Hansard — Monday, February 26, 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		5509
	Therapeutic community
	L. Mayencourt
	N. Simons
	Housing initiatives
	D. Thorne
	K. Whittred
	Housing
	R. Cantelon
	L. Krog
	Role of prevention in sustainable health care
	D. Cubberley
	R. Sultan

Motions on Notice		5517
	Mining industry in B.C. (Motion 11)
	B. Bennett
	J. Rustad
	J. Horgan
	J. Yap
	N. Simons
	R. Sultan
	L. Krog
	D. Jarvis
	C. Wyse
	D. MacKay
	B. Simpson
	J. McIntyre

L. Mayencourt: Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to stand today and talk a little bit about an initiative that I've been working on for the last year and one that I hope to see come into fruition over the next several months.

I've spoken in this chamber before about San Patrignano. San Patrignano is a drug recovery community located in central Italy, and it is home to approximately 2,200 recovering addicts. Addicts come to San Patrignano to go through a recovery program, much as we have here in British Columbia, where individuals have the opportunity to engage in an insight-based treatment program. What is different about San Patrignano is the way that it's run, how long people stay there, what kinds of things they learn and what happens to them when the treatment and recovery program has been completed.

In the late '70s a fellow by the name of Vincenzo Muccioli, who was a wealthy farm owner in central Italy, decided that he did not think some of the treatment options available within Italy were meeting the mark. They just weren't helping individuals fully recover from addictions, and he felt compelled to do something more about it.

It was around this time that Vincenzo found a young lady, a heroin addict, sleeping in one of his barns. The young lady explained to him that she was from Rimini and that she was very concerned about the issues around addictions and some of the issues that she was facing. The only thing she felt she could do to get away from those addictions was a bit of a geographic cure, if it could be called that.

The location of San Patrignano is one of the keys to its success. It's about 30 kilometres east of Rimini, so it's slightly removed from the downtown core and the centre of some of the drug activity that happens in central Italy.

The young lady was the beginning of what would become the most successful drug recovery community in Europe. The deal that Vincenzo made with this young lady was very simple. He said: "You can stay here as long as you stay clean and sober, and you can stay here as long as you agree to contribute to the sustainability of this farm. I will make sure that you have food and clothing. I'll make sure that you get the recovery supports that you need." It was from that very simple little seed that was planted by that young lady and by Vincenzo that we find a model that is now being recognized around the world as being a spectacular recovery model.

When individuals come to San Patrignano, they basically come in free of charge. One of the things I found with recovery and with treatment facilities around British Columbia and other areas is that treatment can be very, very expensive. Yes, there are recovery programs that are offered by the province, and there are recovery programs that are offered through things like private insurers and what have you, but oftentimes individuals need a little bit more than a 21-day or 42-day recovery program.

In fact, I think recovery is probably one of those things that goes on for a lifetime. One of the things that I think is very valuable about San Patrignano is the fact that there is no barrier to anyone due to price, because San Patrignano is completely free to anyone that chooses to take that course in their life.

As I said, San Patrignano is a model. It has people come and live there, and generally speaking, they'll live there three to five years. In that three to five years they'll go through a recovery program that's similar to Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, but what is added to it or what is different from it is that at the end of the AA meeting or the NA meeting those individuals do not go back into the drug-infested communities from which they came. They actually stay within the community 24 hours a day, seven days per week and are surrounded by the endless love and support of other recovering addicts.

It's important also to note that this is a community, not just a treatment facility. It's actually a community in which individuals are engaged in working together to find ways to support each other through their recovery. One of the very amazing things for me is that the community is pretty much self-sustaining. They do that perhaps because they're in Italy, but it's also because they have an attitude there around cooperatives in which individuals are able to work together and decide what they're going to be doing with their life and with their community.

San Patrignano has 50 different workshops. Individuals that come go through their treatment program, and then they become part of the community that is working to sustain San Patrignano's benefits. They make products. They breed racehorses. They engage in things like making tapestries, making handmade wallpaper. And all of what they create is used and sold to sustain the community. It's very, very touching.

I remember talking with one young lady who expressed that she was working on a quilt. It was beautiful, and I asked her how much this quilt was going to cost. She said that it would sell for about €3,500, which is about $6,000 Canadian. She said to me that that is how she knows she's worthwhile. She also acknowledged the fact — the fact that she was making this and that the money was going to go back into the community to support other addicts — that she felt she was giving something to the community which had given her so much.

When that young lady leaves San Patrignano, and eventually she will, she knows that she has a job she can do that she's a master at — that no one else can make a quilt quite like the one she was making there. She knows that when the time comes for her to leave San Pat, there will be an opportunity for her to succeed in life and continue with her recovery.

That is the essence of what San Patrignano is about it. It's about helping people get clean, helping them get sober, helping them learn how to accept support from other individuals that live in the same circumstances as they do — become part of that community.

N. Simons: Thank you to my hon. friend opposite, who spoke eloquently about a treatment program or a therapeutic philosophy that has existed for many decades, not only in North America but in Europe and other parts of the world. It's not always applied to people with addictions issues but sometimes for communities that are made up of individuals with developmental disabilities, mental illnesses.

There has always been a push to try to incorporate treatment programs into a way of life so that the benefits accrued during that period can continue after you've left that particular place. I take no issue with the philosophy behind this particular approach to alcohol and drug treatment. I think it's worthy of discussion.

It's worthy of discussion, I believe, in the context of this. When people go to San Patrignano, as the member for Vancouver-Burrard described, they are provided with food and clothing. They're provided with a place to stay. They're provided with a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to participate in their community and feel valued.

I'm not saying that he's missing this, but I think, ultimately, that the member might be passing over this aspect of the issue. That is, we should be able to offer food, we should be able to provide clothing, and we should be able to provide a place to stay for citizens in this province whether or not they have an alcohol and drug problem, a mental illness — whatever their challenge is.

Those basic necessities of life should be available to British Columbians not only when they enter into a world of peace, a world of friendship and love behind the walls of an alcohol and drug treatment program. They should be able to access the necessities of life when they're outside as well. If you think about the reasons why people end up needing the support and the nurture of a community of people who have similar struggles and challenges, it's because they don't get that on the outside.

I would say that the philosophy and the model the member speaks about engenders in those who attend a feeling of belonging, a feeling of importance to one's community, a feeling of attachment to the same values and ideals of their fellow communities. They have something in common. They have a struggle with an addiction, and they have a challenge that they have had no success in overcoming in the outside world.

While I highly suspect that this treatment program would, in fact, be successful for many people, it's not because it's a program designed for alcohol and drug treatment. It's because people finally get to access what they're missing in the outside world. That is fellowship, that is a meaning in their life, that is an attachment to a value, and that is a feeling of being important enough to matter. Those are the people who are on our streets right now facing addictions and the mental health and homelessness crisis.

We need to address that issue in the community first. When options are available for other forms of treatment, they should be used when appropriate. But I believe, with all due respect, that our government should focus more on the preventative side and more on providing the necessities of life while people are living in our communities, rather than putting resources, necessarily…. Whether that member is suggesting that or not, I'm not sure, but that should be the focus of our plans to deal with the problems of alcohol and drug addiction in our communities.

L. Mayencourt: I thank the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast for his impassioned comments about San Patrignano.

Really, what we're talking about here is not necessarily a city like San Patrignano. We're talking about what I would call a therapeutic community, one in which individuals dealing with addictions would come and become part of a community, as the member has noted, and become a part of the support network.

One of things that I think is very distinctive about San Patrignano, and what I would hope we would find if we created a similar community in British Columbia, is that, yes, there is a sense in the community that it's necessary to provide for people, whether that's food or clothing or what have you. I think our government is doing its best to do that and will continue to move forward with things like shelter rate increases and a few other things that are going to make it easier for people to climb out of poverty or be lifted up out of poverty.

I think one of the distinctions here is that in San Patrignano it is the addicts who are actually creating the wealth. The addicts are actually the ones who are creating the money that allows them to build themselves up and take themselves out of the cycle of addictions and, very often, cycles of poverty and what have you. I also thank the member for raising the issue around people with developmental disabilities and people with mild mental illness issues, because that's a model that could possibly work in our communities as well.

I think that it's time for us in British Columbia to start looking outside the box and trying to find approaches that are different. I do agree with the member that we need to do prevention, harm reduction — a lot of things all at once. But I think the area that we really need to focus on is an area that I would call hope — the ability of someone who's in a terrible, terrible circumstance to be able to say: "There's an opportunity for me, for me as an addict, to climb out of my addictions, to

become part of a community, to contribute to the well-being of my neighbourhood, to connect with my family, to be a very meaningful person in life, to be the person that I've always dreamed I could be."

I will be working over the next several months, talking in communities around B.C. about the model of a therapeutic community and where that might be located in British Columbia. I believe passionately that the time has come for us to approach this model and start using it here in British Columbia. I make my own commitment here that I'm going to work really, really hard, and I'm not going to rest until I've created a therapeutic community here in British Columbia that offers a long-term treatment program, that offers vocational and life skills that help people reunite with their families and their communities.

D. Thorne: This morning I'd like to talk about housing initiatives in British Columbia — specifically, as a result of the direction and the initiatives proposed in last week's budget.

This budget, unfortunately, commits us to merely 250 new social housing units over two years. This, as most of us know, is a far cry from the number of units that were being built back when we had a program at B.C. Housing called Homes B.C., when we were building between a thousand and, I guess loosely, up to 1,500 social or subsidized housing units a year. So 250 new social housing units over two years is a far cry from that.

At this pace, it will probably take — I'm assuming, looking at the numbers — about 17 years to house the homeless of Greater Vancouver alone, and that is not taking into account estimates where we're assuming that homelessness numbers will probably triple by 2010.

The number of housing initiatives in the budget — some of them were fine. As far as these things go, making some of the shelters year-round is certainly a move in the right direction. An expansion of the rent supplement program is also a move in the right direction. As we know, the ministry was quite disheartened by the lack of numbers actually applying for subsidy during the few months since it was announced in October of last year.

But for every dollar of housing expenditure in this three-year fiscal plan, there appears to be…. About $4 of that is income tax cuts. That makes income tax cuts the real centrepiece of the housing strategy, which I certainly question, after reading the comments in the press by not only the media pundits who take particular interest in what goes on in the House but by some of the experts and academics in British Columbia as well. I do have some of those comments with me, and if my time doesn't run out, I will probably go over some of those comments.

If the $1.5 billion estimated in tax cuts over the next three years had been spent building social housing, I figure we could probably have just about eliminated homelessness in British Columbia. Instead, we have a budget that not only fails to deliver new social housing, but it will be taking potentially, possibly — I know this is not the goal, but likely it's what will happen — 750 existing social housing units and converting them to supportive housing for seniors.

This is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's also reminiscent of the game that gets played far too often. Just a few years ago federal dollars for low-income social housing were used to build assisted-living spaces for seniors, which before were never called housing. It was always considered a health care cost.

The province is going to take $250 million out of the 2006-07 surplus and park it in a fund that will pay $10 million in interest. It's pretty unclear if any of this money will actually go into building social housing. So one has to wonder about that.

On top of this, Mr. Speaker, with almost $3 billion in surplus, one wonders why there wasn't really a housing program to build family housing in this budget. And of course one wonders, as I mentioned before, how the minister could stand with a straight face and announce a housing strategy that had a mere 250 social housing units.

I'm beginning to believe that this government's answer to just about everything is subsidies. I see a program starting here with the rent supplement program that is very reminiscent of what's happening with child care. It's wonderful to have subsidies. I admire this government's move to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, to keep the subsidies. It's truly magic; it's magic. The commitment and the magic around this is remarkable.

With child care the subsidies are going to stay in place and be increased so that even more vulnerable people can get subsidies. In housing the rent supplements are going to do the same thing.

The problem is that all these wonderful subsidies and all these wonderful plans don't appear to take into consideration the fact that all the subsidies in the world do not build spaces or homes. You can give everybody in the province a subsidy. If there are no rental units, if there are no new child care spaces, if you have 14,000 people on a waiting list for family housing in British Columbia, you know that you will never, ever be able to use those rent supplements.

People can apply. They get the supplement. Unless they already have housing, they're out of luck. There is nothing being built. I have been reading all weekend through the service plans for this ministry. They acknowledge in there time and time again the sore, sore problem of nobody building rental housing in British Columbia. It's a problem. So rent supplements aren't going to work — just like child care subsidies won't work if we have thousands of people on waiting lists for child care.

Let me go on. It's difficult, but I will persevere. Let me say that if we do not get back into the game, into the business of building units for people, they will not be there, no matter how many rent supplements we have. So I think this is a dangerous move. This subsidy for everything, as an answer, is a dangerous move.

I might just add, before I move on, that not only do we have nobody, no developers — and one can under-

stand why; there's absolutely no money in it — building rental housing, but we also have conversions happening all over place, not just in the lower mainland. People are converting….

K. Whittred: I thank the member opposite for her thoughtful remarks around housing. I would like to, with your permission, disagree with a few of those comments.

I will agree with the member opposite that there is no magic bullet. Housing is indeed a very complex issue. I never cease to be amazed, however, that the members opposite are stuck in the '50s, the '60s and the '70s. They keep talking about programs that may, in fact, have worked in 1960. They might have worked in 1970 — things like Homes B.C. The member opposite seems totally unaware that B.C. Housing really hasn't specifically built housing since, I think, early in the '90s. B.C. Housing acts as a conduit to broker other housing programs.

The member opposite talked about the way that subsidies don't work. I would take issue with that. The SAFER program — the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters — is in fact one of the most successful housing programs this province has ever seen. I think that members opposite might recall that it was widely bragged about when they were a government. To suggest that subsidies don't work, I think, is to turn your back on a very successful model.

I am pleased that we have taken that very successful model, we've looked at it, we've said, "Here's something that works," and we're expanding that to family eligibility. I'm further pleased that we've taken that model and we've said that we're going to make even more families eligible for that by increasing the income level from $20,000 to $28,000. That is but one example.

The member opposite also took another example that was very misplaced when she spoke about robbing Peter to pay Paul. This was in the part of the budget that deals with taking $45 million over four years to convert a total of 750 units of seniors housing and to make it more appropriate for elderly people to stay in their homes.

You know, as we change, as our demographics change and we become an aging society, we have to find ways that are new and innovative for this time in history — not for the 1970s, but for this time in history — that enable our seniors to stay in their homes and enjoy the place that they've lived in. This is one way to do it. It's a way to take some money and to modify those accommodations so that they can continue to live there.

Another aspect of this budget that I think we are very pleased about, which is certainly alluded to in the member's comments, is around homelessness. We have not looked at that in just one single context. We've looked at that in a number of ways.

We have increased the housing allowance. That is going to help some people. We've increased the number of full-time shelter beds. That's going to help some other people. We have provided funds to increase transition housing for those who are mentally ill, for those who are in trouble in various capacities. All of those are going to help some segment of society.

We do not look at housing as just a means of helping one little group in our population, but as trying to help those right across the board.

In my community we have many, many people who are what we sometimes call house rich and cash poor. These are people who have owned their homes for 30 or 40 years. The equity has built up, but they live on fixed incomes. This budget addresses that issue. It says to those people that regardless of how much your home is worth, you are not going to have to lose the homeowner grant.

We've said to people: "We're going to give you more options to use your housing in order to plan your future." For that, we've allowed people to defer taxes at age 55 rather than having to look to age 65.

We're looking for new ideas. We are not stuck in the past. We are looking for new ideas on this side of the House. I was pleased that I heard — I think it was in the throne speech — about encouraging the….

D. Thorne: Well, I will stick to my original comment, which is that what we have in this province, primarily, is a lack of space. We have no housing available for low-income families in British Columbia. There is a 0.5 vacancy rate — 0.9 or something across the province — so low that it means there is nothing available.

We can have all the subsidy programs we want. We can have all the surpluses in the treasury that we do have. We can have all of these things. We have absolutely nothing for families in this province. This budget has nothing. We haven't provided anything since Home B.C. was cancelled by this government in 2001.

I sat on the board of the non-profit Greater Vancouver Housing Corp. for six years — all through the latter '90s, from '97, '98 on — and I can assure you that many, many housing units for families were built across this province. They were built through B.C. Housing, subsidized through B.C. Housing, and they are still being subsidized. For this member to stand up and say that nothing has been built since, heavens, decades ago is patently wrong, and I would suggest that some homework needs to be done.

Just a little word on homelessness, because my time will run out very quickly. There was a little in the budget for homelessness but, heaven knows, not very much. One can pick up the Vancouver Sun this morning. There's a huge article by Cameron from Vancouver city hall talking about how they doubt if they can even build two of the 12 they need to build before the Olympics. They don't understand why the government was so misleading to them, confusing them in the budget. Their councillors and the mayor were going out and announcing things that aren't going to happen. Why did they do this if in fact they are going to give

I think I spoke about that last week — about rooms being converted, etc., and the housing agreement for the Olympics not being kept up. That's all connected. The next day the budget just verified what I and my colleagues said last Monday about Vancouver housing for the Olympics — the agreement that we made.

Homelessness did get a little bit, maybe 10 percent of what they need in the Greater Vancouver region. I may be being generous, but maybe 10 percent. But for families in this province — zilch, zero, nothing once again, year after year after year. A waiting list is now approaching 14,000 across the province. How can the minister stand and deliver what she calls a housing budget when we have 14,000 families drifting towards the streets?

R. Cantelon: I rise today to talk about homelessness, continuing on the conversation.

The causes of homelessness have no simple descriptions and no easy answers. I think we can agree on that. It's a perplexing problem to all levels of government, particularly in these times of rapid job growth and prosperity. It is especially disconcerting that many of these persons are young.

Many of the young and not so young are afflicted with mental issues. All too often drugs and alcohol are involved, as well, in vicious variations of multiple dependency and self-medication. Some of these young people have left foster homes or stressful and sometimes abusive parental relationships. Others have become despairing or discouraged in what in another era, the '30s, would have been called people who are "down on their luck." It is really a combination of all of the above and other factors.

All of this is an all-too-familiar scenario that we see played out on our city streets in British Columbia — cities big and small from one end of the province to the other. This is a societal problem in the broadest sense. It can not be solved by throwing money at it. Building thousands of housing units is not financially practical today, nor will it solve the underlying problems.

If this shame is to be solved, it will take the will and commitment of all levels of government. More than that, solving this crisis will take the involvement of the citizens of this wealthy province.

How many members of this chamber have been approached by their constituents and supporters who express the urgent concern that action must be taken? I know I have, on several occasions. It is a call to leadership that we must respond to on both sides of this House.

Of course, this presents opportunities for members of both sides of this House to take political advantage and potshots about the lack of action by the party opposite to come to grips with this problem. Such criticism would likely be valid since the crisis continues and has continued under several administrations. It would be of little concern to our citizens and no comfort to those on the street that neither party, when in power, has found a permanent or effective solution.

There have been hopeful and promising initiatives. Last Friday it was my privilege to announce this government's support of such a local initiative. It began with the Nanaimo Home Builders Association, led by Mr. Doug Bromage, approaching the city council of Nanaimo with an idea of building some affordable housing. Yes, those often maligned builders and developers wanted to put something back into the community.

Doug Bromage's company, InSight Development, is one of the most successful land developers and condominium builders in Nanaimo. Their idea and, indeed, their offer was to build, at the entire expense of the Nanaimo Home Builders Association, some affordable housing units if the city would make available some city-owned property on which to build the project.

The initial scope of the project was quite modest. The homebuilders would build four units or so, and if other support could be available, it could perhaps be doubled to eight units, maybe more.

I was able to point out some property that I was aware of from my real estate days that had been acquired by the city for a road widening. John Horn, the city of Nanaimo social planning manager, ran with the idea, and city council committed to granting a nominal lease, waiving half the DCCs and some of the other application fees.

At the groundbreaking of the expanded Salvation Army shelter, I was able to connect John with B.C. Housing and the Minister of Forests and Range and Housing. The reaction from both these men was positive and encouraging. John Horn took advantage of the proposal call that went out last fall for 450 units from the ministry.

The submission was successful. The community received $2 million in mortgage financing, sufficient to build not four but 20 units of affordable housing. The ministry has committed ongoing support to make the mortgage payments and to provide support to the Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society to manage the property and to ensure that those who need it most and those for whom it will make the biggest difference will have access to these new units.

The support component is a key element in this successful proposal, as it must be with many of these types of houses. Individuals making a brave step forward in their lives need continuing support to sustain them in that choice they have made to start a new life.

Across the province the program was dramatically successful, capitalizing on a variety of innovative proposals. The ministry was able to blow away the targeted 450 units and deliver 758 housing units across the province.

Some will say that 20 units for Nanaimo is not nearly enough. After all, didn't the recent survey show that the homeless count was 300 for Nanaimo? It's a huge increase from just the hundred a couple of years ago. Indeed, it is certainly true that 20 represents a start, but it's a good start, not so much in the number but in the collaboration and the promise of the potential that that collaboration portends.

I'm not suggesting here that this approach will itself solve all our homelessness on the streets. What it shows, as I'm sure many of the proposals of the 758 successful proponents did, is that this is everyone's responsibility. These successes are a clear signal that communities and their citizens are ready to act. It is now our responsibility in the Legislative Assembly to provide programs that deliver incentive for these initiatives.

There will still, I'm sure, be barbs back and forth in this House, but among these non-productive exchanges let us try to put forth and recognize good ideas when we hear them. We will on this side of the House use and call our own any useful suggestions.

Not long ago I hurried to the bus stop on Georgia in Vancouver to catch the express bus to Horseshoe Bay. When I got there, I didn't know when the next bus was and if I would get to Horseshoe Bay on time to make my ferry connection. A young man, recognizing my dilemma, came up to me with a schedule. I thanked him, and then he asked me for a loonie — to catch a bus, he said. So I gave him a task. I said I would give him a toonie and told him I needed a quarter out of it, and he could keep the rest.

His enthusiasm in approaching the crowd at the bus stop was impressive. He returned with the quarter, so I gave him a ten-spot. He was incredulous. He said: "Are you sure about this?" Then we talked. He was homeless, and because he had no address, he could not get a job. Because he could not get a job, he could not get an apartment. I gave him my card and suggested he get in touch with my office. I should have given him the number for the member for Vancouver-Burrard. That would have given him a real chance.

While we talk about street people as though it were a new class of people, it is not. The homeless are an aggregation of individuals with individual problems that require personal and individual attention. We have to reach out corporately, collectively and individually. How often do we walk by, professing to care but not getting involved, as though these people were not members of the same human race?

I began by saying that there are no simple answers. They would have been done already. The example from Nanaimo that I gave speaks more of hope and generosity.

L. Krog: I want to thank the member for Nanaimo-Parksville for his remarks. He kept mentioning the subject of barbs during the course of his remarks, and I feel almost tempted to attack him, simply on the basis that I don't want to disappoint him this morning. But I will be gentle regardless.

L. Krog: The member for Okanagan-Westside can never resist a few comments to me, hon. Speaker, and I'm always touched by his generosity of spirit.

Speaking of generosity of spirit, that is precisely what this nation has been lacking in the last 15 and 20 years when it comes to issues of housing and homelessness. The member talked about it being a perplexing problem. It's really not that perplexing. When we are talking about the hard-to-house — and those are the people on the streets — the solutions are really quite clear, and they were always clear. There was a time in this country and in this province when we solved that problem, so to speak — when we dealt with it head-on — and that was in the creation of social housing, assisted living.

The fact is that we have emptied our mental health hospitals. We've emptied places like Riverview over the last couple of decades. We have put people on the streets. It happened in the United States. We saw what happened there.

Courageous American politicians, particularly in the major cities, have undertaken solutions for the problem. They have addressed it. They have realized that at the basis of it, if you don't provide housing for those who are hard to house, guess what. Nobody else is going to do it. The marketplace will not deliver housing to people who through various disabilities or issues sometimes damage the property they're in, fail to pay their rent — whatever the situation.

I do not expect, as a citizen of this province, the private sector to pay for the hard-to-house except through their tax dollars, like every one of us. It is our collective responsibility to do it. I do not expect the private sector to step up to the plate.

What Insight Development and the homebuilders in Nanaimo did was a wonderful thing. It was a courageous step, and I compliment them for it. That's four of the 20 units that will be built as a result. But it is not going to solve the problem of the 300 people that the member for Nanaimo-Parksville identified as being homeless in the city of Nanaimo alone, let alone the thousands of others who are homeless across this province as we speak.

It is up to us to do it. When I say us…. It is the members of this chamber and most particularly on the government side, who have control over the purse strings and have the majority in this chamber. Instead of giving British Columbians an across-the-board tax break that no one was expecting or asking for in the budget, they would have been far better to put it into housing.

The member for Coquitlam-Maillardville referred to the Vancouver Sun article. In that article they quote Mr. Gray, who's with the city of Vancouver. He said: "The $250 million would pay for 1,000 units of affordable housing, enough to build out all 12 of the sites the city has purchased and set aside for affordable housing." I don't think the city of Vancouver has an issue with what the problem is and how to solve it. It's pretty clear. You put the money into it, and you have to do it.

The average Canadian looks across this country today and knows that 20 and 30 years ago, yes, there were some people on the streets. You can argue like the Bible says, "The poor will always be with us," and use those wonderful lines. But in terms of the numbers and

the severity of the problem, there is no question that Canadians believe, and the government knows and we on this side of the House know, that it is far worse today, and it is most directly as a result of changes in government policy, starting with cuts at the federal level passed down to the provinces. And now provincial governments are trying to shift the responsibility onto municipal governments.

We have failed, and if in this rich time — with so much in surplus in this province and other provinces across the country and, indeed, more importantly, at the federal level — we don't address the problem today, it will never be addressed. That, frankly, is a defeatist attitude. It is the kind of attitude that the members opposite always suggest that my party is all about. We're all a bunch of whiners and complainers, but we've got no solutions.

I suggest to the members opposite that the solutions are obvious. Every social agency, the community groups, municipal politicians, the small business people in the downtown core of Nanaimo that I represent who are tired of seeing people sleeping in their doorways in the morning when they go to open up — those people understand what the solution is. The solution is for government to take the initiative, to step up to the plate and to deal with it. Even if they don't want to deal with it because it's the right thing to do — and it is the right thing to do — I would suggest strongly that the evidence is clear that you will save money….

R. Cantelon: I certainly am glad that the member opposite was able to simplify what I think is recognized as a very, very complex problem. People on the street have a variety of issues and multiple barriers that prevent them from obtaining employment and housing. Simply building houses and complexes — if you were to build one in Nanaimo the size of 300 — would be to ghettoize the problem and put it out of our minds.

It's going to take a more specific and individual solution, such as we're doing in Nanaimo with two beds for detox and two beds for rehab as a first step. I think that the unit of 20 that has been built in Nanaimo is very appropriate to the need, and certainly we want to encourage the private investment. Things aren't what they used to be. We can no longer afford to just throw up thousands of units. The market has changed, and the costs are high.

However, I certainly would stand on the record that we have accomplished. Back in 2000 the previous administration only spent $98 million on housing that year. We're now committing to $200 million a year and have just put in a $250 million trust for building houses. We now provide over 110,000 people with assistance in finding their houses in one form or another: through direct provision of housing, through subsidies, SAFER and other methods. But it needs to be expanded.

The market, as I said, isn't what it used to be. Thirty years ago there was lots of rental housing being built. Then developers quite simply found it more profitable to build condominiums, and the new rental stock began to decline.

However, the incentives that we're offering now — the subsidy is now up to $28,000 income for rental — will turn that. It will become apparent to developers and private enterprise that this is now an opportunity that they can recognize to meet the growing demand for rental tenancies, and they'll start to build them. It won't start immediately, but that is one end of the spectrum. We need to provide it for those who are on the street, and we need to provide daily support for them.

Simply to blindly say: "Build more units. Build huge numbers…." I think the member opposite recognizes it's not financially feasible today, and nor is it appropriate to the individual nature of these problems. Many of these people have dropped out of society for a variety of reasons, with many, many barriers to getting back in. We need to provide them shelter, yes, but we need to provide them support in developing and choosing to start a new life and get on with a more productive, more fulfilling and sustaining way of life.

I would say that this budget has provided many incentives and much support to these individuals and many incentives to the private sector and to municipalities. My example, I think, spoke of the need to have the municipalities on side, and I'm proud to be a citizen of Nanaimo, where they took the bull by the horns.

D. Cubberley: Today I want to speak a bit about the role of prevention in sustaining our health care system. Prevention is the lever available to us to reduce the incidence of disease in society. Cure of disease or the management of chronic disease is what we're currently relying upon to deal with what we have not prevented from happening. We're relying on cure to the detriment of prevention.

We hear a lot today about a conversation on health care in British Columbia, notionally to determine what can be done to improve it. The official narrative for this conversation characterizes health care in crisis terms due to rising costs and insatiable demands. Here's how the throne speech put it:

The speech goes on to vow fundamental health reforms that increase individual choice and maximize the supply of health services — steps it says won't be easy or without controversy or change. It concludes

with a ringing declaration that government is determined to put our health care system on a footing that ensures sustainability.

Paradoxically, the speech is essentially silent on the role of prevention in sustaining a public health care system for the long term. It claims credit for making progress in fostering greater physical activity, healthier eating habits and tobacco reduction but presents no benchmarks or statistics to indicate how that's happening and to what extent.

Most of the few initiatives it does mention, while certainly welcome, are not being developed as population health measures and implemented on a scale that can achieve a compression of the rising incidence of disease.

What's the real challenge health care is facing today? It's a growing mass of disease, both as life-threatening events that require heroic intervention with high technologies, and as chronic disease in populations living longer that have to managed.

We count a lot on technology to heal us, but we don't yet place our hopes on prevention in the same way. We don't develop it as a tool or a technology which, over time, can reduce the incidence of disease. We hear next to nothing about it in the conversation, which is odd, because without it, we will not sustain our public health care system. If we continue on the path we're on, we will so swamp our illness-cure system with disease that no amount of funding will allow it to fully address the challenge.

Prevention has a history of working magic among human populations, from the supply of clean drinking water and the treatment of waste to the control of infectious diseases and the inoculation of human populations. This has been long recognized. Indeed, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, put it in this way, with a clarity that's entirely missing today: "The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when impaired." We have yet to implement that paradigm.

Let's look at what our failure to prevent is driving us to in health care today. One unsustainable factor today is the rising incidence of type 2 diabetes. In 2004, 220,000 British Columbians were living with diabetes, mostly type 2, which was 5.2 percent of the total population. Six thousand people a year die from it, which is over a fifth of all deaths.

There are about 20,000 new cases a year diagnosed, for a net gain of 14,000 cases a year. About 40 percent of those cases will go on to develop complications like blindness, kidney disease, organ replacement, cardiovascular disease, amputations and premature death. Most diabetics rely on drugs and constant testing in order to manage their chronic disease, yet type 2 diabetes is a preventable disease. It's a lifestyle disease.

What are the costs to the health care system of doing nothing to prevent type 2 diabetes? In '03-04 people with diabetes and its complications accounted for 19 percent of all hospital costs, 14 percent of all MSP costs and 27 percent of Pharmacare costs. The total cost of diabetes was $1.04 billion, or about 10 percent of total health care spending. That's on one preventable disease.

That should get government's attention, and that should get government thinking. One disease is costing 10 percent of spending a year and a quarter of the entire Pharmacare budget, which is the fastest-rising cost in health care — one disease. If current trends continue unabated with no action, by 2015 costs will be nearly $2 billion a year.

Here's the paradox. The do-nothing approach until disease hits costs health care…. The increased costs to health care are about $75 million a year every year and rising.

But to address risk factors, we have to find additional money that can be spent on population health measures — initiatives that effectively and consciously alter the environment that people inhabit and that enable the healthy, physically active choice to actually become an easier choice.

As the Premier has lately come to understand with regard to climate change, voluntary action alone will not work. Government must show leadership and act. To do that, you need to design the interventions at population scale, and you need to invest in them.

The sickness-cure system can't do it. It is focused, quite properly, on secondary prevention, where it prevents at all, and on trying to get those who are developing or already have the disease to modify their lifestyle to manage it and lower the risk of complications — worthy work, to be sure, but not primary prevention.

The risk factors for type 2 diabetes and most other preventable non-genetic diseases and their complications are weight gain, physical inactivity and smoking. Leadership and strategic investment are needed to effect change in the prevalence of those risk factors.

How well is B.C. doing? Well, on the one hand, B.C. has typically had more active people and fewer obese people than other provinces in Canada, and that's still the case. But on the down side, we now have the highest incidence of overweight adults in Canada. More than half our population doesn't get enough exercise to tap health benefits from it.

R. Sultan: I'm pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the member for Saanich South and Deputy Chair of this Legislature's Health Committee. We learned a lot about the topic of preventive health medicine in our year of working very closely and cooperatively together.

Here are some of the basic facts — repeating, in part, some of the points already made. Largely because of lifestyle choices, experts suggest that this upcoming generation may indeed have shorter lives than those of us in our Legislature today. The killers will not be some new flesh-eating bacteria or some mutating cancer cell as yet unidentified. No, the killers will be the food we eat and our society's lack of ordinary physical exercise.

What to do about it? To paraphrase Bill Clinton's political adviser: it's lifestyle, stupid. The good news is that the solution does not depend on costly new bio-

technologies. We simply have to make some fairly minor adjustments in how we live our lives. The bad news is that the population seems to much prefer to be presented with some slick solution in the form of a pill or a new imaging technology or possibly even surgery under some general anaesthesia.

Why would I conclude that? Well, it's simply because that's how our society spends its money. We vote with our money, and only a small percentage of our government health dollars, to cite one example, is spent on prevention. But experts tell us a dollar spent on prevention is returned tenfold and more, offering a higher return than many acute care procedures.

Unfortunately, as the member has just pointed out, it's much more appealing to spend money on cures rather than prevention, and reinforcing this tendency are those who shout, "Get off my back," when government hectors them about drinking too many sugary colas, eating too many fried chickens or spending too much time playing video games. One well-known journalist whom I shall refer to as Mr. X recently accused our Health Committee of promoting the nanny state. As evidence, he could well have cited such initiatives as ActNow, QuitNow and our school fruit and vegetables programs.

Here is the political and public health dilemma: if people don't want to be lectured to, educated, inspired or even frightened into living healthier lives, perhaps we shouldn't incur their animosity. Let them go, in the name of personal freedom and rugged individualism.

Don't wear your seatbelt. Smoke a couple of packs a day. Lug around that extra poundage. Fry your brain with strange substances. Forget the veggies, and eat chocolate bars for lunch. That's your choice, my friend, and we live in a free country.

Here's the rub. When the debris of such lifestyle choices accumulates at our already stressed hospital emergency wards, do the nanny state rejectionists merit the same solicitous attention as everybody else? I would be very interested in Mr. X's answer to an important ethical question of our time — a dilemma that is as yet, it seems to me, unresolved.

D. Cubberley: As so often is the case, I think I can agree with most of what the member for West Vancouver–Capilano had to say about this, although in one regard I probably am slightly less pessimistic about the prospects for change. I would perhaps not estimate the potential reaction of the population to quite as high a degree as he would. But of course, I am buoyed….

That individual you mentioned was reacting, I believe, to tobacco controls at the time. I would say: look to the history of tobacco, and see what a successful intervention can be framed when it's viewed as a multilayered approach, when it is invested in substantially by governments and when we stay the course.

At one point in time those journalists were smoking on television during the news broadcast. When I was growing up, that was the case. The Premier of the province smoked on television. Today it is viewed as passé. It is viewed as worse than that. That is the extent to which change can be orchestrated — and, I believe, with massive public support, if you look at the numbers — over a period of time.

But leadership is required. Leadership is definitely needed. We have a vacuum. In fairness, I don't want to be overtly political about this. The talk of the conversation is the crisis in funding the sickness cure system. The solution is on another side of the ledger, and a great deal of attention — as much — has to be paid to the crises brewing there. By disregarding them or not focusing on them, we grow the crisis side of the health care budget. That's what we see.

It's in slow motion, but by George, it's speeding up right in front of our eyes. The mass of society is enlarging, and it is going to have dramatic consequences for the health care system. We simply cannot afford not to intervene.

Here in British Columbia one of the challenges we have is that a portion of the population has changed or, by nature, isn't falling into the trap that some of the others are — the more physically active, moderating their intake of foods and balancing their diet. That group of people, I believe, would be very supportive of government acting to ensure better health for the entire population.

I don't want to end on a sour note, but I believe we're hearing a lot about all the wonderful things we're doing, but we're not looking as closely as we might about where we are. There was a report card on child nutrition published recently, in which the overall grade for Canada ranked against other societies was "C." I don't want to shock you, but British Columbia's grade relative to other provinces was "D."

We're hearing a lot, and we are doing some things that are moving in the right direction, but we're nowhere near where we need to be. We need government to intervene in the environment and to engineer activity and better diet into our daily lives.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 11 without disturbing the priorities of the motions preceding it on the order paper.

J. Rustad: Mr. Speaker, I had thought that one of the members opposite might have been interested in

getting up and speaking to this important motion. That not being the case, I will certainly enjoy taking my turn in adding a few comments to Motion 11.

The member opposite who moved this motion unfortunately is not feeling too well today, and I really appreciate his efforts in coming in here and putting this motion on the table for discussion.

Mining is an incredibly important component of B.C.'s economy. It always has been, and it always will be because we have such a rich natural resource that has the ability, quite frankly, to create economic opportunities, jobs and futures that people in this province and, indeed, people around the country look for.

In my own riding I have one mine in particular, the Endako mine, that people have moved from across the country to come and work at. They do that because they know there's stability. They know there are openings. They know they can build a future there.

It's unfortunate that throughout the '90s we didn't see the same kind of interest or desire to keep a healthy mining industry. In the '90s we lost half of the mines and half of the jobs that we saw in this province. Exploration plummeted to a low of $29 million. Without exploration, without those new dollars, you don't have the investment. You don't have the new mines that are needed.

The opposition's response to this — in particular, the member for Cariboo North — was: "It's just all about the economy. It's all about where the cycle is for resources." But I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. In the words of the Imperial Metals chairman, spoken at the grand reopening of Mount Polley last year:

It's important that we take steps to make the mining industry happen. We can't just go and take it over and try to do things on our own. Of course not. We need private investment. We need to encourage those investments, and it's creating that kind of environment, quite frankly, that is what we have been able to do in this province.

Why is this so important? It's important because the people need to be able to try to build those futures. If we don't do the steps we're doing, if we aren't taking those steps now…. I refer back to the budget that we just released last week, where we're extending those flow-through credits, where we're actually saying that in the pine beetle areas we're going to increase those credits to try to drive those economic opportunities.

That is what's needed, because if we don't take those opportunities today, it will be lost. If we step back and don't try to encourage and nourish this industry, we will lose that opportunity that high commodity prices have given us and have created. We owe it to the children and the families of this province to take those steps and make that happen.

In the areas that have been attacked by pine beetle, many people look at that as a challenge, but I look at that as an opportunity. In my riding we have the Mount Milligan project, which is now in the environmental review process, which I think is going to become a fabulous mine that's going to create hundreds and hundreds of good-paying jobs averaging $94,000 a year.

Throughout the area in the south in my riding there have been literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of acres, that have been staked and claimed because of work that we tried to encourage through this government, through Geoscience B.C. They came and did some base work. They found that there is evidence of minerals being down there, and we have companies that are encouraged by that and are now going in and investing dollars. Those are going to create opportunities. Those are going to create a future, particularly throughout the pine beetle area.

I'd like to challenge the opposition members that are going to be up speaking today to this motion. I'd like for them to stand up and say…. We have 25 mines currently in the environmental review process. Which one do you approve of? Which one are you supportive of? Quite frankly, I have yet to hear them stand up and support a single mining project in this area.

The member for Cariboo North likes to speak about opportunities for this sort of thing. But once again, he says the only reason why this is happening now in this province is because of high commodity prices. But I'd like to go back again to the words of the Imperial Metals chairman, who said that it's the super flow-through share financing that….

J. Rustad: I look forward to mining being a huge success in our province in the coming years.

J. Horgan: As the official opposition Mines critic, it is a pleasure to stand here today and support this motion from the former minister, the member for East Kootenay.

I just ran as fast as my little feet and my tired lungs would take me from opposition day with the mining sector over at a local establishment. It was a great opportunity for me to lay out for those assembled the view of the official opposition on the minerals sector and, certainly, particularly about how I would proceed with the motion that's before us today.

First, I want to thank the member from Prince George for continuing partisanship at a time when partnership might well be a better order of the day. Certainly, in my discussions with the mover of this motion, I let him know in no uncertain terms that I would be supporting this motion. We all recognize on this side of the House that wealth generation in the hinterland is what drives our urban economy. It's what drives this province and has for decades.

I'll remind the member from Prince George that the last mineral mine approved in this province was

in 1997. That was the dark '90s. You'll remember them — the dark '90s, when nothing got done. There hasn't been a mine approved in this province since then to extract the minerals that are going to drive this economy.

I'm more about partnership than partisanship, hon. Speaker. You know that. So I want to talk in a cooperative way about the importance of this motion and the importance of mining to the province and to the economy of British Columbia. My friend from North Shore, I know, supports me in my partnership drive to eradicate partisanship from this place when we have motions such as this that are good for the economy, good for rural B.C., good for urban B.C. and good for all British Columbians.

The caveat, of course, is this, and we have two examples I'll raise for members to contemplate. One is a very positive one, and that's the announcement last week that the Galore Creek project up on the north coast in Bulkley Valley–Stikine has received approval from the provincial government and awaits federal approval to proceed.

Of course, we'll all hang on the federal government, as we do for many, many issues in British Columbia, and wait for them to get around to recognizing that B.C. is the economic driver of the west coast and the gateway to the Pacific, which it has always been. It didn't just happen in 2001. It has always been the gateway to the Pacific, because guess what. We're on the Pacific — news. Memo to Premier: "Guess what. We've always been there."

That's the positive news just this past week, and of course, everyone in the sector is very excited about that — some $7 billion in capital waiting to come into British Columbia once these approvals can take place. This is all good news, certainly good news in Cariboo North. It's good news in Bulkley Valley–Stikine, North Coast, Skeena, right up to Peace.

Then there's a downside, and that would be the state of play with Northgate Minerals and the Kemess North project. The challenge there, I think, is largely one of communication, but it's also a significant environmental issue. I have to take the member from Prince George to task, and I would turn the question back to him: what mine would he want to take out of the environmental assessment process and stand alone without the appropriate approvals, without the experts looking at it? What project is he going to pull out? Probably all of them, because streamlining regulation is what they're all about. That's what they're all about.

What we're about on this side is a mining sector that's environmentally conscious, a mining sector that respects aboriginal rights and a mining sector that will bring good-paying jobs to families right through rural British Columbia. That's what we're all about on this side of the House.

The challenge with the Kemess North project, hon. Speaker — as you well know, being from an area where mining was at one time a significant part of the economy — is that the first nations in the area, the Takla first nations, have some issues with the process. They've raised those with the Premier and with the government.

I don't know if the member from Prince George is paying any attention to people, other than the usual boosterism that he engages in, but there are other people in the province, and they have issues that they want to raise with respect to mining.

I think that certainly, in my discussion with Northgate they're trying very hard to accommodate. I'm hopeful that over time the first nations and Kemess North can reach an accommodation so that project can take place as well.

I want to go back. The member from Prince George, in his zeal, tended to twist history a little tiny bit. You'll recall, hon. Speaker, because you were in this place when copper prices were 60 cents. That was in '97, '98, '99. The member for Cariboo North certainly watches commodity prices. Anyone who pays any attention to the economy in British Columbia has to be cognizant of the goods and services we produce here.

On that note, I'll give way to my friend from Richmond, who I know will put partnership ahead of partisanship.

J. Yap: I appreciate this opportunity to speak on this motion in strong support and in favour of this motion. I appreciate my colleague the member for East Kootenay bringing forward this motion.

Before I go into all of the positives, I do want to address a few points that were raised by the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca — very interesting. I'm sure I heard, and it's in Hansard, that the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca talked about how the NDP, the opposition, are the party who support mining, when in fact during the 1990s we saw a decline from the $200-million-per-year average level during the 1980s — you can track it on a time line — down to $27 million by 2001.

That is the legacy. This NDP opposition, when they were in government, allowed our mining exploration industry to decline — another reason why we talk about the 1990s as the lost decade.

It's been estimated that $750 million in exploration spending was lost during the 1990s. That's the kind of support that the NDP purport to stand for. The member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca mentioned that they support mining. That's the kind of support.

During the 1990s two mines closed for every mine that opened, and that's according to the Vancouver Sun. During the 1990s, under the NDP, B.C.'s mining laws "were the most antagonistic of any jurisdiction in the world, " according to a survey of mining executives.

To me this one really summarizes mining exploration during the 1990s. A discussion paper by the NDP Energy Minister of the time, Anne Edwards, says: "At current exploration levels mining could virtually disappear in this province early in the 21st century." That is the legacy of support that the NDP stands for.

That's all the partisanship in my response here. Let's talk about the positives, and the positives are these — that, really, B.C. is blessed with rich natural resources, including being blessed with minerals that would be the envy of the world. The growth of mining,

exploration and operation of mines in B.C. is very much the history of B.C. That's a good reason why we should celebrate and support mining, mining exploration and the opening of mines. Mining and what comes from mines supports our way of life and modern life that we all enjoy.

Some examples — and I'm sure this is well known — of how mining touches the lives of each of us. A typical computer contains about 66 minerals. That's an interesting fact. A television contains about 35. A telephone — I'm not sure if this refers to a regular telephone or a cell phone — contains over 40 different minerals. A Boeing 747 contains about 4,000 kilograms of copper.

The point is that mining and the outputs from mines are very important to our way of life and to the communities where mining happens, because mining — not just exploration but mines — provides communities with supports and good-paying jobs, as was mentioned. We all stand for building communities, which are the very fabric of British Columbia.

Mining exploration is one of the keys to our provincial economy. In 2006 we saw a record $265 million. All of us should support the continued success of this industry. Mining exploration is one of the keys to British Columbia's success, and I support this motion.

N. Simons: It gives me pleasure to rise in support of the motion put forward by my hon. friend, whose real name is the member for East Kootenay. I only knew him by his other name.

I'd like to say that I had an opportunity to meet with the former minister on the issue of mining, because it's really, quite honestly, an area and an industry that hasn't been part of my past in terms of my professional career. In that experience I learned a lot about the British Columbia mining industry, and I've learned a lot about some of the preconceptions about various affiliations between industry and politics.

One thing I'd like to point out is that as far as I'm concerned, the party to which I belong is firmly in favour of encouraging activities that will benefit not only the people of the province but the environment of the province. We need to, obviously, balance the interests of all competing interests.

That being said, the issue is not simply that we're in favour and they're against. It's about making sure that the regulatory regime that does exist is fair and is not burdened by unimportant processes but rather is filled with an important regimen that will ensure that the balance taken between mineral exploration and protecting our environment is in sync with the values of the community. Essentially, when there are childish questions about which projects you support that are in front of the Environmental Assessment, it debases the level of debate in this House to a level. If it were not for the fact that it's insulting to children, I would call it childish.

The fact of the matter is that industries in British Columbia of all kinds have thrived and have done well and badly through the cycles of time. For this Liberal government to presume in some self-satisfactory way that the cost of copper is due to their glorious economic policies…. I think they're living in a dream world. Unfortunately, it's a dream world for them, and it's a nightmare for the rest of us.

The fact of the matter is that it's clear that the relationship between the opposition and the mineral industry is on a much better footing than the government would like us to believe. In fact, when we look at their involvement with going to the mining industry, it's reminiscent of an excited dog that doesn't manage to control its bladder. Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, I'm….

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, sit down just for a second. I think we can keep our language elevated just a little bit higher.

N. Simons: I apologize if my remarks were too close to the opposite of where they should be.

I'll bring the matter to a higher level, and the higher level that I'd like to mention is the fact that the minister talked to me about the history of different political parties and their association with the mineral industry in the past. I decided to do my own research, because I'll tell you, Madam Speaker, that I'm not sure that he's as unbiased as I would have assumed, even though we had a very lovely visit. I'm assuming that the member had a very lovely visit with me as well, and I will presume that, barring any e-mail to the contrary.

I've got industrial mineral exploration in my constituency, which is run by organizations that are committed to community involvement, to community participation and to community consultation. That is an issue that is becoming and has become a very important one in the industry. I think they should be applauded for that, as well as for their recognition of the importance of the environment and of sustainable communities. To continue to characterize themselves as the only friend of an industry such as mining is, quite frankly, as I mentioned earlier, a little bit pathetic.

I'd just like to say that our leader has been entirely clear on this subject. The mining industry has approached us. We have approached the mining industry. There is a mutual respect. There's a mutual understanding of how things can work in the future. There's an opportunity for all of us to get behind the mining sector, to support their projects that, when measured in the balance of community interests, weigh on the side of the community benefit.

The members opposite know very well that this is the position of this side of the House, and to perpetuate otherwise is simply part of the cynical process in which partisanship takes priority over partnership. I'd ask the members of the government to recognize the fact that we all support strong communities, communities that are supported by a viable mining industry.

R. Sultan: I am pleased to offer my remarks in support of the motion of our former Minister of State for Mining, who played such a key role in encouraging the current exuberant state of this key industry.

As we celebrate the surge in mine exploration spending, as has already been pointed out, we might remind ourselves of a few remaining problems that have not yet been resolved — for example, Ottawa's reflex defence of the Dolly Varden in small, remote wilderness lakes and continuing uncertainties with respect to establishing a predictable footing for the mining industry among first nations. To illustrate these, I would like to point to the company and the project already referred to by the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca — namely, Northgate Minerals Corp. and the Kemess mine about 400 kilometres north of Prince George.

The history of this project alone would illustrate the sometimes exotic history of mining in this province, since it would encompass former Premier Mike Harcourt's expropriation of Windy Craggy; a well-publicized dinner party in Washington, D.C.; Peggy Witte — how will we ever forget Peggy? — and Royal Oak Mines; and former Premier Glen Clark's action to provide compensatory funding to get out of this huge tangle at Kemess.

It has, in fact, been a great success at the end of the day. It pumps an estimated $25 million a year into the Prince George economy directly, without consideration of multiplier effects. It pumps $150 million a year into the British Columbia economy. It provides 350 direct jobs and 150 contractor jobs — again, without considering the multiplier effects.

It's a British Columbia mining success story of the first magnitude, but like all mines, the end is in sight. If Kemess is not to phase into decommissioning mode, it's vital that the adjacent Kemess North project go ahead. But Kemess North is bogged down, not in Victoria particularly but elsewhere.

Northgate has other options — potential mine developments in northern Ontario, the Young-Davidson claim. It doesn't seem conceivable that Kemess itself could shut down, enter decommissioning and then Kemess North restart. It needs a seamless transition from one project to the other if overall economics are to be sustained.

Our Minister of State for Mining went to Ottawa to try to make these points forcefully. However, we're clearly dealing with a minority federal government in pre-election mode. While the government in Victoria is doing its best, things continue to be hung up. Whether it all meshes with a happy outcome remains to be seen. High selling prices are, of course, a tremendous lubricant to the process and are very helpful.

Meanwhile, we have 25 mines in the permitting stage in this province, but we can only brag about one actual greenfields mining project that has come into production in those five years — namely, Western Canadian Coal's Wolverine mine at Tumbler Ridge. Let's quickly skip over the sad story of Pine Valley's Willow Creek project. It opened up commercial production of their coalmine and within 18 months or so was in the CCAA insolvency process.

These developments are a useful reminder of an unchanged reality; namely, developing new mines is an expensive, lengthy and risky venture. Mine development is not automatic. To confirm the attractiveness of our risk/reward profile in this industry in B.C., the industry would surely benefit from a timely solution to the roadblocks at Kemess North.

L. Krog: The member for Richmond-Steveston talked about being blessed with resources in this province, and it reminds me of some of the things that have been said this morning about the history of mining. The fact is that it's not the province that was blessed. One of the reasons we're not developing mines in the way we are in this province is because we are victims of our history. The reality is that we stole the province from the aboriginals.

We can use other language, but that's the truth. We didn't sign treaties. We didn't do it in legitimate process. Today, quite rightly, the first nations of this province are saying to the mining industry: "You're not going to go ahead and do this until we settle our claims." So we are victims of that history.

Many communities are victims of the nature of mining. There are communities in this province that simply don't exist anymore, which were once prosperous communities with opera houses, courthouses and all the kinds of facilities we associate with so-called civilization. That is the history of this province.

But there is no one on this side of the House who will argue against the importance of the motion brought forward this morning by the former Minister of State for Mining — that it is a necessary and integral part of British Columbia's economic development to have a healthy mining industry. But to pretend for a moment that government policy is somehow the most important factor in that development is to ignore the realities of the marketplace.

Although I note that the member for Prince George–Omineca did talk this morning about the necessity for tax breaks, quoting the head of Imperial Metals. That, I take him to mean, is really an argument for subsidies, which would be a gross interference in the marketplace. I'm shocked that a member of a free enterprise party would talk about subsidies, but he did nevertheless.

If we're going to subsidize the mining industry, then we have to subsidize, so to speak, the environmental damage that can flow as well. There's no better example than Britannia Beach. There is an example of why in the '90s, under the NDP, the government said finally, with respect to two of the major industries in this province historically — both forestry and mining — that we couldn't quite continue to do it the same way anymore.

I would suggest strongly that history will finally record and recognize that if the Harcourt government was unpopular, it was because it finally said that we simply couldn't go on doing things the way we'd done them for 200 years in this province. We simply couldn't continue.

We are now in a position where we have a permitting process that is fairly complex, and it should be. At

the end of the day, unless the mining company is in good shape when the mine shuts down, if there are environmental costs to be paid, it'll be the taxpayers who will be paying them. My friend from Prince George–Omineca is arguing we should pay the cost up front, as well, to get the mine started and that the taxpayers be stuck with the bill at the end of it.

The fact is that we have to approach this in a sensible and appropriate manner to guarantee a standard of regulation appropriate to the values of British Columbians; to ensure that there is safety in the mines, as opposed to the mess that we know happened back east with Westray; to ensure that the communities developed are developed as part of a larger economic strategy that would allow them to remain sustainable after the mine either diminishes production or shuts down.

We have a role to play to ensure that the investors in those mining companies, which are often pension plans, receive a decent and guaranteed return. It's in all of our interests to ensure that the mining industry in this province is prosperous and, to use the words of the motion "is an important contributor to a vibrant provincial economy."

If we're going to do that, we had better start talking about the truth of things instead of the rhetoric. I've heard a lot of rhetoric here this morning about the dismal '90s and regulation and blah, blah, blah. Let's talk about the facts.

The member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca wisely pointed out: look at the pricing of base metals. Look at the state of the global economy. Look at the demands that are now being placed by nations such as China, in particular — and India is another example — for the production of base metals and resources from around the planet in order to sustain their burgeoning economies. Those are the realities.

I think and believe that what the mining industry in this province wants is honesty, the facts on the table, and a commitment by government to a process for mining approvals that is efficient and respects the values of British Columbians and ensures that the mining industry — like this motion suggests — will remain a vibrant contributor to the provincial economy long after those of us who occupy the seats in this chamber have ceased to do so.

I think that's what the mining industry really wants. The mining industry wants the kind of regulatory regime that is sensible, respects values, ensures a return on a significant investment and guarantees the longevity of an industry that we know has historically played such an important, vital and valuable role in the history of this province.

D. Jarvis: I'm going to come at this in a different way and talk about the history of mining and how it has been the basis of British Columbia's growth and how mining helped to define this province. Back in the mid-1700s a Spanish galleon got lost off the coast of B.C., couldn't find Vancouver Island and ended up in the Charlottes. It was rescued by a Haida war canoe, and they happened to have gold on them. The Euros love gold. Hence, when they went back to their country, Spain, people started moving to the new world. Gold was here, especially in British Columbia.

In more modern history, my great-grandfather arrived in British Columbia as a goldminer and started mining for gold. We have become today what we are, basically — a mining society. We had trapping first, then mining, then forestry and farming, but the basis has always been mining.

Discovery of gold really occurred in British Columbia back in the early 1800s, I think, with Hills Bar up near Yale on the lower Fraser. Then Barkerville came in about '58. Then in 1862 we had the Stikine rush and then the infamous '96 Yukon gold rush.

Mining brought stability to the rural people of British Columbia. It's a huge generator of wealth, and it's very significant when you see mines like the Sullivan mine, which ran for almost 100 years. At times its production exceeded the revenue of the British Columbia government. It had a bigger budget than Victoria did — hard to believe.

Highland Valley has been out there for years and years, and it's not necessarily that the price of mining is flourishing right now because of commodity markets. Highland Valley was able to mine, make copper and employ hundreds and hundreds of people up in that area when the price was down at 62 cents. Just because it's over $2 now, they still can do it.

It was in the '90s where the mining diminished in this province. The government of the day were actually hypocrites on it. They said that we could import our resources, that mining was bad. Bob Williams said that when he was a….

D. Jarvis: Well, he's one of your old gurus, and why people are criticizing you now is the fact that the opposition, when they were government, did approve a mine. In 1992 they approved Mount Milligan, and then they took the approval away.

The problem is that we need new mines at all times. That previous government went also on a road of environmental kick and closed down areas of this province that were larger than some of the provinces. They did deactivation of all the roads, which impaired all the explorations.

I haven't got too much time. I'd love to go on for hours on this. But as I said, hundreds and thousands of jobs were lost because of the previous government in this province. No new mines are there to replace the old mines. A mine doesn't last forever, so you have to have a reproduction of mines. It was a disastrous period, the 1990s, to mining.

I think we have to remember that mining's biggest value is not only to the province as a whole, but it's to the rural parts of British Columbia. That's what keeps them alive.

The success of mining is used in about five different steps. First, you have your exploration, and then you

have your discovery. Then you have your development, and then you have production. Then you have reclamation. We must remember, on the reclamation, that mining is not bad because only 0.8 percent of 1 percent of the land in all of British Columbia has been disturbed by mining. It's a small item.

Mining is a heritage of British Columbia. But if we don't reproduce and put more mines out there, the heritage aspect might be an oxymoron in that case. Thank you for your time. It's appreciated.

C. Wyse: It is indeed my pleasure to rise in the House today and speak in favour of the motion that is in front of us. Being from Cariboo South, I'm from a part of the province that in actual fact has two active mines. Just for the information of the colleagues here in the House, those mines shut down as a result of the price of copper plummeting.

The mines continued to work for a period of time. The price of copper continued to plummet, and the mines ceased to operate for a period of time. I know from personal experience, in actual fact, the effect on an economy with mining and when the mines themselves shut down. Fortunately, both these mines have long reserves from a mining standpoint of view.

One of the first things that happened coincidentally upon my election was that the price of copper hit all-time records, and the mines reopened. Different than the government, I don't take credit for that. Likewise, I do recognize that the potential we're talking about in this motion has nothing to do with this House.

In actual fact, it has to do with the geology that shaped British Columbia, leading to terrains and subduction zones that give us this potential for mines to be developed. The issue that faces us, though, is part of our history.

There likewise exists in my riding now, directly in Cariboo South, a known ore body out towards Fish Lake. That ore body has the economic desirability to be developed. The issue that faces it is not only addressing the issues around environment and the concerns that go with it, but it also involves the Tsilhqot'in National Government.

Without the direct involvement of that group in the discussions, we have a collision course between the intent of this motion and what we would like to see happen down here in Victoria. It's important that people recognize that it's not just the area of telephone code 604 that benefits from the mine development and the taxation revenues generated by it, but also the other area codes. Here we're talking about a group of British Columbians that just recently got telephones.

In closing, I speak in favour of the motion. I wish to just mention that I wrote to the Premier approximately 14 months ago, drawing his attention that unless first nations were involved in the discussions, not only would there be mineral exploration difficulties but likewise in the development of the Nechako basin for oil and gas. To my knowledge, nothing has taken place. I encourage the government to get on with their direct responsibilities.

D. MacKay: I'd like to thank the member for East Kootenay for introducing Motion 11, and I'm certainly going to speak in favour of it.

It's interesting. We talk about how great the mining industry is for the economy of British Columbia, but we just have to look at the population of our province to understand the benefits that the people in the province derive from the mining industry. You just have to look at the services that are delivered through our health care system and how much that is dependent upon the mining industry.

A couple of things that come to mind right now would be the MRIs and CT scans, the beds that people lie on and the bedpans that they use. There are a number of things that — needles…. Everything depends on the mining industry. It's a health issue for the provincial economy as well as for the people of the province.

Just going back one year, back into 2006, we look at the number of dollars spent on exploration, at $265 million. That's quite remarkable. Between the mining industry and the exploration industry, they generate about $6 billion in provincial revenue, so that creates a large number of jobs and also pays a lot of the bills for us in this province. It pays for the bills in the social services programs. It pays for hospital care, and it pays for schools.

Actually, 60 percent of all Canadian exploration is based in the province of British Columbia. We manage to raise, in this small province with a population base of 4.4 million people, $3.2 billion in equity capital. That speaks very highly of the interest and the world place that British Columbia has in the mining sector — 28,000 mining and mineral sector–related jobs throughout the province of British Columbia in 50 communities rely on the mining industry.

We talked about the salaries — $94,000 a year plus benefits. The member from Juan de Fuca spoke about NovaGold receiving environmental assessment certification from the province. That is really good news for northwestern British Columbia, given the fact that the capital cost for that project today is pegged at $2.3 billion — $2.3 billion just to bring that mine on-stream. A thousand jobs in construction, 500 full-time jobs once that mine is in production.

Look at the spinoff, the 3-to-1 spinoff that normally goes with the mining industry. That's another 1,500 jobs. That's 2,000 jobs from that one mine for 25 years in the northwest part of my province. That's going to create a lot of employment opportunities.

That certainly bodes well for the Tahltan Nation, whose traditional territory NovaGold is on. That's created some great opportunities for the natives that live in my part of the province. I'm excited about that, and I look forward as that project continues to move ahead.

The actual amount of land that is disturbed in the mining industry today is about 0.03 percent, and $6 billion worth of provincial revenue is generated from that. That speaks wonders of the mining industry and

the great strides that have come forward in the mining industry over the years of this province from when this province was first developed.

I didn't really want to do this, but I'm going to go back to the '90s just for a couple of minutes. I want to remind everybody that for every mine that opened in the 1990s, two closed — almost 15,000 jobs at the start of the 1990s in the mining industry. At the end of the 1990s they lost almost half of the mining jobs.

It's not because of the commodity prices. The commodity prices were the same the world over. They weren't paying a different price in Canada and a different price in Australia or Chile. The mining industry just went elsewhere to do their work.

You know why? Stop to think about this. The corporate capital tax was imposed on equipment. If you bought a brand-new cat or piece of equipment — and the mining industry has very expensive equipment — they imposed a corporate capital tax on that. We got rid of it. We got rid of the PST on production equipment for the mining industry. Is it any wonder that the mining industry came back to the province and decided to spend all that money?

I realize that we're running out of time here. I have a lot more to say, but I will yield the floor to the member for Cariboo North.

B. Simpson: Unlike most of the MLAs who have spoken out on this, I actually worked in a mine — worked on the blasting crew, worked at Brenda Mines in Peachland. And guess what. Brenda Mines in Peachland closed in 1984, and Noranda left the province for good in 1984 when some of the members of the current Liberal caucus were actually in government and associated with that party at the time.

It's hard to support something that has been so dramatically undermined by the previous government. Let's set the record straight. In 1976, without notice or consultation, the Socred government increased the coal tax, adding an additional burden to the mining industry in British Columbia. In 1977 three mining companies that had tried to go through the Supreme Court of Canada against the super-royalty won the case.

The Socred government at the time passed retroactive legislation allowing the government to keep $30 million that had been illegally collected. In 1978 the Minister of Finance for the Socreds began to review and significantly increase a large number of user fees. They estimate that that impacted the mining cost substantially. In 1981, with no consultation or notice, the water tax was raised. It raised less than a million dollars for the government. By OIC, it was raised so that it yielded $180 million for 1982.

The mining industry had to bear $19 million. That's $400,000 additional cost per mine. In 1982 the Mining Association recognized the impact that these taxes were having on operating mines. They went to the government and forecast to the government at the time the closure of ten mines within two years and the loss of up to 5,000 direct jobs. The government did not even give them a response.

In 1984 Noranda Mines, which had been operating four mines in B.C., closed them all and moved its large Vancouver head office out of the province. In 1985 Falconbridge left the province. In 1985 Newmont left the province.

B. Simpson: In 1985 — correct — which some of your members were party to.

So let's talk about real history. The real history is that the legacy of mining in this province, in the Socred government era, did not leave much of an option for the government that took over that mess to try and restructure the mining when world prices were as low as they possibly could get and when global exploration dollars disappeared.

Let's take a look at what does need to happen, because I do support this motion and I realize my time is short. What the mining industry has been saying, and what we agree with, is that we need a strategic mining plan for this province. The mining industry wants to know what the lay of the land is, and it's more than flow-through shares.

They want to know what the partnership is around infrastructure. How are they going to get transportation lines to their mines — highway or rail? How are they going to get their energy costs down? How, in a world of climate change, are they going to be supported to use best available technology so that the extraction of the minerals does not add to the burden of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions?

They want to know where their workforce is going to come from. Communities want to know that they're not going to have transient labour working these mines, like we have in Gibraltar and other places where they come in, they work, they leave and they take their money with them to Alberta or Calgary or wherever they go. They want to know that first nations rights are going to be taken into account on mine approvals, and they want to know that first nations are going to be supported to play a role in working those mines and in supporting their community economic development.

It's time to stop this nonsense of history. This government has to learn that they won the election in 2001 — I don't know why they can't figure that out — and that for six years now, they still haven't developed a strategic mining plan.

Mr. Speaker: The member for West Vancouver–Garibaldi, and noting the hour.

J. McIntyre: I'll be very, very brief. I find it so difficult to sit here and listen to members of the opposition go on and on and on about their support for mining when you look at the history and what they've done in this province to mining. It's a well-known fact they chased the industry out of this province all during the '90s.

J. McIntyre: Let me read a fact in the record, if I could hear myself speak.

In the '80s, B.C. had 20 percent of Canada's exploration budget. In the '90s it dropped down to 6 percent. We've taken it back to 16 percent. Let's get the facts on the record.

Hon. B. Penner: Mr. Speaker, you said the motion is carried, and with that I would move adjournment of the House.

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