Hansard — Monday, March 12, 2007 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Tributes		6063
	Achievements of B.C. athletes
	Hon. G. Campbell

Introductions by Members		6063

Tributes		6063
	Kristi Richards
	Hon. R. Thorpe

Introductions by Members		6063

Tributes		6064
	Clan basketball team championship
	H. Bloy

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		6064
	Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 14)
	Hon. C. Taylor
	Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 16)
	Hon. J. Les

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		6065
	St. John Ambulance life-saving award recipients
	C. Wyse
	Give the Gift of Sight foundation
	J. Rustad
	Pacific Northwest raptors centre
	D. Routley
	Simon Fraser University athletic complex
	H. Bloy
	Simon Fraser Society for Community Living
	D. Thorne
	Asian contributors to Canadian Cancer Society campaign
	R. Lee

Oral Questions		6067
	Government action on farmworker safety
	C. James
	Hon. J. Les
	Employment standards for farmworkers
	C. James
	Hon. O. Ilich
	R. Chouhan
	C. Puchmayr
	Government action on farmworker safety
	C. Evans
	Hon. O. Ilich
	Employment standards for farmworkers
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. O. Ilich
	J. Kwan
	Hon. P. Bell
	H. Bains
	H. Lali
	A. Dix

Petitions		6071
	C. Trevena

Second Reading of Bills		6071
	Public Inquiry Act (Bill 6) (continued)
	J. Horgan
	J. Kwan
	G. Coons
	M. Sather
	B. Ralston
	B. Simpson
	C. Puchmayr
	H. Lali
	A. Dix
	Hon. W. Oppal

Introduction of Bills		6095
	Amendments to Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007 (Bill 2)
	Hon. C. Taylor

Committee of the Whole House		6095
	Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007 (Bill 2)
	Hon. C. Taylor
	G. Robertson
	B. Ralston
	B. Simpson
	R. Fleming

Reporting of Bills		6099
	Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007 (Bill 2)

Third Reading of Bills		6099
	Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007 (Bill 2)

Committee of the Whole House		6099
	Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 3)
	Hon. C. Taylor

Reporting of Bills		6099
	Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 3)

Third Reading of Bills		6099
	Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 3)

Royal Assent to Bills		6100
	Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007 (Bill 2)
	Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 3)
	Ministerial Accountability Bases Act, 2006-2007 (Bill 5)
	Supply Act, 2006-2007 (Supplementary Estimates No. 1) (Bill 4)

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		6100
	Estimates: Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (continued)
	Hon. P. Bell
	C. Evans
	G. Robertson
	N. Simons
	R. Chouhan
	J. Brar
	Estimates: Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance
	Hon. C. Richmond
	J. Brar

Hon. G. Campbell: This morning the member for Burquitlam acknowledged the SFU Clan's great victory in the national women's basketball championship this weekend. I want to add my congratulations to that team. But I also want to acknowledge that there were some other great achievements by B.C. athletes on the road to 2010 in the past few days. Team B.C. wrapped up the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse yesterday with a total of 77 medals. That included 24 gold medals, more than twice as many as they claimed in the 2003 games.

B.C. athletes were on the international podium this weekend as well. I should mention, on behalf of the member for Burnaby North, that we did exceptionally well in the ping pong/table tennis category, where we won four out of five gold medals. He's an honorary president, so I think we should recognize that.

Internationally, this weekend Denny Morrison from Fort St. John, who was a silver medallist in Torino, won two silver and a bronze at the ISU speed skating championships in Salt Lake City. North Vancouver snowboarder Drew Neilson won his third straight World Cup snowboard cross yesterday, and on Saturday Steve Omischl of Kelowna won bronze in the men's aerial and freestyle skiing world championship in Italy. Just a couple of weeks ago in Penticton Steve took home both a gold and a bronze in the 2007 World Cup title. His win in Italy this weekend followed a gold medal performance by Summerland's Kristi Richards in the same event.

If I could just mention Kristi for one second. She came back from an injury. Two years ago I first met her at a lunch, where she said she was going to be successful. This weekend she said that this was one of two important gold medals you win. One is the World Cup and the second one is the Olympics in 2010. Kristi is going to be here, as are all the rest of B.C.'s athletes.

C. James: I would like to make two introductions. The first one is for someone who is not in attendance but who I know will be a very important watcher of politics. On behalf of all of us, I would like to congratulate the member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge on the birth of his son Fateh.

His son was born last Tuesday and has already become a media star, making his debut in the local paper with his proud parents and his seven-year-old sister Noor. I also want to let you know that the name Fateh — nothing to do with politics — in English means "victory."

My second introduction. I have visiting with me some very good friends from Prince George, Bob and Ann Martin. Both Bob and Ann have been incredibly involved in their community — everything from municipal involvement to community organizations. I'd like the House to please make them very welcome.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Following on the Premier's words about Kristi Richards, I'm proud of Kristi and her hard work and her dedication, which have led her to this great accomplishment. Kristi is committed to her goals and determined to make her dreams a reality. She is a great role model for our youth and a true inspiration to all British Columbians.

Kristi has proven herself as a leader as she continues to push the boundaries while developing her skills as an athlete and as an ambassador for British Columbia and Canada to the world. Summerland residents and all British Columbians have recognized Kristi's gift as an athlete and will be cheering her on at the 2010 Olympic Games. I ask the House to recognize the accomplishments of Kristi Richards, a world-champion skier from Summerland, British Columbia.

D. Chudnovsky: Last Thursday we were visited in the House and in this chamber by 81 students and nine adults, including their teachers, from Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School in my constituency. Afterwards I met with the students in the foyer. We had a wonderful, productive and thoughtful discussion.

I was roundly and correctly criticized for not having introduced them in this House. I promised them that I would do it today, that we would make sure it was in Hansard and that I would send them that information. So I would ask the members if they could — a little late but no less enthusiastically — welcome the students from Tupper to the chamber.

Hon. T. Christensen: It is my distinct pleasure today to welcome Evie Page to the Legislature. Evie was recently featured on A-Channel, having won a Save-On-Foods Amazing Kids $1,000 scholarship for being a highly accomplished teenager, a tireless volunteer and a classroom leader.

Evie is from the Sliammon First Nation and resides here in Saanich. She will graduate from grade 12 at Claremont this June and plans to attend Camosun College next fall. She is considering a career in social work.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Evie today, hearing about some of her future plans, and I can tell all members of this House that we can expect big things from this young woman. Today joining Evie are

her foster mom, Louise Nightingale, and social worker Hélène Provencher. Will the House please make all three of them very, very welcome today.

D. Routley: I would like the members to help me welcome my friend and constituent Leanne Baird and her two children Matthew Baird and Brooklyn Baird. Their mother Leanne and her colleagues together put together the Vancouver Island loggers' safety support group, and they have fought tirelessly for safety in the woods for forest workers. I'd like you all to help me welcome them to the House.

Hon. M. Coell: I'd like the House to welcome a friend of mine and a former MLA for Malahat–Juan de Fuca. Brian Kerr is here. Please make him welcome.

C. Trevena: I hope the House will help me welcome the mayor of Port Alice, Larry Pepper, who's in the gallery today. He came to Victoria to brief the Special Committee on Aquaculture, and I think that people who know Mayor Pepper know how committed he is to the village of Port Alice — to getting the mill reopened and running and now looking for other endeavours to make sure that the village of Port Alice survives and thrives as it rightly should.

R. Cantelon: Also travelling with the group of mayors who travelled long and far to make their representations to the Aquaculture Committee this morning is Patrick Marshall, who is the general manager in Campbell River of the economic development corporation, Rivercorp. So let's have the House make him welcome.

D. Thorne: I'm very happy today to have three very good friends sitting in the gallery: Judi Kask, Helga Enns and Angela Page. We have been friends since we were all the original members of the Tri-City Women's Centre. We've been together a long time, and I'd like the House to welcome them and thank them for all their hard work.

Hon. W. Oppal: I have two guests that I wish to introduce. First is Brian Wallace, a longtime friend of mine and counsel for the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I'd like the House to make him feel welcome. As well, I have a constituent, Balvinder Pal, who is a volunteer in my community. She has organized a forum on family violence. She's taken that upon herself because of the issues that have involved particularly the South Asian community. Again, I ask the House to make her feel welcome.

S. Simpson: I have two constituents with us today — Lisa Hartley and Emma Djwa, who are here visiting with us. Lisa has a special connection to this place. Her grandpa Bill Hartley sat as an MLA from 1963 to 1975 and was the Minister of Public Works and, as I understand, did one of the first repairs on this building back in the '70s, when they had to pull the buckets that were collecting leaking water out of the attic to do the repairs. So I would ask the House to make Lisa and Emma welcome.

J. Rustad: It's my great pleasure today to introduce two people. First of all, I'd like to introduce to the House the love of my life, this person who makes me complete, my wife Kim Royle — and also a good friend of hers from Victoria, Anne Andersen. Will the House please make them welcome.

R. Fleming: I would like to introduce two persons who are in the gallery with us today. Justin Schmid, who is the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 374 and is a constituent of mine, is here with us today, as well as Kim Manton, who is the director of CUPE's capital regional district campaign. Will the House please make them welcome.

Hon. J. van Dongen: This afternoon in the Speaker's gallery are a group of Washington State legislative interns visiting from Olympia. They're here as part of an annual internship exchange between Washington State and British Columbia, so this is an opportunity for them to share and learn about our two systems of governance. They are accompanied by the Senate Intern Coordinator Judi Best and the House Intern Coordinator Samantha Barrera.

H. Bloy: Today I'd like to share some good news about my constituency. This weekend the Simon Fraser University women's basketball team brought B.C. a national championship. Yesterday Simon Fraser University beat the University of Alberta in the championship game and won the much coveted trophy called "Bronze Baby." This team of young women proved once again that B.C. is the centre of sports excellence.

Hon. C. Taylor presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. C. Taylor: I am pleased to introduce the Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, which amends the Ministry of Finance statutes, including the Business Corporations Act, the Cooperative Association Act, the Real Estate Development Marketing Act and the Real Estate Services Act.

The changes proposed to the Business Corporations Act include technical amendments to clarify, simplify and refine the requirements of the act. More importantly, the amendments introduce a new corporate structure called the unlimited liability company, or ULC, which will encourage investment and job creation in British Columbia.

This bill also amends the Cooperative Association Act, which governs the creation and operation of cooperatives in this province. The bill will provide for and guarantee the legal status of non-profit cooperatives. In addition, the bill will address numerous cross-references to the Company Act provisions that are still found throughout the Cooperative Association Act.

Finally, this bill also makes technical amendments to the Real Estate Development Marketing Act and the Real Estate Services Act to refine the application of the acts and to enhance consumer protection.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 14, Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. Les presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007.

Hon. J. Les: I'm pleased to introduce amendments to several public safety and Solicitor General statutes. These statutes are the Correction Act, the Criminal Records Review Act, the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, the Motion Picture Act and the Motor Vehicle Act.

The purpose of these amendments is to make legislation more effective in protecting the interests of British Columbians. With this bill we will be enhancing public safety by protecting the public from unwelcome and inappropriate communications from incarcerated offenders. The bill will modernize and enhance criminal-record check legislation to better protect our children. It will add new tools to enhance British Columbia's efforts to reduce under-age drinking and strengthen enforcement of B.C.'s liquor laws, and it will also allow government to delegate administration of the Motion Picture Act to the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority, supporting the consolidation of consumer protection and enhancing the film classification regulatory framework.

Finally, the amendment of the Motor Vehicle Act will bring B.C.'s drivers' licensing requirements for accredited foreign representatives into line with those of other provinces and with international practice.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 16, Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

C. Wyse: Last fall St. John Ambulance brigade superintendent Andrew Phillpotts of Kamloops was in 100 Mile House to present the prestigious St. John Ambulance life-saving award to two young men.

In August 2005 Mitch Judson and Tyler Johnson were camping at Lake of the Trees when they were startled by a loud bang and went to investigate. They came upon their friends, Trevor Robidas and Jordon Dillman, who had left their camp on their dirt bikes at separate times. The two had collided head-on at high speed when rounding a blind corner. Dillman suffered deep lacerations to his leg, while Robidas was unconscious and bleeding heavily from a wound to his arm.

Using their skills acquired from first-aid courses, Johnson applied pressure to Dillman's wounds, while Judson applied a tourniquet to Robidas's arm to control the bleeding. While Judson and Johnson were administering first aid, a third person was sent to camp to call for an ambulance. After determining the injuries were indeed life-threatening and could not wait for an ambulance, the injured boys were immobilized and driven to meet the ambulance. Jordan Dillman spent three months recuperating in hospital and underwent numerous surgeries. Trevor Robidas spent three weeks in hospital recovering.

I request the House to recognize Mitch Judson and Tyler Johnson, now both 18 years old. They used their skills to save the lives of two friends involved in a freak accident in a remote area past Forest Grove.

J. Rustad: Sight is something that most of us take for granted. Even those who are optically challenged often overlook the fact that many in B.C. and around the world are in need of better vision.

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford glasses, so in 1988 the Give the Gift of Sight foundation was created, based on the belief that clear vision is a basic right, not a luxury. This program helps needy people around the world through a variety of fundraising efforts, and for those of us that wear glasses there's an easy way to help. Many of us have old glasses around the house that we no longer use. By simply donating these unused glasses they can be recycled to help those who are less fortunate receive the gift of clearer vision.

But it takes more than just old glasses. Many professionals help to meet the challenge by donating their time and effort through missions as well as through local projects. I'd like to highlight one such group in Prince George that helped make a real difference.

Last Christmas the professionals at Sears Optical in Prince George teamed up with Dr. John Bosted and volunteered their time to work with school district 57 to identify eight children in need and provide them with free exams and new corrective eyewear. I'd like to thank these people for selflessly giving of their time to help those in need.

I'd also like to honour their efforts and the efforts of others like them by raising a challenge to the members in the Legislature. That challenge is to collect as many pairs of old glasses as you can and bring them to the donation box in the Speaker's office by the end of this session so that they can be donated to the Give the Gift of Sight foundation.

D. Routley: I rise today to speak to the members about the Pacific Northwest Raptors centre in my riding, run by Gillian Radcliffe. This is an amazing service run by an equally amazing person. Raptors are birds of prey — falcons, eagles and owls. Falconry has been with humans as a sport and hunting method for thousands upon thousands of years.

Gillian, with her dedication to raptors and their ecology, is incomparable and stands alone in my community as a person dedicated to ecology and to animals. Her service to community is priceless. She undertakes flying programs for school-aged children as well as a flying program at Grouse Mountain. She provides bird control at the Nanaimo regional airport, and she does media work.

Basically, Gillian teaches people at all levels, including tens of thousand of school children, about the importance of raptors and their ecology. These engaged children take in this information, they learn well, and I believe they transfer their concern about the ecology of these raptors to other environmental concerns.

Apart from a handful of exceptions — non-releasable and injured wild birds — all of Gillian's birds are domestic-bred birds, legally purchased in B.C. or legally imported. Unfortunately, she struggles with permit process problems due to the unique nature of her service, and I'm sure that the government, the Ministry of Environment and the minister himself will support this unique and valuable service and help Gillian through this difficult process so that she can continue to offer this unique service to the people of my riding and the people of British Columbia.

H. Bloy: This is Simon Fraser University's day. Simon Fraser has built a new, extensive addition to their athletic complex. The 40,000-square-foot addition includes a state-of-the-art gymnasium where the varsity athletes will be able to train and compete in basketball, volleyball and dozens of other sports and activities.

This stunning space, finished with natural wood from British Columbia, is a cutting-edge complex that will host hundreds of events and programs on an annual basis. This building will be a green structure with closed-loop evaporative fluid cooling systems and energy-efficient heating.

Indeed, getting students active in between work and play is a central component to them leading healthier lives as they grow. Since this new facility has been built, gym use has expanded by over one-third.

Soon SFU will be starting development on the second stage of their expansion — a brand-new campus stadium, which I'm proud to say will be supported by our government. This next phase is developing because we want to keep B.C. in the national spotlight while keeping our best B.C. athletes competing at home.

Today my constituency is the home of champions that we can all be proud of. Today we are working on building a better home for our student athletes and active British Columbians. Tomorrow is looking very good.

D. Thorne: I am pleased to speak today about the Simon Fraser Society for Community Living, an organization in my community that provides exceptional service to children and adults with developmental disabilities.

On February 14 people with developmental disabilities, their families and volunteers from around the province travelled to Victoria to visit their MLAs and to deliver a special Valentine's Day message. Each MLA received a huge container of red candy hearts representing developmentally disabled adults and children who are on provincial wait-lists for community living services.

Since official wait-lists are not kept, it is difficult for me to know exactly how many residents of my own community are waiting for respite, homemaker services, child and youth care workers, professional supports, parent and family support or behavioural intervention programs. According to the B.C. Association for Community Living, over 1,000 infants, 3,700 children and 3,000 adults are waiting for these services.

In my community the Simon Fraser Society works very, very hard to ensure that people who live with intellectual disabilities and their families are afforded

the same choice in lifestyle that the rest of us enjoy every day. This means inclusive opportunities wherever possible, including community housing, employment opportunities, real choices for recreation and leisure, and also respect for cultural and religious preferences.

As we MLAs enjoy the candies delivered to us last month, I want all of us to please consider what actions we should each take to support our most vulnerable citizens.

R. Lee: Last Saturday I attended the third annual Universe of Hope Gala, organized by the Canadian Cancer Society, B.C. and Yukon division. Since its inception in 1938, the Canadian Cancer Society has spread information about the early warning signs of cancer to the Canadian public. At that time there was growing concern among doctors that people were not aware of the signs of cancer. By the time people consulted a doctor, the cancer was advanced and difficult to treat.

Over the years the Canadian Cancer Society has led the way in cancer control by focusing on prevention, advocacy, research, information and support. The Canadian Cancer Society provides Canadians with information to make healthy lifestyle choices and decrease their chances of developing cancer. As the largest charitable funder of cancer research, the Canadian Cancer Society works with the National Cancer Institute of Canada to effectively allocate funds to cancer research projects. More importantly, the Canadian Cancer Society offers individual and group support programs for cancer patients, caregivers, families and friends so no one has to face this disease alone.

The society's annual fundraising events — the daffodil sale and the telethon — are coming up, and the Asian community has been very active in supporting these efforts. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the Asian campaign's contributors: Benjamin Tsang and Ian Cheung, Diversity Gala chair and vice-chair; Johnny Fong, honorary patron; Buddha's Light International Association in Vancouver; Cathay Lions Club; Fairchild television and radio; and staff Titania Chan and Jim Kwong for their tireless efforts to make cancer history.

C. James: This weekend I was in Surrey meeting with farmworkers and the families of those killed and injured in last week's tragedy. The families spoke courageously and eloquently. They told the crowd about the heartbreaking choices they face every single day, whether to support their family or whether to choose safety and not work. They want to ensure that action occurs so their loss has some meaning.

My question is to the Minister of Labour. When she meets with farmworkers on Thursday, will she commit to real changes to better protect B.C.'s farmworkers on the roads and in the fields?

It's important to know, as I'm sure most people understand, that we've had a very tragic accident that occurred last week. That accident is still very much under investigation as to what the causes of that accident were.

In the interim we are stepping up enforcement activity to ensure that there is compliance with existing laws and regulations. It's important to recognize this. There are many laws and regulations that apply to the transportation of farmworkers to and from their place of work. We want to ensure that those are being properly adhered to. In the meantime, of course, we also await the results of the investigation that's ongoing.

C. James: I do. I am sorry if the member finds it tiring that we will stand up for farmworkers, but we're going to continue to do that. The families and the communities are looking for more than just changes to vehicle safety. They actually want the B.C. Liberals to admit that they were wrong to strip farmworkers of their basic rights and protections — minimum wage, overtime, statutory holiday pay.

In October 2001 the former Agriculture Minister dismissed those protections. He said those rights were "choking industries." By stripping those protections, the B.C. Liberals said they didn't care about farmworkers.

My question is again to the Minister of Labour. Will she admit today that it was wrong to strip those workers of their basic rights, and will she commit to reversing the B.C. Liberals' cuts to employment standards for farmworkers?

Hon. O. Ilich: As a matter of fact, the NDP have it wrong. The changes that were made in 2001, in fact, strengthened the employment. Provisions were made for direct deposit of wages to banks. In fact, those changes were made so that farmworkers were in fact protected better than they had been before.

C. James: It's very clear from the minister's answer that farmworkers can't trust this government to stand up for them at all in this province.

The B.C. Liberal record speaks for itself. Perhaps the minister would like to hear from a former Labour Minister. Graham Bruce directed employment stan-

dards compliance staff to "reduce your presence in the fields during peak harvesting times."

Again, to the new Minister of Labour: will she agree that it was wrong to strip these rights for farmworkers?

Hon. O. Ilich: The things that we have focused on since taking over have been compliance with the rules and regulations that have already been in effect. They have been in order to make sure that wages are being paid. We have introduced fees to make sure they have been paid.

These changes were all relating to fees, payments, accounting, etc. What really has hurt in the safety aspect are the changes that the former government made when they stopped the compliance teams in 1997. That's when the changes were made, and that's when workers were made unsafe.

R. Chouhan: I think when you're dead, wages mean nothing. These farmworkers died in the field. You have the gall to stand here and tell us that you have taken those rights away from farmworkers, and you're calling it strengthening of their rights? It's unbelievable. It was this government that stripped farmworkers of their rights. It was this government that pulled inspection staff out of the field. It was this government that put reckless deregulation first.

Can the Minister of Labour explain why farmworkers are the only people in this province who are not eligible for minimum wage, overtime and holiday pay?

Hon. O. Ilich: I just want to talk a little bit about the fatalities in the agricultural industry, because that's what we've been chatting about. In 1994 there were 15 deaths in the farm sector, in the agriculture industry. In 1995 there were ten. In 1996 there were ten. In 1997 there were 12. In 1998, one; 1999, three. Now we're down to 2003, six; 2004, one; 2005, three. But the injury rate has gone down incredibly. In 1997, 1,321 workers injured, and today, 477 workers injured.

R. Chouhan: It's unbelievable. It's really unbelievable. I'm shocked. This minister can't even answer a simple question. The Minister of Labour can't hide from her government's record. The record speaks for itself. They drastically reduced protection for workers not only on farms but throughout the industry. They also drastically reduced site inspections.

Will the Minister of Labour reinstate full inspections and restore protections for farmworkers that her government took away?

Hon. O. Ilich: We obviously know that inspections are not what is required. The laws are there, and the laws are there to be followed.

In fact, I have in my hand the WorkSafe report from two weeks before this tragic accident, when the employers were informed. They agreed, and the workers were also informed. Let me tell what you it says: "The vehicles used for transporting workers must comply with the regulations of the Ministry of Transportation, motor vehicle branch of B.C., WCB act, occupational health and safety regulations and other applicable regulations of provincial file and/or the RCMP."

The management said they were committed to reducing vehicle injuries. They were told that they had to wear seatbelts. The driver supervisor said that they must possess a valid B.C. driver's licence and that seatbelts will be worn. Workers were talked to at the time, too, and were instructed to wear seatbelts. These rules and regulations are there, and inspections are at the highest rate they've ever been, in all time.

C. Puchmayr: Through the leaked memo which showed that there was an ability to prevent people from going in to inspect the fields in 2002 by this very government…. Can the minister tell us if she is willing to put together a committee to investigate this serious infraction, breaches of the actual act itself?

Hon. O. Ilich: I'm assuming that the member is talking about the employment standards branch. Let me tell you something else. In 1997 to 2000 there was one branch officer dedicated, with two co-op students who would go out and visit farms. Now we have a total of four dedicated officers.

C. Puchmayr: Well, there were certainly a lot more offices, and there were certainly a lot more field offices back then, which you have cut under this government. In 2006 — 82 employment standards inspections, 82 for over 5,000 farms; 250 WCB inspections, 250 for over 5,000 farms. Can the minister assure us that the reduction in inspections wasn't a direct result of members of cabinet or ministers consulting with those boards?

Hon. O. Ilich: One other thing that we should be talking about…. We are enforcing more; we are inspecting more. There have been more orders written. There were 46,163 orders written last year as compared to 34,000 in 2001, and the penalties are up significantly.

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, I was not involved in this line of questioning until a minute ago. The minister talks about what happened in 1997. I was the minister in 1997, and you were the critic. Let's remember, there's a plaque on my wall in my basement for six months of negotiations between the federal government, the Ag Council, the provincial government, the Ministry of Labour and the police as we built a protection system for agriculture workers that allowed farmers to farm and workers to stay alive, and that stopped the farmwork contractors from ripping off wages from people

Hon. Speaker, three years later, piece after piece after piece out of the deal that we put together was stripped away by the government that was over there before you came to work here. I don't care what the spin children who wrote that alligator book say. Will the Minister of Labour intervene, bring the parties together and do the work to put the protections back in place so farmers can farm?

Hon. O. Ilich: That member is absolutely right. He is the minister who cancelled the compliance team that used to do the inspections. Perhaps he would be able to tell us why they cancelled that team.

What we've said today is that we are going to…. On an interim basis, until we find out what happened in that particular accident that happened last week, we are going to resume some of those inspections.

C. Evans: Yeah, sure. I'd love to explain it. It might not be possible within the six-second-clip context in which she answers questions.

You will remember last week…. A person died three years ago. There was an investigation, an inquiry into the death, and they said to this government: "Put the restrictions back in place that you stripped out in 2001, so people will quit dying." All last week that was the nature of the questions. It wasn't about the present death. It was, "Will you put the regulatory regime back in place that saved people's lives?" and they ducked it.

Now I would like to ask the Minister of Labour…. It can be fixed, but I don't trust most of the people sitting around you. Will the Minister of Labour personally intervene, sit down with the parties and put the restrictions and the regulations back in place that were there six years ago to save lives?

Hon. O. Ilich: We have already announced that we are in fact stepping up the inspections and compliance visits of the vehicles — enforcement on those vehicles. But let me say again that we are doing more inspections. WorkSafe is doing more inspections. The rules and regulations are clearly there already, and we are writing more orders than ever before.

M. Farnworth: I can understand this minister's reluctance to answer questions in this House today. For the last six years this government has done nothing for farmworkers — absolutely nothing.

Will the minister tell this House whether she thinks it's acceptable that farmworkers receive no overtime, no holiday pay and no minimum wage? And will she commit to this House to calling a public inquiry into the state of farmworkers' conditions in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: You know, the NDP keep going on about how we stripped rules and regulations around safety. In fact, we did not. In fact, they've been increased.

The employment standards branch has done more to protect farmworkers in the last number of years than they've ever done before. There's now direct deposit to farmworkers' accounts. There's a number of things that were done to strengthen how the farmworkers were treated. The employment standards branch now has four dedicated workers. When they were looking after this, there was one dedicated worker with two co-op students that visited farms to make sure that farmworkers were well looked after.

M. Farnworth: Well, it's pretty clear that she believes that farmworkers don't deserve overtime. It's pretty clear she believes that farmworkers don't deserve holiday pay, and it's pretty clear she believes that farmworkers don't deserve minimum wage. Can she tell this House and the farmworkers of British Columbia why this government doesn't believe they should get overtime, holiday pay or even minimum wage?

Hon. O. Ilich: Just the other day I was reading that somebody who farms for daffodils here on the Island is now paying more to get labour. We have a 4-percent unemployment rate right now. It's the highest that we have ever had. Workers are having to come from different parts of the world to help in the fields. And workers are being looked after better than they ever have before because if employers don't look after their workers, they're not going to be working. So what people are getting paid in the fields is up, and there's more work available for everybody in the province.

J. Kwan: To the Minister of Labour: could she explain to this House and to the families and farmworkers out there why farmworkers are being treated like second-class citizens?

Hon. O. Ilich: I go back to what we're doing out in the field. We're educating farmworkers more as to their rights, and we have compliance officers who go and visit farms. We have four times as many compliance officers as they had.

Hon. O. Ilich: We are spending more and more time educating. We have agreements with the agricul-

tural community and a memorandum of agreement with them as to how we go about doing these things. So we're enforcing and educating, and we're continuing to work with the community.

J. Kwan: To the Minister of Labour: could she tell this House what class of worker does not get overtime or minimum wage or holiday pay?

Hon. P. Bell: …to turn this into a political issue. I think it's absolutely unacceptable that the members opposite disparage the farmworkers who come to British Columbia to work hard in the fields day after day after day and take pride in the work that they do. It's incredible…

Hon. P. Bell: …the efforts that they put into this industry. For this opposition to try and take a terrible accident, an awful accident that occurred last week and make it a political issue, they should be embarrassed.

H. Bains: If as the minister said earlier, the farmworkers are as important as he says they are, then tell us: why are they not in your eyes worthy of minimum wage? Why are they not worthy of holiday pay? Why are they not worthy of all these safety protections? You tell us here in this House why they continue to be considered second-class citizens.

Hon. P. Bell: The opposition is trying to put agricultural workers in a little box. If they had their way, there would be no agriculture industry in this province. The agricultural workers in B.C. are some of the highest-paid….

Hon. P. Bell: The agricultural workers in B.C. are some of the highest-paid agricultural workers anywhere in Canada — $12 and $13 an hour. All I hear from this opposition is a cheap attempt to take a terrible accident and politicize it.

H. Lali: For the benefit of the Minister of Labour, it is a fact that it was this Liberal government that cut the minimum wage for farmworkers. It is a fact that it is this Liberal government that cut the overtime for farmworkers. It is also a fact that they are the ones who cut the inspections. It is a fact that a majority of the farmworkers who work in the Fraser Valley are immigrants and are also women. They are people from backgrounds in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines as well as Latin America and other countries around the world.

This government has continued to treat farmworkers as second-class citizens. I want to find out from the Minister of Labour: when is she going to reinstate inspections and also make sure that farmworkers are getting paid minimum wage and getting paid their overtime — all of those things that these Liberals have cut — and quit treating them as second-class citizens?

Hon. P. Bell: What the opposition is trying to indicate here is completely inaccurate in terms of the number of inspections that are taking place on the farm. But it's interesting how all of a sudden the questioning seems to be moving away…. They've been caught. They're trying to politicize a devastating accident that happened last week. We should allow the police to do the work, and we will react to the recommendations that the police make.

This opposition needs to recognize that it was a devastating accident. Farmworkers are someone whom we show tremendous respect to in this province. In fact, we work very closely with them to make sure they have the sort of support that they need in the fields.

H. Lali: Farmworkers are the amongst the lowest-paid people in British Columbia, and their way of showing respect to the farmworkers is to cut their holiday pay, their minimum wage and their overtime. That's how this Liberal government shows respect to the lowest workers in this province. It is a shame.

It is about time that this Liberal government, this Liberal Premier on the opposite side, quit copping out whenever it comes time to take responsibility. They don't want to take responsibility for the cost overruns on the Olympics. They don't want to take responsibility for the B.C. Rail scandal. They don't want to take responsibility for the convention centre cost overruns in the same way that they're copping out — copout after copout — in terms of not taking responsibility for issues.

When is this minister, when is this Premier, going to stand up on behalf of the lowest-paid workers in society — those farmworkers — and reinstate their holiday pay and their overtime and also, at the same time, reinstate the minimum wage for the lowest workers in this province?

Hon. P. Bell: This is obviously a whole new era that these folks just don't get on the other side of the House.

There's competition for agricultural workers out there. We're working closely, whether it be with the blueberry industry, the cranberry industry, the tree fruit industry…. They can't find enough workers, so they're paying premiums.

Hon. P. Bell: Industry out there today is competing for workers on an ongoing basis. We've had to significantly increase the number of seasonal agricultural workers coming into British Columbia.

You know what? In my hometown of Prince George, in 1998 the unemployment rate was 16.6 percent. Today it's 4 percent. That's why there's competition out there for workers.

A. Dix: Well, hon. Speaker, 12 times today we've asked the Minister of Labour, and the Minister of Agriculture popped up. The Premier has been silent. We've asked them 12 times why in 2001, 2002 and 2003 they stripped minimum-wage protection from farmworkers, they stripped overtime protections from farmworkers, they stripped holiday protection from farmworkers and they cut inspections. And 12 times they haven't answered.

My question is to the Premier, because he did it. It wasn't the Minister of Labour, who wasn't here. The Premier did it. He made that decision, and again and again and again he refuses to take responsibility, as ministers refuse to take responsibility. My question to the Premier is this. If you support those policies, if you believe that farmworkers should be treated like second-class citizens — the only workers in the province not to have those protections — then I say to you, sir…

Hon. P. Bell: The detail and effort that we put into the agricultural community…

Hon. P. Bell: …is significant. Clearly, the issue around minimum wages and holiday pay were built into the piecework rates that were established in 2001.

Mr. Speaker, do you know what? People are competing out there for agricultural workers now. It's no longer a case of the community being able to go out and acquire as many workers as they need. They have to go out and work to get each individual worker into their fields. Today people are competing in the industry and paying premium wages to get workers in the field.

I still find it incredibly disturbing that this opposition, after six years, hardly ever mentioned agricultural workers. All of a sudden they've got some religion because of a terrible accident. Let's not put politics into that accident. Let's let the police do their work.

C. Trevena: I have several petitions with approximately 600 signatures protesting the continued cuts to provincial child care funding.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in this chamber continued second reading debate on Bill 6, the Public Inquiry Act, and in Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of members, debate is continued on the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

J. Horgan: I know some members are just taking a comfort break, and they'll be back any moment to hear my riveting comments on the Public Inquiry Act.

I left debate on Thursday on this bill, so it's with enthusiasm that I start again at this point. I am not certain how much time I have left, but I'm sure the Chair will advise me when I get close.

J. Horgan: My friend from Shuswap wants me to keep my poignant and reasoned responses to just two minutes, but I'm sure it's a bit more than that.

We were talking last week about modernizing legislation. That was the intent; that was the thrust. Last fall — pardon me; we didn't have a session last fall, so it must have been last spring….

The Attorney General tabled the Public Inquiry Act to much opposition and much hostility from stakeholder

groups, interest groups and the like, and the bill was withdrawn. We had an expectation on this side of the House that we would see it again at the fall sitting, when we were led to believe we would be discussing legislation. Of course that sitting didn't happen, and here we are again today with a new bill, a revamped Public Inquiries Act, and our disappointment remains.

The biggest challenge for legislators is to be in this place representing people in our community and helping them to understand what the point and objective of legislation is. It's quite difficult in this instance, where you have a bill that's replacing 100-some-odd years-old legislation that had a time limit. It had a time limit on how much time there would be between the receiving of a report and the tabling of it in this place or the making public of the findings of the inquiry. It was 15 days.

My friend the critic from Nanaimo spoke quite eloquently on this question, and he said that even as far back as 1897 the legislation said as follows: that it be laid before the Legislative Assembly for a set period of time — 15 days — after such report had been received. Well, what have we got today? If we go to section 28 of the bill, the final report section, there is no time limit. It's open-ended. In fact, there are clauses in that section of the act that allow executive council or the cabinet of the government of British Columbia to review, sanitize, scrub and cleanse and take out any findings that they find objectionable.

Now, the language isn't as clear as that in the bill. But based on past practice and the approach, to this point in time, to openness and transparency in government, I think it's important for members to pause and reflect on that for a moment. That, of course, is why we have debate at second reading. We talk about the substance of the legislation. We talk about the principles of the bill.

If we're to believe the Premier and cabinet, who said back in 2001 that access to government information helps us and others hold the government to account and that accountability enhances democracy…. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more with that statement, but yet I don't find it in this piece of legislation. Quite the contrary. I find a section in the act that says that following review of the report, the executive council will direct the minister to lay the report, except any portion directed to be withheld under subsection 3, before the Legislative Assembly.

We have an act now that says that following a public inquiry, all findings will be laid before the public — all findings. Not selected findings. Not findings that are convenient for the government of the day. Not findings that the minister may find adverse to his political whims, but in fact, all findings. We have a new, modernized bill that has no time limit and has out clauses for government to seize upon.

It's been said that only Nixon could go to China. What does that mean? My son said to me the other day: "What are you talking about, Dad? What has Nixon got to do with anything? Why would he have wanted to go to China in the 1970s, anyway?" Well, the point of that….

J. Horgan: I see my friend from Shuswap wants to hear this, so I'll go into some detail about it. The objective was that only a Republican — a right-wing, anti-China Republican — could go to China and mend the relationship between these two superpowers. Well, only the B.C. Liberals could table legislation that says: "We're going to do public inquiries, but of course we'll only table them when we see fit. We'll only table them after we've sanitized them, after the public affairs bureau has gone through it and scrubbed out any of the adverse findings." Only B.C. Liberals could do that.

If this party stood in this place and tabled that legislation, the roar would be deafening from that side. It would be deafening, and they all know it.

J. Horgan: They all know it. In fact, my good friend the Mining Minister would be the loudest of those on the other side. The din would shake the walls if this party stood up and said: "Here's some public inquiry legislation that we may show you after we've had all of our political hacks go over it and take out any of the damaging stuff."

My point is that only B.C. Liberals could table inquiry act legislation that is not public and is not open and is not accessible. I see the Attorney, and I know he'll want to correct me at committee stage if I'm off the mark on this question. But it strikes me — having seen a piece of legislation or two in my day, and certainly some since I've been in this place as a member — that this goes well beyond what would be acceptable to any government, any modern civilized democracy in this continent and, in fact, perhaps even in the world.

Public inquiry acts should be open, transparent and available for all to see. There were news stories over the weekend that said the Frank Paul inquiry, which was announced last week, will be conducted under the new act. Well, I thought that the supremacy of parliament — the act that we pass at the start of each session — meant that we would fully debate these bills. We would fully debate what the government brings forward, and after exhaustive debate, we would either pass or reject the legislation.

But I read in the public press that the next public inquiry brought forward by this government will be conducted under the new act. Well, there is no new act. There's a bill before this place — the second time around, to boot. It's not like this is clean and green and ready to go. It's been kicked around a little bit. It went away. It came back, and it's no better.

On this side of the House we're going to stay here and debate it as long as is humanly possible. So I hope that doesn't get in the way of the government's desire to make public pronouncements, talk about bills on one day and call them acts the next, without due process and full debate in this Legislature.

Again, one of the fundamental reasons why we're here is to have these discussions. I know the Attorney is going to take great care in reviewing the discussions

that have taken place in here. He may well go back, and after sober second thought, after a principled debate at second reading of this legislation, he may well say: "You know, you're right. I mean, the member from Malahat and members on this side of the House have brought up some very, very good points, particularly around the fact that there's no time limit."

No time limit — I find that unbelievable, hon. Speaker. I know you're probably saying: "Oh, the member from Malahat finds something unbelievable. That's hardly ever happened in this place."

J. Horgan: My friend from Shuswap again corrects me. I have been found surprised and startled many, many times in this place. And it's at the gall of the government on the other side — that they could bring forward a second time…. It's not a first time, not "let's try this and see how it looks." They've done this once before. This is the second go-round. How do you do that? I know that's probably a question for committee stage — how do you do that? But it seems unconscionable.

I go through the various quotations. I know some of my colleagues have done that, and I know that the minister would want to hear them again. In the New Era document back in 2001: "It's time for a new era of accountability. Our plan will deliver transparent, accountable government" — until 2007 when we change the Public Inquiry Act and allow political hacks, unelected individuals, to sanitize and cleanse and take out any adverse findings in public inquiries. It's in the act.

I'll read it again. I know the members in the gallery are going: "How could that possibly be? Surely the member from Malahat is off his nut. It wouldn't actually be in a bill." But it says right here: "On receiving the report, the Executive Council may direct the minister to withhold portions of the report…." Ow. That seems pretty straightforward.

I have no formal legal training, but I've been around the block a couple of times. I've had to meet with lawyers now and again. I think they'd say that was pretty clear — "may direct the minister to withhold portions of the report for any reason…." Wow. Transparency. That's the new era. The most accountable government until 2007, and then it all stopped — the day the music died here at the Legislature of British Columbia. The Public Inquiry Act says that the government can withhold information.

Now, there are dozens and dozens of clauses in here, hon. Speaker. I know you've gone through the bill very closely, and you probably stopped at section 28, as well, and said to yourself: "Well, if in 1897, if a public inquiry…." I don't even think they had Gestetners back then. They certainly didn't have photocopy machines. They didn't have Bill Gates to help them out here. You couldn't click and search for information in these reports.

But at that time, 1897 — we could have had quill pens then, for all I know — 15 days. That was the requirement. A public inquiry would take place. The commissioner, whoever he or she may be, would have had to table the report within 15 days for the public to see. Now, that strikes me as openness and accountability, albeit 100-plus years ago.

J. Horgan: I don't see ten days in here. I get some help from my friend from Burrard, but I've gone through this. I see nowhere in here about final report that there is any time line at all — none whatsoever. So I stand to be corrected. I'm sure he'll send me a note if I've missed the mark. I see nothing in the document that gives a time limit.

At the turn of the century, we hadn't gone into the Boer War yet. Laurier was Prime Minister of Canada. I think it was Dick McBride — would it have been? — in 1897. Help me out.

In any event, a long, long time ago. Many Premiers have come and gone since then, many Prime Ministers, and the Public Inquiry Act has put us in fairly good stead. We had a public inquiry, the hon. Ted Hughes…. I mentioned this last Thursday. I got a verbal correction from the Attorney. Maybe he'll put it in writing for me.

My understanding of that public inquiry was that the hon. Ted Hughes said: "I'm done." Phoned the Premier's office and phoned the Leader of the Opposition and said: "I'm done. I'm tabling it right now." No sanitizing by political hacks. No one hand-over by the political appointees, whose job depends on protecting their ministers who may well be part of the public inquiry. None of that.

So I'm curious, and I know the minister will send me that in writing so that I've got it for my records. But that strikes me as open and transparent. You find a very capable individual like Mr. Hughes, and he's appointed. He's given terms of reference. He conducts his inquiry. He says: "Here it is. I'm done."

The member from Burrard was concerned about freedom-of-information and privacy concerns as a result of public inquiries, and that's a legitimate concern. But I'm fairly confident that when we appoint a learned individual to conduct a public inquiry, he or she will do so cognizant of all the laws of British Columbia and will do so with the view of protecting individuals, if that's required.

I know that whenever you hear the term "public inquiry," everybody lawyers up. That's the order of the day. Everybody is there protecting their interests, protecting their rights. How long did it take with Air India? How long is that — 20 years, 22 years? A long, long time.

There are a host of good reasons. I certainly don't want to get into that today. But the challenges of this legislation are such that I believe it would be appropriate for the Attorney to take another look, pull it back and, at a minimum, take a look at section 28 — the final report section. Give us a time line, and give us the individuals who are going to be involved.

If you named the Information and Privacy Commissioner as the individual who would be tasked with reviewing the document for privacy reasons, I would have some comfort. Here's an officer of the Legislature. Who could be beyond reproach, other than that? The person that's accountable for the act in this place. Why not have that individual named in here? It doesn't name who would be reviewing the document.

I have every right to believe that the ministers on that side of the House would want to have independent, impartial public servants do that vetting. But quite often, every now and again, an order-in-council appointee — there are so many in the public affairs bureau — might pass their hand over the document. They might find something that's politically challenging. Absent a time line, absent a date at which we can expect this to be made public, that document could be held.

Let's assume that we have a public inquiry called next year, 2008, and in the lead-up to the next provincial election, there's some adverse finding found by the commissioner. The cabinet receives that report 90 days before an election. They look at it, and someone directs the minister to withhold portions of the report for any reason.

Why would the public take comfort in that? Why would the public see that as enhancing democracy, as the Premier said he wanted to do? Why would the people see that? The night of the victory in 2001, the now Premier said: "We will bring in the most open and accountable government in Canada."

Wow. Six years later, and that's all down the tubes. We used to have open cabinet meetings, hon. Speaker. You might remember that, as a member of executive council. We were going to have those all the time. I think the last one was…. When was that? January 2005, I think. Certainly two years ago. A long, long time ago. Those open and accountable cabinet meetings — they're all gone.

I wonder if you take a public inquiry finding to your open cabinet meeting and then direct a minister to withhold it. I don't think so, hon. Speaker. Second time around for the Attorney General on this legislation, and it didn't get any better. They were calling it the secret inquiries act, some members on this side of the House.

That's humorous, but Les Leyne, a noted journalist here in Victoria, had an even better name. I can't find it in my notes, but it was even better than the secret inquiry act. He gave it a second name this time around, and it was the "public when we say so" inquiry act. That's what he called it — Les Leyne in the Victoria Times Colonist — the "public when we say so" inquiry act.

One thing my mother told me is that if they're calling you names, that's okay, but when they start to laugh at you, you're in trouble. I think in the case of the Attorney's legislation, we are at that stage. It's gone from concern to ridicule, and when the ridicule sets in, it's very, very difficult for the public to take any comfort whatsoever in the state of the documentation.

With that, hon. Speaker, I'll conclude my remarks. I certainly look forward particularly to the Attorney's defence of section 28 when we get to committee stage and the other sections of the act.

I'll finish by reminding the Attorney that the commitments that the Premier made to openness and accountability certainly resonated with the public. There was some hope at that time that there would be openness and transparency in government. I encourage him to reflect on those remarks and try and instil some of that openness and accountability in this piece of legislation before we pass it into law.

J. Kwan: We're debating Bill 6 in this House this afternoon, the Public Inquiry Act, and I have the act before me. As is the case when we look at these bills — and these are often complicated bills with lots of information — the government sometimes would have what's called explanatory notes in the bill, and that tends to explain section by section what the changes are with respect to this bill.

That's the explanatory note. If you look through the bill, you would not be able to find any other explanatory note, and I find that curious from this perspective. There are significant changes being proposed in this act that we're debating in second reading, yet it does not outline that in this bill. I have to ask the question: why is that?

I'm just going to set that aside for one minute and go back to actually looking at the history of how we've come to this place and, perhaps more importantly, look at what comments have been made particularly by the now Premier when he was in opposition — some of his statements around the importance of openness, transparency and accountability to which the Public Inquiry Act is central to issues of great public interest for British Columbians.

Here's what the then opposition leader, the now Premier, had to say. Back on July 22, 1998, this was a letter written by the Premier to the Freedom of Information Association:

I haven't quoted the entire letter. I've only taken pieces that I think are most relevant to the debate before us today.

Fast-forward to today, and what have we got? We have a Public Inquiry Act whereby the government is doing way more than introducing two types of commissions of inquiry. The government is giving the power to the executive council, to the cabinet of the government, to withhold the results of a public inquiry — in other words, to not table the findings of a public inquiry in this very Legislature. In fact, the government is proposing that we change that to allow, first of all, for the findings to go to the executive council, to go to the minister before it comes to the Legislature.

That change is significant. It is very significant, and I would argue that it is absolutely contrary to what the Premier, when he was in opposition, advocated for. The Premier and in fact many of the government bench were campaigning on this back in 2001 — what they called the New Era document. It says: "It's time for a new era of accountability. Our plan will deliver transparent, accountable government. B.C. Liberals will reform how government works from top to bottom to create the most open, democratic and accountable government in Canada."

How are we doing on that score? The government has undertaken tremendous measures to keep information from the public and has actually, in my view, dismantled the Freedom of Information Act and disallowed the information that would otherwise be made public under their term. That's what this government has done.

It's interesting to note that here in this House, the government will pretend that they are trying to protect the public's interest with this act. But are they really? That's the question before us. I would challenge the Premier to speak in this House around this act. Does he think that the Public Inquiry Act as it is being proposed in this bill meets the spirit of what he had committed to British Columbians in the 2001 election — when he was in opposition, when he wrote the letter to the B.C. Freedom of Information Association?

Let me quote the Premier's victory night speech in 2001. Here's what he said: "We will bring in the most open and accountable government in Canada. I know some of you will say we will soon forget about that. I promise we won't" — a direct quote from the now Premier. Maybe the Premier can tell us in this Legislature whether or not he's forgotten his promise on victory night in 2001. Maybe he can tell us in this House whether or not Bill 6 violates the very statement that he made in 2001.

The Premier went on to say in his swearing-in ceremony: "This government is founded on two fundamental principles, political accountability and improved public access." Let me tell you, Madam Speaker, that this bill allows the cabinet to decide when the report of a public inquiry is made public. This bill changes what was the Public Inquiry Act, where the report from the public inquiry is directly tabled to the Legislature for all members of the House at the same time. This has been the case since 1897.

Now fast-forward to 2007. What's changed? What's changed to drive the government to bring forward this bill, to change the spirit of the Public Inquiry Act so that the report would no longer be tabled directly to the Legislature — other than maybe that is to say that this Premier is now in office and that there's much information that he wants to ensure his cabinet has an opportunity to review and perhaps censor before it comes before this House? Is that the real reason? Is the real reason that this act is before us so this government can actually protect themselves politically on policy decisions that negatively impact British Columbians, that beg a public inquiry?

This bill, Bill 6, allows cabinet to sever the report. How could it be that it would actually give authority to the government to sever a report of a public inquiry? The existing Inquiry Act has no provision for severing of information from the final report of a public inquiry — none whatsoever.

Under this bill, Bill 6, which we're now debating, the cabinet would be able to sever the report based on what they call privacy rights, business interests, law enforcement concerns or under the guise of public interest. Giving the cabinet the power to sever the report of a public inquiry, in my view, could be viewed as a conflict of interest because there may be a strong motive to prevent the release of damaging information.

In fact, there is a possibility that the result of a public inquiry may not be made public at all. The government, the executive council will get to decide that. It raises tremendous concerns around accountability, issues of discretionary powers of the executive council over the results of a public inquiry. I have to say that it is absolutely contradictory to what the Premier had promised when he was in opposition, what the Premier had promised in his own victory night speech and what the Premier had promised, in fact, when he was being sworn in as the head of this executive council.

I just want to take a moment to talk about a case that took years for the government to act on. It is the Frank Paul case. It happened in my riding. The situation there is worth reviewing for the purpose of this debate. The Frank Paul case, many people will know. An aboriginal man was left to die in an alley of the downtown east side by a police officer in the city of Vancouver.

At the time when this happened, people were shocked and astounded. The family of Frank Paul demanded a public inquiry. The aboriginal community demanded a public inquiry. In fact, two former Police Complaint Commissioners asked for a public inquiry — all of which were turned down by the current Solicitor General, the former Attorney General.

Hon. G. Abbott: I do appreciate that in the context of second reading debate on a bill, there is some discretion in terms of the content of the debate. However, I think it fair to point out to the member that the points she is making should be reflected in her analysis of the bill rather than the wide-ranging discussion of an issue which is going to be the subject of a public inquiry presently.

Deputy Speaker: Members, I would remind you that second reading is debate on the principle of the bill.

J. Kwan: Absolutely it's debated on the principle of the bill. There's no doubt about it around the Frank Paul case and what could happen. The government has just said that the Frank Paul case is now going to be under this new act when it's passed through this House.

I want to speak to the core of the issue here and the ramifications of what that really means. It took years and years for the community to fight for that. The Solicitor General returned twice and said that there was no need for an inquiry because it was against the public's interest.

Now the government expects the public to somehow trust them. They're going to do the right thing by the Frank Paul inquiry under this new act? I think not.

Let me just say this. I'm not going to prejudge what the government is going to do. I'm simply going to raise the concerns that I have relative to this case and relative to this new act.

That was in an editorial written in the Vancouver Sun back on March 23, 2004. The Solicitor General of today is on record saying that he's against the public inquiry, and he turned down two requests for a public inquiry by former Police Complaint Commissioners — two separate requests — because he deemed it to be against the public's interest.

What have we got in this act? The government can in fact sever information that they deem to be against the public's interest. That's the nut of it. I have grave difficulties with this act and what it allows the government to do.

On the Frank Paul case, there was another article written on March 18, 2004. Headlined "No Public Inquiry into Death of Man Dumped by Police," this was in The Province. It goes on to say on record that the Solicitor General disagrees that an inquiry would serve the public's interest; that the former commissioner, Don Morrison, asked the Solicitor General to order a coroner's inquest into Paul's case; that the Solicitor General refused, citing political reasons.

In a letter to Mr. Morrison dated December 20, 2001, the Solicitor General wrote: "I'm significantly concerned with the possibility of opening a coroner's inquest during which culpability, liability and issues of racial discrimination are likely to become the central features of attempted cross-examination. Public acrimony will almost certainly follow."

Mr. Morrison said that both he and Mr. Ryneveld tried to push the government to take action. Quoting Mr. Morrison in the newspaper article, it says: "I think it deserves a proper investigation."

The government had also promised to evaluate police practices surrounding the detention and release of people unable to care for themselves. In the 2001 letter to Mr. Morrison, the Solicitor General said he had assigned the police services division director to conduct a provincewide review, and the study was never done. Then after reopening the case last year, Mr. Ryneveld discovered two witnesses who had never been interviewed by internal investigators — one of them a prison guard who helped drag Paul into the police wagon before he died.

That's the nature of a case that the Solicitor General had refused to act on back in 2004 — to the dismay of Frank Paul's family, the aboriginal community and all those who wanted a public inquiry to shed some light on what happened to this man so that we can learn from it, so that we can root out the problems with the system and get on with doing the fair and just thing. In 2004 the Solicitor General refused to do that, and this government and this Premier refused to act.

Now the case has been brought back once again, and the issue that brought it back wasn't necessarily new information but, rather, forceful information by

the jail guard who said that nobody to this date had interviewed him regarding Frank Paul's death. Finally, the current Solicitor General decides that he will actually call an inquiry. What do we have? Under a different set of rules, for which an act has not yet even been passed, the presumption of the government is that Bill 6 would be passed and that therefore Bill 6 would apply to the inquiry of Frank Paul.

The concern about this focuses on the importance of getting at the truth of the matter. The fear that I know many in the community — including the Pivot Legal Society…. They have been relentless in trying to advocate for the people who are most marginalized in our community, to get a voice for them. They have raised the issue with their concerns around Bill 6 as it impacts Frank Paul's case, and I certainly share that.

I'm very concerned that somehow the truth would not be tabled in this Legislature, that somehow the inquiry and the information that comes out of the inquiry would find its way to being severed under Bill 6 of the Inquiry Act, that somehow the information arising from that inquiry would not be tabled in this Legislature in a timely manner. The family, in Frank Paul's case, had to wait for years and years to finally get that inquiry, and now they face yet another hurdle called Bill 6, the Public Inquiry Act.

The other thing that I will say is this: the concern around the Public Inquiry Act is around these two types of commissions of inquiry. On the issue around Frank Paul, we have yet to receive a commitment from the government that this won't be a study inquiry — a study inquiry that would not provide powers of compulsion that would be required to get the police officers to testify. The experience for many in our community is that the police officers may not necessarily voluntarily participate in an investigative process and that they must be legally compelled.

If the Frank Paul case falls under what the government would deem to be a study inquiry, then I would argue that the inquiry and the truth that we need to get at around the inquiry would be hugely compromised. The guidelines from the OPCC, binding on police to cooperate with the investigators under the Police Act, were not sufficient to result in cooperation from the Vancouver police department officers. There were issues with respect to that.

If the Frank Paul case becomes a study commission, then we may never find out what happened that night. In the broad wording of section 15 of FOIPPA, matters harmful to law enforcement could mean that much of the information in the Frank Paul inquiry could be severed or be restricted from public access as it may be deemed to be "harmful to law enforcement." That's another hurdle that, under this new act, the Frank Paul inquiry would yet have to jump over, Madam Speaker.

The extent to which… The ramification of this is enormous. I have to say, in all good consciousness, that I don't know how the Premier, when he said and committed to transparency and openness and accountability, would allow his executive council to bring this bill before this House. It absolutely is contrary, I believe, to his intentions.

Maybe his intentions were always different. When he said transparency and openness, he actually meant the opposite. Maybe he was just trying to fool the public with those words. Maybe he didn't mean those words at all.

Well, here's the test for the Premier and for this executive council. The rubber hits the road. This Public Inquiry Act, I would say, challenges the integrity of the members according to the Premier's own words when he says that when a government is trying to hide information, it hurts the integrity of the government. That's what the Premier said then.

Now before us is this act. Is this act not giving the government the authority to hide information from the public, which has never been done before? Frankly, the answer has to be yes. You don't have to go far to figure it out.

The other aspect is that the commissioner's power under this new act — the ability to restrict access to information — has also been significantly changed. Under the proposed bill, a commissioner may prevent a person or a class of persons from attending a hearing or prevent the release of any information held by or provided to the commission "if the commission has reason to believe that the order is necessary for the effective and efficient fulfillment of the commissioner's terms of reference."

This provision is particularly troubling. What constitutes "effective and efficient fulfillment" of the terms of the reference is not defined in the act. Given the exclusive jurisdiction of the commissioner to make all findings of law and fact arising under the act, any decisions made about the meaning of those terms could never be subject to review. So it is conceivable that this section could be used fairly widely to restrict access to hearings and to material held by the commissioner.

That's equally troubling to me as the other sections of the bill, where it allows for the executive council to sever information from a public inquiry and where, instead of being tabled in the Legislature, a public inquiry is given to the minister responsible and to the government.

I would challenge all members of this House to rise up and to own up to the commitments that the Premier made, when he was in opposition, to an open and accountable government and to speak against this bill and to support amendments to this bill so that British Columbians have an act that actually has teeth and would allow for the truth to come out.

G. Coons: Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you from the opposite side there.

I rise to speak against Bill 6, the old Bill 23. It's been recycled, it seems. It's had numerous names: the Public Inquiries Act, the secrecy act. I see it as a "hold on to it until we have a long weekend" act. It's an attack. It's an attack on openness and transparency, an attack on British Columbians.

I look at the press release, back on March 5, 2007: "B.C. Modernizes Public Inquiry Act." Now I believe, as do most British Columbians, that to modernize you

move forward. I would hope that this government, the members on the opposite side, see us as moving forward with our public inquiries. But no. We seem to be moving backwards.

I remember back when the B.C. Liberals and their supporters were running their ads claiming that B.C. is back. Unfortunately, they were right in some aspects. B.C. is back. They've moved back — far back. It's disturbing to realize how far this government has moved us back.

B.C. is back to 1993, the last year the minimum wage was $6 per hour. B.C. is back to 1979, the last time people had to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime. Also, B.C. is back to 1927, the last time employers could hire 12-year-old children. This government has brought us back, and now we're back to 1897.

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, I would ask that you remind the member that while there is a relatively free-ranging character to second reading debate, it should have application to the bill at hand. I have heard nothing in the comments of the member to date that reflects a second reading consideration of the bill.

Deputy Speaker: Again, I would remind members that second reading is a debate on the core principles in the bill.

G. Coons: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The core principles will be coming out. Unfortunately, as I said…

As I said, we seem to be savouring the '90s. We're back to the 1890s. Bill 6, the secret inquiry act, replaces the existing Public Inquiries Act, which this government says is "outdated and unclear" and does not address a number of matters that arise as far as respect to public inquiries. The concern that many British Columbians have…. I go back to my constituency, I talk to my constituents, and I bring up Bill 23 — the new Bill 6.

We talked about it before. We're still talking about it. We thought perhaps it would be improved and better.

G. Coons: The concern that we have for this government is that they're covering their past history — their mistruths, their attacks on working families — and this bill realizes that they want to hide how they're degrading our environment. The bill intends to thwart independent oversight and government accountability in respect to public inquiries.

Bill 6, as I said, amends the Inquiry Act so that reports from public inquiries are to be released to the relevant minister and to cabinet rather than to this Legislative Assembly. This bill allows the Liberal insider cabinet to decide when a report is to be made public. Under the existing legislation the report from a public inquiry is tabled directly to this Legislature, and it should be tabled to this Legislature. This has been the case since 1897. My reference earlier to the '90s is referring to the previous legislation.

Under the framework of this archaic bill, the Premier and the executive council would be able to hold on to it under the pretence of reviewing it, siphoning through it for an indefinite period of time before it's tabled in this Legislature. As you've heard, Madam Speaker, section 28(4) states that following the review of the report, the executive council must direct the minister to lay the report before the Legislative Assembly within ten days. In the former act the report, upon completion, had to be issued to the Legislature, to the public within 15 days. Now the executive council can hold on to it. There's no time limit at all for the cabinet review.

There's a huge potential to use this provision to delay the release of reports, of any public report. Madam Speaker, this is unacceptable, and most British Columbians would see that as an attack on openness and transparency. This bill not only provides that the cabinet will decide if and when the report will be released to the public, it allows this government to terminate a public inquiry or change its terms of reference at any time before a commission issues its final report.

This act, this secret inquiries act, eliminates openness and the trust of our government process. We look at the act, at section 28(3): on reviewing the report, the executive council may direct the minister to withhold portions of the report for any reason — any reason. We have the executive cabinet in a situation of filtering and severing and deciding which portions of the public report that they may find damaging — a definite potential for conflict of interest, and it must be eliminated from this legislation.

Madam Speaker, public inquiries are for the public, paid for by the public and must be released to the public, not dallied around the back rooms of the executive cabinet deciding what they want to filter and sever so that the public can't see it — the most secretive cabinet right here in Canadian history.

The proposal of this government to assert more control over public inquiries once again defines this government and the Premier of this province — secrecy, lack of openness, no transparency, no accountability. As we all know, government secrecy is dangerous to all of those that believe in democracy. I believe

all members in this House believe in democracy. This bill, as I'm trying to convince the member opposite, tramples on those rights of openness and transparency.

G. Coons: It's okay, Madam Speaker. I can speak louder than the guys on the other side.

G. Coons: Madam Speaker, secrecy breeds distrust, mistrust between citizens and their elected representatives, and we've seen that. We have a big distrust of this current government. We've seen that. We've heard that.

Secrecy prevents media, organizations and citizens from being able to understand and question government intentions, government decisions. Bill 6, this secrecy act, leads us right down the road of British Columbians mistrusting government.

In an age when we need to build trust, in an age when we need to build up the confidence in elected members, we have this government with their secrecy bill — this "Let's hold on to it until it's a long weekend" bill so that nobody can read into what they're really doing to the public and to British Columbians.

Secrecy also puts this government, any government, at risk of creating expensive mistakes. No person or group possesses all the information necessary to make effective and responsible decisions. Obviously, the members on this side are not in the position to make effective and responsible decisions. They need to bring in Bill 6 to keep their actions and their decisions secret — the consequences of their actions and decisions and intentions secret. That's the purpose of this bill.

I believe British Columbians want transparency and openness, and this government is trampling upon their rights for that.

G. Coons: What were the Liberals elected on? You were elected on the promise to be — I'm glad you brought up why you were elected — the most open, accountable and democratic government in Canada.

G. Coons: This is the only group of people that I know will clap for their lack of openness, lack of transparency, lack of support for working people, lack of support for farmworkers. They're clapping away on the other side.

This bill tramples on the rights of British Columbians. They were elected on promises that they never kept. Over the last five years….

G. Coons: Over the last five years this government has steadily dismantled the Freedom of Information Act, depriving citizens of the right to know. This legislation blatantly — this blatant move to assert control over public inquiries — again highlights where this government has been going and continues to go in an era of secrecy and lack of transparency.

The Canadian Taxpayers Association, the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have joined forces to oppose this flagrant, blatant move by this B.C. Liberal government to assert strict control over future public inquiries.

B.C. Civil Liberties Association president Jason Gratl said: "This act takes both the public and the inquiry out of public inquiry, and it's nothing more than a scheme to thwart independent oversight and government accountability." We need to hold this government accountable. We need to have transparency, and we need public inquiries to be public.

Also, executive director Darrell Evans of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association stated: "Under this legislation, it is unlikely there could be a report on the child care system such as the Hughes report that just came out. Apparently the B.C. Liberals will no longer tolerate such independent scrutiny."

That's shameful. We're looking at an act that…. After a public inquiry is done, it can be filtered, can be severed, can be saying, nudge, nudge, wink, wink: "We don't think we want that in there. We don't think we want people to know that about us." That's shameful, Madam Speaker. That's shameful.

I also see this as when this passes, and we call for a public inquiry, they'll go nudge, nudge, wink, wink: "Yeah, let's have one — a dime a dozen. We can grab it. We can filter it. We can release it to executive council. We can have it sitting around for a month, four months, maybe after the next election. Nobody will know about it."

G. Coons: "I hope so," says the member opposite. Exactly. And that's what British Columbians are fighting against — that type of arrogance where you hope so — that they're a dime a dozen. When we ask for a public inquiry, you take it into the executive council, you filter it, and you release it when you want. Unacceptable. British Columbians think that's shameful.

G. Coons: This bill, Madam Speaker…. As I said, I asked recently — and I see the Minister of Health isn't here — for a public….

I recently asked about a public inquiry about how seniors are being treated in the Northern Health. When we pass this, I can see members on the other side looking at each other and saying: "Yeah, we can have a public inquiry. Let's have one, and then we can't talk about it anymore." When it's done, they'll be taking it behind the back doors, and it will be filtered, and it will be severed. There will be whiteout all over it. It'll be released, to the detriment of British Columbians, to the detriment of transparency and openness.

This government found a simple way to cope with painful truths and incompetence. Just bury them. Just bury them. Get the big shovel out and bury it — bury it under this new legislation.

Now, if we look back and if we had Bill 6 previously, what could have been behind closed doors and kept in the executive chambers, the executive parlour? What public interest matters might have been missed if we did? In 1987 a public inquiry into the Coquihalla Highway construction overrun. The highway cost two-thirds more than budgeted. That report, under Bill 6, could have been filtered, could have been severed, could have been held on to from 1987 to perhaps the next election — 2009. Who knows?

In 1991 a former Premier…. It was a conflict-of-interest report by Commissioner Ted Hughes that led to the Premier's resignation. That report could have been.

G. Coons: We're talking about Premier Bill Vander Zalm. Other public inquiries — leaky condo inquiries that came out with truth for the public. Again….

Interestingly enough, in 1994 the current Attorney General, when he was B.C. Court of Appeal justice…

G. Coons: …headed a public inquiry into policing and issued his own reported entitled — I'm sure we remember it — Closing the Gap: Policing and the Community. Ironically, it's the same Attorney General that is now pressing for Bill 6 through this House, which could have been used to bury his own policing report. Ironically, we have the same Attorney General pushing forward the secrecy act, and it could have been burying his own report from years past.

I see this as pretty confusing to most British Columbians, especially the next quote. The next quote, "Open government," is one of my favourite quotes. It's on my wall at home, Members.

Madam Speaker, we all know who said that on July 22, 1998, in a letter to Darrell Evans of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. It was the Premier of this province, when he was in opposition. Pretty confusing, when he now takes his words and says that open government is a hallmark of a free and democratic society. He rips that out of the heart of British Columbians with this act, the secret inquiries act.

Access to government information helps us hold the government to account, and I guess in the last four or five years he doesn't like that. The members opposite don't like being held to account. They don't like being transparent. They don't like to build trust and integrity. They would rather tear down walls, and they would rather hide behind this act. That's shameful in this province.

What we have here is this new Public Inquiry Act encompassing a dark component, a very dark component, of this Liberal agenda — of helping their friends, helping their insiders, their supporters and anyone else who thinks that money will pave the way to getting their interests to the front burner while leaving working families and the rest of British Columbians in the dark.

This government seems to only want to help their corporate friends — whether it's Alcan, CN, Liberal investors, insiders — rather than looking out for the needs of British Columbians. This government can't be trusted to do what's right. The most secretive government in Canada contradicts the Premier's promise of open and accountable government, and by restricting public inquiries, this government intends to hide their true agenda of selling out this province.

The opposition and many British Columbians have been calling for a public inquiry into the sale of B.C. Rail because of the numerous questions around the sale, around the raid that happened upon the offices of this Legislature and around how we were able to sell off valuable assets for garage sale prices. This act contradicts the transparency and the openness we need to see what happened in that secret deal. This government wants to have the power to decide what happens as a result of such an inquiry, and this bill would allow them to be secret and to keep the report secret.

G. Coons: Why am I speaking against Bill 6, the secret inquiries act? This bill transports us back to the dark ages of public accountability. The public must question why this government wants to limit the scope and the role of public inquiries.

What's their motive? I believe it's to hide behind the legislation. They don't have to be open; they don't have to be transparent; they don't have to be accountable — just another example of B.C. Liberal broken commitments and promises.

In closing, we on this side are opposed to the secrecy act, and we'll hold the government accountable to its promises of openness, transparency and accountability, despite any action by those members on that side to thwart the democratic process.

M. Sather: It gives me pleasure to get up and respond at second reading to Bill 6, the Public Inquiry Act. It's a very important piece of legislation. Anytime we're talking about the right of the public to know about the activities related in any way to government — that's an important part of our democracy.

It is an important piece of legislation but a very disappointing one. Members have mentioned that this year is the 100th anniversary of public inquiries legislation in this province. The Attorney General talked about modernizing the public inquiries process in this province and bringing it up to snuff. One would hope and one would expect that the new act would have benefits beyond the old legislation — that it would be an advance, that it would be a progression of openness, something that we could all look forward to and be proud of. But I don't feel, and this opposition doesn't feel that's the case with this piece of legislation.

We should take a look at legislation that we had 100 years ago and compare it to what's being proposed in this House today. The legislation 100 years ago said that a report of the inquiry must be laid before the Legislative Assembly within 15 days of the assembly if it's sitting or within 15 days after the opening of the next session. That's a reasonable amount of time. That's a definitive amount of time. That lets everyone know that the report will be made public and that it will be made public in a timely fashion.

"On receiving a direction under subsection (4)" — the release of the report — "the minister must remove any portions to be withheld." That's fine. "In the report, identify any withheld portions and, to the extent possible, summarize them." That's fine. "And (c) either (i) if the Legislative Assembly is in session, or will be within 10 days of receiving the direction, promptly lay the report before the Legislative Assembly, or (ii) in any other case, promptly file the report with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly."

Well, the problem is that law is about the meaning of every word. I looked in the legislation, and I wanted to see a definition of what "promptly" means. Sadly, there is no definition in this bill of promptly, so it's up to the discretion of the government to determine what promptly is. In fact, there is no legislated time limit on when information from a public inquiry must be brought forward to this House, and that is a real problem.

That is the fundamental thing that's wrong with this bill. That is the reason we argued against a very similar bill last spring, and the government put it off until the fall session that we never had. Then when they brought it back now, it still does not meet the expectations of the public and the requirement for openness and honesty that this government says they are so proud of.

The cabinet gets to review the document for an undetermined period of time. That is a concern. That is a concern because we have a government body — i.e., the legislative council, the cabinet — that is reviewing this document for an undetermined period of time. Comments from other bodies such as the Uniform Law Conference of Canada recommended of public inquiries, that "once transmitted, inquiry reports should be tabled in the Legislature within a specified time."

That's understandable. That's what should be happening here. There should be specific time lines around the period in which this legislation will be tabled in this House, and that's not there. It's not there, and it's a grave miscarriage of legislation that this government is proposing to bring forward and to pass into law.

The bill says that it will modernize, reduce uncertainty and vagueness. Well, it doesn't reduce vagueness at all. In fact, it increases vagueness. Specificity is what we're asking for, and this legislation is all about vagueness — discretion of the government. Those are the kinds of things that the public does not want to hear. They want to know that they will have access to information that's in the public interest in a timely fashion.

Now, as this House will know, the opposition called just recently for a public inquiry into issues surrounding the sale of B.C. Rail to CN. That's an issue of extreme importance to this House and to this province. The government declined to do that.

Section 8 of the current act that we have now refers to a public inquiry being called for: "Payments or contributions for campaign or other political purposes or for the purpose of obtaining legislation or obtaining influence and support for franchises, charters or any other rights or privileges." That sounds an awful lot like what the opposition is looking for in terms of information on the sale of B.C. Rail. But what does the current legislation say? It simply says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council" — that is, the cabinet — "may, by order, establish a commission to inquire into and report on a matter that the Lieutenant Governor in Council considers to be of public interest."

That says far less than the current legislation, but I can understand, for the purposes of the government, that perhaps it's preferable. Vagueness is the preference in this case, because it gives the government discretion. I suspect that around an issue like B.C. Rail this government is looking for a lot of discretion — a lot of wiggle room to move and to be able to keep things under wraps. That's the concern of the public, and that's the concern we're bringing forward. This legislation keeps matters of interest to the public under wraps.

Would the public feel comfortable with cabinet having the power to review the document for an undetermined period of time? I don't think so. That's something that I hope this Attorney General and this gov-

ernment will reflect upon and will recognize — that it's not going to meet the test of openness and accountability. The government tells us over and over again that they're proponents of openness and accountability, but this act doesn't live up to those tenets at all.

We can only hope that the Attorney General will see the light of that, will see the need to improve this legislation and will act to do that. There's still time to improve this legislation, to remove the offending parts and to bring in parts that are truly open, honest and accountable.

The bill before the House also allows the cabinet to sever the report of the inquiry commissioner. That capacity was not there under the previous legislation. Again, is the public going to feel confidence in a government that's going to allow their executive branch to sever the report of an inquiry commissioner?

How would they sever that report? According to the new bill, they can sever the report on the basis of a number of aspects, including business interests. I don't think that business interests should be the measuring stick by which a government can sever the report of an inquiry commissioner.

It's difficult now, with the amount of privatization that this government has brought in, to get information about what's going on in government. Whenever you try to do so, the government responds: "No, that's a private contract, and you, the public, have no right to know what's going on."

It may be of interest to the public. It may be the public's assets. But you don't have the right to know, because it's a business interest. Now we're talking about a public inquiry being restrained by the same measure of business interest. It doesn't measure up. It does not measure up that this government talks over and over again about honest and open government, but we see just the opposite.

We see increasing restrictions on the public's ability to know what this government is doing. That's not good for democracy, whether it's this government or any government that might follow. This is not the kind of legislation, the kind of modus operandi that we want to see. It's not what the public of this province wants to see. They really do want to see open and honest government, but they're not seeing the openness from this government that they require.

It puts a chill on the whole process of democracy. It's like there's a cloak of secrecy that's fallen over this government and over the ability of the public to know what this government is doing. That's of great concern to me, and I would think that should be of great concern to the government themselves.

Although it may serve short-term interests, sometimes, to keep the public in the dark, and certainly to keep the opposition in the dark…. It serves a short-term purpose, but it's not in the interest of democracy. It's not in the interest of openness and accountability. I think that the public wants this government to be open and accountable. We are trying to hold the government to that standard, which they say is the measure by which they operate.

Having business interest be a measure by which the cabinet can sever can also clearly result in a conflict. One has to be careful about that. The government has to be careful of any conflict or appearance of conflict. Governments have relationships with business interests. This government has, and previous governments have had. One needs to be very clear that one is not severing information on business interests that might be embarrassing to the government.

How does the public get to know? They don't. They don't get to know what's going on. They have to trust. How can they trust the government if the government is not being as open and as honest as they possibly can be?

It's interesting, too, that we went from an inquiry act to a public inquiry act. It sounds good — public — including the public in the processes of this government. It sounds like an open and accountable kind of thing to talk about, but that's what I'm finding over and over again with this government. They say one thing, but what they do is the opposite. When they talk about public accountability and openness in government, that's not what they are actually doing. It's actually a lot more secrecy and lack of accountability — but it's good spin.

I guess it's the way you sell your product. If the product is not totally palatable, one of the ways of selling it is to say it's something it isn't so that people will buy it. I don't think that the people of this province are going to buy this legislation. I hope that the Attorney General will recognize that and will act accordingly.

The Attorney General suggests that there's a little too much leeway for commissioners of inquiry and that we have to tighten up on that. What have other people and other bodies said about that? The Ontario Law Reform Commission said that the independence of public inquiries from the executive and the Legislature should be recognized. That's the point: the independence is being compromised. The independence of the inquiry commission should be absolute. It shouldn't be compromised by government's right to sever, by government's right to delay, by government's right to put off.

As I mentioned about the B.C. Rail public inquiry that we called for, I'm sure it's one that is of some sensitivity to members of this government. They may not necessarily want to have it subject to a public inquiry. Or if they feel that they have to, should the results of legal undertakings lead them to that conclusion, when are we going hear about the results of that public inquiry?

What is going to be a prompt response? Is it going to be after 2009? Is that the temptation that the government is apt to become subject to or fall to? I'm afraid that it might. That's a real concern, because it's not in the public's interest when their right to know is restrained and constrained. That's what this legislation does, and it's not a positive step. It's on the 100th anniversary of public inquiry legislation. It's not something that the government can really be proud of, in my view.

Under Bill 6 the commissioner must make an interim report to cabinet. They must make an interim report to cabinet. That's like getting the results of your test in advance, I guess. It's pretty handy, I suppose, for

government to get an interim report, to know what's coming down — so that they can get their ducks in a row and act accordingly to mend the fences that need to be mended, to get the spin out there that they want to get out there, to get the public relations out there that they want. Again, that's not in the interest of openness, honesty and accountable government. It's not in the interest of the public; it's not in the interest of democracy.

I would hope that the government will act to take a sober second look at this legislation, because a number of features about it need to be looked at. There are things about it, as the member for Nanaimo has said, that we can agree with, but there are parts that we really disagree with and that we're hopeful this government will take another look at.

I want to have a little look, Madam Speaker. I spoke somewhat already about the record of this government in releasing information, because it's related. A public inquiry is about getting information to the public, about finding out what's going on.

How has the government been doing so far in terms of releasing information to the public? Not very well. For example, the government signed the federal early learning and child care agreement in 2005 with the federal government, the Martin government of the time, but they refused to release their child care action plan. We waited, we asked, we cajoled, and we encouraged, but no go. The government would not release that information.

Again, it's a bit of an impediment to the opposition, but it's a real disservice to the public. That's the most important part here. It's not so much that it makes our job more difficult, although our job being made more difficult also makes it more difficult for the public to know what's happening and what's going on.

The government failed to release key B.C. Rail documents, such as the revitalization agreement and the information on the 900-year lease. Well, I was really interested in that. I think a lot of people are interested in a 900-year lease. People would like to know more about that. It's a lack of detail, a lack of information, a lack of openness from this government.

The government is currently sitting on a report that is critical of the Oil and Gas Commission. We would like to hear about it; the public would like to know. The forthcomingness, if you will, of this government — they've been remiss in that regard.

The child death reviews. The House will remember, members will recall that we had an in-depth discussion about child deaths last year, I believe it was. We called for the child death reviews over and over again, and it took the Hughes report and the recommendations thereof for the government to cough up, to come forward with the information. Holding back public information, information that the public should have, is not the way to go, but unfortunately, we've seen all too often that that's the way this government works.

Now, freedom of information and the protection of privacy are paramount to democracy — legislation that we brought in, that we're very proud of. This government, though, has not lived up to the spirit or the detail of that information. Often freedom-of-information requests that we make as an opposition come back entirely blank. There's nothing there. We've even seen the five great goals of this government having been severed from an FOI request. Now, that's going too far. I should think the government would want to be sure that they get those five great goals out there. Even that has been severed.

Members will remember the discussion we had not too long ago about the resignation of Keith Purchase as chair of the Fraser Health Authority and how heavily censored that report was. Fortunately, we were able to get some further information on it that the government wasn't particularly keen on us having. They had edited references to bed closures, service cuts, a crisis situation in the Fraser health region — all very embarrassing information indeed for the government. Again, it's the right of the public to know what's at stake here, not the right of the government to protect their political backsides. It's the right of the public to know.

We at one point received a handwritten note that actually contradicted the government's claims about child death reviews. A senior political staffer had suggested deleting politically sensitive information from the requested documents under the pretext that it was advice. Well, freedom of information and protection of privacy depend entirely upon the public, the opposition or anyone else that's making a request getting the maximum amount of information that's available to them.

It's simply not right for government to delete some of that information. In fact I expect it's illegal to do so, but that is what this note was suggesting that the government do. We're concerned when we read about that kind of behaviour from this government, and we really wonder what their commitment to openness and honesty is.

Other members have referred to comments made by this government — in particular, the Premier — about openness and honesty. A lot of those comments were made in 2001 after this government was elected. I'm sure — I would hope, at least — that they were made in all sincerity before the people of British Columbia. But where have they gone over these last six years? Where has that openness, honesty and accountability gone?

It seems to have gone largely down the drain, and that's a real concern. That's a real concern to us. I think the members of the government ought to reflect upon that, as well, and see whether they really are an open and honest government. I don't see it.

Accountability is the other thing that the government likes to talk about, everything about an era of accountability. But you can't be accountable if you're hiding information. The two just simply don't go together. In order to be accountable…. You can talk about being accountable.

As I mentioned before, it seems like this government does exactly the opposite of what they say they're going to do. They said they're going to be accountable to the people of the province, yet they do everything

they can — from not releasing documents, from severing documents, to now bringing in new legislation under public inquiries — that will make them subject to political interference, that will make those inquiry processes…. We don't know when they will be reported on. There's no time limit.

There's a lot of concern there. This government needs to think long and hard about this legislation, because it will live on for some considerable period of time. It will be the framework on which this province has to operate, on which the people of this province have to try to find out information. That's a concern.

"The most open, democratic and accountable government in Canada," was actually the statement that was made back in 2001. There is no way that this government's actions are living up to the rhetoric. They ought to think long and hard about it, have a look at this bill and see if there isn't some room in their consideration of it that would lead to a determination that we need to have some amendments to this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 6, and I look forward to further debate from other members.

B. Ralston: When we come to consider the issue of commissions of inquiry — or, as they're sometimes known, royal commissions, because they are a variant of commissions of inquiry — it's important to reflect upon the significant role that they have had in Canadian public life.

Canadians have relied upon these kinds of bodies to consider broad matters of national importance, and sometimes they've led to profound changes in the way in which we are governed. A short list of significant ones at the federal level would be the Rowell-Sirois policy commission appointed in the 1930s, which led to a rearrangement of taxing power between the federal and provincial governments — it's even referred to now in debate about federal-provincial relations; the Massey commission in the '50s, which led to the creation of the Canada Council; the Hall commission in the '60s, which led to the national Medicare scheme; and the MacDonald commission in the 1980s, which led to the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

Now, I think it's important to realize that the creation of an inquiry is really the creature of the executive branch of government within the parliamentary system. It's legally permissible to set up an inquiry by virtue of the residual royal prerogative, but ordinarily commissions of inquiry at the provincial level are set up subject to the relevant legislation. They receive their mandate from the executive branch, acting under powers conferred upon it by the Legislature. Their mandate, indeed the very existence of a commission of inquiry, continues to depend upon the will of the executive branch.

The legislation historically — and this legislation is unchanged in that respect — can vary the terms of reference but can also shorten the life of the commission of inquiry or, indeed, shut it down entirely, as was done by the Attorney General of this province in the previous term of this government.

There are two types of inquiries that deal with…. Really, I think the legislation here attempts to draw that division, although it's not sometimes so neatly drawn in real life as it is in legislation. But there are those that deal with broad questions of public policy, and there are those that deal with specific allegations of wrongdoing or blameworthiness. Sometimes inquiries have a mandate to do both — in other words, to examine a problem, find out what went wrong, and make policy recommendations to avoid the problem in the future.

They are remarkably flexible instruments in many ways, and many commentators have noted that and also noted their unique position in Canadian public life. Mr. Justice Cory — and I'm reading from a volume entitled Commissions of Inquiry: Praise or Reappraise? — said:

So certainly they're recognized by respected members of the judiciary — and, I think, recognized by the public as well — as a way of dealing with problems in a forum that not only brings experts and expertise to bear on the problem but also invites the public to, for the most part, observe the ongoing process. Some of them can obviously attract a lot of public attention; one can think of some commissions of inquiry, such as the Somalia inquiry at the federal level in recent years.

The principles by which others have recommended that inquiries be guided…. I'm referring at this point to Mr. Justice O'Connor. Speaking of inquiries, he referred to four key principles: thoroughness; expedition — speed; openness to the public; and fairness.

Any inquiry is required, in order to have public confidence and to be effective in carrying out the mandate that's conferred upon it by the executive branch, to adhere to those four principles.

Now, in British Columbia there is also a long tradition of royal commissions. I was assisted by the staff in the provincial library, who drew to my attention several volumes of royal commissions and commissions of inquiry. Some of them seek to address problems that have an oddly contemporary ring. In 1917, for example, there was a commission that investigated charges made on the floor of the Legislature by J.S. Cowper that a sum of $25,000 was placed in the safe of the Hotel Vancouver on behalf of Canadian Northern Railway and that the money was taken away by a Liberal candidate.

Hon. S. Hagen: It is my pleasure to welcome to the House this afternoon three young, talented film-makers from our provincial capital. We are joined in the gallery by Blake Enemark, Sam Dodd and Simon Haisell.

These young men recently won the Provincial Capital Commission's Capital Kid Award at the Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival. This award is handed out for the best one-minute student film on a theme relating to our provincial capital. Blake's video highlighted the unique perspective of local skateboarders looking for the best handrails, ledges and manual pads. I had an opportunity to watch it earlier today, and it is very, very impressive. Please join me in congratulating these young men and their proud families.

B. Ralston: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I appreciate the intervention by the minister in order to let me find my place, and for the fact that he's making that important introduction, in which I join him in commending those young people as well.

Some commissions of inquiry appear to be perennial topics of political discussion. In 1931 there was a royal commission investigating the fruit industry. In 1956 a royal commission also investigated the tree fruit industry. So there is a cyclical pattern to commissions of inquiry as well.

But they're generally confined to significant events. In 1958 there was a report on the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge on June 17, 1958 — the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge — where 19 workers died in the collapse of that bridge.

Again, to give a further example. In 1963, under Premier W.A.C. Bennett, a royal commission on gasoline price structure was struck, which examined the fairness of the price structure of gasoline at the refinery, wholesale and retail levels in the province — again, an oddly contemporary flavour.

But I want to turn to the legislation at hand. I suppose the crux of the issue here is the power that this legislation confers upon the executive. The processes of setting up an inquiry — dictating its terms, appointing the commissioner, deciding the question that it will examine, funding the commission — are all within the relative control of the executive branch.

So to add to that the power — and the obligation, if required — to make an interim report and also obliging the commission to report to cabinet rather than to the Legislature, as was the case in the previous legislation, further weights the powers of a commission of inquiry in favour of the executive branch, and in my view and the view of members of this side, unnecessarily so. It doesn't accord with the four principles that I spoke of at the outset — certainly openness to the public and fairness. It violates those principles that Mr. Justice O'Connor spoke of in conducting an inquiry.

It's interesting to note that when a matter is reviewed under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and there are edits made to documents, there is a right of appeal to the commissioner himself, who can intervene and decide whether or not the editing process that has taken place complies with the act and make a decision to release the document in a different form, an unaltered form if need be.

This particular process that confers upon the cabinet the power to make those edits of a report is not subject to any appeal. Generally, the doctrine in the parliamentary system is that cabinet decisions and cabinet deliberations are confidential, and it's only in very rare circumstances where there has been judicial review of a cabinet decision or the process for arriving at a cabinet decision…. So this does confer upon the executive — in this case, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council or the cabinet — extra powers in dealing with the report.

One would have thought that the government, having chosen the topic, decided upon the timing of the report, chosen the commissioner, formed the question, appointed commission counsel perhaps…. That would be sufficient control for an executive of a public inquiry. But this adds an additional layer of control over a public inquiry — the very product.

Instead of trusting the good judgment of the commissioner or commissioners selected by the government in order to carry out this inquiry…. Usually, in order for the public to have confidence in this process, they are distinguished individuals, held in wide public esteem in order to have the public confidence to carry out their mandate. Instead of leaving it to those commissioners or that commissioner to perform the necessary edits to ensure the compliance of their report with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, this government has chosen to add that additional step — not content to trust the commissioner but wishing to have that additional measure of control. That is the nub of the objection made by members of the opposition. Indeed, I would say that resonates in the broader public on this issue.

The legislation is drafted in such a way that section 28(4) states: "Following review of the report, the Executive Council must direct the minister to lay the report…before the Legislative Assembly." The key words there are: "Following review of the report." There is no time limit for the cabinet to review the report. So while there is a time limit after the cabinet has concluded reviewing the report, for it to be laid before the Legislature there's no limit.

If the Attorney General is willing to state that this is not the purpose of this section and that he's willing to bring forward an amendment during the process of debate, then certainly we on this side of the House will consider that amendment. But at this point, what the legislation clearly gives the cabinet the option of doing is simply sitting on the report under the guise of reviewing it.

Given that there's no time limit on review, and one might seek to justify, in the case of a complicated re-

port, a very lengthy review — certainly a review that might take one past important public events such as a general election — that would give the cabinet that discretion simply to sit on it and not bring it forward publicly.

If we are wrong in that interpretation, and if the Attorney General can bring to bear the talents of the legislative draftspeople over in his ministry and they want to clarify that, then that certainly would be welcome. But the way I read it here, that's the effect of this legislation. That's the opportunity it provides the government, and that's the danger in the way in which this legislation is drafted.

Now, the existing Public Inquiries Act has no provision for the severing of information from the final report of a public inquiry. The previous speaker, my colleague, referred to the legislation that authorizes severing based on privacy rights, business interests, law enforcement concerns or under the guise of public interest. The language is very specific — "for which information could." Then it goes on to say "or must be withheld." It enables a very expansive interpretation of that particular clause.

In other words, anything conceivably could touch the public interest, and in these broad headings it's conceivable that a number of matters could be swept under the rug under the guise — and with the broad legislative support, so called — of this particular section. That's a decision that would be made at the cabinet level and would not be subject to judicial review, not be subject to review by any independent body and might very well be contrary to the view of the commissioner or commissioners who had conducted the inquiry.

Notwithstanding that the commissioner would be bound by these provisions to provide the report and notwithstanding the view of the commissioner that certain things ought to be released, if there were a disagreement between the cabinet's view of what should be released and the commissioner's view of what should be released, the cabinet view would prevail. Again, that strengthens immeasurably the power of the executive branch — the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, the cabinet — to deal with a report that they don't like, that may be politically damaging to the government or that the cabinet may not consider prudent to release in its unexpurgated form.

That provision of the section is particularly offensive, and I would urge the Attorney General to take this piece of legislation back to the legislative draftspeople once again and have a look at that particular section. The reason I suppose one has those kinds of suspicions is that the act specifically mentions the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and the experience in the last six years of the interpretation of that act has been very restrictive.

My colleague speaking immediately prior to me also made reference to the example of the letter of resignation of Keith Purchase, a chair of a health board who resigned. His very letter of resignation on a matter of public interest, performing a public duty, resigning from a public office concerning public issues was substantially edited and now is the subject of a challenge before the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Given that kind of a track record, given that kind of use of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, one has little confidence that members of the executive council, the cabinet, in pursuit of their political mandate will be more open than we've already seen and experienced in the day-to-day operation of the act. Certainly, at a recent conference which I attended in September, sponsored by the one independent association that concerns itself with these issues, many people spoke of the lengthening time of response; the repeated obstacles to disclosure under the act; the demand for excessive fees, in their view; and the massive editing process. Many lengthy documents come back with many, many pages blanked out, and the process has become bogged down immeasurably.

So it's with those eyes, with that lens, that we approach this legislation. Were it a government with a better record on the operation and administration of the act….

Notwithstanding the lofty rhetoric of the Premier in the early, early days of the government, the bitter experience over recent years is that the opportunity to use the legislation in a way that restricts public access for political purposes is certainly one that we suspect here and one that would be sanctioned by this legislation. In other words, this legislation would institutionalize, would sanction, the editing of a report by a commission of inquiry. This takes executive control of this process to a new level.

One has only to look back and think of the…. Certainly, the study commissions are perhaps less of a problem. Even then, potentially, a study commission on a controversial issue of public policy might very well come forward with recommendations that the government was not prepared to consider, didn't want to release into the public sphere, could either edit them or "review" the report as in section 28(4), "following review of the report" — use that provision to review the report indefinitely or until the passing of a general election or some other politically opportune time in which to release a report.

So it's with real concern that one views this legislation. Certainly, this legislation has been back for a rewrite. It didn't pass muster. It was a significant political defeat for the Attorney General at the cabinet table, a major piece of legislation withdrawn from the Legislature. It's been back. It's been rewritten, but I would submit and argue here in the Legislature that this piece of legislation is no better than the last one. The problems that were raised the last time haven't been addressed, and this piece of legislation is equally flawed as well.

The Attorney General in his exposition of the bill really was very, very cursory in his explanations of

these sections. At committee stage, certainly, I look forward to a more detailed and profound analysis of the impact of these sections than the simple opening remarks that we heard earlier, because given their implications and given the tradition of the public inquiry in this country, this is a very significant departure from the Canadian tradition of public inquiries — their utility and public life — and a very significant restriction on the utility of commissions.

Particularly, one wonders what kind of commissioners will want to be recruited to these positions when they know that their report faces a political edit by the cabinet of the day. It's always a delicate balance in a commission of inquiry. Indeed, at this conference, many of the learned former commissioners spoke of that balance, particularly where commissioners were obliged to assert their independence, whether it was in the witnesses that they called, whether it was in the manner in which they were paid, whether it was the length of the inquiry or whether it was when it touched on sensitive topics that the government would rather that the commissioner didn't inquire of.

Members of this conference who had been commissioners felt very deeply that once established, the independence of the commission became a very important aspect of its life and its credibility as an instrument with any credibility in the public sphere. So in order to maintain that independence, they felt that a number of steps were required to be taken that would, in my view, conflict with this legislation.

The Attorney General. I don't know how widely this has been mooted among…. There are regular conferences of Attorneys General. There are regular discussions. Certainly, in other provinces there are significant and politically controversial commissions of inquiry. One thinks of the Walkerton inquiry in Ontario recently, where the effect of…. It had very serious implications in some respects for the government of the day.

One wonders if the result of this legislation, and I would suggest that is the obvious conclusion, will be to really basically reduce this kind of instrument of public policy — a commission of inquiry into an important matter of public concern — to a shell of its former self and no longer have any kind of utility in public life. One wonders who would want to head up a commission when they knew that their own judgment after making an inquiry, hearing the witnesses, forming conclusions and writing a report would be subject to politically motivated edits by a cabinet. One really wonders who would want to do that job.

It's my view that this legislation is profoundly and deeply flawed, and the Attorney General ought to reconsider his position in the interests of British Columbians. He has a dual role. Not only is he a political member of the cabinet; he's also the chief law enforcement officer of the province. Perhaps, taking that aspect of his dual role into consideration, he will reflect upon the intent of this bill with his officials and come forward with decisions similar to that which took place last year and withdraw the bill.

There is no harm in that, and public policy and the public would be better served by this legislation ending at this stage rather than passing into law with all the negative consequences that it will visit upon the public life of this province.

With those remarks I want to conclude and ask that this legislation…. I encourage the Attorney General, if he can hear the sound of my voice, to consider withdrawing this bill at this stage now.

Deputy Speaker: May I just remind members to keep their computers, BlackBerrys and cells on silent. Those ringing tones can be a little distracting in this chamber.

B. Simpson: I'd like to start off with some general comments and then get into the explicit aspects of the bill that I find troublesome. I'll say right off the bat that I am opposed to this, which should surprise no one, and that's why we are making the comments that we are making today.

I want to start with a quote from Winston Churchill. This is a quote that I'm sure people have heard before. Churchill has said: "It's been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." The reason for that is that democracy is messy. It's a messy form of government because it accords to every individual in the democracy the right to be heard, the right to participate and to the right to hold its government to account — not just at the ballot, but every day.

What I find particularly troublesome, although it doesn't surprise, is that the government that's in power just now was elected on a promise of being the most transparent and accountable government that British Columbia had ever seen. It just continues that theme of rhetoric over substance. We have a Premier that has attention deficit syndrome when it comes to the flavour of the year that he puts in his budget or on the promises that he makes. The clear language that was used in both the 2001 and again in the 2005 election was a promise of transparency and accountability. To show you how far we've come, one of the questions that I have about this bill that I think we should canvass in committee stage…. It says that following the review of the report — section 28(2) — the minister must submit the report to the Executive Council at its next meeting.

I'm wondering if that next meeting would be one of those open cabinet meetings. Remember those? The minister would actually come to an open cabinet meeting, which seems to have disappeared, and present the findings. I'll come back to that comment in a minute.

Deputy Speaker: Member, can I just take this moment. Please be careful when addressing comments to individual members in the Legislature. Just be careful in your comments. If you're speaking about a group, that's fine. When you're disparaging individual members, that's not parliamentary in this chamber.

B. Simpson: Thank you for the clarification, Madam Speaker. My comments were not meant to be

My comments were with respect to rhetoric versus substance. When rhetoric is a substitute for substance, when all we get from government is words and those words are not followed up with action, then I think that is a real struggle for us in a democracy. We have to be able to depend on the words of the politicians. It breeds cynicism, and it chases the electorate away from the ballots. We need to reverse that. As a consequence, I do believe that this flavour-of-the-year approach to government doesn't serve us well.

What has been pointed out numerous times here is that the government's record is what causes us considerable trouble. If the government had a stellar record on delivering on its promises; if it had a stellar record of being transparent and accountable, as it claims; if it had a stellar record of not severing FOIs so that we get back the results of FOIs blank and, in some cases, blank in a way that makes no sense to anyone with any level of intelligence, then maybe we would be more forgiving.

We might even be more forgiving if this was a government that had a record of actually bringing forward meaningful legislation. All one has to do is look at the number of amendments to the Forest Act after the changes in 2003 to see that this is a government that goes hastily to legislation, passes legislation and then has to change it and do all kinds of things to make it work.

In this case, I would hope that we would be heard, because there is language in this legislation that is unclear. If language is unclear, you're in trouble right out of the start gate. As an example, in section 28, which is one of the sections that members on this side of the House have been speaking to, there are two words in here that I do not find any definition for under part 1, "Interpretation." Yet those words beg interpretation right from the start.

Those words are in section 28(4): "Following review of the report." What does that mean? How long is that review? What can the cabinet do in the process of the review? That begs more information, and it begs a definition under part 1, "Interpretation," that's not there.

Then the second part is in the final report, 28(5)(c)(i), the word "promptly." Again, no definition of promptly. There's the proviso of the ten days and so on. But "review" and then into "promptly" suggests these are reports that we may not see or may not see in a form that addresses the public interest.

I raised in estimates debate during the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands estimates that we already have an example of a cabinet document that has never seen the light of day. This was not a public inquiry, Madam Speaker, but it was an MLA panel that went out to look at a very important issue in this province, the issue of invasive plants — an issue that has significant economic and environmental considerations for this province and impacts on the future of our economy, our agricultural belt and our forests, etc.

In the report that was tabled with cabinet and never released, there's a statement that says: "Current funding levels for invasive-plant management have been inadequate and unstable, and as a result, the provincial government has not met its legal obligations under the Weed Control Act." This is a cabinet document that hasn't seen the light of day, but if this was a public inquiry under this new act, the government would have every right to sever this, and we would not know that that language was in the report. We would not know that the government was in fact not in compliance as a landowner with their own legislation.

Another point that could be severed is that under the third recommendation, "Ensure compliance," it says that the government assumes its legal obligations as land occupier under the Weed Control Act and that it must enforce current legislation. Again, this would most likely be severed because it's embarrassing to the government.

The powers that this act gives on restricting access to the commission, section 15, the power to prohibit or limit attendance and access, the ability of the cabinet to hold onto the document, review the document as long as they want to and sever portions of the document before it comes forward to be promptly laid in front of the Legislature, I think, are extremely troublesome. With my colleagues on this side, I ask that it be withdrawn.

Over the next little while, there are areas where we would stand to have studied in this province, or we would stand to have full public inquiries. I want to take a few moments to speak to what those might be.

We need, for example, a public inquiry into the removal of private lands from the tree farm licences on Vancouver Island. When the government removed the original private lands under the former Forests minister, they had a court ruling — a judgment against the Crown for that removal for not consulting and accommodating first nations. Yet the current Forests minister removed more private lands from a tree farm licence while he had, on record, letters from the first nations saying: "Do not do this. It abrogates our treaty rights. It abrogates our ability to get into proper consultation." In fact, they warned the minister that it would extinguish their rights if the lands were converted from a tree farm licence to private land.

There's an area that I think begs public inquiry. But under this inquiry act, we don't know who would be prohibited from attending. The act gives the right to prohibit first nations from attending. That's possible. The act gives the right to prohibit the Save Our Valley Alliance in Port Alberni from attending the commission hearings. That's possible under this act.

This government needs to examine that. It begs a public inquiry, because the courts have ruled. The individuals throughout Vancouver Island did not want it to happen, and yet the government did it not once but twice. The second time they did it, they should have known better. That ought to have a public inquiry and public investigation.

Public inquiry into forest workers' safety — we've been calling for that for some time. The current Minister of Forests and Range promised it. Fortunately, the Auditor General has picked up that responsibility. I say fortunately because if this act passes, then again we

would not know who would be constrained from participating in that process or what would be severed.

Everybody who works in the forest industry knows deregulation is a fundamental contributing factor to the deaths and the injury rates that we're seeing in the forest industry. That's an embarrassment to government, and under this act, they would have full rights to sever those portions of the public inquiry and full rights to make sure nobody shows up that will tell that story.

We could use a public inquiry into the Revitalization Act. The Forestry Revitalization Act in 2003 discriminated between forestry workers who work in the logging camps and in the bush and forestry workers who work in mills, who do not get any rights under the Revitalization Act. Yet they lost their job because of public policy.

We have all kinds of questions on the 20-percent clawback. We have all kinds of questions on first nations rights under the forest and range agreement. All of those should be subject to a public inquiry. Under this act, we could not have a guarantee that all of the voices necessary to make that picture clear would not be prohibited from showing up and that the portions that are embarrassing to the government would not be severed.

Finally, Madam Speaker, a personal note. In my riding, the people of Williams Lake have been asking for a long time now for a full public inquiry into how the Interior or Health Authority has treated that community — why they closed down all of the public facilities in favour of a single private sector provider. They have gone to the minister, and the minister has refused to intervene.

They have no trust or confidence in the Interior Health Authority. They are the ones calling for a public inquiry. Yet if this act passes, there's no guarantee that they would actually be allowed to speak at the public inquiry. They could be prohibited in one form or another from showing up. Even if they did speak, the government — if it was found culpable and not following through with its own requirements for choice in communities between public and private — could sever that, and we would never know it.

This is an act that ought not to see the light of day. I join with my colleagues here and ask for it to be withdrawn. We would certainly support an updated Public Inquiries Act that has full disclosure, full participation, and embraces the messiness of democracy and the right of the citizens of British Columbia to have full say in what happens to them in this province.

C. Puchmayr: I remember this government being on record as the most open government in Canada. They wanted to be the most open government in Canada. [Applause.]

They actually will sit there and applaud something that will create the most secret government in Canada. It's absolutely shocking to me. To be able to go behind closed doors and sever the public's right to know, and then they applaud that. It's absolutely shameful.

Political accountability. I think that was on their campaign slogans over and over again. What they are heading to is political non-accountability, secrecy behind closed doors, as they are heading with many, many serious matters in this province — TILMA, a large agreement between two provinces done behind closed doors. Again, Bill 6 has similarities to that.

They want to govern without public input, and that is not a direction that British Columbians want to go. I'm sure that isn't even a direction that some of my colleagues on the other side would like to go. I think if they put that question to their constituents, they would get an answer from their constituents that would say: "Send that bill back. This is not the direction we want to go. This is not openness. This is not accountability, and it needs to be looked at again."

We're changing from public inquiries to more accountability, but you can't have accountability just in words. It's the process of that accountability that spells itself out as being disastrous to the civil liberties of this province — the process where they no longer have to come forward and disclose what parts are being severed and why parts of inquiries are being severed. That is what's shocking to me, and that's what is shocking to the people of British Columbia.

Remember the open cabinet meetings? They were painfully staged. I remember there were very few of them, and certainly they've disappeared quite quickly. But again, could you imagine under Bill 6? You wouldn't be able to have an open cabinet meeting because in that cabinet meeting, they would address a public inquiry matter, and they would implement the new provisions of Bill 6 to sever parts of that inquiry that they didn't wish the public to know.

Their open cabinet meetings would be a disclosure of what they're trying to do behind closed doors. I didn't think we would see open cabinet meetings again, but under Bill 6 dealing with issues under the Public Inquiries Act, that certainly is a no go.

Under this guise of accountability, Bill 6 raises concerns. The civil liberties community is concerned, and rightfully so. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has concerns. There is an alarming increase in secrecy. That is an incredible concern to the public. The Canadian Civil Liberties, the freedom-of-information community — they are all concerned about the impacts that this will have on disclosures that people have the right to know.

I remember the Barrett inquiry. The Barrett inquiry was under the old act, and the public was able to look at all the evidence and present evidence and analyze evidence. The reports were submitted, and it showed some major inconsistencies in what was truly happening in the community and what was being spun in the community.

I remember that the Urban Development Institute was making overtures that the Building Code was to blame — that it was the Building Code's fault that condos were leaking. So an inquiry was a good thing to have. People were going out there buying condominiums, and when they were leaking and they were imposing these

$40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 penalties on repairs, they all thought it was the Building Code.

In fact, in many of the cases…. I'll give you one in my community. It had an $8 million remediation. The developer whose document I was able to bring to the Barrett inquiry, who signed on as CEO of the company, president Andre Molnar…. There was a document by an engineering firm that showed 426 Building Code violations — $8 million remediation. Yet the industry was saying: "Oh, it's got nothing to do with shoddy development. It has everything to do with the Building Code."

Well, thank God there was an inquiry. Thank God there was an inquiry that was able to bring some of these issues to the table. Not only was it good for the public who were buying condominiums and losing their life savings, but it was also good for the good and honest developers out there who were putting extra effort into their buildings, who had a good track record, who were building buildings that weren't leaking and that were safe.

To take a public inquiry in a case such as the leaky-condo crisis…. Suddenly the thing shows up in cabinet, and they start looking at some of the players and some of the issues. There could be an ability to sever some of the truth from the public inquiry. Who would pay for that? It would be the people who are still buying condominiums thinking that it's the Building Code to blame, when really it isn't.

What changes have we seen because of this public inquiry? We've seen changes — profound changes, positive changes. We've seen an addressing of the issues, of the insurance issues — the ten-year insurance rather than the two-year insurance. Companies have had to become accountable. Only companies that can gain the insurance from the Homeowner Protection Office will be able to build.

So the fact that the public inquiry went forward and the public received the disclosure, the Legislature received the disclosure and the participants received the disclosure created a better environment for building in British Columbia.

Bill 6 could so easily jeopardize that, because there could be information in there that may be embarrassing to members of government, friends of members of government. It concerns me that there are many issues that come down.

B.C. Rail is one that I think was brought up earlier. Some day there will be a public inquiry into B.C. Rail. Some day there will be. I certainly hope that it's when we're in government, because if there was an inquiry when this side was in government, I shudder to think of how much black ink is going to be used to delete, delete and delete things that the public has the right to know. The public has the right to know.

C. Puchmayr: The members on the other side, the very few that sit back and think this is a good thing, I think need to do some real soul-searching here. How can secrecy in an open, democratic society be a good thing? How can moving everything into the tent and not allowing anything out unless you feel it should get out…? How does that precedent apply?

We've got an inquiries act that has been in place for a hundred years. It's worked well. It's worked independently. It's worked at arm's length, and now suddenly it's going to be holding hands with the very people that want to sever information. That is wrong.

I understand that certain things will raise some concerns with this government. The government has done a very good job of…. I like the way they use their words. Public inquiry sounds good; it sounds warm and fuzzy as opposed to just an inquiry act. Public inquiry sounds like you're expanding it, but they're not. They're not expanding it. They're narrowing the focus, they're taking control of it, and it's no longer at arm's length.

Remember the air, land and water protection? Again, we saw the devastation. Here's something that's named with warm and fuzzy words, and then we saw the cutbacks in the field officers, and we saw the destruction of our watersheds. So while you're saying these warm and fuzzy things and using these warm and fuzzy words, the public needs to be aware. There needs to be caution here, because there's nothing warm and fuzzy about taking away somebody's right to what is happening after a public inquiry, inside that cabinet. We have that right to know.

Remember the B.C. Hydro power legacy and heritage contract? I mean, that flew right through there. People heard that word "heritage." They thought: "Oh, a nice beautiful home in Queen's Park." They felt warm and fuzzy. Look where we've gone now. We've taken away the rights of municipalities to have a say in water that's being developed in front of their own cities. They no longer have the right to have a public hearing, to talk about a process, to evaluate the benefits of the city or to try to get a developer to contribute to the benefits of the city. That's gone — warm and fuzzy words, but severe actions.

What I would like my colleagues on the other side to do is go back into their constituencies and truly talk to their constituents and tell them really what's happening — tell them what is in place now and tell them the potential of what they're introducing. Go back and talk to your constituents. Go into that Tim Hortons, as some of the members like to do, to do their scientific polls. Go in there. Sit down and say: "Here's what we have now when it comes to a public inquiry, and here's what we want to do. What do you think?" Then come back and vote your conscience or vote what your constituency tells you to do, because I guarantee you that your constituents will send you back here to vote with us and turn this thing down.

H. Lali: Madam Speaker, I want to start off by saying how good it is to see you back here in the Legislature, and I hope that everything is going well.

My friend from Kamloops–North Thompson is putting on his glasses so that he can have a closer look.

I welcome the newly appointed minister to join in the debate and actually side with the opposition against Bill 6. I know the folks up in the Kamloops–North Thompson region — I was there this weekend — are not too happy with Bill 6, which the Premier likes to call the Public Inquiry Act. Really, it should be more appropriately named the secret inquiry act, because that's what it is.

My colleagues on this side of the House have spoken so eloquently as to how right now — in place and since 100 years back — we've had a public inquiry act that was indeed public, where the whole nature of having public inquiries is to have them public and have the information that is collected and the findings and any reports that are coming out as a result of that are made public. That's the whole nature of a public inquiry — to make information public, not to hide information.

What's happening here is an attempt by this Liberal Premier and this Liberal government to make the Public Inquiry Act a secret inquiry act, because you want to give power to cabinet to be able to decide what information should be public and what should be actually kept out of the eyes of the public.

I see my good friend the Attorney General. He's made a career, a lifetime's worth of effort in fighting on behalf of social and economic justice, fighting on behalf of what is appropriately called "the little guy" or the folks who don't necessarily always get the ear of government or the ear of the powers that be, etc.

I have to say that he's built a very good reputation as a lawyer and then as a judge as well. It was a well-deserved reputation. He is now the Attorney General sitting across the way, and he's sponsoring this bill. It's his ministry, the Ministry of Attorney General. I find it actually very difficult, and so do my colleagues and the people I talk to, that this learned gentleman who is the Attorney General, who has fought his entire life on behalf of social and economic justice issues, on making sure that the rights of the individual and of the public are protected….

Nowhere is that more evident than when people come to court before learned judges to fight their cases. People are open and honest about that, and media are allowed in. Those kinds of cases are open to the public for everybody to see so that there could be a fair trial and a fair hearing.

The Attorney General has done a really good job, and his reputation precedes him. But my colleagues and I find it really difficult to believe and to see that it is the same Attorney General who was a judge fighting on behalf of the little guy, who is now actually sponsoring this bill that is going to do everything but make public inquires public, but to rather make them secret. It's really difficult for me to believe how he could do that and bring this bill forward and sponsor it when it's going to make things more secret by giving more power to the cabinet to decide.

So when the final reports are coming in — the findings of these public inquiries — it's going go to the minister or to cabinet first. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen, how whitewashed the report is going to be, how blanked-out it might be when it comes out into the public. If it's a public inquiry, then that report should be made public at the same time that cabinet, the Attorney General and the cabinet ministers receive these reports.

I also find it really strange that the Premier, when he was Leader of the Opposition, promised in his New Era document of 2001: "It's time for a new era of accountability. Our plan will deliver transparent, accountable government." I find another one here: "B.C. Liberals will reform how the government works from top to bottom to create the most open, democratic and accountable government in Canada." This is what the Premier said in 2001.

I want to put more of his quotations on the record. In his victory night speech in 2001 he said: "We will bring in the most open and accountable government in Canada." You know, it was almost like it was tongue-in-cheek, what the Premier was saying, because he knew he wasn't going to keep his promise so he put a disclaimer in it.

After he said he would bring in the most open and accountable government in Canada in his victory speech, he also said: "I know some people will say that we'll soon forget about that, but I promise we won't." It's almost as if he were already foreshadowing what he was going to do. He was going to promise one thing, but in reality he was going to do exactly the opposite, and he knew that. He knew that when he was saying those words, but he still said those words on his victory night.

Then again in the Premier's swearing-in speech in 2001, he said: "This cabinet is founded on two fundamental principles, political accountability and improved public access." Then earlier in estimates in 2001 he also said: "We think openness beats hiddenness every time, and we want to be sure that people can see what's taking place." This is the Premier speaking both before he became Premier and after he became Premier.

He has made these promises. He has repeated it again and again, and I've cited half a dozen instances where the Premier has said that this is what he would do. But you know what? When you look at the reality, it is totally different from the words that the Premier has said.

Everything that this Liberal Premier and this Liberal cabinet and government have done since taking office in 2001 is to actually chip away at open government and accountability, to make it the most secretive government in the history of this country. That's what this Premier has done.

Then the Attorney General, with all of his past reputation and the great things he's done on behalf of social and economic justice issues, is aiding and abetting exactly what the Premier has wanted to do — to take the public inquiry out of the eyes of the public and put it in the back rooms where so many of those deals are made by this Liberal government, in secret backroom deals, time and time again.

One only has to look at what has happened with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. There are over six dozen changes and technical changes that this government has brought in since the day it took office in 2001 to make it more and more out of reach for average folks to get hands on their information.

At one time the Premier used to say: "It's the public's information, and it's their right to that information." He was going to actually open up FOIPPA, but in fact what he's done is exactly the opposite. This government acts, and has continued to do so for the last six years, in secret.

Well, you know, there was one almost honest thing they did. When they were going to — not that I agreed with what they were going to do…. When they wanted to privatize the Coquihalla Highway, they were actually going to make it public. They were going to say it in public. There was a hue and cry, especially from those Liberal MLAs, the nine Liberal MLAs in the Thompson-Okanagan region. And, hon. Speaker, you were one of those MLAs, as well, in the first four years of your government.

Every single one of you in the Thompson-Okanagan…. When there was a hue and cry from the public and people threatened to vote against those Liberal MLAs, to throw the whole bunch out, it was the nine who had a secret meeting with the Premier to tell him: "Our seats will be lost." When they felt pressure on themselves, it was then and only then that they went forward and stood up on behalf of the people of the Thompson-Okanagan to say: "We do not want the privatization of the Coquihalla Highway." That's what happened.

But you know what? The Premier learned an important lesson, because what he did after that was to make sure that when he was going to do something like that, he was never going to make it public.

That's exactly what happened with B.C. Rail. The big scandal, this Liberal scandal over B.C. Rail, you know, with all sorts of allegations and court cases that are pending and ongoing right now and investigations that are taking place. Why? Because that deal was done in secret. It's almost as if Howe Street sat the Premier down and said: "From now on thou shalt not make things public; thou shalt make them in secret."

That's what happened with the B.C. Rail deal. This is after…. In 1996 in the election and in 2001 the Premier said that he was not going to sell B.C. Rail, but he did. He ended up selling it, but it was done in secret.

The Freedom of Information Act has been gutted by this Liberal government to make it more and more secret all the time. There's a history of secrecy. The privatization or the semi-privatization, they call it, of B.C. Ferries. The same thing with the MSP premiums, the administration of the Hydro records as well, the NDIT, the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust and the Vancouver Island initiative trust. All of these things are hands off from government. They're put out as these quasi-independent, quasi-government bodies, at arm's length, where they're not subject to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

They're not. They've excluded them. You can't get anything. Anytime you try to get something from this government, every time we apply for a freedom-of-information request, it doesn't matter what it is, they come in empty. Time after time they come in blank.

For instance, it was the manuals, those big thick binders that ministers have in order to answer question period, and they have those. When we asked through freedom of information in 2005 for copies of the Premier's notes and the minister's notes, over 50 percent of them were blank. The Premier's entire briefing notes were totally blank.

That's how this government operates. It operates in secret, and it continues to operate in secret all the time. It's a real shame, because the Premier has gone against everything that he said before the election when he was opposition leader and even on his election night victory and his cabinet swearing-in.

That's not right. The people of British Columbia want public inquiries, not secret inquiries. The people of British Columbia want access to their information. The Premier said the information belongs to the public, and the public has a right to know and have appropriate access to that information. But now it's all done in secret, and he wants to bring in this Bill 6 to make it even more secret. That's not right. The people of British Columbia don't want that.

The opposition is speaking up on behalf of the people of British Columbia. I just wish that cabinet ministers and the backbenchers on the other side, on the government side, would stand up and say something on behalf of their constituents. The Attorney General — he made a career of standing up for people, the little guy, for decades — is now abandoning them and is going to make this secret.

What we're saying on this side of the House is for the government to withdraw this bill. The Attorney General should withdraw this bill. He's the one who is sponsoring it and bringing it in. He should withdraw it, given his background of the last 30 years or more in terms of standing up for the little guy and on behalf of people and the information that they need.

What we're doing is urging this government to withdraw this bill, to work with the opposition and bring in a true public inquiry act that we can support, that all members of this House can stand up and speak in favour of and be proud of supporting when the time comes to vote on it.

What we ask of this Attorney General and this Premier and this Liberal cabinet is to withdraw Bill 6.

A. Dix: I'm going to make one more attempt, because I know the Attorney General is listening very carefully to the arguments being put forward in opposition to this bill. We're going to make one last attempt, because we believe that reason will prevail, that the Attorney General will listen to this side of the House

and will rise at the end, when we all think he'll close debate on this bill, and will say: "I agree. I will withdraw. I will hear the views not just of the opposition but of the people of British Columbia."

I would say that one has to wonder about the necessity of this. The Attorney General will know, having been part of commissions and inquiries himself, that public inquiries have had a huge impact on the history of our country. We can think of, in federal jurisdiction, public inquiries such as the Macdonald commission and the Krever inquiry and others.

Here in our own jurisdiction, the Gove report had a profound impact on public policy in our province. That report had some critical things to say about the Social Credit government, and it had critical things to say about the previous NDP government. The government took the report and — even though the report was extremely critical — implemented it, comprehensively and in full, with the support of the then opposition. Ironically, of course, the B.C. Liberals undid much of that in their first years in government.

One can imagine what may have happened, given the history of this government, had the government had its opportunity to get its hands on the Gove report — if the Gove report wasn't given, as it was in the 1990s, an opportunity to have full expression both in the media and in the public. That report by a distinguished judge in British Columbia came forward, and it had a profound effect.

I wonder why it is that the Attorney General and the government would want to tamper with this history of public inquiries. I know that the member for Surrey-Whalley and others have talked about that history. I only have a short amount of time here, but one wonders why they would want to tamper with that, because it apparently is the belief of the Attorney General and the cabinet that cabinet ministers — especially about reports that impact them politically — are better judges of what should be shown and not shown than the very people they appoint to head public inquiries. That's their position.

I'll just give one example of what I mean when I say it's clear that it's not the case. The Attorney General was here. He will have heard this. It was in the media — the letter of resignation of Mr. Purchase from the Fraser Health Authority. This public letter of resignation, clearly a political declaration of criticism of the government, was severed in clear contravention of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act by the government. They had the power to do it. It was in their hands. That came forward to them. It was in the hands of the Minister of Health, and he severed it. He cut out important things for no good public reason, for no protection of anybody's privacy.

It wasn't Mr. Purchase's family that was in question. It wasn't names of people that he knew that were in question. It was things like: "The government's policy is wrong. It's bad. They're inadequately funding health care, and beds are going to close." Those are the things that they decided the public didn't have the right to see.

It's why I think that when we have and we appoint distinguished commissions of inquiry and hopefully distinguished people to lead commissions of inquiry, the government's control over that process at the front end with the terms of reference should be limited to that control. In fact, it should be up to the person that they put in charge of the independent inquiry — using and expressing his full independence — to decide what his or her recommendations are, when to release it and in what form to release it.

Instead we have a government that wants, in section 28 of this bill, to take that control away and put that control in the hands of cabinet. When they were in opposition and materials such as this came forward, and there was any delay — like half an hour's delay — in the information being provided to the House, they complained about it.

Here they are giving themselves the opportunity, virtually an almost unfettered opportunity, to delay the release of public inquiries and to put their spin on freedom of information — a spin which seems to be a defence counsel spin.

The attitude of the government of British Columbia since this government has come to power, with respect to the freedom-of-information law, is to use the law to try and hide material from the public — not to enforce the law and to ensure that the public gets the information that it needs to get but to hide information relevant to the public.

Here we have a bill about public inquiries with a rich history in this province. We think of the role of the Gove inquiry and then the Hughes report and the influence it had on children in care and on these issues in British Columbia — the positive influence, I would argue, that it had on those things. Then we see a government which, after all its failures were fully exposed in those reports, both governments of all parties….

It's important to realize that what goes around comes around politically. We are stewards of the law here, and I would suggest that this is not a responsibility…. The responsibility to sever public inquiries, to keep them and to decide when they're released is not a responsibility that the cabinet should have.

When you put distinguished people, when we think of Tom Berger and the Attorney General himself and Justice Gove and Ted Hughes…. The government believes that they are, on issues that actually impact the government politically, better judges than those people are at deciding what the public should see and what it shouldn't see.

It's wrong, hon. Speaker. The Attorney General should acknowledge that today. He should take section 28(3) and section 28(4) out of the legislation. He should take them out because they're inconsistent with the histories of public inquiries, inconsistent with a view of open government and independent criticism of government that people share in this province and in this country. It's inconsistent with the sense that public inquiries from time to time can play an important role in shining a light on government activities and an important role in making recommendations to improve the lives of British Columbians and Canadians.

I ask the Attorney General…. I don't understand why it is necessary to give the government special powers and special controls over public inquiries. If one is straightforward about these issues, one lets the chips fall where they may. When one appoints an independent inquiry into an important public issue, one should take responsibility for that.

If one disagrees with the conclusion, there's every opportunity for the members of the cabinet — with all of their communications people, all of their access to the media, all of the means that government has — to respond to public inquiries, but it is not their role to hold back information from independent public inquiries from the public.

I ask all members of this House to defeat this piece of legislation at second reading.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Attorney General closes second reading debate.

Hon. W. Oppal: My initial intent was to reserve comments until committee stage, but I think I'd be remiss if I did not put some comments on the record. Since there has been so much rhetoric and, with great respect, misstatements, I think I should reply to some of the comments that have been made, particularly the misstatements.

One member of the opposition said that the Hughes review would not have been done under this act. Well, the Hughes review was never done under any inquiry act. It was done under a separate agreement.

The member for Esquimalt-Metchosin said that the executive council may direct the ministers to withhold portions of the report for any reason — forgetting, quite inadvertently I'm sure, to state that "for any reason for which information could or must be withheld by a public body under sections 15 to 19 and 21 to 22(1) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act."

You know, I don't think that it furthers the debate at all when relevant portions of what we're trying to do are left out of the debate. If we're going to debate this thing, let's do it objectively with all of the evidence.

The critic calls it a secret inquiry act. That's kind of cute. It gets you on the six o'clock news, but regrettably, it doesn't further the debate at all.

The members of the opposition have wrapped themselves in the 1897 act as though that act is the one to which applicable standards ought to be applied. Well, I have news for members of the opposition. The world has changed since 1897. For starters, there was no privacy legislation in 1897. There are all kinds of complicating factors that were not in existence in 1897. That's why we're enacting new legislation.

Someone here actually quoted Churchill today. Talk about over-the-top statements. Winston Churchill — he's an irrelevant factor in this debate.

As I understand the opposition's position, the position is as follows: this act compromises the principles of openness and accountability. It does exactly the opposite, with the greatest of respect.

The basis of the legislation is to promote openness and to promote accountability. It's important to remember that the principle of openness and the principle of accountability — the public's right to know — have never been absolute. Otherwise, judges would not have the power to impose publication bans.

Why do you suppose that judges have the right to impose bans of the names of victims of sexual assaults? The public doesn't have a right to know that. It's for a very good reason that we give judges the powers to do that. Why do judges have the right to close courtrooms under certain circumstances, particularly when it involves the compromising of sensitive investigations and national security?

You have to understand and put these things into context. I'm going to give you a scenario here. Let's assume for a minute that a public inquiry is held in regard to certain police misconduct. Let us assume for a minute that an undercover police officer testifies and testifies to, for the purposes of the narrative of the investigation, certain investigative methods that were used during the course of the investigation. Does anybody in this House seriously think that the name of the undercover officer ought to be revealed to the public? Does anybody here…?

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, that's what you're promoting — openness. Let's just open the report and give it to everyone and not sever it at all.

Hon. W. Oppal: We regularly impose bans on publication where there is an investigation in progress, where it will compromise a sense of investigation. Let's assume for a minute that a murder investigation is going on, and an undercover officer is forced to testify at a public inquiry. Does anybody in this House seriously think that the evidence of the undercover officer, with his identity, ought to be made public?

Hon. W. Oppal: A report has to go to cabinet in order to decipher what evidence ought to be released and what evidence ought not to be. It's in the public interest.

Hon. W. Oppal: Anybody that knows anything about the law would know that. Anybody that knows anything about the law and sensitive criminal investigations that involve organized crime, for instance, would know that not all information ought to be disclosed to the public. That's why the executive council must have that discretion in appropriate circumstances, in restrictive circumstances, as it is set out in section 28, to have the discretion to withhold sensitive information.

In any event, I move that the bill be referred to the Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, the question is second reading of the Public Inquiry Act.

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that the bill be referred to the Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 6, Public Inquiry Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the house after today.

Hon. C. Taylor presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: amendments to Bill 2, intituled Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move that the said message and the accompanying amendments to the same be referred to a Committee of the House being in charge of Bill 2.

Hon. M. de Jong: I next call committee stage debate on Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 2; S. Hawkins in the chair.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move the amendment to section 39 that is in the possession of the Clerk.

Hon. C. Taylor: This amendment provides the power to make regulations requiring that refunds of tax be paid if the tax was paid in respect of items previously exempt.

This amendment provides the opportunity to address transitional issues arising from the restructuring of the exemption for windows. It is intended that the regulations will provide refunds for tax paid on multi-glazed windows that were purchased to fulfil an agreement or a contract entered into prior to the effective date of the imposition of the tax.

G. Robertson: A question related to this amendment. Were the businesses that are affected by this amendment and were in contracts for windows being sold consulted prior to this amendment taking place?

G. Robertson: The fiscal impact of this amendment in terms of what has already been contracted and the PST associated with it — has it been specified or identified?

G. Robertson: Is there an exact number of companies that are affected by this amendment?

B. Ralston: I have some questions about the housing endowment special fund, which is the first part of this section, and then the children's education fund. Can the minister advise the House why this particular policy choice has been made, to put $250 million into a fund rather than spend it directly on housing through the Ministry of Forests and Range and for Housing?

Hon. C. Taylor: When we were designing the housing initiatives that were included in this budget, we looked at a number of different ways that we felt we could help the community, ranging from our initiatives with the homeless, with social housing and a variety of other needs. But we really did believe that we needed new models in our housing endowment, in our housing policies. One of the ways that we could do it for the long term — not just spend it out of this budget — was to set up an endowment fund that spins off interest, as any endowment fund does, so it's there in perpetuity.

We are in a very good position with our economy at this point, so we did have enough dollars in the surplus that we could take $250 million and put it aside in the special fund that will be managed and, very conservatively, will throw off at least $10 million a year. It will be intended for use on innovative, new ideas.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise the House: what's the proposed management structure? I appreciate that this is early days in terms of setting this fund up, but what's the thought about how this fund would be administered?

Hon. C. Taylor: Could I just clarify if the question was who is managing the housing part of it, or the investment part of it?

B. Ralston: Perhaps we could begin with the housing part of it. I'm assuming that the B.C. Investment Management Corporation will be managing it. I believe that was what was set out by the minister previously, but if that needs clarification, please do.

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, thank you. That's correct on the investment side. On the housing side, the money will flow into the Ministry for Housing.

B. Ralston: The words in the subsection are: "innovation in the provision of affordable, social or supportive housing," and "innovation in housing development and management."

Is it intended to be a fund to which various non-profit housing providers apply? In the past they've applied for funds to construct housing, so I'm wondering what the envisaged mechanism for getting access to the money is.

Hon. C. Taylor: It will be up to the Minister for Housing to set up the policy direction for this fund, but it is intended to be new ideas and innovation and not to be just ongoing funding of the housing that we're already doing.

B. Ralston: So would it be opened, for example, for financial institutions to make application to put forward innovative mechanisms of housing finance?

Hon. C. Taylor: This is really about new ideas, and we specifically did not want to tie down all future Ministers for Housing as to what ideas only would be considered. Therefore, the Minister for Housing will look at the ideas that come before him, and he will design the way he approaches that fund going forward. I don't at this point, as Minister of Finance, want to rule out any ideas that might come — in this case — his way before he's actually had a look at it.

One of the issues that I mentioned in the budget speech that might work, or might not work, is the idea of these parents and families who have come to us who have adult disabled children. They're worried what happens to their children when they die.

They came forward and talked about a model that has individual parents — or in this case, six parents — who would buy a floor of an apartment building. It would be private capital as they set up the apartments for their grown disabled children, but there has to be some funding that would come in from the province in terms of a care centre in the middle of that floor so that their adult disabled offspring would actually have someone to keep an eye on them, to help them if they

needed help with medications, food, laundry, or hygiene — whatever that might be. So whether or not that specific model will work or not will be up to the Minister for Housing to decide, but that's the kind of interesting idea that we've never approached before as a province.

B. Ralston: I think many are familiar with PLAN, which is probably the organization that the minister is referring to. Is it also intended, for example, to consider representations by people in construction of innovative construction techniques and different materials? Is this going to be included in the broad rubric of green building or the LEED designation? Is that also contemplated as well? I appreciate that these are open-ended categories, but it is $250 million. Presumably the range of potential expenditure is quite broad.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is difficult without narrowing this on the Minister for Housing. It's not meant to be construction — straight-ahead construction dollars — but it may be a new model of construction or projects that says, "We want to do something specifically for those who have mental illness issues or maybe cross addictions," but it has to be new ideas because our old social housing models don't work anymore.

B. Simpson: What was the process by which this was determined to be the priority — that these funds were set aside? How is this…? Of all of the other priorities that are there, that are floating around, how was this decided to be the priority that these funds would be set aside for?

Hon. C. Taylor: One of the pluses of being a Minister of Finance is that you do have a chance to go through the process of listening to the Finance Committee as it went around the province, of listening to the people who come to my office or as I travelled around the province. It was quite clear as we were into the fall of last year that even though the economic numbers were looking so strong — and we really felt that the economy of B.C. was very good — a lot of people were having problems that related to housing.

We really sat down and looked for the complete spectrum of housing issues — what was the nature of the issues? Social housing is really important, but it was not the only issue. There were issues about first-time homebuyers and low-income seniors — people who wish to stay in the rental market. There were 12 initiatives in this budget that tried, each one of them, to get at a different idea about housing. When the surplus was coming in so strong — and we saw that and we showed it in our second-quarter report — we realized that we might have the opportunity to do something for the long term for British Columbia. You know, it's great that we're in good times right now, but we won't always necessarily have these kinds of surpluses.

It was an idea within GAAP, because GAAP certainly restricts what we can do. But to take $250 million of surplus from very good economic times, put it into a special account and have the interest from that account go into housing with a label on it that says: "For innovative ideas…." So it wasn't meant to be the beginning and end of all of our look at housing. It was meant to be one particular piece, which was to encourage innovation.

B. Simpson: Were other priorities considered? As the minister's own language…. "There won't always be good times, and that surplus may not always be there." We have significant other issues around, and as a member of the Finance Committee I heard a lot of those issues. In particular, I look at things like fire liability and fuel management.

We have 1.73 million hectares of fuel management work that needs to be done in the interface zones around communities. It's quite conceivable that we could lose a community or two this summer if we have a bad fire season. So were those kinds of things considered as well, other than just it all of a sudden floated up and became a housing endowment fund?

Hon. C. Taylor: The amount that we included in terms of dollars into the housing budget was just $10 million per year. The $250 million we put aside into a special account. But when we say that we put $441 million into housing initiatives, that only counted $10 million from the housing endowment fund.

The $441 million package looked at — as I'm sure the member opposite knows — social housing initiatives that we could look at, upgrading of current social housing stock, keeping open shelter beds and rental assistance programs to help people stay in their apartments even though there were high rents. It really tried to look at the spectrum of all the issues.

Obviously, any government can choose to put the dollars into other areas, but we felt that housing really was a very important initiative for us. It doesn't mean that the rest of the budget didn't deal with other issues — and I'm sure that when I get to estimates and in other places we'll talk about the budget — but in terms of this particular issue, it was one of the ideas that we thought might specifically encourage innovation in the way that also in this budget we put $100 million into the health innovation fund. That, again, is just to start getting us out of our pattern of old ideas always working, because they don't work anymore.

B. Simpson: Again, pardon me for struggling here, but there are a lot of things in this province that we heard needed ongoing, sustainable year-over-year funding. I see this is a way of doing that. With community transition programs for coastal communities and, of course, the mountain pine beetle, we're going to have communities that don't know what their future holds for them. So that sense of parking some money, having the ability to use the returns from that for year-over-year sustainable funding would be appealing in all kinds of things and all kinds of circumstances.

My question to the Minister of Finance is: who ultimately made the decision? Was it the Minister of Fi-

nance and her office, or was it a cabinet decision that this trust fund should be established for this purpose?

Hon. C. Taylor: Of course this is a decision of government, but I do want to say that this isn't a budget debate. This is about this specific bill, and it's talking about how we've set up the housing endowment fund, which we believe is an important way to put dollars from a very good current economy there for the future — whomever is in government — so that $10 million of interest, perhaps more per year, will be available for innovative ideas. It was a government decision that housing was one of the big stresses that have come out of this very successful economy, and we should focus dollars on it.

B. Simpson: I understand that it's not the budget debate. However, in this province there have been people who have argued for a heritage fund of this kind for some time. Those people were caught by surprise that we get a fund like this for housing when we've been saying that maybe you need that rainy-day fund over for year-over-year funding for some time. But I'll move off of that.

How is this structured from an accountability perspective? How will it be reported out? How will the projects be reported out?

Hon. C. Taylor: It will, of course, become part of the Ministry for Housing budget, and the accountability will be through public accounts and estimates.

B. Simpson: Finally, is the fund itself and the utilization of the fund subject to freedom of information?

G. Robertson: Will the Ministry for Housing be required to designate the funding envelope using this funding as the housing endowment fund or stemming from the housing endowment fund?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm not sure I understand the question. If you're asking will the $10 million be required to be spent on innovative ideas and pilots and creative approaches to housing, the answer to that is yes.

G. Robertson: I'm asking if there will have to be an explicit designation of that funding as coming from the housing endowment fund, rather than labelling certain initiatives or project funding randomly. Will the $10 million, or whatever it ends up being annually, be explicitly identified as flowing from the housing endowment fund?

R. Fleming: I wanted to ask about the children's education fund special account — a few questions to do with that. I wanted to ask, first of all, on section 9.4(5), the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council section that deals with regulations they may make dealing with almost all the parameters of this fund around eligibility — how much the financial assistance will be, how personal information will be collected. Really all the details of this program, I gather, will be made by the executive level at a later date.

Does that also mean that by order-in-council this fund could be wound down and spent on conceivably anything at any point in the future? For example, in ten years this fund will have something like $400 million plus the accumulated interest in it.

Hon. C. Taylor: In our efforts to protect this, to make sure it's there for the member opposite's child, who was born after January 1, it would require our government going to the House and changing the legislation. It would be a very public process were any government to decide to stop this.

R. Fleming: Actually, there won't be any eligibility for this in my family, but I appreciate that observation.

I know that with regards to this fund, you have to be born in British Columbia. That's obviously the first rule. Do you have to study in British Columbia? I can think of some examples where a child would be born and maybe moved to another country, another province within months of their birth. Say they wanted to study in Europe or another country and never lived in British Columbia, never grew up in British Columbia. Would they still be able to portably take this as an entitlement for their education elsewhere?

Hon. C. Taylor: This education fund is intended to be for children who are either born in British Columbia or adopted in British Columbia after the January date, to be used for post-secondary training in British Columbia.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move the amendment to section 48 that's in possession of the Clerk.

Hon. C. Taylor: This amendment allows for regulations related to the refund program for multiglazed windows to be made retroactive to February 21, 2007, provided the regulations are made before July 1, 2007.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2007, reported complete with amendments.

Hon. B. Penner: I call committee stage debate of Bill 3, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2007.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 3; S. Hawkins in the chair.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move the amendment to section 51 standing in my name on the orders of the day.

Hon. C. Taylor: This amendment provides that the commencement for sections 11, 20, 44, 45 and 46 of the bill be set now rather than having them come into force by regulation. This amendment does not change the effective date of commencement for these sections. These sections are contingent on the coming into force of various federal income tax amendments in Bill C-28. The amendment is a consequence of Bill C-28 receiving royal assent on February 21, 2007, after the introduction of Bill 3.

Hon. C. Taylor: I have excellent support from my finance staff. I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, the Lieutenant-Governor is in the precincts, so would people remain in their chairs for a few moments until she arrives.

Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took her seat on the throne.

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

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

Hon. P. Bell: Before I start, I want to recognize that this week is Farm Safety Week. It's an incredibly difficult week for all people engaged in the agriculture industry as a result of the accident that occurred last week. I just want to take a few moments to talk a little bit about the accident, Farm Safety Week and then, also, read a proclamation into the records.

On behalf of members of the House, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families of Sarbjit Sidhu, Amarjit Kaur Bal and Sukhvinder Kaur Punia whose lives were claimed in a horrific accident last Wednesday. The loss of a family member is extremely difficult, and the circumstances of this event would make it even more tragic. I'd like to express hope for speedy and full recovery to the women injured in this accident.

British Columbia's farmworkers, many of whom are from the Indo-Canadian community, are the backbone of our agriculture industry. During my time as Minister of Agriculture and Lands, I've visited many farms and have come to fully appreciate the extremely hard work involved in putting food on our tables. Not only are the days long and the work difficult, but it often goes unnoticed, and actually unappreciated, by the greater population.

Agriculture is hard manual work. Every year in Canada an average of 115 people are killed and another 1,500 are seriously injured in farm-related accidents. In B.C. there are on average four farm-related deaths per year. While that number is still unacceptable, I'm encouraged that in the past few years farm-related deaths have dramatically reduced. The vast majority of our farms have excellent safety records when it comes to protecting their workers, but there is, and always will be, more that needs to be done.

We all have a responsibility to ensure that everyone involved in the farming industry meets their regulatory responsibilities. Beginning this week, and this is probably a very timely week to have this, it's Canadian Agricultural Safety Week here in British Columbia. In recognition of Farm Safety Week, I'd like to take time to read the following proclamation. The proclamation reads:

It's been a very difficult week for everyone in the agricultural community, and I know that you and all members of the House will live in this and respect the members of our community that work day in and day out to put food on our tables.

C. Evans: I appreciate the minister's remarks and Agricultural Safety Week. I hope that all members on both sides of the House participate and make it work. While the events of the moment cause everybody unhappiness and difficulty, it is the people making farm safety a day-to-day issue, when the rest of the world is paying no attention, who will actually solve the problem. We appreciate them.

Moving to the subject of estimates, I just would say that I have a few questions on the TILMA agreement with Alberta and its impact on agriculture in British Columbia. Then I expect that we will move primarily to lands questions to wrap up.

When we're through with lands questions, then I hope that we're finished, unless I think of something else I wanted to say before they stop. Should we just begin?

C. Evans: Hon. Chair, I am just trying to understand the trade, investment and labour mobility agreement with Alberta. I had hoped that we would debate it in the Legislature so that all of the MLAs and everybody watching would understand. It appears as if we are not going to have a debate in the Legislature, so I need to use this opportunity to try and understand what it means for farming.

My first question is: prior to the signing of the TILMA agreement between the former Premier of Alberta and the present Premier of British Columbia, were the minister and the ministry consulted about possible impacts on agriculture in B.C.?

Hon. P. Bell: I should just introduce, as well, my Deputy Minister Larry Pedersen; the assistant deputy minister in charge of keeping her hand on my shoulder and in my chair, when appropriate, Daphne Stancil; and our trade expert Judi Sigurdson.

C. Evans: Could the minister enlighten us about what advice the minister gave the Premier prior to the creation of the wording in the TILMA agreement?

Hon. P. Bell: The two primary areas that were discussed were the Natural Products Marketing Act and the exemption from TILMA for that particular act. There was discussion around the potential impact to supply management and that if that was in fact the case, which the assessment was, supply management fell outside of TILMA. Those were the two primary areas.

The member asked what advice I provided to the Premier. It was actually provided to the Minister of Economic Development, not to the Premier.

C. Evans: What month or year did this discussion between the minister and the Minister of Economic Development take place?

Hon. P. Bell: I'd have to go back and look at my calendar, but it was a couple of months before the TILMA agreement was signed. I don't recall exactly what day, but it was several months, because I was certainly aware of the progress of TILMA prior to it being signed. So if it's acceptable to the member, I would suggest about two months.

C. Evans: The signing date of TILMA, I think, was last August. Is that correct?

Hon. P. Bell: This part of the questioning probably would be better answered by the Minister of Economic Development, but I believe that was signed in April of 2006.

C. Evans: Last week the minister and I had an exchange on the subject of wildlife damage in a general sense. For my own edification but also for the farm community that might be watching, I want to return to the line of questioning in terms of the TILMA. It seems to me that there is more support for farmers in Alberta who experience wildlife damage than there is in British Columbia.

Now, if my theoretical belief is true, or were it to become true at some point in the future, and a forage producer experiencing wildlife damage was paid less than his counterpart in Alberta for similar wildlife damage…. If the grain grower felt that his ability to compete was being unnecessarily damaged by the absence of support in British Columbia, would that qualify as a rationale for bringing suit under the terms of the TILMA?

Hon. P. Bell: I think we covered this off, although I'm not positive that we did, so I will again. But under part 5, under the section, "Business Subsidies: measures

adopted or maintained to provide compensation to persons for losses resulting in calamities such as diseases or disasters," they are exempted from the agreement.

I might point out to the member, as well, that one of the areas I didn't mention was the issue of the agricultural land reserve. Of course, Alberta does not have an agricultural land reserve, and we wanted to ensure that that was exempted as well. It is in fact exempted.

So there are still components of our two regulatory regimes that will not perfectly align. This is primarily focused on labour and mobility — hence the name of the agreement — so the ability for people to work on either side of the border under the same licensing regimes and the same forms of certification….

As an example, a teacher could practise either in Alberta or B.C. under the same licence, or a certified biologist could operate in either jurisdiction. So the focus of the agreement tends to be more on the ability to work in either jurisdiction. Again, I'm treading dangerously into an area of another minister's responsibility at this point when I make those remarks. Hopefully, the member would be able to get more fulsome answers from the Minister of Economic Development.

C. Evans: We did canvass this a little bit last week. It feels to me like wildlife damage can hardly qualify as a disaster. It's just a naturally occurring event on both sides of the border. My questions to the minister really have to do with…. My reading of the TILMA agreement is that yes, the minister is correct. It has to do with professional transferability for a construction worker or a teacher working on both sides of the border.

But it also reads to me like a business — and farming is a business — which feels that it has been aggrieved unfairly in a competitive environment by operating in a different regulatory regime in one province or the other has the right to up to $5 million worth of recompense. Is that not correct?

Hon. P. Bell: Under the structure of TILMA, if a farmer felt aggrieved by this section, they would certainly be able to apply for, as the member points out under the rules of TILMA…. What my comment was, I guess, intended to direct the member toward is that Alberta may try and acquire exemption under section 5 of TILMA.

We would certainly work with and support the farmer if they were to move forward on an application of that nature, but I just wanted to point out to the member that there is a section. So the question that the member asks, I think, is an interesting one: would wildlife damage be considered to be a disaster or not? I think that's a legitimate question and something that undoubtedly we will all be wiser about some time in the next few years.

C. Evans: Similar to wildlife damage, crop insurance. I think there are occasions where the crop insurance provisions are more lucrative on one side of the border than on the other for the same commodity that operates in both provinces. If that happens due to drought or hail, would not the TILMA agreement then, again, inspire farmers to sue under the TILMA for the same risk management provisions on both sides of the border?

Hon. P. Bell: Again, I guess we go back to the point that really, the question would be the level of crop damage. Would that fit into a category of a disaster or disease, I suppose, if it was a biological challenge for the specific crop? It's so hard for me to answer specifically yes or no, depending on the situation. But certainly, TILMA is intended to try and level that playing field, but specifically around the labour of content. It wasn't built in anticipation of targeting specific programs, but there are opportunities in which the regulatory regimes fall significantly apart where it may be applicable, and the $5 million penalty that the member points out could come into play.

C. Evans: I was worried that might be true. Of course, it might have the benefit that a couple of farmers in B.C. sue. We might raise the support for farming up to the level of Alberta, and it would all be a benefit to everybody. In the meantime, it might be somewhat chaotic.

Let's move to the subject of labelling. As the minister knows, there's large pressure, and has been for a long time in British Columbia. A considerable number of citizens would like us to move to a labelling regime advising people of what's in their food. This tends to be put forward most strongly by people who would like a labelling regime around GMOs. If the province wished to move to a labelling regime — either by saying what's in their food or, for example, by returning to Buy B.C., where we had a voluntary label that said where it came from — would Alberta be able to then sue and say: "You can't do that in British Columbia, because it presents a business opportunity or restriction denied Albertans"?

C. Evans: I'm thrilled by the answer, and I don't understand it. Could the minister explain that if the government here moved back to Buy B.C. and there was Crown investment in it, why Alberta producers might not sue and say that's an unfair business advantage offered to only one province?

Hon. P. Bell: I believe that the member in his previous question didn't identify that there could potentially be subsidy involved in the Buy B.C. program. I believed he was strictly talking about the labelling initiative and what that might look like. So to answer the question that I heard, I think, the first time, it would simply be a matter of consumer choice and providing a consumer with information on the specific product

being grown or produced in British Columbia, or perhaps non-GMO, organic or whatever it happened to be — a labelling, branding type of initiative. It might even be a subregional type of initiative where the product is grown in the Fraser Valley, as an example. Those would all fall outside of the requirements.

My thought on the Buy B.C. program, or some program of that nature, is that if there was to be financial support from the province, it would likely fall under the agricultural policy framework that's being negotiated across Canada right now. Each jurisdiction would have a pillar in there in terms of support to their specific jurisdiction. Alberta would have that pillar in their jurisdiction, and we would have that pillar in our jurisdiction. Therefore, the two would be benefitting equally from that pillar. But it would likely fall under the agricultural policy framework II or APF II, as we're referring to it right now.

C. Evans: Yeah, I don't want to complicate it too much. Absent the federal policy agreement, which is not yet built, it's my understanding that the TILMA is built and signed and comes into effect on April 1. Absent the federal agreement getting finished, if Buy B.C. came back in any form and had a provincial subsidy, would it not constitute a contravention of the TILMA?

Hon. P. Bell: Any agricultural policy subsidies are transitional at this point and are to be negotiated over the next two years.

C. Evans: Does the minister have an intention to negotiate an exemption for the possibility of a Buy B.C. program in future?

Hon. P. Bell: Right now I am advised that Alberta and British Columbia manage the labelling programs or province-of-origin advertising regimes in a similar manner, so at this point it's not an issue. The point that the member brings up, though, is a good one, and I think it is one that we would want to more fully engage in discussions on over time.

The good news is that, largely, we're not in competition with Alberta on specific products that we grow, with the exception of the Peace grains and oilseeds crop. Our beef industry is largely complementary to the Alberta beef industry, as opposed to being in competition with their beef industry. Clearly, in crops like blueberries, raspberries, our hothouse crops, our tree fruit crops, we're not competing with Alberta. If anything, to try and capture that larger marketplace into the B.C. umbrella will be helpful. I think what the member points out is a good point and one that we need to continue to focus on. It is a transitional issue.

I think his advice in terms of being diligent in the process of those discussions is wise and sage advice. We'll see that kind of process move along over the next two years. But at this point there's no difference, I'm advised, between the two regimes.

C. Evans: This is one of these issues where I hope he keeps his job and I keep my job for the next year so that next year I can ask: "How are you doing with those negotiations, Minister?"

Let's move to the ALR question, which the minister has informed me is not a concern. Is the minister saying that the agricultural land reserve in British Columbia has been exempted, in writing, under the exemption provisions of the TILMA?

Hon. P. Bell: The agricultural land reserve is specifically exempted by part 7, which is a legitimate objective for land use. We are advised that that is the category under which it is not being disputed — that the agricultural land reserve is not considered to be in conflict with TILMA.

C. Evans: I have a more specific question. Is the agricultural land reserve named in that fashion under the exemption in writing?

In my reading of the TILMA, the word "necessary" is hugely important. My reading suggests what the TILMA says is that a jurisdiction — school board, municipality, recreation commission, provincial government, whatever — has the right to put necessary controls in place. For example, if it's trying to protect salmon, you can have necessary distance holdbacks from development on a salmon-bearing stream. But if a dispute ever goes to court, it's over this word "necessary."

Now, there are many ways to protect agricultural land, and I am concerned that our agricultural land reserve would…. Someday a developer from Okotoks would come to Langley and say, "Gee, I can protect farmland in ways in Okotoks which are not allowed here. This is unnecessarily burdensome," and sue under the terms of the TILMA.

Would that, then, not require a three-person panel to adjudicate on the necessary nature of the agricultural land reserve, stripping the Legislature of the power of deciding what is and what is not necessary in British Columbia and replacing some third-person panel that we don't know?

Hon. P. Bell: I should point out to the member that the wording is that the purpose of the measure is to achieve a legitimate objective. The legitimate objective that we are trying to achieve through the agricultural land reserve is to maintain affordability and quantity of viable farmland.

I think it's very clear, and the member would agree, that through the odd bit of decision around the ALR where there have been removals, the price of agricultural land, if it's not protected by the ALR — particularly in the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan and southern Vancouver Island — increases dramatically.

Our argument would simply be that it is a legitimate objective — the protection of farmland — and we are confident that we are covered in this area by that exemption.

C. Evans: As much as I appreciate the minister and the minister's staff's answer to the question, I completely, absolutely disagree. Many analyses over the years have suggested that if you got rid of the agricultural land reserve, the price of agricultural land would plummet the next day simply because of the laws of supply and demand. Whether or not what I just said is true, you can bet that a lawyer from Alberta would make that argument for this theoretical developer from Okotoks.

Simply the fact that an argument could be made, or that the minister's answer to me is, "Oh well. Our argument is really good," would suggest that they can have a really good argument too. This means that we're actually going to sign and bring into effect on April 1 something that we don't know, and a three-person panel will decide what's necessary and what's not necessary.

I don't think that's what you want, hon. Chair. In fact, I would say that because of where you live, that might be seriously important to you. I don't think you know whether the ALR is protected, based on the answer the minister just gave.

Let's just deal with it straight up. Would the minister please agree to attempt to negotiate an in-writing exclusion for the agricultural land reserve during the two years of negotiations that determine what the exclusions will be.

Hon. P. Bell: I'm confident in the decisions that have been made and in the way that the agricultural land reserve has been treated. I'm confident, and I think that generally the public would be confident, in the argument that if the agricultural land reserve was eliminated, prices of agricultural land — particularly in the Fraser Valley, southern Vancouver Island and the Okanagan — would increase dramatically.

I'm surprised that the member would suggest that the price would go down. I'm not sure what his logic would be. We're confident in the negotiation that's taking place and feel comfortable that the agricultural land reserve will be protected.

C. Evans: The price of agricultural land and whether I'm right or wrong is a complete red herring and completely irrelevant. I'd be happy to be wrong. The minister is essentially saying that he will not negotiate an in-writing exclusion for the agricultural land reserve. What he's doing in saying that is, I submit, putting the TILMA at risk.

We all know, from every poll that's happened for 20 years, that the people of British Columbia support the agricultural land reserve. If they think that a three-person tribunal of people they've never met, with the power of the Supreme Court of British Columbia but chosen by governments, will decide whether or not the TILMA affects the agricultural land reserve, then the people of B.C. are not going to support TILMA and are going to ask that we get out of it.

I'm going to ask the question again. Would the minister not reconsider and ask for just a simple thing? You just go to the table with Alberta and say: "We would like to add the agricultural land reserve to the exclusion list." Will the minister not do that in order to remove the land reserve from the TILMA debate and to permanently entrench it as an icon, a virtue in British Columbia?

Hon. P. Bell: In my view, there is no debate. The ALC and the ALR are protected.

C. Evans: I get it that that's the minister's view. I'm honoured that I get to stand here and ask him his opinion. It doesn't bother me that we disagree. It's that the minister's opinion will not be the deciding factor. The minister won't be the minister. He's part of a government that probably won't be the government when this thing has finally come to court.

We don't know what a three-person panel will decide. It is not a court. They're three people appointed by governments, with the power of the Supreme Court. They'll decide the future of the agricultural land reserve. It doesn't matter that the minister is satisfied. I'd be surprised if he was even a lawyer — certainly not a trade lawyer. It matters what a three-person panel some ten years from now decides. The only way to protect it…. There are two ways: the minister asks for an exclusion, or we defeat the TILMA.

I am out of questions. I'm not going to waste the minister's time by asking a third time. But understand, hon. Chair and everybody watching, that I think the answers that the minister just gave mean that the only way to protect the Land Commission is to defeat the TILMA. He gives his assurance that we can defend the thing in law. I don't think he's right. Neither of us is a lawyer; we're sure as heck not judges. And we won't be there the day that the three-person panel uses the TILMA to break the land reserve.

G. Robertson: I have a few questions for the minister related to Crown land and a registry. The minister and my office have exchanged some correspondence related to what has happened with an inventory of Crown land that apparently used to exist.

One of my constituents, who used to acquire land on behalf of Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing projects in the lower mainland, is again seeking those opportunities for a non-profit called the Jewish housing society board. They're looking for ways to obtain affordable land.

In the past she has been able to access a Crown land registry, which apparently took many years to be assembled, and it was all monitored and administered previously by the Assets and Land Corporation. This was a registry that had data on all Crown lands.

At this point it sounds like, from my correspondence with the minister, there is no centralized list of Crown lands that is available for the public to access, which strikes me as very peculiar, given that these are public lands. The initial responses alluded to accessing

this information through the Freedom of Information Act, which sounds like an extremely bureaucratic and difficult way to get at what should be public information.

Can the minister clarify the current state of a public lands registry so that people may have access to that information?

Hon. P. Bell: Just to start out by mentioning that Habitat for Humanity is an excellent organization and one that, certainly, I personally am committed to and would like to demonstrate our support for, through whatever we can do to help. In fact, I've done some of that in Prince George already. It's certainly a worthwhile organization and one that I think is worthy of support from the provincial government.

We're trying to kind of go back through the best of our knowledge in terms of what the member speaks about when he talks about an inventory. What I'm advised is that the inventory may have been somewhat of an unofficial inventory in each of the various lands offices around the province that monitored ongoing transactions, with lands coming back and forth into the Crown land inventory.

The LTSA, Land Title and Survey Authority, does approximately 1.2 million transactions per year — a significant number of transactions. There is a significant number of those that are lands that come back to the Crown, or lands that are sold from the Crown in small parcels or are transferred.

So the complexity of having a real-time land inventory is difficult, but one that we're working on and that staff have been engaged in for a while. It will build on the principles of the integrated land and resource registry, the ILRR, which has been established for some time now, and is starting to integrate the private land cadastre into the integrated land and resource registry. It is a more complex piece of work.

I think that the opportunity for groups like Habitat is for them to work directly with us to identify general areas of interest and then for us to go out and take a look at those general areas of interest and find what may be suitable in terms of lands that are in the area that could be provided to Habitat in some way.

G. Robertson: Maybe just to be clear on what is currently taking place. Is the minister aware of non-profit — in this case, housing — organizations like Habitat for Humanity or the Jewish housing society who are looking at obtaining lands for affordable housing? Is the minister aware of acquisitions by those organizations working with the ministry currently? Or has this been historical practice that has not been occurring over the last number of years?

Hon. P. Bell: We don't have any specific examples of applications that are currently under process. Occasionally what we also find is that communities will apply for a free Crown grant and then grant that land to different non-profits as one of the components of an affordable housing strategy. Even though we may not have some detail here in terms of what may be going on, it could be going through a free Crown grant to a community.

Certainly, it's an area that we have interest in and one that I identified to my staff, I think, in the order of six months ago — something in that range. They've been working on developing the potential around the utilization of that asset for a variety of alternatives, whether it be for affordable housing or for other options, as well, within communities.

G. Robertson: Just to close on this. I understand that the mechanism in the past for some of these organizations was to identify the land and then persuade the ministry to sell it at a discount to B.C. Housing in order that it could be resold to these organizations and affordable housing could be created at an affordable price.

I would just ask of the minister — now that there are people out there looking for this, particularly given the affordable housing crunch in the lower mainland — that these parties are negotiated with in good faith, that they have the ability to find out what Crown land is available and to move forward on their projects.

N. Simons: To the minister: thank you for your welcoming comments. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to ask about some issues that are of concern to residents of my constituency. In particular, if we're going to talk about aquaculture, are you ready? Do you need to send in some folks from the sidelines? There you go. Injury time out.

N. Simons: My question has to do with the geoduck applications and licences granted off the traditional territory to the Sliammon Nation. In an exchange just last week, I understand my colleague from Vancouver-Fairview was canvassing issues around this consultation process on the geoduck farms. The minister went through a series of what he considered to be consultation process, indicating that there were a number of letters written and there were a couple of phone calls.

My question, essentially, to start with is: was this a standard consultation process, and is this applied to all other ministries' referrals to first nations?

Hon. P. Bell: Each referral is dealt with independently, depending on the nature of potential infringement. As an example, there might be something where

there is not significant infringement or potential infringement on a first nation, where it's an advisory to the first nation. Or there could be something that's very complex — as an example, a major mining project would go through detailed, thorough consultation with the first nation — where there could be literally years and years of meetings and funding provided to the local first nation.

I don't want the member to minimize what I read into the record last week. For the record, with the Sliammon First Nation there were six letters, two phone calls and three offers of various meetings, and one meeting actually took place. If the member would like, I'd be happy to read into the record all the details of that consultation again.

N. Simons: I have no need to be given a recap. I was just asking for a characterization of that consultation process. I know what the recap is because I was speaking to the Chief at Sliammon, and I know what their concerns are.

Last week it was mentioned that a letter from the integrated land management bureau was sent to the Sliammon First Nation in April 2006, and in May it's mentioned that the Sliammon First Nation responded, outlining concerns and requests for further consultation.

The letter is here. The letter states quite clearly, on May 9, 2006 — and this is underlined, in capital letters and bolded, I might add: "The Sliammon First Nation is strongly opposed to the above-noted commercial shellfish licence approvals of occupation and therefore cannot provide your office with our conditional approval."

Hon. P. Bell: On August 21 the integrated land management bureau responded to the Sliammon First Nation and offered to meet to discuss the application. The Sliammon did not respond to that letter.

N. Simons: The letter from the ministry to the Sliammon First Nation I think left little doubt that the ministry had come to its conclusions. Reading it — as far as I can from a neutral perspective — the ministry said that essentially they shouldn't worry because the proposed geoduck farms are subtidal, and it would appear "that access to the area would remain uninhibited for band members."

In my opinion, it's somewhat dismissive of the issues. It says: "Don't worry. We've got you covered. We've got you figured out. You really shouldn't have any concern because it's off the coast. You won't even see it, essentially." The letter ends: "If you have any further questions or you would like to meet, please contact this office."

If you have any further questions or would like to meet, please contact this office. Would the minister characterize that as an appropriate response to a letter saying no?

Hon. P. Bell: I don't think it's appropriate for me to question statutory decision–makers' decision-making process. This was used extensively through the 1990s and is an approach I agree with, so I'm not being critical in any way.

One of the reasons why statutory decision–makers are given the authority to make decisions is to remove the politicization from that process. What the member is asking me to do as minister is to second-guess the statutory decision–maker and whether or not they felt they had fulfilled their obligations to consult with the Sliammon First Nation.

What I can tell the member is that I know for a fact that all of our statutory decision–makers take the responsibility of consultation very, very seriously. There are files and applications that have come forward for various forms of licences, whether it be in the aquaculture or lands tenures or licences, but all forms of different tenure which literally go two, three, four years and more in the process of consultations.

I think we have to respect the decision-making pro-cesses that our decision-makers are asked to undertake. I know they are very cautious and careful. I understand that the decision-maker continues to work with the Sliammon today, in fact, in an attempt to find an appropriate resolution to this. I think, too, that it would not be and should not be my role as minister to second-guess a statutory decision–maker in the process.

If there was a general, broad-ranging concern around statutory decision–makers and the model that is being used, then I think that would be an interesting debate to have, whether or not that's an appropriate model to utilize. I think both sides would agree at this point that it's certainly one that seems to have served the public well.

N. Simons: We should be perfectly clear that the statutory decision–maker makes decisions based on the statute, which is brought in by the government. In this particular case…. And I have nothing against any of the statutory decision–makers; that's not where the problem lies.

Are we asking the statutory decision–makers to interpret what the Supreme Court has repeatedly called adequate consultation? Are we giving it to them or are we going to talk to them? Are they going to implement the government's new relationship? Why is the new relationship or adequate consultation suddenly the responsibility of the statutory decision–maker and not of the minister?

Hon. P. Bell: I find it strange that this member would preach to this government about the new relationship. I saw the member on Voice of B.C. yesterday. I happened to watch it while I was doing my 5K run on my treadmill. I was actually pretty surprised at some of the comments that the member made.

He's completely discounting the government-to-government relationship that we have with 30 different first nations up and down the coast. Just think about it. We signed an agreement, a north coast–central coast land use plan, with 30 different first nations.

We've created a fund of $100 million to develop the new relationship and move that forward, with its control in the hands of first nations leadership. It's not controlled by the provincial government; it's in the control of the first nations leadership.

On January 26 or so this year we announced the new conservation investments and incentives initiative. It's $120 million controlled by first nations, specific to first nations development — unlike the previous government, which in 2001 jammed through the Lillooet land use plan without consultation, even admitted to by many of the members that were involved in the government of the day back in 2000, 2001. They jammed through the Lillooet land use plan.

We are, on a day-to-day basis, in detailed consultation with the first nations in the area, the Stellat'en First Nation, on how we can develop a land use plan going forward. We are working on a regular basis with the Tahltan First Nation in developing land use planning regimes in that area.

We've got government-to-government relationships and revenue-sharing opportunities with something in the order of 120 different first nations around forestry agreements in this province. We have three first nations that are going to referendum to determine whether or not the treaty that has been negotiated over the past number of years is to be approved by their first nations.

For this member to suggest that there is not an active new relationship operating on the ground each and every day in this province is just silly, from my perspective. We take our consultative obligations very seriously. On every single transaction that takes place that has anything to do with Crown land, we are out consulting with first nations. I personally know that from experience, because we're involved in much of that. So for the member to allege that the new relationship doesn't exist simply is not accurate. I think it is inappropriate for him to suggest that.

What I will say, and I'll go back to where I started on this, is that the consultation and the consultative requirements for any given tenure, any form of tenure, are reflective of the nature of that tenure and whether or not they impinge on first nations' traditional uses and rights. That is clearly articulated in all of the various court cases.

In many parts of the province, the KNT First Nations are actually coming and saying to us: "We don't even want to talk to you about minor tenures. We want to talk to you about the larger overarching issues, and we're happy for you to go ahead and process those." They're working with us on developing a clearing house right now. So there's lots of good work that has gone on.

I understand the member's concern around this particular tenure. The statutory decision-maker went through a process of six different letters, two phone calls, three offers to me and one actual meeting and made his decision on the basis of the consultation that he went through. That all said, he's still working with the Sliammon First Nation every day, trying to find an appropriate way to deal with any of the issues and concerns that they have.

N. Simons: Well, I mean, consultation 101…. I'm not as easy a marker as some of my colleagues, but I can see quite clearly in the minister's answer that he doesn't realize that consultation after the fact has been considered dishonourable. No, it's not an honourable negotiation when one side has all the resources available to them, and they expect the speed and the efficiency of government in response to their referral.

First nations are getting referrals all the time. They are overwhelmed in many cases by these referrals. That new relationship isn't even being felt when they're struggling, trying to come up with a response to government before it decides to do what it wants without their consultation.

Quite simply put, not only is it inappropriate to do the consultation after the fact…. I'd like to know who's making the decision whether or not the nature of the tenure requires more consultation or less. Do we have this idea…? Does the Supreme Court now tell us that if it's a little…? "You guys can decide what kind of application you're going to make, and we can tell you that you're going to consult — maybe a few phone calls and a letter." Don't go over to meet them; don't meet them face to face. Don't give them the full information that they require.

That's not consultation. Nobody believes that's consultation. So when I criticize the new relationship, I'm criticizing the fact that it's sort of self-satisfied, talking about this wonderful new interaction between first nations and the provincial government. There have always been government-to-government agreements, for crying out loud. There have been government-to-government agreements going back hundreds of years. I'm not talking about little agreements regarding specific issues.

What we're talking about here is a specific issue that has a broader level of importance, and that is: are our first nations, our brothers and sisters, going to expect that if they don't respond in the timely manner as described by the minister, then the consultation process is rendered moot? That's my question. If the first nations don't respond in the time line defined by the statutory decision-maker, does that mean consultation does not have to continue?

Hon. P. Bell: The member is trying to minimize the level of consultation that took place, so I think it's my obligation to remind the member of exactly what did take place. On May 4, 2005, the Sliammon First Nation was sent a joint letter from the integrated land management bureau of the Ministry — what was then called Agriculture, Food and Fisheries — and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, regarding a planned pilot project that identified proposed geoduck farmsites. To that letter there was no response. That was May 4, 2005.

On September 8, 2005, there was a follow-up letter sent. On October 17 an invitation was sent to seven different first nations about a November 3 meeting in Courtenay of the affected first nations. The Sliammon did not attend that particular meeting. On November 16 a letter was sent to the Sliammon, expressing regret that they weren't able to attend the November 3 meeting. The letter contained four documents describing the pilot project. There was no response received to that letter either.

On April 10, 2006, the integrated land management bureau sent an initial referral letter about the land tenure application for a geoduck farm. The letter requested the Sliammon First Nation to provide comment with respect to the application. On May 9, 2006, the Sliammon First Nation responded, outlining their concerns and requesting further consultation.

On August 21, 2006, the integrated land management bureau responded to the concerns and invited the Sliammon First Nation to meet to discuss the application. The Sliammon First Nation did not respond to that letter. On September 7, 2006, the integrated land management bureau followed up with a phone call to the Sliammon First Nation to set up a meeting.

On September 26, 2006, the integrated land management bureau and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands staff met with Chief Walter Paul and band administrator Maynard Harry. The Sliammon First Nation committed to providing a letter summarizing the Sliammon First Nation's position. No letter has been provided to date on that.

Then on October 19, 2006, before approving the application, the statutory decision–maker phoned the Sliammon First Nation to see if there was any additional information that they wanted to provide. The Sliammon First Nation were advised that the decision was pending, and they did not provide any further information.

I should just point out to the member, as well, that we do involve the Ministry of Attorney General's staff wherever necessary, and we request their advice on whether or not appropriate consultation has taken place with the first nations. That is part of the regular process that we do engage in as well, or — I'm using the term "we" — the statutory decision–makers do.

The licence on this particular geoduck farm was issued on January 11, 2007. From the time that contact was first made, or the first letter, which was May 4, 2005, until January 11, 2007, there were ongoing attempts to consult with the Sliammon First Nation. So a significant amount of time went past.

I might add that the court decision in Haida v. Weyerhaeuser and the Taku River Tlingit on November 18, 2004, I think, very much clarified the obligation on the part of the government to consult with the first nation but also on the part of the first nation to respond to the government in its consultative attempts.

I know this is a complicated, difficult issue. It's not one that's easy. There are almost 200 first nations around the province. There are a significant number of tenures issued every year. The government takes its obligations to consult very seriously, and we do that on a regular basis.

N. Simons: I believe that I'm being subjected to a whipping from a veteran politician who thinks that I really don't have any right to stand up here and ask questions on behalf of my constituents, because the first half of that answer is like ragging the puck. He's basically repeated exactly what's already in the Hansard from last week. I find that a little bit difficult to take, because I know there are a lot of questions we need to ask on this subject. I can tell, quite frankly, that this is an attempt to avoid those questions because we are under the watchful eye of the clock.

Now, consultation 101. "Early participation from first nations, including strategic planning stage. Provide clear and concise information. The information must be thorough and comprehensive and must be fully disclosed. It must seek meaningful input. There must be an action with flexibility with the first nation. Inform the first nations of the process, including reports on outcomes of other consultation." This goes on and on.

The problem with this situation is that you're trying to get the first nations to agree to something on which there is weak, if any, scientific data. First nations know that they have a right to protect the future of their lands, and their lands include, of course, subtidal areas. Any suggestion otherwise, as it happened in the letter from the ministry, is insulting to the first nations people. I think the minister probably knows that, and that's probably why the answers are getting longer and more and more superficial.

My question has to do with consultation with the rest of the population of the Sunshine Coast who will be impacted from the farming of geoducks off the coast. What consultation took place, and did it meet the statutory obligations of the legislation?

Hon. P. Bell: I might point out to the member actually that the minister is not in control of the time that this committee sits or the time that this ministry stays in estimates. That's in the control of the opposition, and if the opposition chooses to place an artificial time constraint on the debate of this ministry, then that certainly is up to them. But for that member to accuse us of trying to rag the puck….

The member asked the same question a number of times and in the future I'll be happy to only answer the question once and then just stay seated. I can tell you that over the last ten or so hours I've been asked the same question many, many times and have responded in a similar way many times and have found it somewhat frustrating as well.

The member asked specifically in terms of what consultation took place. There were referrals that went to the regional district. The regional district provided a letter of support, which it retracted after the licences were issued. But interestingly, they actually provided a letter of support.

I think the member is aware that there were two public meetings held: one on Quadra Island in June of 2006, and one in July of 2006 on Cortes. There was no request from the regional district to have any further meetings in the member's constituency so none were offered.

R. Chouhan: I know that the questions I'm going to be asking were not asked before. They are new questions.

Are there any joint educational programs between your ministry and the Ministry of Labour to educate farmers and farmworkers about their rights and the working situation in the fields?

Hon. P. Bell: There's a joint working group between the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and the Ministry of Labour on worker safety issues within the agriculture industry. In addition, there's a memorandum of understanding between the B.C. Ag Council, which we provide funding to and is the representative body of the agriculture industry in B.C., and the Ministry of Labour. The B.C. Ag Council, as a result of that MOU, provides workshops and training sessions to its organization around worker safety, appropriate measures and ways that it can deal with the risks that farmworkers face.

R. Chouhan: When there is a violation of work safety in the field, does your ministry get a report from WorkSafe B.C. and are those reports public? Can we get a copy of that?

Hon. P. Bell: That is a responsibility of WorkSafe B.C. We don't get copies of those reports. Those questions would be better directed to the Minister of Labour during their estimates.

R. Chouhan: Earlier, Minister, you were quoted to say that farmworkers are paid premium wage. Could you please define what the premium wage is that farmworkers are receiving?

Hon. P. Bell: I should point out that we also support FARSHA, which is the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association, an organization that I spoke to, actually, last year. I spoke to their AGM. They have a long tradition of health and safety initiatives within the agricultural industry.

The member may know that Vantreights just recently advised that they're paying a 30-percent premium to acquire workers within their particular sector. The nursery industry, the greenhouse industry and, certainly, the dairy industry are all paying premiums right now.

In the process of going out and talking to people in the agricultural sector over the last year, one of the key issues that they're identifying is their challenge to acquire enough help on an ongoing basis to get their crops off. That's one of the reasons why there has been a significant increase in the number of seasonal ag workers brought through the federal program.

Clearly, the industry is finding it very challenging. It has come to a place now where farmworkers can pick and choose where they want to go to work, because it is such an industry that the demand is very, very high at this point.

R. Chouhan: I agree that FARSHA is doing a wonderful job. I'm the founding director of FARSHA, and they are doing a marvelous job.

My question is regarding the farmworkers in general. Is the minister aware that farmworkers are not eligible for minimum wage, overtime, statutory holidays, vacation pay and that they also don't get rest periods?

Hon. P. Bell: The member is trying to put the agricultural sector into a box. He well knows, having been representative of the agricultural sector, that that is not the case. Farmworkers are seasonal in many situations, in many cases. They are actually only working for a relatively short season.

Farmworkers came and talked about the importance of having flexibility in their work hours. There were decisions made in 2001. The minimum wages were respective and categorized in the development of the piece rates, which were developed at the time. The utilization of the foreign ag worker program actually specifies minimum rates as well.

I know the member wants to argue about whether or not it's appropriate. I think that, clearly, what you are seeing is an industry that is continuing to recruit ag workers. It is challenging. They're finding good employment in many different areas. I understand that the member doesn't particularly like the approach that has been taken. But this was a decision that was made in 2001.

I find it a bit strange that there is a linkage being drawn. After no debate for six years all of a sudden, because of a very serious, horrible accident that occurred last week, this has become the primary issue. I don't think it is appropriate for the member to even bring it up at this point.

R. Chouhan: Six years ago I was not an elected member to represent my constituents and the farmworkers. As the founding president of Canadian Farmworkers Union, it's my responsibility to make sure that when farmworkers go through these kinds of unfortunate accidents and incidents, I bring out and talk about these issues.

The minister has said that they received…. The farmworkers came and participated in some kind of consultation or advised the government to have some flexibility about these issues. I find it very surprising that that happened.

If that was the case, was there any public consultation? Is there any record of it? Or was it just a discus-

sion that took place between this government and the farmers and the labour contractors, not the farmworkers? Could you please clarify that?

Hon. P. Bell: That issue is under the responsibility of the Minister of Labour and would be better canvassed under that minister's estimates.

This member says that he wasn't elected in 2001 — quite correctly, Madam Chair — but this member was elected in 2005. This issue has never been canvassed in the last 20-some months since that election, and all of a sudden, it's being canvassed today.

R. Chouhan: I find it very strange. That answer doesn't satisfy anybody, neither sitting in this room nor outside this room. Farmworkers are literally killed by unsafe working conditions out there and unsafe transportation vehicles, and we are not getting satisfactory answers from the government.

My question, again, to the minister: is the Ministry of Agriculture — and are you as the Minister of Agriculture — asking the Minister of Labour to ensure that farmworkers are covered under all aspects of the Employment Standards Act so that the agriculture industry is safe and so that it's respectful of those people who produce food for everybody?

Hon. P. Bell: Madam Chair, that member already asked that question. I answered it.

G. Robertson: I have a few questions on aquaculture, just to return to the geoduck subject specifically. The minister had responded last week in estimates on this topic. I had asked a number of questions related to the pre-seeding fishery or the purge harvest of wild geoduck beds that have been tenured for geoduck aquaculture. The minister's responses were to the effect that the ministry has no responsibility or input as to policy around this harvest or pre-seeding fishery.

Can we conclude from that that this ministry has no interest whatsoever in those wild populations and has resigned the responsibility for those wild populations to the federal government DFO?

Hon. P. Bell: Just to be clear, the member intimated that the province absolved itself from a responsibility that it once had for the wild harvest. That has never been the case. Any wild fishery has traditionally been the responsibility of the federal government and remains with the federal government. So it's not that the province absolved itself of any responsibility. The province never had any responsibility. Constitutionally, in fact, it's the federal government that has responsibility in this area for the wild harvest.

I will say, though, that this has been done in detailed consultation with the Underwater Harvesters Association, whose members hold the licences for geoduck aquaculture on the coast. Clearly, it is in their interest to ensure that there is a sustainable wild fishery, and that's why we think this makes for a natural partnership at this point to work with the Underwater Harvesters Association.

G. Robertson: The fact that the Underwater Harvesters Association was issued the first licence has raised many eyebrows on the coast. In fact, in the first group of ten applications the Underwater Harvesters figure prominently. What I've heard, actually, is they're directly related to or part of the Underwater Harvesters Association on all ten of those applications.

The concern is that the wild harvesters actually have a lock on the geoduck aquaculture being proposed and, by virtue of that, benefit from the pre-seeding fishery, or purge harvest, according to ministry documents that inventory the geoduck wild beds and the estimated remaining biomass in these ten farmsites.

There are over 3½ million pounds of geoducks, which is over $35 million worth of geoducks at current rates. In effect, the harvest of all those geoducks, which is mandated under geoduck aquaculture policy set by this government, in cooperation, I suppose, with DFO…. But this government is approving these licences and setting policy which directly triggers the harvest of these wild geoducks and tens of millions of dollars of harvest flowing from that.

Currently, that wild industry has a 1-percent harvest, annually, of the wild population, and that's 100 percent of the harvest on these beds. Therefore, it's 100 times what is considered sustainable right now.

I'm puzzled how the minister can say that the province does not have a direct role related to this pre-seeding harvest when, in effect, it's a 100-percent increase in the harvest of a provincial resource that's triggered by the minister moving forward and approving the geoduck aquaculture applications. Does the minister understand that there is a very strange conflict at work here?

Hon. P. Bell: May I remind the member that geoduck and all forms of oceangoing shellfish or finfish have always been a responsibility of the federal government constitutionally and remain so. To suggest that somehow the provincial government has ever had a role in this…. It's somewhat unclear to me why he would suggest that.

G. Robertson: Is the minister concerned that the ten geoduck aquaculture applications are all from wild harvesters of geoducks on the coast and that the approvals the ministry has proceeded with to practise aquaculture of geoducks on the B.C. coast is exclusively with the wild harvesters?

Hon. P. Bell: I should remind the member that this is still a pilot project. There was the one licence issued, I believe, in 1996. This is the second licence that is being issued, in 2007. It is a pilot project. We do think that the Underwater Harvesters Association does have the knowledge and understanding of the industry and are probably the right individuals to have in this pilot pro-

ject, understanding whether or not there is potential for an expanded geoduck industry up and down the coast.

Again, there has been much work done on this over the years. The original process started in 1991, so we're 16 years into the process, with the second farm now approved over that period of time. So it has been a long and involved process, one in which the federal government plays key roles, in which the provincial government plays key roles, and the Underwater Harvesters Association, at this point, appears to be the right one to utilize in this pilot program.

G. Robertson: On the ministry's website there is reference to interim policy documents, specifically for existing subtidal sites, existing intertidal sites and the process for applying for geoduck licences on those sites. How many of those existing subtidal and intertidal sites currently have geoduck licences?

G. Robertson: My understanding from the ministry website is that these are options for current aquaculturists on subtidal and intertidal sites to apply for geoduck licences on those sites.

Hon. P. Bell: The member's aware of the two licences, obviously, that we've been discussing. I'm advised that altogether there are a total of 38 subtidal and intertidal licences for shellfish aquaculture, but there are none growing geoduck.

G. Robertson: There is a note on the ministry website that states, "Applications for new intertidal geoduck aquaculture are currently not being accepted due to gaps in understanding of geoduck aquaculture techniques on fish habitat," which raises the immediate problem with pursuing geoduck aquaculture, for starters, on intertidal. But if we are talking about gaps in understanding related to geoduck aquaculture on fish habitat, certainly fish tend to also populate subtidal areas.

Can the minister explain why his ministry recognizes that there are gaps in understanding of geoduck aquaculture on fish habitat and yet has proceeded with 38 subtidal and intertidal geoduck approvals in addition to the two approvals specifically for geoduck farms?

Hon. P. Bell: Those 38 licences have been issued by a number of different governments going back 20 years and just did not specifically exclude geoduck. I don't know how many specific licences this government has issued. The member's next question may be: what would that be? I'm sure we can find that out for him. But these licences have been issued over at least a 20-year period of time.

The point that the member makes in terms of being cautious and careful is exactly why you have a pilot project. Where we had one farm since 1996, now we're starting with a second one so that we can do this in a very slow, methodical way and ensure that the science is fully built.

I might point out that there was science funded during the 1990s specific to geoduck aquaculture as well.

G. Robertson: The pilot project that has been in place for about the past ten years off Hernando Island apparently has been doing research. To date the opposition and people in the communities around Hernando who are looking at the geoduck aquaculture industry in their region expanding have not seen any public source for any of the data stemming from that research project. The only paper that is referenced repeatedly is a 2004 DFO paper, which frankly raises more concerns and questions about the practice of geoduck aquaculture and its potential impacts.

Can the minister share data with the public — conclusive data, preferably — about the safety for the environment and the habitat around these geoduck farms resulting from the research over the last ten years?

Hon. P. Bell: To point out a couple of things for the member's knowledge, in 2004 there was an extensive amount of work done by Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We also continue to financially support the Centre for Shellfish Research at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo. In fact, I was up there last summer and had an opportunity to provide them with some funding to do more work and more research.

Also, the federal and provincial governments have been reviewing all of the data provided to us by the pilot site, but because of the nature of the proprietary information, up until now it has not been shared publicly. Given the interest that the member has in this specific issue, I'm certainly prepared to have our staff provide him with all the detailed science work that we have available that's not proprietary to that specific site and the nature of the financial potential for that site, which would be inappropriate to release.

We're happy to do that and to provide a detailed briefing for the member in the next few weeks, if he finds that suitable.

G. Robertson: The concern that has been raised, particularly by residents of the coast and the first nations whose traditional territories certainly overlap the siting on these proposed funds and approved sites, is that there is no published independent science yet on subtidal geoduck aquaculture. The impacts are unknown. The minister is referring to specific results from a site on Hernando and proprietary information.

I think most people on the coast would prefer to see some actual published, peer-reviewed science which specifically outlines the potential environmental impact of geoduck aquaculture, particularly considering there are ten sites in this phase of expansion, totalling almost 400 hectares of seabed, which is a very, very significant expansion from the small-scale project that has taken place.

The first licence issued and the two approvals that have taken place in this next phase of ten sites are right adjacent to Savary Island. I had asked the minister last week specifically about Savary Island and consultation there, and I realized that I didn't get a specific answer. We've had a lot of correspondence from Savary Island in recent weeks.

There have been three approvals off the coast of Savary Island. Can the minister specifically outline what consultation has taken place with the residents and property owners of Savary Island and whether there was in fact a public meeting on Savary?

Hon. P. Bell: I think I outlined to the member that there were meetings held on Quadra and Cortes but not Savary. However, there have been ads placed in the papers and posted on the website.

I might point out there have not been licences issued on those sites either. There were tenures that were issued, but there is still the licensing process that must be completed prior to any activities taking place on the sites. Those sites are not approved for licences at this point in time.

G. Robertson: There is one licence issued, I believe, off the coast of Savary and two approvals. For the sake of the public who may be watching this riveting debate, the Savary-Hernando area is two islands off of Powell River and is inaccessible from Quadra and Cortes, which are accessed by B.C. Ferries from Campbell River. There's no way for Savary Island residents to get to Quadra or Cortes. The licences are all adjacent to Savary Island — the one that is issued and the two approvals that have happened.

I'm curious. Before the licences are issued on the two tenures that have approvals, will there be a public meeting on Savary to get approval from that community and consult with that community?

G. Robertson: At the public meetings that took place on Quadra and Cortes, my understanding is that there was very vocal opposition to these geoduck applications along their coastlines, and nothing as far as approvals has occurred on those islands.

Does a demonstrable lack of support from those communities generally indicate that the ministry will not approve those applications to proceed and not issue the licences?

Hon. P. Bell: Not necessarily. Of course, we take into account all of the feedback that we get from different organizations, but we do base all of our decisions on the best science that's available in the area and on the consultations that we do with both first nations and non–first nations communities in the region.

G. Robertson: I'll raise one more issue related both to geoduck aquaculture and the concerns around the expansion of geoduck aquaculture, and a concern that has also been echoed by a number of communities related to shellfish and aquaculture generally: the threat to the environment of marine plastic pollution.

Obviously, with geoduck aquaculture and the predator nets, there's a significant amount of plastic laid down to protect the young geoducks. With other forms of shellfish aquaculture, there are the plastic ropes, netting, baskets, floats and buckets. There are many uses for plastics in shellfish aquaculture. Concerns are now being raised increasingly that the impact of the breakdown of plastics in the marine environment into micronodules of plastic is every bit as concerning as pollution from oil spills and directly from oil and petroleum.

Is the minister, through his ministry, doing any work to look at plastic pollution in the marine environment and tracking the use of plastics in the aquaculture industry specifically?

Hon. P. Bell: I appreciate the member actually pointing this area out because it's an area that we've been working on with the shellfish aquaculture association for some time now. It is certainly something that we've become aware of, particularly with this past fall's winds and storm events that occurred. We do work with the association.

We think that there are progressive steps being made in terms of developing best management practices around the sites and things like marking any plastics or materials on sites with some sort of a locator notation or an identifier of some type so that we can track back, if there has been a release of plastics into the ocean environment — how we might track that and who they would belong to — and deal with that in an appropriate manner.

There is work being done specifically in this area, and it's an area that we recognize requires ongoing efforts.

G. Robertson: I'm encouraged to hear that there's work being done. Is there a goal in terms of an inventory or registry of use of plastics in aquaculture — and, therefore, an ability to track what is being released into the environment, to ensure that there is not a significant release of plastics?

Hon. P. Bell: I'll kind of reiterate my first answer, which was that we are working with the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association on developing best management practices. Certainly, the industry understands the importance of this, if they're going to have public acceptance of their activities.

Geoduck aquaculture is not normally visible to the public eye because it all occurs underwater, but many other forms of aquaculture do have visible anchorings and so on — that type of thing. Particularly with regard to last winter's storms, it became a bigger issue, where we saw some of the farms break up and the deposition of plastic materials on the beach. We are working on those issues.

I will just add, as well, that I was advised that we are actually in the process of working with the De-

partment of Fisheries and Oceans on a collaborative effort to determine what the best materials are for the ocean environment — what types of plastics are more resilient to the impacts of that particular environment and what would be appropriate for use. We don't have a specific time line on the completion of that work. At this point in time it's ongoing work, but it is worthwhile work in an area that the ministry takes an interest in: finding the right materials to be utilized in that environment.

G. Robertson: I'll just remind the minister: in these storms this winter, there was a considerable amount of geoduck predator netting that washed up on the shores adjacent to the pilot project off Hernando Island. Well, people haven't known what it was exactly and where it was coming from. But it has been a concern on those islands and in those communities, the amount of plastic that's being broken up by anchors, presumably, and rough weather — torn up and deposited on the beaches. So there definitely are concerns related to geoducks, specifically, and the plastics associated.

I just want to return finally to a question stemming from the DFO's 2004 paper on geoducks and the potential impacts of subtidal geoduck aquaculture on the conservation of wild geoduck populations and the harvestable TAC in B.C. There's a section of it that mentions the province of B.C. being "extremely anxious to develop and expand a competitive geoduck culture industry." It then goes on to state: "Provincial authorities have committed to providing opportunity for geoduck culture expansion by early 2005."

My question to the minister is: to whom did the provincial authorities make a commitment to providing opportunity for geoduck culture expansion?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm advised that both the Comox Nation and the B.C. shellfish aquaculture association have had a very real interest in the potential around geoduck aquaculture for some time. Clearly, we're promoting the notion of an expanded geoduck industry. The member is quoting from, I gather, a federal document that would certainly appear to contain some editorial comment as well.

What the federal government may be putting in their paper, as far as editorialism, I'm not sure, but we certainly have had representations from a number of interested parties, including the Comox Nation and the B.C. shellfish aquaculture association. Interestingly, this first licence, it has been determined, is more appropriately falling underneath the Underwater Harvesters Association in recognition of their area of expertise in this area.

G. Robertson: Whether the federal government was taking liberties with their interpretation of the province's commitments on geoducks, it's intriguing that the Comox Nation was interested at one point. Will the minister clarify if any of the ten applications currently being considered come from first nations?

Hon. P. Bell: Not that I'm aware of, but the Comox Nation continues to express an interest in geoduck aquaculture and opportunities around them.

J. Brar: I have probably one question, a simple one and the last one. There has been quite a bit of discussion about the labour charges in the farming industry. Subsequently I have seen a lot of discussion in the South Asian media, including radio programs and the print media, talking about that.

There has also lately been a discussion that an MOU has been signed with the federal government to bring farm labour from India and other South Asian countries. As we know at this point in time, farm labour mainly comes from Mexico. Last year the Minister of Labour went to India, and he also made some comments about that — that it is a possibility.

My question to the minister is: do we have a signed memorandum with the government of Canada to bring farm labour from India, for example? And if we have, how many people have come under that program?

Hon. P. Bell: No, we have not signed an MOU. There have none that have come underneath, obviously, because the program doesn't exist. We've been advised through our research that we would be in contravention of the rules and regulations of the World Trade Organization if we were to enter into an agreement of that nature with India. There was a fairly detailed review done of the opportunities.

I thought there was an interesting opportunity to work with India, knowing the amount of interest in Canada for agriculture from the Indian community. Apparently, the deal with Mexico has been grandfathered under the rules of the World Trade Organization. The policy was established prior to the formalization of the rules and does not allow for an opportunity with India.

I will say that my colleagues in other ministries are working and looking at what other opportunities may exist to attract more Indian immigrants to Canada to support the agricultural sector. We've not found a simple answer yet to that opportunity, but we are supportive of it.

C. Evans: I just wanted to say to the minister and the minister's staff: thanks a lot. We're done. We very much appreciated the straightforward opportunity to get to ask questions, and we hope for way better answers next year, which we'll do our best to elicit.

The Chair: I understand that the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance is coming in, in a few minutes.

I will declare a ten-minute recess. This chamber will reconvene at five minutes to five.

Hon. C. Richmond: Before I make my formal remarks about the ministry, I would like to introduce some members of the ministry's executive who have joined us today.

Just before I do that, I wish to publicly congratulate my critic, the member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge, on the birth of his second child, a son. I understand that both mother and son are doing very well. Our congratulations to you.

Hon. C. Richmond: I'm joined today by the deputy minister, Cairine MacDonald; by Sharon Moysey, assistant deputy minister and executive financial officer, management services division; Andrew Wharton, assistant deputy minister, integrated social development service delivery; and David Curtis, the executive director of corporate planning and operations division.

I would also like to thank all ministry staff, some 2,000 of them, who worked throughout the province providing assistance to British Columbians most in need. Their dedication to the public and the service they offer are very much appreciated and make my job as minister that much more rewarding.

I know from my visits to the various regional offices and from talking with many of the employees that they are really making a difference in people's lives. That is what defines success to me — making a difference and helping to change people's lives for the better. That is what this province and this ministry believe in.

First of all, just an overview of the ministry. The vision of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance is to provide services that move people toward employment and assist individuals and families in need to achieve their full social and economic potential.

The services are delivered through 89 ministry offices, 19 Service B.C. branches and three service centres throughout the province. Each of the five regional offices is tailored to reflect both the geographic and demographic attributes of each region.

The ministry has been allocated a budget of just under $1.48 billion for the fiscal year 2007-2008. This is an increase of approximately $93 million from last year's $1.38 billion budget. This funding directly helps approximately 135,000 British Columbians most in need.

These 135,000 British Columbians include people who are able to work but who for a variety of reasons are currently unemployed, people with more serious barriers to employment, single parents, families with children, and persons with disabilities. These are British Columbians who turn to the province for support as a last resort, having first used their own savings and personal assets to support themselves.

Budget 2007 and the rate increases. Before I begin talking about how this ministry helps people find and keep good jobs and helps the most vulnerable in B.C., I'd like to highlight some of the news from Budget 2007. Some of these remarks I have made in my budget speech, but I think they are worth repeating.

This budget has brought forth many positive developments for the ministry and the people it helps every day. It is particularly great news for families, children and employable singles who are on income assistance, and everyone gains from the strength of our strong economy.

First, we're boosting the maximum shelter rates by $50 a month for all clients — giving employable singles, couples and single-parent families the highest shelter rate in Canada.

Second, we've raised the total rates for employable singles by $100, or 20 percent, to $610 a month, giving them the second-highest rate in Canada.

Third, we wanted to increase the rates for families and children, and we've done just that, with increases ranging from $97 to well over $200 a month, depending on the number of children in the family.

These increases mean that we have now standardized the shelter and support rates that children receive, regardless of their parents' income assistance category. Up until this time, there was a discrepancy in the amount paid to children just because of the way it evolved. The grid was not uniform across the spectrum. It is now. There was a discrepancy in the amount of shelter and support rates that families were receiving.

Shelter rates were higher in families with children of parents with disabilities. Support rates were higher for children in expected-to-work families. By standardizing these rates, we are correcting this more than 30-year-old anomaly, and all families with children will now receive the same amount of funding per child, depending on the size of the family.

Another positive change that reflects how this government supports families is seen in the standardization of rates where one parent is classified as a person with persistent multiple barriers — two-parent families where only one adult is classified as a person with persistent multiple barriers and the other as expected-to-work.

They will now receive a percentage of what a two-person PPMB family currently gets, allowing both adults to be eligible for PPMB medical supplements and an earnings exemption of $500 per month.

In total, all these shelter and support rate increases will cost $188 million until the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year, with $58.1 million allocated for the coming fiscal year.

One of our recent successes has been the movement of people from income assistance into jobs. Six years ago there were over a quarter of a million people in our province who were reliant on income assistance. Today there are about 135,000, a decrease of 115,000 people.

What is particularly dramatic about this decline is the expected-to-work caseload, down from 87,000 in June 2001 to 18,000 in January of this year — a decline of almost 80 percent. It illustrates how the caseload in income assistance has changed so dramatically.

What has changed the most? Well, I guess jobs and employment programs. We're leading the country in job creation. Since 2001 more than 350,000 new jobs have been created in B.C., and we enjoy the strongest economy in decades. Since 2001 our government has invested half a billion dollars on employment programs, and this year the province is investing $70 million on those unemployment programs — $70 million this year.

One of these is the new $35 million B.C. employment program that was launched last July. It provides approximately 15,000 income assistance clients throughout the province with services and support in order to help them move towards employment and greater self-reliance. The B.C. employment program is delivered by a network of about 80 community-based service providers.

For some clients an opportunity for employment is all they need, and thanks to the B.C. employment program, they are getting those opportunities. Since its launch, the benefits are there for everyone to see, as nearly 1,300 clients have been placed in jobs.

The community assistance program is for many of our clients who face greater challenges in achieving self-reliance. Often these people have multiple barriers which need to be tackled. The $7½ million community assistance program — or CAP, as it is known — provides approximately 5,000 multibarriered clients each year with life skills and advocacy services to improve their quality of life and strengthen their connection to supports within their communities.

Individuals are learning, for example, how to create a healthier lifestyle, become a volunteer, improve personal budgeting, find suitable housing and develop skills that contribute to stronger family relationships. It is delivered in 50 communities throughout British Columbia by 33 community-based service providers. The community assistance program is often the first step for many clients on the road to employment.

Persons with disabilities and the changing caseload. Equally as important as our focus on employment is our commitment to building the best system of supports for those in need, and this includes persons with disabilities. Earlier I spoke about the success the government has enjoyed in seeing the number of British Columbians relying on income assistance drop dramatically, specifically for the expected-to-work category.

The number of persons with disabilities receiving assistance is rising, from 53,000 six years ago to more than 73,000 today. That's a 40-percent increase. That's good news. It means that more of our most vulnerable citizens are getting the services and supports they need.

The dramatic decrease in the ministry's expected-to-work caseload and the equally dramatic increase in the persons-with-disabilities caseload illustrate how much the caseload has changed in the past six years and is directing spending priorities across government.

This government invests more than $4 billion annually on programs and services for British Columbians with disabilities. That's $4 billion across government. The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance is at the forefront in delivering government programs that are making a difference for British Columbians living with disabilities.

Many of the ministry's clients with disabilities reside in Community Living B.C. facilities. Thanks to Budget 2007, all 5,000 ministry clients in Community Living B.C. facilities will be provided with the maximum monthly disability rate, leaving them $190 per month for personal expenses. That was another anomaly that had existed for years between different clients of Community Living B.C. Now they have all been brought up to the higher "comforts allowance," as they call it.

Other budget initiatives that help people with disabilities include increases to the diabetic diet supplement by $20 to $35 a month and to the guide animal supplement, boosting it from $62 to $95 per month.

The governmentwide disability strategy builds upon a solid foundation of supports that the government has in place for people with disabilities. We have made significant progress over the past year. In April we contributed $15 million, in recognition of the 20th anniversary of Rick Hansen's around-the-world tour, to the Man in Motion Foundation to help improve the quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries. As a result of this contribution and the Premier's challenge to other provinces, the fund has so far leveraged another $30 million.

We also increased the disability supports for the unemployment fund by $5 million. This fund, managed by the Vancouver Foundation and established by this government in 2003, is now worth $25 million.

Just last month we introduced a cross-ministry personal supports information line. What is so special about this is that it makes it much easier and quicker for people with disabilities to acquire the equipment and assistive devices they need. In other words, they can now make one phone call instead of having to make five different phone calls to find out about the supports that are available.

Over the past year the ministry has reduced the average adjudication time required for a persons-with-disabilities designation from eight weeks to less than three weeks, and we're proud of that accomplishment.

Another terrific achievement is found in our reconsideration process. The number of reconsideration decisions made within a ten-day turnaround has increased from 14 percent to 78 percent — again, more timely service to our most vulnerable citizens.

We're also working with our federal counterparts at Human Resources and Social Development Canada to better integrate federal CPP disability benefits with British Columbia's disability assistance. In addition, we have streamlined the process for aboriginal clients with disabilities to ensure continuity of services both on and off reserve.

Now I come to a program we're very proud of. Last fall at the UBCM we issued a challenge to all communities to increase the number of disabled persons working in the province by 10 percent by 2010 — our 10 by 10 Challenge. It has been taken up enthusiastically by communities all across the province, and the number of communities is growing every day.

We know that we have 300,000 working-age people with disabilities in British Columbia: 34,000 have college diplomas; 30,000 have trade certificates; 28,000 have university degrees. Yet they only have a 44-percent employment rate.

With the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and B.C.'s current economy the strongest it's been in decades, there has never been a better opportunity for British Columbians to fully participate in the workforce. There has never been a better time for us to launch a program like this and get employers to start thinking about and hiring the disabled.

I had the pleasure to launch the program with Mayor Sam Sullivan of Vancouver, and he has also kindly agreed to co-chair the minister's council on people with disabilities. When the challenge was issued at the UBCM, there were approximately 132,000 people with disabilities employed in B.C. By 2010 we want to get that number up by 13,000 — to 145,000.

Ministry staff have been supporting this initiative, contacting each municipality around the province and providing WorkAble Solutions toolkits to assist B.C. communities to register. There are resources available: an employers handbook, a video presentation, information on WorkAble Solutions where employers and job-seekers can directly connect.

At this moment we're up to 22 communities that have enthusiastically taken up the challenge and passed motions at their council meetings, and it's growing by the day. I've been phoning some of the mayors, and they are very eager to get on board and get their community registered. In the coming year this ministry will invest some $21 million dollars in employment programs and services specifically for British Columbians with disabilities.

I would like to thank the staff and the private and public sector leaders who are participating in this council. We had a meeting of the minister's council on the disabled this morning, and the enthusiasm there from the private sector, from advocacy groups, from self-advocates and everyone is just overwhelming. I think we are going to see a tremendous increase in the number of disabled persons employed over the coming year.

I just want to touch for a second on the homelessness issue. We have outreach staff who work on a daily basis with the hard-to-reach people who are homeless or have mental health or addictions problems. The outreach staff help connect the most needy to the services and supports they're eligible for.

A lot of people out there aren't even aware of the programs that are available, and they have a reluctance to come into government offices. This is why we have outreach programs, and we have invested $3 million in partnership outreach activities.

One other thing that disturbs us greatly is the unscrupulous landlords that we are faced with all over the province. They are few in number and mostly concentrated in the downtown east side of Vancouver. It's something that troubles us, and we have put programs into place to thwart these people and keep them out of the pockets of the most vulnerable people in society.

We have actively promoted electronic deposit of their monthly cheques to get the cash off the street and out of their pockets. That program was taken up very well. We've close to 80 percent of our clients on direct deposit. We are close to 90 percent in paying rents directly to the landlords rather than to a manager of a hotel.

We're not all the way there yet. We still have some very unscrupulous landlords. To that end, we are working closely with the Vancouver city police department. We have our HIT team, which is short for housing integrated task team.

We are talking to many of these landlords who instantly…. We put the rent up by $50 a month, and they wanted it right now. Well, it's against the law. They can only increase the rent, under the Residential Tenancy Act, by about 4 percent a year plus the rate of inflation, which is a lot less than just grabbing the $50. We are working hard with the Vancouver police department to thwart these landlords — those who will prey on the weakest in our society.

Many of our initiatives focus on children. We have exempted the new universal child care benefit of $100 per child from the federal government. We've exempted that from income, leaving parents with more money to provide for their children. We've increased the school startup supplement to $85 for children aged five to 11 and $116 for those aged 12 and over.

We've improved the B.C. Healthy Kids program, making it easier for more than 160,000 B.C. children to access the dental and optical services they may require. We have provided funding of $270,000 to support healthy eating and nutrition for low-income families through the DASH program.

We've launched our Quit Smoking Now, a $1.27 million cessation pilot for our clients. The main beneficiaries of that program — which has been taken up

enthusiastically, by the way — are the children, who will be able to live in a smoke-free environment. Their parents will have quite a bit more money to put food on the table for them. So it has been an overwhelming success. I mean, the phone lines just lit up on that one.

Conclusion. I knew you were waiting for this part. I've had the opportunity to speak to you for the past few minutes and highlight some of the more visible accomplishments and successes enjoyed by the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. There is much more I could say, but I know that a lot of it will come out in the questions we are going to entertain over the next few hours. Thank you for your attention.

J. Brar: First of all, my sincere thanks to the minister for his kind words, greetings, for the birth of my son. I appreciate that, and I also appreciate the comments made by some other members and the pleasure offered by the staff members.

I would like to start by saying thanks to the minister for providing a brief snapshot — a really brief snapshot — of the service plan and the priority of his government. I would also like to thank all those staff members who have been working hard to prepare the minister for budget debates. Welcome, and thanks for coming to help us out.

Thanks to my team, as well, for their efforts and hard work to make this budget debate a meaningful one. My special thanks to Amy Higginbotham, Erin Bett, Gurbinder Kang, Murray Bilida and Ruby Bhandal, for working with me and preparing me for this excellent budget debate we are going to have today and tomorrow — and probably after that.

Last but not least, my sincere thanks to each and every staff member working in the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance for their commitment and hard work across the province. I understand that they are dealing, at times, with very emotional and tough decision-making issues in order to serve the most vulnerable people under challenging circumstances.

The minister has, in his initial remarks, tried to paint a picture of the actions, accomplishments and priorities of the B.C. Liberal government and his ministry, but that picture, in my opinion, is incomplete. It shows us only one side of the picture — the good side of the picture — but there is another side to it, which is missing. I would like to complete that picture by putting the light on the missing part of it so that we can begin a meaningful debate.

For the last five years this government has attacked the social safety net in the province of British Columbia. The outcomes of the government's one-sided approach are very clear and visible in every part of the province.

Firstly, the number of homeless people in GVRD and other communities has doubled between 2002 and 2005. The count includes 40 families with children, and that's shocking.

Secondly, British Columbians have the worst income gap between the rich and the poor among all the provinces. The total earning of an average poor family in B.C. is just 16 percent of the average rich family in B.C.

Thirdly, the report entitled The Cost of Eating in B.C. by the Dietitians of Canada shows that B.C.'s working poor and income assistance clients do not make enough money to afford even basic food requirements to remain healthy.

Fourthly, over 50 percent of food bank users in B.C. are welfare recipients. One-third of those are children.

Fifthly, British Columbia has the highest child poverty of any other province in the country, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada. Nearly one of every four children is living under the poverty line.

These figures point out that the B.C. Liberal government doesn't care for low-income and poor families. These figures also clearly indicate that the B.C. Liberal approach is one-sided. In other words, the good B.C. economy is not benefiting all British Columbians.

My role as the opposition member is to ask questions with regard to the public policy, visions, goals, objectives and funding allocation as indicated in the service plan. I'm here to do that job. I once again want to emphasize the point that I do not have any intention to suggest or question the commitment and the hard work of the civil servants.

With that, I would like to start asking my first question. I think it's a good start to go back to the last budget debate because there were some interesting comments made by the minister. The minister has touched upon some of those comments himself. I will go back and quote the minister from the last budget debate. Here is the quote. This is with regards to the shelter rates. The minister said:

In the light of his comment last year, my question is: why did the minister decide to increase the shelter rate when he knew that is the case?

Hon. C. Richmond: As I said in my opening remarks, we are after these unscrupulous landlords who will attempt to grab any rate increase that we give. I was aware of it then, and I'm aware of it now. Perhaps I could have worded it better, but I probably should have said they will attempt to grab any rate increase.

We are doing everything we can to prevent them from doing that. Under the law, the Residential Tenancy Act, they can't do that. As I said, we're working not only with our staff but with the Vancouver police department to make sure that these people conform to the law of the land. The law says they can only put the rent up after a year's occupancy by 4 percent per year.

Does that include the rate of inflation? Yes, it does. So 4 percent is the maximum they can put it up.

Although it is a concern, it doesn't affect all of our clients. We now have, as I said, close to 90 percent of them where we're paying their rent directly to the landlord to get away from some of the managers in some of these SROs in the downtown east side.

We're very much aware and have been for a long time of what these landlords attempt to do. We're doing everything we can to prevent them because these people prey on those who are the most vulnerable in our society. We're doing everything we can to keep the cash out of their hands so that these vultures, if you like, for want of a better expression, can't get their hands on it.

J. Brar: A few weeks ago there was a story on Global B.C. basically showing exactly what the minister said. My questions is: can the minister provide more specifics on his plan to deal with this issue? Did the minister put together a plan before deciding to increase the shelter allowance, as to what and how the minister was going to deal with this very, very serious problem? If the plan was there, what is that plan specifically? Can the minister provide more specifics on that?

Hon. C. Richmond: I don't know if I can be much more explicit than I have been, but we've been working on this with the police departments since, I think, about 2005 — for quite some time. It's not something that we just decided overnight. We've been working through several agencies. Mostly, we're talking about the downtown east side. This is where the problem is more prevalent than anywhere else, but it does exist elsewhere in the province.

Let me just quote to you for a moment here about the Residential Tenancy Act. The rent can only be increased to a rental unit once a year even if there is a new landlord or a new tenant within the 12-month period. If a landlord wishes to raise rents above 4 percent, they must either have the written consent of the tenant or they must bring their case to arbitration, where the landlord must prove the increase is justifiable due to extraordinary situations such as the completion of significant renovations or repairs, the landlord is losing money due to increased operating costs or the rent being charged is significantly lower than in similar units in the same geographical area.

The ministry worked cooperatively with landlords, local agencies, other levels of government and the residential tenancy branch to ensure clients are informed of their rights. For example, in the downtown east side the ministry is already working collaboratively with the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, or DERA, the Pivot Legal Society and new landlords or owners of properties who are not aware of the rules around rent increases and eviction notices, to assist clients in exercising their rights under the Residential Tenancy Act.

Now we know that some landlords, hotel managers are aware of the law, but they try in any case. They will say to the clients: "You will pay the increase that you got from the government, or we'll throw you out." Well, they can't do that either, but they attempt to. A lot of these people are very vulnerable and very afraid to stand up to the landlord. That's when we go in with them, with the police if necessary, to explain to these managers and landlords what the law of the land is.

J. Brar: I will try to ask the same question once again. The interesting comment was made by the minister that he has been trying to deal with this issue since 2005. But these comments, which I mentioned earlier, were made last year, after that. The minister was well aware of what the ministry was doing working with other agencies, well aware of the effectiveness of the program. Even after knowing that, the minister made the comment: "No matter what you do, any increase will end up in the hands of the landlord."

I would ask the minister: with the program he was working on since 2005, what changed his mind to make sure that now, finally, if the increase is made in terms of the shelter allowance, it will stay in the hands of the clients rather than going to the landlords? What, specifically, in the plan has changed? What specific actions is the minister taking that made him more confident that this is going to work?

Hon. C. Richmond: I guess probably, as I said in my last answer, I should have said, "It may end up in the hands of some of these landlords" — and some of it still may. We have a tough time policing every hotel, every room rental in Vancouver, but we are doing everything we can to prevent that. That doesn't mean that some of them, as I said last year, will end up in the hands of some of these unscrupulous landlords. Perhaps last year I could have phrased it a little better. But it even showed at the time, though, that we're concerned about this, and we still are. We're getting complaints every day from some landlords who are just trying to scoop that increase, and we're trying to prevent it. It's a very difficult task, as I'm sure the member can agree.

Rates are carefully reviewed every year along with the competing demands on the budget. This year we are in a position to address rate requirements in a fiscally responsible manner. In the budget this year we did have a surplus. We have a lot of people, of course, after that surplus, but we managed to put the shelter rates up for our people by $50 a month. We are doing it to address the rising cost of housing.

Some other contributing factors to the need for a shelter rate increase are: the rental unit supply has not kept pace with the demand; rents have gone up; utility costs, particularly in regard to heating, have risen significantly; and clients need more housing options. Couple that with some of the announcements that have come from the Minister for Housing and we hope that

within the next little while we'll have many more options for affordable housing for our clients.

J. Brar: The other comment the minister made last year during the budget debate I would like to come to as well. Again indicating the shelter rate:

My question to the minister is…. This was another plan which the minister was thinking about at that time to put both the shelter allowance and the other allowance together so that the money goes to clients. What, again, had changed in the minister's mind to still keep both separate and allow those landlords to take away the money, as the minister said, from these people?

Hon. C. Richmond: Nothing has changed. I still feel strongly that that's the way I would like to go. I've felt that way for a long, long time. It's time we…. Well, I would like it to be time that we quit separating the shelter allowance from the support allowance, pay people one sum so that any of these unscrupulous landlords don't know what the shelter allowance is, hopefully get it electronically deposited in our clients' bank accounts and keep the cash off the streets.

The problem is that we are unable to do it due to technical difficulties. We just do not have the computing power at the moment to do that. But we're working towards it. I would like to do it tomorrow, but we just can't do it, or I would have done it by now. It's something that's been on my mind for a long, long time, and something that we will eventually get to do — I hope in the not too distant future.

J. Brar: The other question I want to ask is: if the minister acknowledges that the rents can be increased in accordance with inflation, why have shelter rates not been indexed to inflation?

Hon. C. Richmond: I suppose that's a question that goes right back to 1992. I think that was the last time there was a shelter rate increase. They hadn't been increased by the former administration from '92 right up till 2001, and if we want to get from 2001, we just didn't have the wherewithal when we took over government.

I know by questions and answers like this that we're getting into the realm of politics, but quite simply, we just did not have the money. They weren't increased from '92 right through to the end of the former government's sojourn in government. Pretty much as soon as we were able to do it and sustain it, we decided to increase the shelter rates.

If you remember, our budget three years ago was primarily aimed at seniors. Last year it was children, and this year it's those less fortunate than us — not only our clients but those on the low end of the income scale.

J. Brar: Once again, I want to put this straight on the record that the shelter increase and the living allowance increase this year are actually just making up what the minister cut in 2001. It's not a new addition or extra money. As far as the increase is concerned, basically they made it up to the cut they made in 2001.

My next question is a simple one: what percentage of clients receive the maximum shelter allowance?

Hon. C. Richmond: The percentage of those receiving the maximum shelter allowance is about 60 percent. Those who are not are those who are either in a care facility or in subsidized housing or are not paying any more than $325 a month for their accommodation.

The Chair: Members, division has been called in the big House. We're going to recess until the vote has been taken, and we'll come back.

J. Brar: The ministry has estimated that family shelter rate costs increased by $33 million. How much of that cost is due to the increase for people on temporary assistance?

Hon. C. Richmond: We don't have that statistic in front of us, so we'll have to get that for you for tomorrow. I don't have a breakdown of the percentage on income assistance.

I just wanted to clear up one comment that the member made, though, before we head to go into the other House. When he asserts that we are just restoring shelter rates to 2002 levels, that's not totally correct. These increases go above and beyond the 2000 levels. In addition to standardizing support and shelter rates for children on income assistance, all clients, regardless of category, will be eligible to receive the shelter increase of up to $50.

I want to go back again to why income isn't indexed to the rate of inflation, why the government isn't doing this and why governments have never done it. By tying income assistance benefits to the rate of inflation, there is the potential to impede the government's ability to control its budget over the long term and to target increases to the most pressing needs of our citizens. If there is a higher-than-expected rate of inflation and income assistance is tied to this, the possibility

exists that budget cuts would have to be made to other spending priorities such as health care and education in order to meet welfare increases.

We do not believe British Columbians would find this solution acceptable. The government will continue to review income assistance rates annually as part of developing its fiscal plan.

J. Brar: I appreciate the response from the minister. We will appreciate it if the numbers are provided tomorrow morning so that we can have some further questions on that.

When I asked the question about indexing the living allowance with inflation, I think what we have seen during the last three years that the economy of B.C…. We have a huge surplus. I think that in your annual review, at least during these three years, if the government thought about those most vulnerable people it certainly could have done something with that big surplus which we have at this point in time.

Moving on, on that one, I would like to ask what was the caseload for the temporary assistance in 2006 and 2007?

Hon. C. Richmond: In January of 2007 the temporary assistance total was 37,066, but that includes persons with persistent multiple barriers, expected-to-work but have a medical condition, and some that are temporarily excused. The straight expected-to-work is 16,525. When we add in the persons with disabilities, their total is 59,873, for a grand total of 96,939.

The Chair: I would like to inform all members that the budget estimate debate will recess at 6:10 this evening.

J. Brar: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that information. My next question is: what is the expected caseload for 2007 and 2008 for temporary assistance and specifically for employable singles, if you can provide that information.

Hon. C. Richmond: The average for 2007, which I believe is what the member asked, is for single men: 7,196 — these are expected-to-work — and single women: 3,919. So it's about 11,000 in round numbers.

It's a good time, maybe, to add that these people in the expected-to-work category, both men and women, spend an average of only four months on our income assistance roles. It's not like they're there for a long time. The average is four months.

J. Brar: Thanks for that clarification, Minister. Have there been any changes made to the cost per caseload? If the answer is yes, then what are those changes?

Hon. C. Richmond: The best answer I can give you on that is: the cost per case has gone up by the rate increases, but the average cost of a case has gone down slightly because there are fewer families. There are fewer families, so the costs per case have gone down slightly, but they've gone up by the amount of the rate increases this year.

J. Brar: These stated estimates on page 158 indicate that the caseload for temporary assistance dropped from 47,150 to 41,900. How did this affect the budget?

Hon. C. Richmond: In 2006-2007 the temporary-assistance budget was based on a caseload of 46,477 and totalled $365.4 million. Due to the strong economy and the success of our employment programs, the actual caseload in '06-07 had been almost 10 percent lower than this for the savings of about $40 million.

The temporary-assistance caseload is forecast to be about the same in '07-08 as in '06-07. Without the rate increase, the cost of temporary assistance would have been about the same in '07-08 as our actual cost in '06-07, around $325 million. However, the budget for temporary assistance in '07-08 is $33 million higher than this because of the rate increases.

J. Brar: The Social Planning and Research Council of B.C., known as SPARC, stated that the new increases to assistance still leave people well below basic living costs. For example, in 2005 a single adult only received enough assistance to cover approximately 41 percent of his or her cost of living. The new increases have only raised that number to 49 percent.

My question to the minister is…. This is certainly not to put the minister on the spot. To demonstrate to the people of British Columbia, would the minister be willing to live on the support rate of $8 a day for some time?

Hon. C. Richmond: I did want to clarify a remark I made just before our break. I said the shelter rate of $325, and I guess I'd been saying it for so long because it's been that way since 1992. I should have said $375. I just wanted to clarify that for the record.

I guess in answer to the member's last question, we were trying to find some statistics on it, and we know very well that it's very difficult for a person to live on. A single person with no dependents who now receives $610 a month — it's very difficult to live. We know that. But we also know that we are spending roughly $70 million a year on employment programs to get them back into the workforce, and it's been very successful. Like I said a few minutes ago, they are only spending an average of four months on our income assistance rolls.

I think when we're talking about single employables or expected-to-works, the objective is to see that they don't stay on for very long — to get them onto a work program, which have been very successful. We have put nearly 50,000 people now back into the workforce, off of income assistance. Even a minimum-wage job is far better than being on income assistance.

I guess that's the best answer I can give you. We know it's not intended to live any kind of a lavish

lifestyle. It's intended as a safety net to carry someone over a very rough time in their life and get them back into the workforce as quickly as possible.

J. Brar: Thanks to the minister for his answer on this. But I want to say this: I understand the concept of welfare as to how and how much it should be. I want to make a point here that because the income assistance rates are so low, people cannot survive when they include the shelter and the living part of it.

We have seen that the number of homeless people is going up significantly. As I said before, you talk about GVRD, you talk about Victoria, you talk about Kelowna and many other communities — people have become homeless. The income assistance rate should be at least to the extent that people can survive during that tough time when they have to move on for employment.

Having said that, I will take it that the minister is not willing to live on $8 per day to demonstrate to the people of British Columbia that this is a livable amount. I want to again make a point for the record that in the past there has been a member of this Legislature who went out there and stayed out for a month on the welfare rate of that time to demonstrate to the people of British Columbia how difficult it was to live on that amount.

I would move on to the next question. The Dietitians of Canada stated in their 2006 annual report that it cost a family of four — two parents, two children — $653 a month to adequately feed a family. But the new assistance rate for a family of four is $1,101.

How are they supposed to get by with only $448 a month left for all other expenses, including shelter?

Hon. C. Richmond: First of all, I just want to back up to the member's last comments about going out on the street and living on the street. No, I haven't done that, but I'll tell you what I have done. I have gone out and walked the streets and gone into the homeless shelters. I did it in Victoria with the Rev. Al Tysick, who is well known in Victoria. I have had a firsthand look on more than one occasion at what it's like.

I don't always look at things from 30,000 feet. I get down on the street, and I've seen it for myself. There are a myriad of problems on the street that go far beyond just basic shelter and basic support. I'm sure the member knows what I'm talking about.

When you go into some of these shelters, there are people who have multiple — many, many — barriers to employment. They run all the way from…. We know those who will probably never, ever be employed, to those who are there and need temporary help, to those who are there with many problems — including mental health and drug addiction — and sometimes one is induced by the other. Sometimes it's very hard to tell which came first, the problems or the drugs.

It is a very difficult situation. I've done it in more communities than one. But I did spend an afternoon on the street. I know the member that you're talking about who did go and live on the street. It was Emery Barnes, who was a member of your party. I knew Emery very well. In fact, I liked him. He was a very, very nice man.

On the other thing, there are many measures of poverty in the country. Almost every group has its own measure that it goes by. We know, though, that access to healthy, nutritious food is important for all British Columbians. That's why we've built an income assistance system that recognizes that our most vulnerable citizens, those with disabilities and multiple barriers, may need to be on income assistance for a long period of time and deserve the highest rates of assistance available so they can choose a healthier lifestyle.

To further support the health needs of our most vulnerable income assistance clients, government provides additional supports such as diet, natal and monthly nutritional supplements and has recently invested in a provincewide community kitchens project.

We've also ensured that children in low-income B.C. families, people most in need on income assistance, now have enhanced dental and optical coverage to take that burden off of parents. Our program enhancements and supports are made possible because of this government's sound fiscal management and the excellent strength of our province's economy.

Government is committed to further enhancing programs for those most in need as finances permit.

The Chair: I would like to entertain a motion to rise because there's going to be a vote in the House shortly.

J. Brar: I move that the committee rise, report resolution of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and report progress on the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance and ask leave to sit again.

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7	Section 11	January 1, 2006
10	Section 20	January 1, 2006
18	Sections 44 to 46	January 1, 2007]


	YEAS — 40

Reid	Coell	Ilich
Chong	Christensen	Les
Richmond	Bell	Krueger
van Dongen	Roddick	Hayer
Lee	Jarvis	Nuraney
Whittred	Horning	Cantelon
Thorpe	Oppal	de Jong
Taylor	Bond	Hansen
Abbott	Penner	Neufeld
Hogg	Sultan	Hawkins
Bennett	Mayencourt	Polak
Hawes	Yap	Bloy
MacKay	Black	McIntyre
	Rustad

	NAYS — 30

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	Kwan	Ralston
B. Simpson	Hammell	Coons
Thorne	Simons	Puchmayr
Gentner	Routley	Fraser
Horgan	Lali	Dix
Trevena	Bains	Robertson
Karagianis	Evans	Krog
Austin	Chouhan	Wyse
Sather	Macdonald	Conroy