit supportive housing projects from development cost charges and levies. In fact, in the throne speech we've indicated a new assessment class, and new tax exemptions for small-unit supportive housing will likely be developed for the Legislature's consideration.

We're also working with UBCM and the private sector. Dare I mention the, heaven forbid, private sector? We're looking at developing new incentives to encourage smaller lot sizes and smaller, more energy-efficient homes that use less land, less energy and less water. And guess what. They're ultimately less expensive. So just think of the potential benefits if, and it's a big if, municipalities would allow or would permit smaller rental units, in essence, to replace these run-down SROs. You could have at least double the space of clean, new accommodation with a private bathroom, and this will go a long, long way to help those who are most in need and who need supportive or transition housing.

We have been acting. The member wants to know. We have been acting. The province has been a partner in renovations in the downtown east side, such as the $2.4 million just allocated for the Pennsylvania Hotel, which will provide decent subsidized housing for 44 people in the downtown east side. Additionally, the Housing Minister just announced funding for the opening of Grace Mansion downtown, a former seniors residence that will become 85 units of transitional housing for those at risk of homelessness.

We need to be moving forward, taking advantage of the opportunity to improve the housing stock, not

protecting the problems of the past. So for all these reasons, I will not be supporting this motion. Let the city of Vancouver and VANOC work out their particular arrangements with their partners and stop trying to throw additional impediments into the works. The Auditor General's office does not belong here. We're not interested in using impoverished SRO residents as pawns for a budgeting exercise.

D. Thorne: It's no surprise that I'm rising today to support this motion, and I would like to just point out before I head into my little speech here, which I've written, that what we're discussing here today, I understood, was the agreement the province signed with the city of Vancouver and the Olympic people to make sure we had no net loss of SROs as a result of the Olympic Games.

Now, I have heard the member who spoke before me arguing — I would say that it was a discussion or an argument — on the benefits of social housing and what this government has planned for the future of social housing with tax exemptions or whatever. I'm not even sure what any of those things mean at this point, but the discussion today, the motion today, is about an agreement that we as legislators and the province have signed and an agreement that we have made with the people of British Columbia that they will not see a net loss of housing so that our homeless numbers will not increase as a result of the Olympic Games.

That is my understanding of what we're talking about today. So I'm not going to go into a big discussion of why we should have more social housing, which I could do for the next 16 hours if that was what we were discussing. It is not what we're discussing. We're discussing whether or not we are holding up our agreement regarding the Olympics.

The members on this side of the House — along with many other groups in the community, including the Pivot Legal Society, the Carnegie Project and many, many others that I could mention — have determined by counting the numbers of conversions and the current and past loss of single-room-occupancy hotels that in fact it looks like perhaps we are not keeping up our end of the agreement.

There is a lot of concern by all of these people and the members on this side of the House that this will only increase — this not keeping up our end of the bargain — as we head closer to 2010. We're concerned because the city of Vancouver lost the opportunity to put a moratorium on conversions, thereby at least stemming the tide of what is so obvious, I'm sure, even to the members on the other side of the House: what is happening in the downtown east side.

Anybody that read a newspaper this weekend saw that two more hotels have issued eviction notices. The Pivot Legal Society, who are right there faster than anybody else to measure these…. They have a lawyer on staff. He looked at these things, these eviction notices, and he is saying that these are the first two hotels where they can actually now see direct relationships between the Olympics and the conversions. These tenants are possibly going to be evicted, if the eviction notices hold — they may or may not; they're being challenged — so we can build housing for Olympic workers, which no doubt is needed. But that wasn't the deal.

The deal was that we weren't going to lose any of the SROs because of the Olympics. We were not going to create any more homeless people on the streets. Heaven only knows the numbers are doubling and tripling every year right across the GVRD — a direct result of the loss of rooms on the downtown east side and the lack of new affordable housing being built. So we already know we have a problem. What we are trying to do here today is stop the problem in its tracks. We are trying to say: "For heaven's sake, let's live up to our agreement." What are we doing?

We said that we're going to go for the Olympics. People said, the naysayers all said: "Oh, oh, oh, the same things are going to happen that happened in Expo 86. We've got to be really careful here if we do this." So the provincial government, the city of Vancouver, all agreed — all the groups involved. We said we won't let it happen. We'll protect the vulnerable. We won't cause any more problems, either, for the businesses in British Columbia who are having problems because of homeless people on the streets. We'll make sure that we don't cause any more problems for them. We'll have a pact, and we'll look after the homeless. We'll get people off the streets. We'll see that they're decently housed.

Not only will we save money in social services — another fact that's, of course, been proven over and over again…. It costs us as taxpayers about double to keep somebody living on the street rather than in some, any, kind of accommodation. I don't believe that anybody on this side of the House is trying to say that SROs are an ideal form of housing. I have not heard anybody say that.

I myself sat on the housing committee at the GVRD for six years, at which time we owned the Stanley–New Fountain on the downtown east side. We did several tours of that facility because we were doing some work in there. I spoke with several residents at the time. There is no doubt that those are not perfect accommodations. The GVRD had many, many problems, as did the residents, with that kind of accommodation. But let me tell you, as a one, they were very clear that it beat living on the streets.

I'm sure that there isn't anybody sitting here in their comfortable chairs and going home to their warm, comfortable apartments in their warm cars who would disagree that any kind of accommodation in a pinch would be better than none.

We're not talking about the ideal, just to let the member know. She pointed out that we should get rid of all the SROs, as a goal, and move ahead. Well, I don't know what happens to all the people who would say: "Please don't take away my home, bad as it is."

We talk about leaving lasting legacies. I think probably the most important legacy or concern of people who are currently living on the streets or are one SRO away from living on the streets…. They would say: "The legacy I would like to see left for me is my room, my home, and I don't want to wait until after 2010 to have a home. I want to keep the one I have now."

I don't agree that it's outside of our jurisdiction to monitor the municipality or the city of Vancouver. I think that when you're in an agreement with the city or a municipality, you're all in it together, and you should all hold up your end of the agreement. My colleague has pointed out the rate of disappearance of SROs, and I've just remarked on the two latest ones that looked like they're on the chopping block, so I'm not going to repeat any of those things.

I did want to point out that the Lookout homeless shelter, which is the biggest one on the downtown east side…. Their statistics show that they turned away approximately 5,000 people last year. They've been very clear that they're not going to be able to help get new homeless people on the downtown east side off the streets. They don't have the room. They can't do it. So they're not going to be able to help us at all.

We as a province have promised to look after these people, and we have to do it. The Auditor General is the obvious place for this to be done. He or she is the watchdog of the people of British Columbia. Who else to monitor an agreement, a promise that we have made to the people of British Columbia?

I don't see us not honouring other agreements we've made or not at least discussing other agreements that we have made around the Olympics. We're caught up in hoopla, and I'm afraid that housing and the poor on the downtown east side are probably not in the forefront of most of our consciousness every day. I think that might be one of the reasons that we're not paying enough attention to what's happening on the downtown east side.

I have so much more I could say, but I'm sure I must be very close to my five minutes. I could talk, as I said, forever about why we need housing, but that isn't the discussion today. I think that this Legislature has become the last line of defence for a lot of people. We need to know what is happening before we can act, so I believe that we need to have close monitoring of the housing situation, of single-room occupancy.

If the city of Vancouver is not willing to do any more than increase the fee for conversion, which we all know will just be, as they say, the cost of doing business to the development industry…. I mean, who would blame them? If I was a developer, I would want to make money too. That's what developers do, just like our job as legislators is to make laws and our job is to honour agreements. We have made this agreement, and I believe that we should honour it. Therefore, I support this, because the AG is the proper person to monitor. Then we can act and keep up our agreements.

R. Hawes: Reading this motion just made me think right away of how typical this is of the usual oversimplification that the NDP uses whenever there's a complex problem.

Why think a complex problem through when you can play politics and fire out with something that's very simplistic, that you hope will win you a few votes from your constituency?

First, let me just say that my friend from Port Moody–Westwood mentioned a few minutes ago to me that his interpretation of this would be that the member has confused correlation with causation. She's linking the change in downtown Vancouver and the loss of SROs to the Olympics.

Well, I get that the NDP could not put their minds in the frame of an investor and what they might be thinking, but I don't think there are too many investors that own property right now that are out there thinking: "Gosh, the Olympics are coming. I think that today I'll just invest in my property." I don't think that's what this is about.

Property is climbing in value all over British Columbia. My personal property has increased dramatically. I'm sure anyone here who owns a home has seen a big increase in their assessed value. Is that related to the Olympics? I don't think so.

The cost of gasoline has skyrocketed over the last few years. Maybe that's part of the Olympics. To blame everything that's happening on the Olympics is foolishness. What you need to be talking about here….

R. Hawes: What we need to be talking about is a homelessness problem and what the real solutions are. The real solution isn't to ask the Auditor General to try somehow to link what's happening to the Olympics. That's not what this is about. This is about private property owners who actually…. I know the NDP don't like this, but those of us on our side of the House, anyway, believe there are private property rights.

When you own your property, you have the right to make certain decisions, and as staff in Vancouver city hall have said, trying to stop people from converting SROs — declaring a moratorium — won't solve the problem, because people may still just shut down their hotels or change the use without requiring zoning by just evicting people. That is their right. It's private property.

The answer here is to deal with the problem in a realistic fashion, to engage partnerships with free enterprise, with the municipalities, not to say: "Let's just keep those hotel rooms…." This doesn't even talk about the problem. All this talks about is trying to link something to the Olympics.

The Olympics are three years away, and I don't think there's going to be a rush of people saying: "I would like to buy a property in downtown Vancouver because the Olympics are going to be here in 2010." I don't get the correlation. Certainly, the causation is not there.

This motion, in my view, is not the kind of motion that I was hoping we would be in the House entertaining real debate on. This motion is, frankly, based on nothing. The Auditor General has nothing to look at, and it's not his responsibility.

I would rather we talked about the real problem of homelessness. In the throne speech there are some pathways to solutions, among other things, and things that haven't been discussed here at all — things like density bonusing or, as previous speakers said, talking about lower development cost charges, talking about municipalities allowing zoning for low-cost housing. Today in many municipalities in British Columbia you couldn't build low-cost housing if the government wanted to fund every penny of it tomorrow. We would not be allowed to do so because some municipalities simply won't allow the zoning.

Somewhere we have to have a real discussion on this problem. The debate that we do need to have cannot be based on a spurious motion like the one we see before us here. This motion, frankly…. Well, I don't think anyone would support it. I don't even understand why the NDP would think about it, because it doesn't cast light on what the real problem is.

The real problem has to do with building partnerships and the fact that even ten, 15 years ago those partnerships were not being built. This isn't a problem that arrived on our doorstep yesterday. This is a problem that's been building for a long, long time. The NDP did nothing about it through the '90s, so we now are trying to address the problem, and it would work better….

R. Hawes: Thanks, Madam Speaker, and I'm sure they will have an opportunity to get up and explain why playing politics with this problem is what their solution is. What I would just like to say is…. I would ask my friends in the NDP to find an opportunity to get up in a real discussion about homelessness, not this kind of phony, phony politicking.

S. Simpson: I'm very pleased to get up and have the opportunity to speak to this motion put forward by the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and to express my support for this motion.

It's interesting. The previous speaker talked about the challenges and not playing politics, and I think that he's correct. Nobody should be playing politics with this issue, and I believe that this motion will exactly solve that problem.

Madam Speaker, the reality of the situation is this. There were commitments made when the agreement on the Olympics was brought forward, and those commitments were that no additional harm would come to the most vulnerable of our citizens from the Olympics. In fact, my interpretation was that what social sustainability was going to mean as part of the envelope of sustainability in the Olympic initiative was that we were going to see a commitment to real improvements for those who are most vulnerable in our communities — that the legacy we were going to see was real improvements.

Unfortunately, there's a real question about whether that's going to be realized. We've seen the building problem. Now, I would agree the Liberal government has been responsible for doubling homelessness in British Columbia over their term. They've done that, and I'm sure the member is proud of that opportunity that he's created for another thousand additional people to sleep on the street in Vancouver.

The reality is that we need to get at this problem, and we need to get at it by determining whether, in fact, there are impacts from activities like the Olympics. At this point, we don't know. Why we don't know is because there is no independent body out there today to be able to measure that. The Auditor General affords us that opportunity. What the motion says is: "Be it resolved that this House calls on the new Auditor General to monitor the rate of single-room accommodation loss as a part of the Auditor General's office's evaluation of the Olympics."

Well, Madam Speaker, if we're going to look at the social sustainability questions as they relate to the Olympics — the bar that this government set, the bar that VANOC has set, which is to improve our social sustainability — then we have to have some way of measuring that. The Auditor General is a vehicle for that measurement.

When we look at how we measure social sustainability, there will be a number of areas where we need to meet that challenge. SROs and the availability of what is certainly not a form of housing that anybody would say is great by any means, but it's better than the street…. What people would say we need to measure….

We know, Madam Speaker, that in the downtown core, we have around 10,000 units of housing — about half of them social housing, about half of them SROs. We also know, as the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has pointed out, that we're losing those SROs. That's been acknowledged. It's been acknowledged by the city of Vancouver; it's been acknowledged by independent research; it's been acknowledged by people who live in that community. Those SROs are disappearing. They're disappearing at rates that are now accelerating, and we need to make the determination about what we do about that.

When we deal with those choices, we have to think about: well, what are the choices for the people who are in those SROs? Many of them are paying the $325 a month that their single welfare payment affords them under the shelter portion. What we know is that based on the city's analysis, if we were just to be at the cost of living today, it would be about $430 — what people would have for shelter if we were just at the cost of living without a real increase. We'll see tomorrow, I

We know that there is little potential for there to be much, if any, development of social housing because of lack of funding and lack of support from this government and from the federal government. There's not going to be much happen between now and 2010 that's going to be on the ground. We know that. That's the reality of the situation that we face.

We know that there will be more people out on the streets between now and 2010 if we don't take actions to meet the commitment of this government around the Olympics, to meet the commitment of VANOC around social sustainability, around improving people's circumstances in the long term.

What we need to do…. Quite frankly, if the government truly believes that they're heading in that direction, then the government should embrace this motion around the Auditor General. It would prove your case, if you really believed it. Instead, we'll get some kind of spin out of you at some point. The public affairs bureau will spin something out, but if you're really serious, then you should embrace and champion this motion, because it will prove your case.

The reality is that we need to fulfil our commitment to social sustainability if the Olympics are going to succeed. That's what we need to do. What that means is, if the Olympics are successful, it can't be about the two-week event. It has to be about the results of that. If the Olympics are going to be successful, it is going to be about the legacy. It is going to be about how those who are most vulnerable have come out of this in a better place than they went in.

To do that, we need to have the independent data to measure that success or that failure. The Auditor General affords us the opportunity to have that data. The Auditor General is an independent office that does that work without being swayed by either side of this House. They do it on their own. They do it well.

The question is: are we serious about the commitments the government made around social sustainability? Are we serious in trying to address the issues of homelessness, the reduction in SROs and that last line of defence from homelessness that SROs provide? If we are, then we need to have the information that allows us and others in the province to do their job.

In order to have that information, we need to have the vehicle that can deliver that information in an independent and balanced way. The Auditor General is that source.

If this government truly believes in transparency, in accountability and in trying to deal with the most vulnerable people in this province with compassion and a progressive approach, then they should embrace this motion, vote for it and do something good for a change.

L. Mayencourt: I want to start by saying that while I appreciate the arguments that are put forward by all members of this House with respect to this, I'm disappointed in the level of politicking that's going on around this issue. There's a lot of rhetoric about 5,000 of these and 3,000 of these and all that sort of stuff.

We know exactly the number of single-room-occupancy hotel rooms there were in 1997, in 1998, in 1999 and here in 2007. The reason we do is that twice a year the city of Vancouver goes out and inspects each and every building. We know exactly how many suites are there. We know how many of them are occupied. We know the condition of them. We even know if they have a lock on the door in these places.

The issue of trying to have the Auditor General somehow count the disappearance, if you would call it, of SROs is really unnecessary. We know exactly that over the last 15 years we have lost 75 units of social housing each and every year, and that's a trend that's been going on for a long time.

The reason that the trend is there is that some of these places are pretty nasty places to live. They're unsafe. They don't have fire sprinklers. They don't have fire escapes. They don't have locks on the doors. They have people dealing drugs in the hallways. That's the reason why we've lost 75 units, on average, over the last ten years in single-room-occupancy hotels.

L. Mayencourt: Now, the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast says: "And you haven't built one." My apologies to this House, but the member is grossly, grossly mistaken, because in the last six years in British Columbia, this government…

L. Mayencourt: …has built 11,000 units of social housing in this province — 11,000 units of social housing that did not exist before this government came into being.

L. Mayencourt: Oh, I would love to be able to speak, and I will wait until there's a little bit of silence here so I can get my point across.

The member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and I have been on the Public Accounts Committee for five of the last six years. In fact, she was the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. The Public Accounts Committee is the only entity that directs the Auditor General. In the years that I was on Public Accounts, not once — you can check Hansard — was the issue of SRO conversion raised either by a member of the NDP or, more specifically, by the Chair of Public Accounts herself, the member from Mount Pleasant.

What hypocrisy. It's not as if she's immune to the effects of homelessness or the atrocity that we call so-

cial housing in single-room-occupancy hotels. I think she's actually been in one.

I think the other thing that is really important is that the member from Mount Pleasant says we're not doing anything around social housing. Well, let me tell you, there are 200 units of social housing going into Woodward's just right now — 200 units in social housing in Woodward's. Some 44 units are going into the Pennsylvania Hotel, and 90 units are going into….

L. Mayencourt: You know, it's very difficult to speak with all this heckling coming from the so-called compassionate NDP on the other side.

L. Mayencourt: As I was saying, just this year we have the Portland Hotel Society that is building — what? — the Stanley–New Fountain. How many units of social housing was that? How about the Pennsylvania Hotel? How many units of housing there? How about Segal Place? How many units there? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

You know why the member from Mount Pleasant should be aware of those. It's that her husband runs the Portland Hotel Society. She says that we're not building in the downtown east side, and yet I can quote right now 300 units that are under construction today with the Portland Hotel Society alone. My goodness. I know there are lots of secret things that happen over on that side of the House, but you'd think she would have a chat with her husband on occasion about social housing since he's in the business.

The time has come for us to talk about what we're really talking about. I thank the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville, who said very clearly what the promise was under the IOC agreement. It was no net loss of SROs.

That's what we've been doing. Every SRO that is closed is replaced by at least two units of social housing in the city of Vancouver alone, not to mention what might be happening in Burnaby or what might be happening…. Oh, wait a minute. Burnaby's a bad example. They won't build social housing. Well, they will build social housing but only if it's got 40 parking stalls, a car wash bay and the approval of the mayor of the city of Burnaby.

New Westminster is not a very good example, either. As a matter of fact, New Westminster is so bad —and the member for New Westminster who sits here in the House has done nothing to help this…. They were so bad that they ran not just the Salvation Army out of town; they also ran Union Gospel Mission out of town. They have no desire and no commitment to create social housing in their communities. I will say this….

L. Mayencourt: I will also say this: even in the city of Vancouver, there's NIMBYism — people that do not want poor people living near them, or people with addictions living near them or people with a mental health issue.

Last year in my community we had a huge debate around Vancouver, around providing a cottage-like or congregate setting for people with mental illness at 39th and Fraser. I did not see one NDP member at the development permit application process. I did not see anyone on that side stand up and say: "You know what? We need to do that."

Now, by contrast, we had the Minister of Economic Development two months ago go to a meeting in the west side of Vancouver — the place where they won't let anything happen if it's for the poor, according to the NDP. The Minister of Economic Development stood up in a crowd and said: "You know what? We have to build this here because these people are in our neighbourhood, we are compassionate people, we know our social responsibility, and we're going to do it, damn it."

L. Mayencourt: The real issue here, I think, is this: we don't want to lose social housing or low-income housing, and in British Columbia, we are not. As a matter of fact, as of today, there are almost 100,000 people that receive supports through this government, either through the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters or directly through B.C. Housing or through non-profit agencies that are supported by this government that we're actually putting money into it.

This past year we spent almost $100 million more than the NDP ever did on social housing — something to be very proud of. Now, I know they did the best they could while they were in that dark decade and the money was bleeding out the sides of the government, but I've got to tell you what we said is that we would absolutely put this as a priority of our government.

The SROs in the downtown of Vancouver and in other areas of this province…. Certainly, we need to do what we can to preserve low-income housing. But there is no way that we can solve that problem here in this House. We need a city council in Vancouver, in Burnaby, in New Westminster, and people around this

province willing to allow social housing to be built in their neighbourhood. That's key — number one.

What we have found is that individuals in communities are not standing up for…. So for those members on that side of the House, every time — no need to duck — you've got a social housing project that is put forward in your neighbourhood, you should be there. You should be defending the vulnerable, the hard-to-house, and you should be out there…

L. Mayencourt: …standing up like the Minister of Economic Development has done, like I've done, like many members of this House have done. You've got to be there; you've got to show up. So I'm glad to hear that commitment from those members. I will be watching, because I really have noticed their absence and so have the 2,000 people that are living on the street.

It's time for British Columbia to do as the Premier says, which is to end homelessness, and we have to do it now. We are not going to be able to do it with empty rhetoric, and we are not going to be able to do it if those members won't come out to public meetings and say: "I support social housing in this neighbourhood. I know it's uncomfortable for somebody in your neighbourhood, but I am here to say that I'm putting my neck on the line to make sure social housing happens in my neighbourhood."

I've got to tell you that I've done that, and it cost plenty to do that, but that is our job, and that's something that we should be doing. We should be doing it. I know that the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville is doing it, but I wish the member for New Westminster was doing it. I wish the member from Burnaby was doing it. It is time for us to get serious about it.

I don't want to see us playing politics anymore with the poor people of British Columbia. I think it's time for us to actually lead and do some pretty substantial things. I want to tell you that I wish….

L. Mayencourt: You know, that member over there for Powell River–Sunshine Coast absolutely mocks the fact that I went and spent some time in the downtown east side, sleeping in an SRO so I would know what a hellhole it was…

L. Mayencourt: …and how important it was for someone to stand in this House….

It is time for each and every one of us to know what it's like to be in an SRO. It is time for each and every one of us to understand what it's like to be poor. The member for Cowichan-Ladysmith spoke today with passion about homelessness but, also, about poverty. We have to get into other people's shoes. But I've got to tell you, for all the speakers that were there on that side today, I don't think even one of them has spent a single night in an SRO. I don't think that even one of them has spent the night sleeping on the streets. Before they start calling on government to preserve….

L. Mayencourt: Before members opposite call on the government to try and preserve….

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