Hansard — Tuesday, March 13, 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


Introductions by Members		6149

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		6149
	Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill M204)
	H. Bains

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		6150
	Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
	L. Mayencourt
	B. Simpson
	Burrard Yacht Club
	K. Whittred
	Freegro plant shelters
	G. Coons
	Ab Seriani
	R. Cantelon
	Chloe Hegland
	R. Fleming

Oral Questions		6152
	Employment standards for farmworkers
	C. James
	Hon. O. Ilich
	R. Chouhan
	Hon. P. Bell
	C. Puchmayr
	C. Evans
	M. Farnworth
	H. Lali
	A. Dix

Reports from Committees		6156
	Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture, first report
	R. Austin

Petitions		6156
	N. Simons

Committee of the Whole House		6157
	Public Inquiry Act (Bill 6) (continued)
	L. Krog
	Hon. W. Oppal
	B. Ralston
	S. Simpson
	A. Dix
	C. Wyse
	D. Thorne
	M. Sather
	N. Macdonald
	C. Trevena

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		6183
	Estimates: Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance (continued)
	J. Brar
	Hon. C. Richmond
	S. Simpson

Hon. S. Bond: We're delighted today, in the precinct, to be joined by a group of individuals who are making a difference in the lives of families and children across this province every day. I know that the group will be meeting with a number of MLAs and ministers, and then we'll join together for a reception later today. I hope the House will help me welcome this group of people who are very well recognized and also deeply appreciated.

Today, representing Big Brothers Big Sisters, we have the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, Bruce MacDonald, with us. Joining Bruce are a number of other individuals: David Sheach, Gerwyn Mills, Sandy Whitwham, Susan Climie, Mark Ely, Doug Blott, John Houck, Rick Floer, Doug Gibson, Bunny Smith, Debbie Sinclair, Barb Scott, Rhonda Brown, Dan Dagg, Sheila Elworthy and Paul Abra.

I know that every member of this House will join me not only in making them welcome but also in thanking them for a job very well done in our province.

C. James: I have in the gallery today two very special guests. They're constituents of the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, but they are part of my extended family. Would the House please give a warm greeting to Art and Joyce James.

Hon. J. van Dongen: Today in the visitors' gallery we have special visitors from China. Mr. Yang Qiang, the newly appointed consul general in Vancouver is making his first official visit to Victoria, and he is accompanied by Vice-Consul Jiang Yang. Please join me in giving our visitors a warm British Columbia welcome.

J. Kwan: I too would like to welcome Consul General Qiang and his delegation in his visit to the Legislature. I believe it's for the first time. I hope that his delegation had a nice lunch with the Speaker and, courtesy of the Speaker, in welcoming the special delegation from China. Would the House please join me in welcoming Consul General Qiang.

B. Simpson: I too would like to welcome some of the Big Brothers Big Sisters delegates. Two individuals from my riding are in the gallery: Maggie Bello, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Quesnel for the last 14 years; and Lorraine Levitt, the executive director from Williams Lake for the last 15 years.

I was also surprised today, when I met with the delegation, that someone that I hadn't seen for some time, David Sheach, was in the room in a different iteration. David and I keep cycling through our lives in very different circumstances, and it was nice to see David here today. Unfortunately, David has left our region and is now the executive director for Abbotsford, Mission and Ridge Meadows.

S. Hammell: In the gallery are students, parents and teachers from Kirkbride Elementary School. Kirkbride Elementary is in Surrey–Green Timbers and, in fact, just down from my townhouse. Their focus today is on government — history and parliamentary traditions — so obviously they're in the perfect place. Could the House please make Charlene McGuire and the students welcome.

S. Fraser: One of the challenges of this job is spending much quality time at home with loved ones. Today my wife and loved one, Dolores…. It's her birthday. She's not here, so I am trying to cover for that. I'm hoping that this House will join me in wishing her a very, very happy birthday. Happy birthday, Dolores.

H. Bains presented a bill intituled Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Amendment Act, 2007.

H. Bains: I move introduction of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Amendment Act, notice of which is on the order paper for first reading.

H. Bains: The Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Amendment Act amends section 42, 44, of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act by: (1) requiring that a park owner provide 12 months' notice of eviction when the park is redeveloped for uses other than a manufactured home park under any former tenancy agreement; (2) requiring that a park owner at the time of eviction pay a tenant 12 months' rent or $10,000, whichever is greater, for relocation expenses; (3) requiring that a park owner pay those tenants who are unable to relocate their home because their home failed to meet the transportation safety standards or local building standards an amount equal to the fair market value of the manufactured home as compensation.

The act was amended in 2003, and the changes made were viewed as one-sided and left many elderly who built this country and those on disability worried sick and vulnerable, especially at the time when the real estate values are going through the roof. We as a society have an obligation to not only look after these

folks, but we must put in legislative safeguards so they can live and enjoy the last few years of their lives without the fear of becoming homeless.

This bill does that, and it brings back fairness in dealing with the situation where the park owner decides to develop the land for other uses. I move that this bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill M204, Manufactured Home Park Tenancy 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.

L. Mayencourt: For more than 80 years Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada have been providing support to kids around Canada, including and through 20 agencies in B.C. Currently there are over 23,000 kids that benefit from the one-on-one mentorship that is provided by this program, and the challenge that they face is finding mentors for the 10,000 kids they have on their waiting list.

Research shows that the positive adult role model will directly contribute to increased academic achievement, better family and peer relationships, a substantially lower reliance on social services and a more successful transition from school to work. Children who spend time with the mentor gain confidence, self-esteem and new skills, and develop their ability to relate to others.

Mentors also benefit, experiencing a sense of discovery and enjoyment as they see a world of possibility opening up for these kids. Each mentor acts as a role model to one student. Their relationship offers friendship, guidance and sharing, which help to build the child's self-esteem.

Some of the other programs worth mentioning are the Big Sisters Study Buddy program. It matches little sisters with volunteer tutors who offer them educational guidance and support. With the support of a study buddy, little sisters are encouraged and equipped to improve their educational performance and meet their academic goals.

Kids and Cops brings police officers in to volunteer and mentor a group of children by teaching them many of the aspects of their work, and Digital Heroes allows people in remote or rural areas to benefit from the program as well. Couples for Kid matches a couple to a child, and their two-to-one mentoring relationship forms the basis for a friendship that can help broaden the life of a child and provide support and guidance and acceptance.

Will the House please join me in acknowledging the good work of Big Brothers and Big Sisters in Canada.

B. Simpson: I will follow straight through with the member for Vancouver-Burrard in recognizing the role that Big Brothers and Big Sisters play in our communities. These agencies play a vital role in many B.C. communities by fostering networks of support for young people and by facilitating the building of meaningful long-term one-on-one relationships between adults and youth.

However, many think of Big Brothers Big Sisters as an organization that matches adults with children and youth on a one-on-one basis. While this is the foundation program of the organization, Big Brothers Big Sisters offers much more diverse volunteer opportunities, and as such, these agencies play a larger role in supporting children and youth in our communities.

For example, they provide opportunities for in-school mentoring programs. The volunteer mentor spends one hour per week doing a fun activity or just talking with a child who could use a friend. In some communities this in-school mentoring program is also made available to high school students who, by acting as mentors, can learn the value of volunteering while broadening their own social skills.

Some agencies also offer aboriginal in-school mentoring opportunities in their community. The aboriginal volunteer spends one hour per week with an aboriginal child who could use a friend. There are also opportunities for couples to be matched to a little brother or a little sister and for volunteers to be matched with two to four children at the same time. Where the group program is available, the volunteers and children participate in group activities on a regular basis, gain valuable social interaction with new friends and experience new activities.

This wide array of volunteer opportunities offered by Big Brothers Big Sisters provides valuable support to children and youth who might otherwise not obtain this level of support through social service or other youth programs.

I ask the House today to join me in recognizing the important contribution that Big Brothers Big Sisters plays in the development of our youth in our communities.

K. Whittred: I'm pleased today to offer congratulations in this House to the Burrard Yacht Club. This year they'll be celebrating their 75th anniversary. Established on May 5, 1932, the Burrard Yacht Club grew out of the Vancouver Rowing Club. In 1977, after suitable land was found and purchased, the club moved to its current location on Gostick Place in North Vancouver. As a testament to the quality of facilities and services, over 98 percent of members followed the club across the water to North Vancouver.

Today, with about 300 current members, Burrard Yacht Club is an active club with a focus on cruising. The club has both power and sailing vessels from 25 to 60 feet in length. But Burrard Yacht Club offers more than just moorage. The club is dedicated to the development and encouragement of yachting and provides

sailing lessons for the young and the young at heart. They actively participate in regattas and other group boating events, both within their club and in the boating community at large.

The club also extols the virtues of cruising on the waters of British Columbia. I cannot think of a better location to start a cruise along the Pacific Northwest than in the splendour of North Vancouver, with the Lions and Grouse Mountain as a backdrop. What a way to showcase our beautiful province.

I look forward to taking part, with Burrard Yacht Club, in their anniversary celebrations coming up soon. Congratulations again, and keep on cruising.

G. Coons: I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about Freegro plant shelters. We've seen them as we walk down the streets of Victoria. They may look like vertically staked windsocks, but a new kind of plant shelter is involved in a massive cover-up.

Freegro Enterprises has designed Freegro plant shelters. These strange-looking open-mesh fabric socks are designed to protect vulnerable seedlings from animals, to be easy to transport and to be cheap to install. When their job is done, the shelters may be left to degrade on their own and disappear. Alternatively, they enhance the growth of new seedlings so well that they may be easily retrieved and reused, making them both economical and environmentally friendly.

Neil Forman, who oversees the assembly at Certified Plant Shelters in Prince Rupert, says: "For a long time, foresters have sought better ways to protect newly planted tree seedlings." In operation since 1998, the company employs about a dozen people banding, sewing and packaging the plant shelters. It takes about ten seconds to install the shelters, which are customized to growing conditions and tree species. It costs about 30 to 60 percent less compared to other types of protectors.

John Disney, the economic development officer for the village of Old Massett, who is awaiting the necessary permits for the Haida Gwaii carbon forest pilot project, is a strong, strong advocate for Freegro. He indicates that close to six million foreign plastic shelters in current use on Haida Gwaii will have to be removed and transported to the nearest landfill, causing considerable environmental impact along with high cost.

This would not be the case with the Freegro product. Freegro plant shelters are designed and assembled in B.C., yet we have the tendency to go to cheaper, foreign, non-biodegradable products that in the long run cost more in both price and in damage to the environment.

Two local initiatives working together, Haida Gwaii carbon forest pilot project and Freegro, are demonstrating that local solutions to the issue of…

R. Cantelon: I rise to tell a remarkable story of heroism and bravery. It was indeed a dark and stormy night during a recent rain and windstorm in Nanaimo. An 84-year-old woman was alone in her apartment when the power went out. To brighten the gloom, she lit a few candles. Unfortunately, they were either knocked or they fell on their own, and a fire started. The woman quickly succumbed to the smoke and fell to the floor.

Fortunately, down the hall lived a retired captain from the Nanaimo firefighters, a young and fit 80-year-old, Ab Seriani. Ab smelled the smoke and raised the alarm. He knew he had to act fast. He went out in the hallway and quickly found the source of the flames.

He entered the woman's apartment. It was dark and smoky, and that's a risky procedure for anyone, but as a trained and experienced firefighter, Ab knew what to do. He entered the room, found the woman on the floor unconscious but alive, and pulled her out into the relative safety of the hallway.

But he didn't stop there, because the fire was still going and put the occupants of the entire building at risk. So he took the emergency firehose off the wall, re-entered the fiery room and put out the fire.

When the firefighters arrived, Ab was calmly refolding the firehose back up into its place on the wall. He thought nothing of it. He was kind of nonplussed and modest about the event. As he said: "Main thing is, we got the old gal out alive."

Well, I ask this House to join with me in saluting a real hero, Ab Seriani, and all of the firefighters who put their lives at risk to enter burning buildings to save lives.

R. Fleming: I want to give recognition to a very special young soccer star in the capital region named Chloe Hegland, who I think will almost certainly represent her country one day on the women's national soccer team.

Recently Chloe managed her way into the Guinness Book of World Records by scoring the most successive touches of a soccer ball without the ball touching the ground. The task in soccer, of course, is known as juggling. Chloe's 155 touches get entered into the record female category, although she bettered the world record by a male — 147 — as well.

Chloe's world record is all the more remarkable because she is ten years old. Chloe accomplished the task on December 12 in front of her father Bob Hegland and two key witnesses — a local notary and one of the biggest names in Vancouver Island soccer, Alan Churchard, who is part of the coaching staff at the Lower Island Soccer Association.

Recently Chloe received confirmation that she'd receive her well-deserved official Guinness world record certificate. That was just this past month. What makes her achievement even more significant is that

While we aspire to show the world that Canadian soccer has made great strides this summer when we host the men's FIFA U-20 World Cup in Victoria and Vancouver, two of the six Canadian host cities for that, I think members can take some comfort that for now a young Canadian girl — not a professional player from Brazil or Argentina or France — holds a world record in a truly global sport right here in British Columbia. I hope the House will join me in applauding and congratulating Chloe Hegland on her accomplishment.

C. James: Yesterday in question period the Minister of Labour failed to defend her government's policy to strip farmworkers of basic rights like minimum wage. She and the Minister of Agriculture gave conflicting answers that showed that the B.C. Liberals can't be trusted to protect these vulnerable workers.

To the Minister of Labour: has her ministry conducted an analysis of the pick rate for workers? How many are actually getting minimum wage, and how many are being exploited by this government's policies?

Hon. O. Ilich: As a matter of fact, the changes that were made in 2001 did not have anything to do with what workers were paid or how they were paid. The piece rate for workers was introduced in 1981. It was the same the whole time that the members opposite were in government.

What we did do was that we went to a direct-deposit system in 2001, which means that workers actually got paid and they got paid on time. The rate in 2001 was also increased by 23 percent. That was something our government did, not their government.

C. James: Once again, the minister is without the facts. Direct deposit does nothing for farmworkers if they're not making minimum wage. Yesterday….

C. James: Yesterday the Minister of Agriculture said that minimum wage, overtime and holiday pay were built into the piecework rates. Today the Minister of Labour can't even answer a basic question, which is about how many workers are actually making minimum wage. And she certainly doesn't seem to care about how workers are being exploited by her government's policies.

So my question to the Minister of Labour is: does she know how many pounds of blueberries a worker has to pick to be able to make minimum wage?

Hon. O. Ilich: I think that the members opposite should get their facts straight. Today the average minimum wage for workers in the agricultural industry is almost $14 an hour.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members. Leader of the Opposition has a further supplemental.

C. James: Well, Mr. Speaker, it's very clear that the minister has not spoken to anybody who actually works on the farm. I'd actually like to give the information to the minister. Workers out in the field picking blueberries must collect 22.1 pounds of blueberries every hour to be able to make minimum wage — every hour. That's almost 200 pounds of blueberries in eight hours. Many of these workers are women and seniors.

It was this government that eliminated the minimum wage for farmworkers. It's this government that doesn't care about workers being exploited.

C. James: My question again to the Minister of Labour: will she commit today to reinstate the basic rights that workers deserve, which her government took away?

Hon. O. Ilich: The piece rate for farmworkers has been in effect since 1981. Their government did nothing about it, did not make any changes for ten years. We increased it in November of 2001 by 23 percent.

R. Chouhan: Yesterday the Minister of Agriculture stated in the House: "The agricultural workers in B.C. are some of the highest-paid agricultural workers anywhere in Canada — $12 and $13 an hour." Now, after 24 hours, the wages have gone up to $14 an hour.

R. Chouhan: My question is to the Minister of Labour. If farmworkers are making that much, will she make the necessary amendments to the Employment Standards Act to ensure that the farmworkers are paid the guaranteed minimum wage?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm not sure what part of this the members opposite don't get. This was the government that in 2001 lifted the piece rate by 23 percent.

What did the NDP do during the 1990s? Let's analyze that. They presided over the largest decrease in ag workers' wages in the history of British Columbia — a drop of 21 percent in a single year.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members from both sides. We're not going to start question period until there's silence.

R. Chouhan: Mr. Speaker, I do. I hope that in the same loud voice the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour will confirm today that farmworkers will be paid guaranteed minimum wage as of today.

Yesterday the Minister of Labour tried to deflect her terrible record and blame a past government. She accused the NDP of shutting down the agricultural compliance team. She was wrong. She was wrong like her other colleagues. The program was established in 1997, not shut down. The team had the power to inspect vehicles on site during unannounced inspections.

Once again we cannot trust this government to represent the workers. When is the Minister of Labour going to stop blaming others for her failed policies and reinstate the rights and protections they stripped away from farmworkers?

Hon. P. Bell: Mr. Speaker, you know, this is just typical NDP. It's about supporting their big labour friends. Do you know what? I think that they're getting….

Hon. P. Bell: This is about the NDP just wanting to support their big labour friends. Let's look at the history. Let's look at the history of what happened. There was rampant UI fraud during the 1990s. Workers were having go cap in hand to their employers to try and get paid. We put in mandatory direct deposits. Workers get paid a fair wage right now in this province, and they're the third-highest-paid ag workers in all of Canada.

C. Puchmayr: In 2002 former Labour Minister Graham Bruce directed the employment standards compliance staff to "reduce their presence in the fields during the harvest." Yesterday the Minister of Labour agreed with Mr. Bruce. She stated in this House: "We obviously know that inspections are not what is required." Well, I say to this House: she is wrong.

Can the Minister of Labour tell this House today how many WorkSafe inspections, how many WorkSafe compliances, how many workplace orders and penalties were written in 2005 and 2006?

Hon. P. Bell: Mr. Speaker, you know, I'm not sure why it is that the opposition just thinks the entire agriculture industry is so disparaged. I can't believe that the members opposite would think this isn't an honourable industry — an industry that has an incredible reputation over the years.

Let's look at the facts, because I think that's appropriate. If we look at the inspections, in the year 2000 under that government there were 20,000 inspections that occurred in the province of British Columbia in the agricultural sector. In 2006 there were 26,000. That's a 30-percent increase.

Mr. Speaker: Members. I remind members: through the Chair when you're speaking. The member has a supplemental.

C. Puchmayr: Less than 1 percent of all inspections in industry in British Columbia were done on farms in 2006 — less than 1 percent. Do you know how many penalties there were? In 2005 there was one penalty issued; in 2006 there were none.

Will the Minister of Labour stand up and tell this House that she will increase the inspections and look at the regime that is left by this government — that this government has left behind and is no longer respecting farmworkers?

Hon. P. Bell: Clearly, the NDP are living in Wonderland out there somewhere, because they can't transpose the numbers. They don't have a mathematician amongst them. In the year 2000 there were 34,000 orders written; in the year 2006, 46,000 orders — a 35-percent increase and $1.5 million worth of orders written. Those are the facts; those are the numbers.

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, I don't live in a wonderland. I live in British Columbia, and as every farmworker knows, this is no wonderland.

I find it somewhat offensive that this debate tends, especially from folks on the other side, to be, "We're the

C. Evans: The real issue isn't which government is the best. The real issue is whether or not farmworkers, as a class of citizen, are denied what everybody else in this building and everyone in the gallery and what we expect for all of our children…. In fact, if you take politics out of it, you want to say: "We stand up for farmworkers."

Will the Minister of Agriculture please agree to simply give farmworkers the same guarantees under the Labour Code and the laws of British Columbia that every other worker in the province has?

Hon. P. Bell: I can actually do better than that. I can guarantee this member that British Columbia ag workers have the same rights and privileges as in every one of the other nine provinces in Canada. Our regulations are exactly the same. They all work under piece-rate legislation opportunities. Our rules are the same as every province in Canada.

C. Evans: …if agriculture workers could be treated like every other worker in British Columbia, and the hon. minister says: "Oh, we treat them like farmworkers in every other province."

What we're asking is that every citizen here be treated the same — every worker. Whatever you expect for your children, give the same protection to farmworkers — not what works in Canada.

Will the Minister of Agriculture give farmworkers, regardless of what language they speak or where they came from or their citizenship status, the same rights and privileges as every other worker in the province today?

Hon. P. Bell: I find that a little tough to take from the minister of the day who actually cancelled the compliance team in 1997 when he was the minister. Yesterday he got up and gave us a little outburst in the House that showed a passion for ag workers.

Well, you know what, Mr. Speaker? Accidents and fatalities have decreased dramatically under this government. In 1997 in the agricultural sector, 1,300 injuries. In the year 2005 in the agricultural sector, 500 accidents. In the year 1997, 12 fatalities. In the year 2005, three.

M. Farnworth: What has become patently clear in this House over the last six days is that when it comes to farmworkers, there is no Minister of Labour in this province.

I'm going to give the Minister of Labour a chance to redeem herself. Does she believe that women and seniors who pick berries for eight hours a day without a break are big labour? Or does she believe that they should stop being treated like second-class citizens and get the rights and protections that everybody else deserves?

Hon. P. Bell: I'll tell you what this government doesn't believe is appropriate for ag workers: a 23-percent wage decrease in the years 1999-2000. That's not what this government supports.

What did we do? First year in government, we raised the piece rates by 21 percent. That's looking after agricultural workers.

M. Farnworth: I noticed there was some confusion over there as to who is the Minister of Labour, so I'm going to give the person who is supposed to be the Minister of Labour for British Columbia — who is supposed to be the Minister of Labour for farmworkers in this province — the opportunity to answer a question.

Does the Minister of Labour believe that seniors and women who work a minimum of eight and sometimes 12 or 13 hours a day in this province picking crops after machines have done all the easy work…? Does she consider them to be big labour?

Hon. O. Ilich: It is plainly obvious that the members opposite are not interested in the facts, and they only want to score cheap political points based on a tragic accident.

This government has been committed since 2001. I will continue to work on making sure that farmworkers are paid the proper amount and on time, that they are paid when they should be, that they're educated as to their rights, that employers know their obligations and that we have the safest work environment, because that is the right thing to do.

H. Lali: There's a pattern that has been forming with this government since 2001. They have systematically discriminated against the lowest-paid workers in this province. They went after the HEU, where the members are mostly women and people who are immigrants — people of colour. And it's the same thing they've done here with farmworkers….

H. Lali: Then this Liberal government has systematically discriminated against farmworkers, most of whom are women, seniors, immigrants and people of colour. They have….

H. Lali: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Does the Minister of Labour still believe that the lowest-paid workers in this province, the farmworkers, are big business? And what is she going to do to give them their rights back?

Hon. O. Ilich: The members opposite may think that they are defenders of the workers, but in fact we have done more for workers since we've been in power than they have ever done. Today there are jobs. We have….

Mr. Speaker: Members, until I can hear…. Members. Listen to the questions. Listen to the answer.

Hon. O. Ilich: Today the unemployment rate is 4 percent. When they were in power….

Hon. O. Ilich: When they were in power, the unemployment rate was over 10 percent.

A. Dix: We talk about respect for workers. It was this government, after the Premier personally promised hospital workers, that engaged in the largest layoff of female workers in the history of Canada.

I say to the Minister of Labour that the government's decision to take away minimum-wage protections and to take away overtime protections from farmworkers was irresponsible. It targeted the workers in society the least able to defend themselves. I suggest to her that it's her job as Minister of Labour to defend those workers and not make excuses for the actions of the Premier.

So my question to the Minister of Labour is very simple. Will she reverse course? Will she ensure that farmworkers in British Columbia get access to the same minimum-wage protections?

A. Dix: I think it's shameful that the Government House Leader, who stood in this House and stripped farmworkers of their rights, should try to shout down questions from the opposition. My question to you: were they braying and sneering when they stripped farmworkers of their rights? Was the Government House Leader braying and sneering when he took away the rights from farmworkers in British Columbia? Was that the attitude that led to those terrible decisions?

My question is to the Minister of Labour. Why not restore those protections today? Why not restore minimum-wage and overtime protections to farmworkers?

Hon. P. Bell: I know that, actually, the member likes to revisit history. In fact, often he likes to postdate the history.

Hon. P. Bell: I have a question for the member opposite. I'm wondering: in 1999-2000, when the wages for ag workers dropped by 21 percent, was that their attempt to make sure that people earned minimum wage? I'm not sure.

A. Dix: Well, the members over there will know that when farmworkers come here from Mexico, they're guaranteed minimum-wage protections that farmworkers in British Columbia don't get today.

I think that what we're talking about here is a group of workers who had their rights stripped. No amount of yelling, no number of insults will take away the record of this government, which took away minimum wage, overtime and basic protections from farmworkers. They can yell, and they can scream. They can cheer, and they can do whatever they like, but we're talking about workers who work terribly hard for very little money and deserve more respect from a government than this.

My question to the Minister of Labour is: how about some respect? How about some respectful behaviour for people who work hard and deserve the protections of the law? Why not apply the same laws in British Columbia that you would apply to other workers? Why not give farmworkers back the rights that your government stripped?

Hon. P. Bell: You know, obviously the numbers are painfully obvious to the members opposite. In 2002 when we made the adjustments to the structure of agriculture worker programs, the average wage rates went from $11.83 an hour to $12.77 an hour. That's an 8-percent increase as a result of those changes.

Respecting agricultural workers means that B.C. has the third-highest-paid agriculture workers in all of Canada. You know, if they really want to know if the way we're treating ag workers is appropriate, maybe they should go talk to their cousins in Saskatchewan where the rules are exactly the same as they are in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: I want to remind members that maybe after today, they might want to go back and watch the tape of what took place today. The decorum of this House has been something that I think, as members, we've been pretty proud of, and I've been proud as a Speaker going across Canada. But I think all members should go back and watch exactly what took place today.

R. Austin: I have the honour to present the first report of the Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture for the second session of the 38th parliament, which covers the committee's activities from November 2005 to December 2006. I move that the report be taken as read and received.

R. Austin: I ask leave of the House to suspend the rules to permit the moving of a motion to adopt the report.

R. Austin: I move that the report be adopted, and in doing so, I would like to make some brief comments.

Over the past year the committee has held 21 public hearings throughout the province, conducted 15 site visits, held a number of briefings and collected over 800 written submissions. The first report, which I'm presenting today, lists the work of the committee completed to date as we now move forward to enter our deliberation phase. In the coming months the special committee will continue its inquiry into sustainable aquaculture in British Columbia. Evidence submitted by the public, both through the public consultation and written submission processes, will be fully considered, along with the information provided by senior government officials, scientists, academics, industry and environmental associations. I look forward to presenting our final report, including recommendations, by May 31.

Today I would like to thank all British Columbians who took the time to provide us with their thoughts, as well as officials and invited witnesses who have gone to great lengths to provide us with relevant and up-to-date information on issues pertaining to our mandate. I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation to all members of the committee for their continued input and dedication throughout this important process.

Hon. K. Falcon: On behalf of the member for Surrey-Tynehead, today I would like to recognize in the precinct that we are joined by some grade 5 students from the Surrey Christian School. They are joined by their teachers Ms. Janice MacDonald, Ms. Jackie Hofstede, Ms. Janice Vanderleek and Ms. Kara Bisschop. I would ask all the members to please make them welcome today.

K. Conroy: I'd like to welcome Gerard Janssen, the former member for Alberni-Qualicum, back to the chambers here for a brief visit. It's a great honour to have him here as a mentor and a former member. Please join me in making him welcome.

N. Simons: On behalf of approximately 600 residents of the lower Sunshine Coast and in particular, Area E…. They petition the government to pay special attention to the highway needs of the Sunshine Coast.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in this chamber continued committee stage debate on Bill 6, Public Inquiry Act, and in Committee A, Committee of Supply — for the

information of members, the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 6; S. Hawkins in the chair.

The Chair: I call the committee to order on Bill 6. I understand the Attorney General is going to take some questions on section 5.

L. Krog: The Attorney General was going to consult over the lunch break, and I presume he has a response now that he'd be prepared to give to the House.

Hon. W. Oppal: Unfortunately, the Interpretation Act doesn't assist us at all.

The best I can do is go back to the wording of section 5. It's apparent from the words of that section that if more than one commissioner is appointed, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council must designate the commissioner who is to act as chief commissioner as well.

Unless the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council states otherwise in the appointment order, a commissioner may rely on all of the decisions made and information received by any former or current commissioner of the inquiry to which the commissioner is appointed.

Going back to subsection (1) again, cabinet must appoint a commissioner to conduct an inquiry and may appoint other commissioners in the circumstances.

I think the best you can do in interpreting this section is that it allows some degree of flexibility to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council where the circumstances may be appropriate and contingencies may arise.

L. Krog: I take it, then, having listened to the Attorney General's response, that essentially under the existing wording it gives a completely open opportunity to cabinet to appoint any number of commissioners at any time, either at the commencement or the establishment of the commission or at any time thereafter.

Hon. W. Oppal: With the greatest of respect, that would be a completely unrealistic interpretation of the legislation. The fact is that the section gives some flexibility where appropriate circumstances may arise. The examples I can think of are where there is illness or if there's some other circumstance that may arise that would prevent a commissioner from continuing with the task at hand.

L. Krog: I appreciate that the Attorney General suggests it's unlikely, but I take his answer to mean, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, that he reads the section as I do — that the section allows complete freedom to cabinet to appoint at any time replacement commissioners, additional commissioners or any commissioners. Even though it may be unlikely, the wording of the section as it stands, as I read it, would indicate that.

Hon. W. Oppal: I will refer to the words of section 22 of the Interpretation Act. It may be of some assistance. It states as follows: "Words in an enactment authorizing the appointment of a public officer include power to do the following: (e) appoint another in his or her place or to act in his or her place."

I would assume from that that a commonsense interpretation would be that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council would not be appointing someone to act in his or her place unless the need so arises.

L. Krog: With great respect to the Attorney General, if there is no restriction in this section — notwithstanding the quote from the Interpretation Act — it appears to me very clearly that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council can appoint whoever, whenever and for whatever reason they wish. It is not restrictive. It is broad and open, that section.

I appreciate that the Attorney General may be stating what he believes the practice will be and that we are being asked to trust the government in this. But I think the interpretation, even as the Attorney General has read the section, is fairly clear: that in fact cabinet will have an unrestrained right.

Does the Attorney General agree or disagree that cabinet has unrestrained right to appoint under this section?

Hon. W. Oppal: With the greatest of respect, that is not at all a reasonable interpretation of the legislation.

L. Krog: I would read this section to provide that even after the presentment of an interim report under the terms of the bill, a new commissioner could be appointed. Does the Attorney General agree that that is correct?

L. Krog: Can the Attorney General point out any provision in the act, then, that restricts the power of the government, Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, to appoint a commissioner after an interim report has been received?

Hon. W. Oppal: There is no provision to that. Again, I have to rely on a commonsense interpretation that once an interim report is received by the Lieutenant-Governor, there is no provision in the act to appoint another commissioner. I would assume from that that there would be no power or authority to appoint another commissioner.

L. Krog: The Attorney General indicates that he thinks it unlikely, that it wouldn't happen, that he doesn't agree the power is there. But the section says "may appoint" and has no restriction on time limits. Therefore, this bill gives that power to cabinet.

Having given that power, unless that power is restricted, then surely the cabinet has that ability. There is nothing in this act or in this section that restricts the timing of the appointments.

Therefore, if the section says the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, on establishing a commission, may appoint and may appoint other commissioners without restriction, then surely interpreting the legislation broadly, as one must — that is, provide remedies and all of those interesting legal points…. Surely what this means is that there is an unrestricted power given under this section to appoint commissioners at any time, whether before or after the receiving of an interim report.

Hon. W. Oppal: Any legislation must be interpreted reasonably and logically. If I were to accept the argument of the member opposite and take it to its logical extension, I suppose the legislation is silent on the fact that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council could appoint somebody from Mars. That's a logical explanation, too, is it not? There has to be some reasonable interpretation of the legislation.

L. Krog: I hate to disagree with the Attorney General, but looking at the definition section for "commissioner," it says that it means a person appointed to the commission, so I think, under the Interpretation Act, that would exclude the member for Mars from actually being appointed to head the commission in question.

However, having said that, this is a serious bill. This is a significant change to existing legislation, giving cabinet new powers that do not exist under the existing act. My question is entirely serious. One has to read this section in accordance with a plain-English understanding of what it means, and unless there is a restriction placed by the legislation — and there appears to be none — then cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, has the authority under section 5 to appoint before and after.

Subsection (3) talks about: "Unless the Lieutenant Governor in Council states otherwise in the appointment order, a commissioner may rely on all decisions made and information received by any former or current commissioner of the inquiry to which the commissioner is appointed."

I think that is extremely clear. It indicates that there is an opportunity at any time, as long as the commission is alive, so to speak, to appoint alternate commissioners, which presumably includes after the preparation and submission of an interim report.

Hon. W. Oppal: In fact, the appointment process in this act is the same as the previous act, save and except for there's a provision in the prior act that refers to death or other…. It's section 9. The previous act said: "If any of the appointed commissioners dies, resigns or becomes incapable of acting, the remaining commissioners may continue to act in the inquiry." That's the only difference between the prior act and this act.

L. Krog: With respect to the Attorney General's comments, if that is what is intended by this legislation — that it is to allow for the appointment process when someone dies, etc., as exists in the current act — then why is that language not in this section?

L. Krog: If the language is not necessary, then it is presumably because the government intends, with section 5, to allow an expanded power of appointment as opposed to a more restricted power of appointment, which exists under the present legislation. Surely that's the intent.

If the government, through this bill, had intended to restrict it to those situations covered in the existing Inquiry Act, then why do we have this section now which does not have those restrictions?

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm not so sure that I can make myself any more clear than I already have. The member opposite has chosen a particular interpretation that I would suggest, with the greatest of respect, defies commonsense logic. I don't know if I can enlighten the member opposite any more than I've already tried to.

L. Krog: Section 5 was passed subject to my right to question the Attorney General on this particular section. I think I have made my point, but I must say, if procedurally we're entitled to another vote on this section, I'd appreciate that opportunity.

L. Krog: Section 8 states: "Commissioners must faithfully, honestly and impartially perform their duties and, except in the proper performance of those duties, must not disclose to any person any information obtained as a commissioner."

If we rely on the Attorney General's commonsense view of what this act is supposed to mean, notwithstanding my serious concerns about the wording of it, can the Attorney General explain what the proper performance of those duties would be? Does that term only apply while they are appointed as a commissioner? Are they entitled to talk about it afterwards?

The reason I raise this particular issue is because public inquiries and the people who conduct them have become, to some extent, the new media stars of television. There is great press interest. Justice Krever's

inquiry, the Gomery inquiry — there's a great deal of reportage around these issues.

The pressure to speak publicly on these issues will be enormous, particularly any inquiry into any act of alleged wrongdoing by government officials or employees of government.

I'd appreciate hearing the Attorney General's comments on that particular section, what he believes "except in the proper performance of those duties…." What period of time that covers and what sort of activities that would cover.

Hon. W. Oppal: My reading of the section is that this makes reference to the disclosure of information obtained as a commissioner during the course of the inquiry, but after the inquiry report is released, then obviously it would be the subject of public comment. That would be the logical interpretation of the section.

This section parallels section 30 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, and that states that commissioners must be faithful, honest and impartial while executing their duties and must treat information in confidence as required.

L. Krog: The section requiring that they must faithfully, honestly and impartially perform their duties, I would suggest — with great respect to the Attorney General — is somewhat inconsistent with the other provisions of the act that we've already discussed earlier today around appointment and managing the money and the process by which they become appointed. They're going to have to engage in a great deal of discussion with government about their budget and what they can possibly do within the terms of reference.

It seems to me that places them somewhat in a conflict by virtue of this provision, when in fact they have to do all those administrative things — satisfy government, make sure the budget is met, hire people appropriately — and at the same time impartially perform their duties when they have had to be intimately involved, arguably, in the very process which led to their appointment.

Hon. W. Oppal: It is the duty of the commissioner who is appointed by cabinet to manage the inquiry. But the non-disclosure that's referred to in section 8 refers to any other information obtained as a commissioner. It doesn't necessarily refer to matters referring to budgets and administration and matters of that nature. That's something that's separate and apart.

L. Krog: I appreciate the Attorney General's comments, but I think he has perhaps misinterpreted the point I was driving at.

If the commissioner is to perform their duties impartially and, by the Attorney General's own words here in this chamber earlier today, has already had to participate in the process of their selection by agreeing to or talking about or discussing budgets and constraints and has been consulted around the terms of reference…. I just have some difficulty understanding how one can be impartial in those circumstances.

That's my question to the Attorney General. If you've participated in the process which led to your selection or your agreement to accept the appointment as a commissioner, then how can you remain impartial?

You know, I don't understand the question. I'd ask the member to repeat the question. I really don't understand the question.

L. Krog: I thought the process worked where I had to ask the questions and the Attorney General had to respond, but…

My point to the Attorney General is, I suggest with great respect, that when you involve commissioners in the administrative side in the way that this act does, it makes it difficult for them to perform their role in an impartial way because they've already become fairly seriously involved in the process.

As the Attorney General well understands, when a judge walks into a courtroom to hear a trial, in essence that judge knows nothing about the case or should know nothing; will not be involved with the parties; and if they were, would have to recuse themselves.

My point is that by expanding the role of the commissioner in section 6, when you then say that the commissioner has to act impartially, I suggest with great respect that that creates some difficulties around impartiality.

Hon. W. Oppal: There's a distinction between impartiality and responsibility — those responsibilities of a chief commissioner. I think the member may be confusing the two terms.

The Chair: Just for the record, Members, I want to state that section 6 was passed this morning.

L. Krog: Section 9 gives the commissioner and the commission's terms of reference significant power over its processes. I'm wondering if the Attorney General can advise what this section is based on. Are we talking about precedents that are used across Canada? Is this

the result of some uniform law reform commission, or is this just the brilliant work of the Attorney General's ministry?

Hon. W. Oppal: Section 9 is similar to sections 11 to 14 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, and what this does is authorize a commission to make its own rules of practice and procedure. The rules will assist any commission in discharging its mandate.

The commissions have the power and the authority to modify those rules made in exceptional circumstances, and they must make all those rules accessible to the public, particularly the public who may be appearing before a commission of inquiry. There's a process by which a commissioner has the power to make all the rules that are necessary in order to conduct, in an orderly fashion, the terms of reference of a commission of inquiry.

L. Krog: In reference to section 9(3), which reads: "For any matter under this Act for which a commission may make directives, the commission may, for different persons or classes of persons, (a) make different directives, and (b) waive or modify one or more of its directives as necessary…." The statute is giving, in essence, the power to the commissioner to discriminate around the issue of directives. I'm wondering what the Attorney General interprets that to mean.

Hon. W. Oppal: The example that comes to mind is…. First of all, this subsection obviously gives the commission of inquiry a certain amount of flexibility in order to deal with particular and unique circumstances.

Let's assume for a minute that there's a commission of inquiry into sexual misconduct at a residential school. This provision would give the commissioner the authority to close the hearing so that a victim can be heard in private as opposed to in an open hearing. That's an example of the flexibility that's intended to be conferred upon the commissioners under subsection (3).

L. Krog: I'm wondering. I'm not sure procedurally whether I'm correct in this. If one goes to section 15 — which we haven't come to — with respect to severance for privacy and protection rights, etc., surely that's the section that deals with the example the Attorney General has raised.

I'm just wondering if the Attorney General can provide any other examples of how this is proposed to work out. It is the opposition's job to consider all the possibilities that arise from this bill and how it will impact on the public in practice, so I'm very interested in knowing if the Attorney General can offer an example that doesn't appear to be covered already by a section we haven't come to yet.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'll give you two examples. Let's assume for a minute that a person has a limited knowledge of English and he wants to bring someone else to assist him who's not counsel. That's an example of where discretion can be exercised under section 9.

Let's assume for a minute that the commission of inquiry, in advance, has set out procedural rules wherein they have set a time limit as to when written submissions may be received. This section here, section 9, would give the commission the necessary flexibility to waive the time period in order to meet the ends of justice.

L. Krog: This section gives the power to inspect subject to the commission's terms of reference in any public place, including copying of records, and with the permission of the owner or occupier, any private place, "including copying any records found in that place."

I presume that the act provides the power to the commissioner to go to court to obtain the right to examine private documents or, rather, what we would call documents in a private place.

Hon. W. Oppal: The section here authorizes a commission, as the words state, to inspect a public place and copy any records and, with the permission of the owner, a private place. This is a standard provision in public inquiry statutes, and it's an important part of any evidence-gathering process. This is not an unusual procedure. It's a standard type of provision.

L. Krog: I'm just wondering how that would be distinguished from the power to subpoena.

Hon. W. Oppal: The difference is that subpoena is the order of the court to compel evidence to come to you, as opposed to going to another place to inspect the evidence. Section 10 would be analogous to a viewing in a trial where a judge and/or jury may attend upon a particular scene in order to better understand the scene of a crime, for instance, which is done periodically in criminal civil cases.

L. Krog: I do appreciate the enthusiasm of the backbench members this morning, who likewise are very hot to get through this bill. However, notwithstanding that, I do intend to ask a few more questions.

With respect to section 11, this deals with a very difficult issue around the results of inquiries and persons who may be involved in a finding of misconduct against them. The section provides that in order to be a participant, they have to have a "reasonable notice" and "notice of how that person may respond to the allegations."

With respect to this process, how does the Attorney General see it working in practice, and has any thought been given to the regulations around this?

Hon. W. Oppal: The section is a wide-ranging section that really places in the hands of the commissioners the authority to determine who may participate. The section permits people to apply to participate in a commission — whether in circumstances where their personal interests are affected by the findings, whether the participation of an applicant would further the conduct of the inquiry, whether the participation would contribute to the fairness of an inquiry insofar as it may shed light on evidence that may otherwise not be available or would qualify evidence that they heard on an earlier occasion.

The section accords with the functional approach for the determination of procedural fairness. The Supreme Court of Canada made that ruling in a case called Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) in 1999. So the section really deals with the production of evidence and examination of witnesses, which obviously is in the discretion of the commissioners. It's a furtherance and gives more power to the commission to discharging the commission's responsibilities.

L. Krog: I'm wondering if the Attorney General could advise whether this section or a variant thereof has actually passed a court test or if this is the response to the Supreme Court of Canada. In other words, does this section exist in other inquiry acts across the country? Does it represent, again, the uniform code?

Hon. W. Oppal: The court in Baker said that an applicant must have the ability to lead evidence where that evidence will lead to a just result. Section 11 contemplates that, as far as participation in the process is concerned. What the section does is permit the commission of inquiry to allow the participation of people — participants who would eventually lead to a just and fair result.

B. Ralston: Under the general power that we've discussed in section 9, the commission has power to make directives. Sometimes when interveners apply to participate in a commission, the issue arises of whether their expenses for participating or counsel expenses might be paid. I just wanted to confirm that under the general powers in section 9 it would be open to a commission to make such an order if they deemed it just for facilitating the participation of interveners.

Hon. W. Oppal: Section 11, as I stated earlier, deals with persons who may participate in a commission of inquiry. That obviously has to be read in conjunction with section 9.

I'm not prepared to say whether a commission would have the authority to finance or to fund someone's appearance there. Suffice to say that the commissioners have a wide discretion in determining the rules of procedural fairness.

It may be that in particular circumstances a commissioner may come to the conclusion that it would be appropriate to fund the participation of a particular person in order to achieve fairness and a just result at the end of the day. It certainly would be premature and speculative for me to state that at this time — that it's applicable in all cases.

B. Ralston: I'm not asking for a definitive answer in the sense that it would always be the case, but because it does arise when the public interest is touched. I'm thinking of some of the federal inquiries — the so-called Morin commission into the trial of Guy Paul Morin, for example. There were a number of legal interveners — an association representing people wrongfully convicted.

The ability to participate in a commission, especially one that's dealing with an important public matter and that may be lengthy, sometimes places a financial burden upon the participants, but that may be outweighed by the public interest in having them participate. I just wanted to confirm that these directives and the general power in section 9 and the responsibilities of the chief commissioner in section 6 don't forbid or foreclose a commission from, in the appropriate circumstances, making that kind of order to fund participation.

Hon. W. Oppal: I think I would agree, with respect, with what the member has said. It may be that in the circumstances that would be an appropriate order to make.

L. Krog: This section, which sets out powers respecting participants, gives the commission significant authority to "make orders respecting (a) the manner and extent of a participant's participation, (b) the rights and responsibilities of a participant…and (c) any limits or conditions on a participant's participation."

In some respects, the way I interpret this section, it gives a commissioner more authority than a Supreme Court judge hearing a trial. That's the way I read it. We have terms of reference. We then have powers to make orders respecting manner and extent of participation, rights and responsibilities, limits or conditions on their participation, etc.

Hon. W. Oppal: I must disagree with that. In fact, commissions of inquiry are generally more informal in nature in that they're not bound by the same procedural rules of evidence that a Supreme Court judge would have. The Supreme Court judge is bound by rules of evidence, be they under the provincial act or the federal act, or by the common law, whereas under commissions of inquiry, hearsay is generally admitted, and other evidence which may be considered to be unreliable is admitted.

We saw that in the Gomery inquiry where allegations were made and certain statements were made. I'm not so sure they were ever tested by serious cross-examination. I'm digressing here. But the point is that in any commission of inquiry the rules of admissibility are generally relaxed.

L. Krog: I'm sorry, but I think the hon. Attorney General might have misheard my comments. My suggestion was indeed just that, that in terms of a process and the authority given, the commissioner has greater authority, if you will, and greater flexibility than any Supreme Court judge hearing a trial. That's my very point.

Because this is such a broad authority, as a chief commissioner one gets to establish the rules of the game, the admissibility, who gets to participate, and can limit their extent and the manner of participation and their rights and responsibilities. You can make orders respecting that and set any limits or conditions on their participation.

I'm just wondering: is there precedent for this particular section in other statutes? Does this represent any product of a uniform law or commission or something of that nature? It seems to me that this is a pretty wide-ranging authority given to a commissioner.

Hon. W. Oppal: Yeah. The discretion under section 12, in my respectful view, is entirely reasonable because there may be matters of relevance that participants need to be confined to. I'm not putting it very clearly.

You simply can't have an inquiry where participants come before a commissioner and want to make reference to matters that may not be within the terms of reference and would not meet the rules of relevance. This section would give the commission the necessary discretion to determine the manner and the extent of participation.

But if you look at subsection (3), it states that where the commission makes a finding of misconduct against a participant, then in those circumstances there is a full opportunity to be heard. If that is to be understood under the common law, that includes the right to present evidence, call and cross-examine witnesses.

In my view, it's a fairer section in that on the one hand, what it does is it imposes order or it gives the commissioners a power to have order placed on and the necessary constraints placed on a commission of inquiry to keep it under control, so to speak. But where there will be a finding of fault or a finding of misconduct, then there will be a right for an applicant or a participant to be fully heard, with counsel if necessary.

L. Krog: This section is the one that guarantees the right of a participant to participate on his or her own behalf after they have qualified under section 11. They can be "represented by counsel or, with the approval of the commission, by an agent." I'm wondering what the Attorney General is contemplating in terms of appearing by an agent in the circumstances. In other words, are we opening up the possibility for paralegals to appear and act on behalf of individuals, and if so, has there been any discussion with the Law Society of British Columbia respecting this section?

Hon. W. Oppal: This gives added flexibility to not only the commission — to permit people to appear not only with counsel but by an agent — but it also assists a participant who may not wish to retain counsel and may wish to be represented by someone else. Or it may refer to a director or an agent of a company. A person may want to come and testify on his or her behalf, and it says: "with the approval of the commission." So it gives discretion to the commission to permit that type of procedure.

L. Krog: I just wish to ask again if in fact this particular section and its reference to agent have been discussed with either the Law Society of British Columbia or the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association or another organization representing lawyers in the province.

Hon. W. Oppal: I cannot say if the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society or any other group approves or disapproves or was the source of this particular section.

L. Krog: This section says the "commission may receive and accept information that it considers relevant, necessary and appropriate, whether or not that information would be admissible in any court," which gives it again broad powers to accept, as the Attorney General has already pointed out, hearsay evidence or other forms of evidence.

The commission has power to exclude anything unduly repetitious — much like the line of questioning, no doubt, from me this afternoon. The Attorney General smiles at that comment. It also provides that nothing "overrides the provisions of any Act expressly limiting the extent to which or purposes for…oral testimony, records or things may be admitted or used in evidence." Again, this is a very broad section allowing the commission to receive information, and I do note that the use of the word "information," I presume, is a deliberate one. It is not talking about evidence. It does not talk about documents. It talks about information.

I'm mindful of the biblical quote that one could come down like Nicodemus in the night and whisper something in the commissioner's ear. That's what would almost apply here. I'm just wondering what the Attorney General understands this section to mean, because the way I read it, it almost sounds like you can receive anything in any form.

Hon. W. Oppal: There's no question that the evidence or information…. As the member quite properly noted, there is a distinction between the two. The commission of inquiry would have the authority to allow itself to accept information whether or not it would be admissible in court, and I would assume that that's based on fairness and the right to be heard.

The commission, in its wisdom, could place the necessary reliability on the evidence or information that it receives. At the same time, subsection (3) states that that type of flexibility…. The section would not override any act which may deal with illegal evidence or something of that nature that would by itself be inadmissible.

L. Krog: The concern I have is that in the acceptance of that information, which may obviously have an impact on the outcome of the commission's work, it appears that arguably it would not be subject to any cross-examination or criticism or comment from others. That's the way the section sounds, and that is my concern.

I don't want to sound terribly legalistic, but the opportunity to cross-examine and to question the relevance of evidence in a court proceeding or a tribunal hearing is pretty basic. But this section is talking about: "A commission may receive and accept" — and accept, very clear — "information…whether or not the information would be admissible in any court."

So again, this strikes me as a very dramatic power. Is there some legal precedent for this? Is there case law that the Attorney General can justify this section with? Again, as I've asked many times before, does it reflect the results of a uniform law commission report or some other recommendation, some line of court decisions? Because this is a pretty dramatic section.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, there's nothing dramatic about it, with the greatest of respect. This is always the case. That's the difference between a trial and an inquiry. The reason we have commissions of inquiry is to have more evidence or information elicited that would otherwise not be admissible in a court of law. So the member is quite right in that that information may not have the same test or indicia of reliability that evidence in a courtroom does, but that's what's contemplated in any commission of inquiry.

A moment ago I made reference to the Gomery inquiry, where there was a plethora of evidence or information given that was not subject to proper cross-examination. The whole purpose of a commission of inquiry is to elicit information and make from the information the necessary recommendations. We don't put the same constraints on commissions of inquiry that we place on judges in courtrooms.

L. Krog: This section again gives the power to the commission to "prohibit or restrict a person or a class of persons, or the public, from attending all or part of a meeting or hearing, or from accessing all or part of any information provided to or held by the commission."

Obviously, the commission will have enormous authority to set its own rules, as we've discussed, but the commission in this particular case has the power to restrict the public from appearing. Surely the more appropriate practice would be to restrict anyone from repeating what they had seen or heard at a commission hearing. To exclude the public strikes me as a fairly dramatic power to give to a commissioner.

After all, the bill is referred to as the Public Inquiry Act, which is a change from the old title, which is the Inquiry Act. Surely by implication that would indicate that the public interest here is to be supported and encouraged. By restricting the public from attending a meeting, or part of a hearing, more importantly — I'm not so concerned about meetings, arguably, but a hearing — then that goes against a very long tradition of public process.

Now, I appreciate that it's somewhat restricted by sub-subsections (a) through (c), but it just strikes me that restricting the public from attending is a bit over the top. I'm wondering if the Attorney General can point to precedent elsewhere where restricting the public from a public inquiry process is practised, particularly in Canada.

Hon. W. Oppal: As I said yesterday, the concept of openness is never absolute. There may be times when the right to privacy outweighs the right to openness. These are conflicting values, and the courts have wrestled with these for years.

It's instructive to make reference to the Uniform Public Inquiries Act. Section 8(2) reads as follows: "Where a commission holds an oral hearing it shall be conducted in public, but a commission may exclude the public from a hearing, or from part of it, where it decides that the public interest in holding the hearing, or a part of it, in public is outweighed by another consideration, including the consequences of possible disclosure of personal matters, public security or the right of any person to a fair trial."

Let's assume for a minute that a public inquiry is being held on a matter that's somewhat sensitive and that the information that's gleaned as a result of an inquiry is subsequently used in a prosecution. That may be an example of where the information is closed.

In section 29, if the government asserts privilege or immunity over information, there is a power and authority by the commissioners to suppress that evidence. Similarly, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is another governing factor where the rights of a person to privacy — rights of innocent persons to privacy — may outweigh the rights of the public to know. We see that in courtrooms where judges are permitted to ban the publication of certain types of evidence and, in certain cases, ban the public from attending a courtroom.

L. Krog: Section 13 deals with the rights of participants, and it gives the participant immunities as a wit-

ness who would appear before any court, etc. Section 15 talks about restricting a person or a class of persons or the public from attending any part of the meeting, etc., or accessing all or any other part of information provided to or held by the commission for any reason.

The Attorney General talked about the example of someone giving evidence and it not being able to be used in a criminal proceeding. I'm wondering: is that the way he views section 15 — that it is going to give the commission power to protect a witness? Am I understanding him?

Hon. W. Oppal: It's clearly not limited to that. There are a myriad other issues that may arise where private interests, private information, the rights of an innocent party are at stake. We saw that in the Ellison case, where a person made an application before the judge in a closed courtroom to have her name expunged from any reference at all to the media, beyond the normal rules of bans and publications. So these interests that are private in nature that protect innocent third parties are always subject to the right to an open and fair hearing.

The real import of section 15 here is that under appropriate circumstances, a commissioner has the necessary power to deal with certain information in confidence. This would encourage participation in a commission of inquiry. If we didn't have the provision that would protect private interests and privacy, then there would be a limited amount of participation. There would be a discouragement for people to come and participate in inquiries.

L. Krog: It's fairly clear from the act that the government has a great interest in restraining cost and expenses of commissions. Indeed, the chief commissioner is responsible under section 8 for its effective management and operation, etc., and ensuring that the commission is financially responsible and accountable.

Section 18 provides that a commission may transcribe or record its meetings or hearings, and if it does, then it must be considered to be correct, etc., to be part of the record, etc. If, by a mechanical failure or accident, blah, blah, blah….

What this essentially is doing is allowing the commission to proceed without a record. That's my understanding — without a record in the normal sense, the way Hansard records what we say here today, the way a court reporter transcribes what we hear in a courtroom.

Hon. W. Oppal: What this section really does is…. It means that you do not have to transcribe or record its meetings or hearings. A hearing commission may transcribe its hearings, where a study commission may not. A study commission may call in a number of experts and talk to the experts. I can tell you that when we did the commission of inquiry into policing, we did not record our proceedings. We took voluminous notes and received something like 1,500 written submissions, but we didn't do it.

As long as the interests of justice prevail at the end of the day, it's not always necessary to transcribe proceedings. In fact, certain arguments in civil trials are not recorded. Closing arguments are never recorded in a civil trial in the Supreme Court. So transcription of evidence in hearings is not always done.

L. Krog: The Attorney General has commented about the two different types of commissions — study commissions and hearing commissions. Obviously, it may not be necessary or appropriate or conducive to the work of a study commission to transcribe its hearings. But it strikes me that if one is having a hearing commission under the terms of Bill 6, one would want to have a record.

I'm just wondering why section 18 doesn't provide that one may for study commissions but one must for hearing commissions. Wouldn't that be a perhaps appropriate way to deal with this? Clearly, if a public inquiry has been appointed, it's a matter of public interest. The public would probably like to be able to read and review.

Hon. W. Oppal: This section doesn't prevent or preclude a commission from ordering a transcription. All the section states is that it is permissive, and it may not be appropriate in the circumstances.

L. Krog: Section 19(2) provides that: "An order of a commission under this Act or its terms of reference on a matter in respect of which the commission has exclusive jurisdiction is final and conclusive and is not open to question or review in any court."

What I read this section to mean is that whatever the commission decides, there is no appeal whatsoever. No matter how patently wrong, unjust, unfair or unreasonable an order may be, pursuant to this section, there would be no opportunity to review it in any court. Can the Attorney General confirm that my interpretation as stated is correct?

Hon. W. Oppal: I must correct the member. The section here grants the…. It's a privative clause. What happens in a privative clause is that the decision of any tribunal is not open to question or review by any court — subject, of course, to the question of jurisdiction. Except, if there's a question of jurisdiction, a question of law or the decision is patently unreasonable, then that goes to jurisdiction, and it is reviewable by a court of law.

B. Ralston: Just to confirm, then. This privative clause is likely to be as successful in insulating the

commission from review as any other privative clause. In other words, a court may take it upon itself to interpret that in a way that permits a judicial review of the decision of the commission. Is that right?

Hon. W. Oppal: The member is a lawyer, and I'm sure you know about the success of privative clauses and their powers of review as well as anyone else. If you're able to convince a court that the tribunal or commission has exceeded its jurisdiction or has made an error of law or is patently unreasonable, then the review would be successful.

L. Krog: The existing Inquiry Act has no similar section. There is no similar provision in the existing Inquiry Act, and there was certainly no similar provision in the Inquiry Act of 1897.

One reforms law or makes change in order to deal with an issue or a problem or to make some kind of change that's seen as beneficial. I'm just wondering if the Attorney General can advise the committee: has a commission of inquiry in this province ever gone so far off the rails that we require this privative clause, which doesn't exist in the existing statute?

Hon. W. Oppal: In fact, this is a standard clause that's throughout administrative law, as I'm sure the member knows. The 1897 legislation is not really a good example — I say this with respect — because in 1897 there was no administrative law. There was no privacy legislation. I know that the members opposite have relied in this House on the 1897 act, but I'm not so sure that we learn a lot by relying on that legislation.

L. Krog: I thank the Attorney General. But again, my question is: if one is providing this restriction, which doesn't exist in the existing statute, the Inquiry Act as set out — it's the Revised Statutes of B.C., chapter 224 — is there some mischief or problem that the Attorney General can point to whereby we require this now? In other words, can he point to a commission of inquiry in this province where this has proved an issue such that the Legislature, in its wisdom, now must pass section 19 in order to prevent some kind of mischief or problem occurring?

Hon. W. Oppal: The inclusion of a privative clause is put there in all legislation governing administrative tribunals so as to give them some degree of independence and the power to manage their own procedural affairs. You may recall from the Gomery inquiry that a former Prime Minister challenged it, tried to challenge its jurisdiction. You see, if they had the privative clause, that application would have been ruled out of order immediately. Instead, the commissioner had to deal with that type of mischief, and I say that with respect.

L. Krog: Again, to the Attorney General: I asked if there was any example in British Columbia that warrants bringing this in. The reason I ask is that this government brags constantly about the elimination of useless laws, the elimination of regulation, the heavy hand of bureaucracy stifling the economy and all of those things. Yet we are now being asked to pass section 19, to bring into place a privative clause which does not exist in the existing legislation.

I'm asking the Attorney General again. If we're doing it, then I hope we're doing it because there is some problem to deal with. So can the Attorney General, again, for the third time, please advise the House, this committee, if there is any example in British Columbia of a commission's conduct that would warrant bringing in this privative clause, as opposed to just because we've got it in a bunch of other statutes.

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, we have to step back and ask ourselves why we have commissions of inquiry. We have commissions of inquiry so that government, the public, can get advice on certain matters of public interest. We don't need those inquiries to be derailed by legal manoeuvring. That can be done in a courtroom. The purpose of having commissions of inquiry, with their relaxed rules of evidence and relaxed procedural issues, is to give more flexibility to commissions so that they can gather more information so as to assist governments and members of the public. That's the reason why we have these.

I gave you the example of the Gomery inquiry as to what can happen if you don't have a privative clause, and I'm not so sure anything is gained by me searching to see if any similar example can be found in this province. Suffice it to say that it's our objective to pass legislation that would assist commissions of inquiry, governments and the public.

L. Krog: This is the very new section which provides for a study commission as opposed to a hearing commission as set out in section 21. This commission would have interesting powers relating to conducting research, interviews and surveys, etc., and may make directives regarding participation, etc. A study commission may not exercise the powers of the hearing commission set out in section 21, 22 and 23 unless designated, etc.

I'm wondering what the Attorney General contemplates as being the kinds of things that we would want to have a study commission for as opposed to simply asking for a report.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, it would depend upon the intent or the circumstances for which a commission of inquiry is established. The commission of inquiry that I presided over, the policing inquiry, was an example of that, where government sought our advice on certain matters related to policing.

The Hughes review that we experienced here recently would have been a study commission had it been conducted under the Inquiry Act. Those are two examples that — if government is seeking advice, seeking assistance on matters of public policy — would be cases where a study commission would be appropriate as opposed to a hearing commission.

L. Krog: I'm just wondering: is there precedent for this division between study and hearing commissions in other legislation in Canada? Again, my standard question: does it represent the recommendations of a uniform law commission or some other such body?

L. Krog: This is the section that deals with what I'll call the big brother as opposed to the little brother commission. This is the full hearing commission that provides that it may do anything, including holding written, oral or electronic hearings, receiving submissions, etc., and a number of other powers. But it does provide that a hearing commission must not exercise the powers of a study commission as set out in section 21 unless the commission is also designated as a study commission.

I wonder if the Attorney General could advise what sort of example he would see where you wouldn't want to have a hearing commission that in fact did some research or conducted interviews and surveys.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, the intent of subsection (3) is to ensure that a hearing commission does not lapse into a study commission by relaxing its procedural rules of fairness. As the member called it a big brother of commissions, it necessarily means that it can receive evidence either under affirmation or under oath. The hearing commission is designed for more serious matters, if I may use that term — for investigations, making recommendations, finding fault or liability.

As such, its task may well be more serious than the study commission's task. For that reason, the functions and the powers under which it operates must be different.

B. Ralston: In section 21(2)(a) there's reference to pre-hearing conferences. Could the Attorney General please briefly set out what a pre-hearing conference might be and what might be the utility of such a conference?

Hon. W. Oppal: My reading of that is that a pre-hearing conference would be similar to conferences now being held in the Supreme Court where there would be a narrowing of issues, where prior to the actual hearing inquiry itself, the parties could get together in order to expedite matters and make certain admissions prior to the actual commencement of the inquiry.

I take it, and I read that section to mean, that it is not to include the costs of counsel under any circumstances. Is that correct? By "counsel," I'm referring to lawyers.

Hon. W. Oppal: Yes, the words are quite clear that it makes an exception for lawyers.

L. Krog: My concern is that in order to potentially defend oneself appropriately at a commission of inquiry, it may well be appropriate to have legal counsel. A participant who brings someone to the commission at their own request will only face a sanction of paying, essentially, witness costs. That is the way I read it.

My concern would be that it means there would be no encouragement to participants to defend themselves, if you will, or to act in their own interest before the commission in a reasonable manner. In other words, there's no disincentive if you know that you can haul witnesses in without worrying about paying any legal costs. It's not much of a disincentive if the only cost you're looking at is the hearing cost. I just wonder if the Attorney General has a comment on that.

Hon. W. Oppal: We're not speaking here of participants. We're speaking here of witnesses. Under normal circumstances, we don't pay the legal fees of witnesses. We do pay the legal fees of participants in criminal trials, but not of witnesses. If there is a possibility, as the member suggests, of a person being charged or being under jeopardy, then obviously, that person can apply to be a participant and then would fall into a different category.

L. Krog: The Attorney General has my point: it applies to witnesses, not to participants, but as a result of this process, a person may have some interest in becoming a participant or may have to make that difficult decision as to whether or not they wish to participate and in fact place themselves in some jeopardy as a witness by not hiring counsel.

Hon. W. Oppal: I repeat my earlier answer that where a person is a witness, then that person can rely on commission counsel. But if there is any possibility that the person may be the subject of fault-finding or may be the subject of a further inquiry or legal sanctions, then it's up to that person to obtain their legal advice.

At this stage that section 22 contemplates, we're talking here about the power to compel witnesses. I know of no circumstance in Canada where witnesses are permitted the luxury of having their own lawyers paid at public expense.

N. Macdonald: Joining us is a group of children who are here to perform in Victoria. They perform ukulele. It's not often that I get a group coming all the way from Invermere, so I ask you to join me in making them welcome. They are Jaydon Meyers, Robyn Tardif, Shawn Raven, Randie Raven and Sierra Dunlop. Please join me in making them welcome.

L. Krog: This section provides that notice or record to a person by personal service, etc., can be made by ordinary mail; electronic transmission, including fax; and if specified in the hearing commission's directives, another method that allows proof of receipt.

Does this section contemplate, then, that if a person…? Is this to apply to a person who is going to be subpoenaed as a witness? Does it apply to participants? Does it apply to all of those classes of persons? Does it apply to the general public? In other words, who does this apply to?

Hon. W. Oppal: From my reading of the section, it applies to any person to whom a summons has been served, who's been compelled to appear before the inquiry. If the person fails to appear, then the order may be filed in the Supreme Court and the appropriate remedy would ensue.

L. Krog: Just so I'm clear, if the postal service is a little slow and I don't appear and it's not personal service and I miss the hearing, then it strikes me that I could arguably be held in contempt. Am I incorrect?

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, obviously, if the order is filed in the Supreme Court and there's a wilful disobeyance of that order, then the appropriate remedy would ensue.

L. Krog: Section 25 is the section that says: "Subject to section 15…a hearing commission must" — and I emphasize must — "(a) ensure that hearings are open to the public, either in person or through broadcast proceedings, and (b) give the public access to information submitted in a hearing."

Section 15 is the section that allows the commission to restrict a class of person or persons or, indeed, all of the public from attending any part of the hearing. I take it that this section, as contrasted with section 15, establishes the general principle that is to apply: that hearings must always be open.

If that is the case, I do note that it makes reference to hearings, as opposed to meetings or any other activities by which information may be received.

Hon. W. Oppal: Section 25 is fairly clear. It deals with hearing commissions. The section ensures that a hearing commission must be open to the public.

L. Krog: This is the interesting section that provides: "If required by the commission's terms of reference" — and I emphasize if required by the commission's terms of reference — "a commission must" — must — "make an interim report to the minister at the times and on the matters stated in the terms of reference."

It goes on to state: "A commission may make an interim report to the minister on any matter relevant to the commission's terms of reference at any time before the commission makes its final report." It then says: "Section 28 (2) to (8) applies to an interim report as if it were a final report."

In other words, as I read this section, the commission has the authority to go back to cabinet on the issue of the terms of reference. If that is the case, do I understand this section to mean that the terms of reference — because it talks about "any matter relevant to the commission's terms of reference"…? By implication, cabinet would then have the authority to change the terms of reference?

Hon. W. Oppal: Section 27 states that an interim report must not be released except in accordance with a section. Then it states that "a commission must make an interim report to the minister at the times and on the matters stated in the terms of reference." However, a commission may — permissive — make an interim report in any matter relevant to its terms of reference.

This legislation does not give cabinet the authority to change the terms of reference, although there is a common-law provision that allows you to add terms of reference.

I harken back to our commission of inquiry, where during the course of the inquiry the Attorney General of the day asked us to consider the issue of private security personnel in addition to public policing. So it can be done under common-law principles.

L. Krog: Just so I'm very clear in my understanding of this, because this is important. What the Attorney General is saying is that under section 2, when you have established the terms of reference of the inquiry, subject to adding to the terms of reference, there can be no other change in the terms of reference once established. Is that what the Attorney General is saying?

Hon. W. Oppal: This section really deals with reporting. It really makes no reference at all to adding to the terms of reference or deleting any terms of reference. We're talking here about reporting.

Hon. G. Abbott: Hon. Chair, would it be possible, with the House's forbearance, for a five-minute break to allow the minister and the opposition critics a moment to refresh?

L. Krog: The proposition that a commission must make an interim report if required by the terms of reference certainly strikes the opposition as a bit of mischief, frankly. On the one hand, one can see it as an opportunity for the government to receive some advice on an important issue of public interest prior to submission to the public in general. On the other hand, one could see it as an opportunity for cabinet, through a minister, to receive a heads-up about difficulties of a political nature or that may require some political spin, as the term is used, or give an opportunity to prepare for what may be a damning indictment of a cabinet minister or a staffer or a department.

I'm wondering if the Attorney General can tell me if I am wrong in that interpretation. If the terms of reference say that the commission must make the report at the times and on the matters stated in the terms of reference, then surely that opportunity is afforded to cabinet which, at the present time, does not exist under the Inquiry Act.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, surely the government has a right to receive an interim report. There may be circumstances in which it might be entirely appropriate. It was used in Gomery, where Mr. Justice Gomery filed an interim report and then filed a final report with his recommendations.

Inquiries are held in order to give governments advice. They're done so in a flexible manner so that there may be some matter, some issue, upon which government may need immediate advice or more immediate advice than the terms of reference, under circumstances, may not permit. In other words, the terms of reference may be so wide that it may require a year to two years to complete the commission of inquiry.

On the other hand, there may be some immediate advice that the government may need. So that's the reason why the commissions of inquiry often are ordered to give interim reports.

L. Krog: I completely appreciate what the Attorney General has had to say — that it may well be, when you're dealing with a matter of public interest where some remedy is required, some reform to be undertaken, that to receive an interim report, in fact, makes good common sense.

However, my very specific question to the Attorney General is that if you are dealing with a public inquiry into the conduct of, perhaps, ministers of the Crown, senior political staff, disposition of Crown assets, then by virtue of the terms of reference, cabinet and the government and all the minions who work for it will in fact receive a heads-up in order to prepare for what may be a damning indictment of their behaviour.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm not prepared to speculate as to what may or may not take place. That's purely a speculative question. I'm just not prepared to answer anything — whether something of a political nature could take place or couldn't take place.

The purpose here is for an inquiry to be ordered so that some advice on public policy may be given to the government. It may have to do with health care, education, or the area of public safety. Whether or not that will ever translate into a political answer or a political solution, I'm not really prepared to say or prepared to speculate.

L. Krog: I'm not asking the Attorney General to speculate. I'm asking him to comment whether or not, in fact, under the terms of this section, that kind of political preparation will be made possible. In fact, the terms of reference will require and can require a commissioner to make a report. I'm asking if it's possible under the terms of section 27.

L. Krog: Again, I do appreciate the enthusiasm of the backbench members on the government side who wished to get past section 28.

This section represents, with great respect, a retrograde step in terms of the public interest. It gives an authority to government, to cabinet, which it has not enjoyed in 100 years of

In 1897, when the original Public Inquiries Act was passed, its provision was clear as a bell. It said in section 10(2) that every report which such commissioners make to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council under this Act shall be laid before the Legislative Assembly within 15 days next after such report is made, if the Assembly be then sitting, or if not, then within 15 days next after the opening of the then next session of the Legislative Assembly.

Whatever the results of the commission of inquiry were, no matter how awful they might be or how beneficial they might be to the public interest or to the assistance of government, the taxpayers, the citizens of British Columbia, were entitled to receive those results within 15 days. That is, in essence, the existing provision under the Inquiry Act as it stands. That is essentially section 14.

What is required now is not simply that the commission makes its report to cabinet and it then goes to the Legislature. The report goes to the minister first, setting out any findings of fact made by the commission that are relevant to the commission's terms of reference, the reasons for those findings and, if required by the commission's terms of reference, any recommendations of the commission.

The minister then has to submit the report to the executive council at its next meeting. So he gets a look at it. Then the executive council gets a look at it. Then the executive council — not the Information and Privacy Commissioner; not a senior, professional, unbiased, impartial public servant…. No, the executive council gets to "direct the minister to withhold portions of the report for any reason for which information could" — not just must, but could, so we open up this whole potential realm — "or must be withheld by a public body under sections 15 to 19 and 21 to 22.1: [privacy rights, business interests and public interest] of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act."

Then it goes on. Once cabinet has severed a document — cabinet, not anyone else, has severed the document — as it sees appropriate, carrying out a mandate which, with great respect, it has no particular qualifications to carry out, notwithstanding the brilliance of the members of cabinet, then the cabinet gets to review the report. Subsection 28(4) says: "Following review of the report, the Executive Council must direct the minister to lay the report, except any portion directed to be withheld under subsection (3), before the Legislative Assembly." It doesn't set out any time period.

I ask the Attorney General: with respect to section 28(4), why is there no provision for a time limit on cabinet's review of the report?

Hon. W. Oppal: The member opposite should know that no other public inquiry act in any other Canadian jurisdiction provides for mandatory release of reports. I'll repeat that. No other jurisdiction requires for a mandatory release of reports — none. We're the only one.

The current British Columbia Inquiry Act that the members opposite allude to was passed in 1897. That act has no consideration at all for privacy legislation. It's outdated. It's badly outdated. The Uniform Law Conference of Canada also provides simply that the minister shall release a report to the public, without any reference at all as to a time.

With the greatest of respect, it would be wrong, improper and unrealistic to put a time limit on any release. How do you put a time limit on a report that may be 5,000 pages long? The member opposite has suggested 10 or 15 days. Is that realistic to consider all the privacy issues of all the names and the issues that are involved? It's a rhetorical question.

The members opposite raised some issues regarding federal public inquiries that have been held. The Gomery inquiry, the Krever inquiry, the Maher Arar inquiry, the inquiry into the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin — all of those federal inquiries were silent on the public release of any inquiry report, including any guidance and timing of the release of any inquiry report.

It would be, with all due respect, foolish to expect that once a public inquiry has been called that the public, the media and political scrutiny would not compel government to release an inquiry report in a timely fashion. This government remains committed to honouring our privacy laws by not putting arbitrary time lines on the release of inquiry reports.

With this legislation, British Columbia would be the only province that requires mandatory release of public inquiry reports. The proposed act would protect the public interest and individuals' privacy in a similar manner to which the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act protects those interests by preventing disclosure of information that could harm them.

We're talking here about people who may be completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but whose names may come into play during a hearing commission — witnesses who may be completely innocent, but whose names would be made subject to public disclosure if we accept the suggestions and submissions made by the opposition.

Reports that satisfy these requirements would be released in their entirety. Where privacy or the public interest was a concern, only the relevant portions would be withheld, and the rest of the report would be released.

We have a duty to enforce and to adhere to privacy legislation. We also have to be concerned with disclosure that would be harmful to law enforcement. We have to be mindful of information or evidence, the disclosure of which would be harmful to intergovernmental relations or harmful to financial or economic interests.

The public's right to know is never absolute. The public's right to know has to be balanced. There are competing interests that are involved here, and as the act states, the report shall be released to the public. As I said a moment ago, it will be released to the public. We'll be the only province in Canada to do so. However, there are other considerations and other issues involved, such as the interests of third parties, that we have to be mindful of.

L. Krog: I very much appreciate the Attorney General's concern — quite appropriate around the issues of privacy. I think it is a very important matter, and the opposition agrees entirely that it is appropriate to withhold portions of a report that would breach the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act or privacy rights or affect public interest, arguably.

However, what is being proposed here is that cabinet, the executive council, will be mandated — and will be the only body mandated — to make those decisions, notwithstanding the fact that the results of a commission of inquiry may, in fact, be entirely critical of members of the cabinet or persons in the employ of cabinet ministers.

It is for that reason that I have proposed an amendment to the bill standing under my name on the orders of the day. I would therefore move the amendment, that portion of it at this time, which reads:

L. Krog: The opposition is not opposed to protecting the interests of the public. I would remind the Attorney General, and I hardly think he needs reminding, that it was this opposition when it was in government that brought in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — in its day certainly regarded as the most progressive legislation of its type in the world.

I don't think I exaggerate when I say that. The persons who applied to become the first commissioner were absolutely top-flight, the best in the world. It was an amazing array of talent anxious to be — to mimic the autobiography of the late Dean Acheson — present at the creation. A very important piece of legislation.

The concept was to protect privacy but at the same time allow the public to have access to information that formerly governments routinely withheld. It made the job of opposition easier. It served the public interest. It was everything that a reform-minded government would want to do.

What the section does, as it reads now in Bill 6, is give authority to executive council, which I respectfully suggest is patently unreasonable. If a public inquiry is focused…. Public inquiries often have been historically focused on the actions of government. That's what they're about.

Imagine a Gomery inquiry, if you will, which the cabinet of the Liberal government in Ottawa gets to sever. Why not support the amendment that I have suggested, which would place that responsibility in the hands of the commission itself, appropriately hiring and using the staff that it is empowered to do?

I refer to the commission's authority that allows it under section 7 to appoint employees in accordance with the Public Service Act necessary to exercise the powers and perform the duties of a commission. The chief commissioner may engage and retain consultants, investigators, lawyers, expert witnesses or other persons the chief commissioner considers necessary to exercise the powers and perform the duties of a commission.

The Attorney General has raised the issue that it would be unreasonable for the executive council to have a time limit placed on it in order to accomplish this task — that therefore cabinet should, under the legislation, be given an unlimited period of time in which to consider the important task of deciding what to withhold from the report.

Surely the simple solution for this is the amendment. Before the report gets to cabinet and cabinet has to consider it, it will be a done deal. We will save the responsibilities and the energy of the executive council from having to make these difficult decisions that might otherwise place them in conflict. We will place it in the hands of the commission because, after all, as the Attorney General has said in this House, we are giving enormously wide powers to the commission to set its rules. We've even given it a privative clause that doesn't exist in law in the existing statute.

We are saying that the person who is appointed a chief commissioner or the only commissioner is a person who has significant authority and ability. We're obviously going to appoint distinguished British Columbians, hopefully, to these positions — intelligent, capable and qualified people who can handle the tasks assigned to them by the executive council — which invites a simple question. As we've given all these other powers to the chief commissioner under the statute, why not empower the chief commissioner to do what ministries and impartial government public servants do day in, day out or that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner does day in, day out in this province — that is, to protect the rights to privacy of individuals who may become involved with the commission, whether by way of giving evidence or as participants or in whatever capacity they do?

What could possibly be wrong with giving that authority to the commission itself, if we recognize that the commission presumably has the ability to conduct its affairs, to carry out all of its tasked responsibilities, to comply with its terms of reference and to work towards the purposes that have been defined for it by

cabinet? What possible reason is there not to support this reasonable amendment?

In my questioning of the Attorney General earlier today, I heard nothing from him to support taking away this power from cabinet, other than that he thinks cabinet should have an indeterminate period of time in order to perform this task. Why would we want to burden cabinet with that responsibility, particularly where cabinet or cabinet members may find themselves in a conflict unnecessarily that involves either their staff, the actions of previous ministers or the government or sitting ministers who are around the cabinet table?

What the amendment does is allow an opportunity for the commission, who, after all, will be the most expert, the most familiar with and the most cognizant of all of these responsibilities because it is the commission that has been doing the commission's work…. Why would we pass off that responsibility to cabinet? Why would we give it to the executive council? I think the question raises serious public concern about why the government would include this provision in section 28.

It appears to me and to other members of the opposition that it is giving an opportunity to cabinet to delay unnecessarily the public's right — and it is a right that exists today at law under the existing Inquiry Act — to receive, to review and to hear the results of a public inquiry.

Now, in his remarks the Attorney General said we're the only province in Canada which compels the release of the results of a public inquiry. I am actually almost delighted I did not have the time to do the research to determine that myself, because it disappoints me to think that governments across this country would not in this instance wish to follow the wonderful example of the British Columbia Legislature establishing this precedent a hundred years ago — a basic, sound principle of open, honest and transparent government.

The result of public inquiries — no matter how damning they may be to the government, no matter how dangerous they may be to the maintenance of power of those in office, no matter what the result — is that they, in fact, would be entitled as the citizens and taxpayers of the province to see the results.

I say that this is an amendment that relieves the government of a suspicion, shared not just by members of the opposition but by the public of British Columbia, that no politician, no cabinet, should ever be placed in the position of having to sever its own documents in this regard, particularly with reference to a public inquiry and the results of it.

Surely this is an opportunity for the government to step back, to reconsider its position and to accept what I would say is an extremely friendly amendment to the bill that would allow this government to say, without any criticism to be placed on it, that it had heard the opposition, it had heard the concerns of British Columbians, and it was prepared to do the right thing and allow the passage of this amendment, which will not detract from the stated purposes of the Attorney General and the interests of protecting privacy. All it will do, in fact, is shift that responsibility onto the commission of inquiry, the body most familiar with the evidence and the information, to use the words of the statute, that have been given to it.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the government to accept the opposition's offer to do the right thing. I encourage the members opposite me to vote in favour of this amendment.

In the process of conducting the commission of inquiry, it's clear that pursuant to section 15, which we discussed earlier, the commission will be required to make rulings on whether information could or must be withheld by a public body, and it has that power. In the course of conducting a fair hearing, the commission is obliged to take into consideration those parts of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that relate to privacy rights, business interests and the public interest in order to conduct the hearing.

All those issues would have been discussed, litigated and decided by the body during the course of the inquiry, presumably with the assistance of commission counsel and, ultimately, the decision of the commission or the commissioners. Those very issues, which this amendment seeks to address, logically fall — in my view and in the view of the mover of this amendment, the member for Nanaimo — within the powers of the commission.

Given the independence of the commission it is better for all kinds of public interest reasons, but largely for the purposes of public confidence in the process and in the independence of the inquiry, that the independent commission makes those determinations. Given that they are already obliged to do that work, it makes sense that they do it.

The Attorney General has not, in my view, offered a convincing defence for having the cabinet perform that function. There has not been a convincing defence — not at all. To suggest that somehow the opposition is not cognizant of these rights, is sweeping aside these rights, is simply subterfuge. The opposition is focused on who is going to make the edits, not the fact that they're not necessary to make. We agree they're necessary to make. We agree the statute should be followed, but the question is: who is going to do it?

This amendment proposes that the very commission who has already decided those issues and considered them is the most familiar with the evidence. The example that the Attorney General offers is the 5,000-page report. Presumably the commission, if it were to have a 5,000-page report, would have worked its way through all the evidence, through all the issues, be well aware of the issues as they arose and have ruled on them as they went along and fashioned the report accordingly.

It's more administratively efficient. It's more logical. It's fairer. It gives a perception of independence of the

results of the commission. The manner in which the government proposes to do it by having the cabinet make those edits behind closed doors …. Who knows what might be taken out of the document and for what purpose? That would invite speculation, maybe unseemly speculation, maybe even unjustified speculation. Any wise government would want to avoid that and have that process done at arm's length.

There is an independent commissioner that adjudicates the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Another alternative — and this is not included in the amendment — might be to have that commissioner adjudicate on the report prior to its public release. That, again, would provide some assurance to the public that there's someone independent of cabinet who is not slicing up the document with political motives in mind.

All the people that should be protected, all the privacy rights that should be protected, all the public interest rights that should be protected will be protected. That's the very reason that the commissioner would be selected and have conducted the inquiry.

I say that this amendment is logical. It certainly addresses all the concerns that the Attorney General has said that the opposition are ignoring, and that's just not factual. In my view, it's a wise amendment.

In addition, the other part of the amendment, (b), would require the commission, in the report, to identify any withheld portions or, to the extent possible, summarize them. Rather than simply facing a series of blank pages, there would be some effort to broadly identify the areas — "This area is withheld for reasons of security or reasons of public interest" — and give some brief explanation that would not violate the spirit of the act and would be left to the wisdom and the discretion of the commission.

I would speak strongly in favour of this amendment. It meets the objections that the Attorney General puts up to considerations of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It's administratively efficient, and it would duplicate the work that the commission would be obliged to do anyway during the course of the hearing.

S. Simpson: I stand also to speak in favour of this amendment, and I'd reference again what the amendment says. The amendment would make the change by adding: "A commission may withhold any portions of the report for any reason for which information 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." It goes on further to say: "A commission must, in the report, identify any withheld portions and, to the extent possible, summarize them."

What this does is it essentially takes the authority that the current legislation puts in the hands of cabinet and puts that authority into the hands of the commission themselves. I believe this is a critical amendment to the integrity of this piece of legislation.

It does a couple of things. The first thing it does is it responds to the points the Attorney General has made about the essential importance of protecting freedom of information and protection of privacy. We would agree with that. We believe that is essential, and we believe that has to be an integral part of this process.

It is our belief also that by putting this in the hands of the commission — those people who are clearly expert or presumably would never have been put in charge of such a commission, and also the people who clearly would be most familiar and knowledgeable of this report — it gives them the responsibility and the mandate to take on this task and to deal with this question of freedom of information.

What it does, as well, is it protects the integrity of this process. It takes the question of severing of information…. Fairly or unfairly, there can be a charge made against cabinet that decisions to sever information will be politically motivated either to protect from embarrassment or for other political purposes. It takes and removes the basis for that allegation, if you take away the right of cabinet to in fact make these kinds of changes and to sever information on its own behalf.

What it says is that this will be done by the commission, by the authors of the report, and that it will be their mandate and their responsibility to do that. It makes sense for them to hold that responsibility, not cabinet.

Further, there has to be a question in terms of ministers themselves. It is not the expertise of ministers, presumably, nor the inclination of cabinet ministers, I would suggest, to be doing this, to be deciding in an unbiased and balanced way what information should or should not be excluded from the report.

I do believe, on the other hand, that making these decisions and making them appropriately is of critical interest to the commission itself, because clearly the commission's first responsibility is to produce the most thorough and complete report that it can and to do that in a way that also protects the legitimate interests of those who, for privacy reasons or freedom-of-information reasons, need to have their protections looked after. This amendment would accomplish that objective.

I believe that the amendment should be welcomed by the government. As the Attorney General has said, his primary interest in doing this is to ensure the protection of freedom of information and privacy. I accept the Attorney General at his word on that. If that is the case, then he should be looking at what the best way is to accomplish that objective.

Clearly, the best way to accomplish that objective without potentially clouding the result, the final report, because of what could be assertions or allegations of cabinet interference — which I'm sure he has no desire to see happen — is to remove cabinet's ability and authority to sever parts of this report and put that in the hands of the independent commission that is responsible for the inquiry. I believe that this protects the executive council from those assertions. It protects the commission, which is the author of the report. It protects the integrity of the report.

I would hope that the government will see this amendment in the spirit that it has been made — which

is to provide that protection for everybody and the protection for the documents that will at some point land on the table in this House — and will see fit to support this amendment and in doing so, I believe make a fundamental improvement to the Public Inquiry Act as it sits before us today. I would strongly urge the Attorney General to look at this in a non-partisan way and hopefully decide that he will approve and support this amendment.

A. Dix: I rise in support of the amendment presented by the member for Nanaimo. I think the case has been made in a very compelling way by the member for Nanaimo, the member for Surrey-Whalley and the member for Vancouver-Hastings. One of our prime objections — and I know that the Attorney General has heard this objection to what the government is doing — is that we don't believe that it's the role of the executive council to use its unique position and its unique views on freedom of information and freedom-of-information-and-privacy laws to sever reports by independent commissioners.

We think, in fact, that the distinguished people who do those reports should be in a position and can be in a position to do that themselves. The fact of the executive council holding reports and then implementing the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act is counterproductive even to the interests of the executive council. It certainly undermines the spirit and the intent of independence in the public inquiry process.

Usually I bring to the attention of the House distinguished people to support a position. Today I am going to offer, as a supporter of that position, the views expressed by the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health, in response to questions around freedom of information not a couple of weeks ago, said the notion that a member of cabinet would actually be responsible for personally severing a freedom-of-information request is outrageous, is wrong.

The Minister of Health appears to disagree with the Attorney General that in fact it would be wrong for that to happen. You recall the context, hon. Chair. It's important to recall the context of that.

A. Dix: What was the context, she asks. The member for Coquitlam–Maillardville would like to know the context. The context was that there was a letter of resignation by the chair of Fraser Health, and the government severed important information. It was very much a political letter. He made a very clear statement of his views and his concerns. He said beds would be closing. The government struck out sections of the letter, I would suggest — and everybody would suggest; independent observers have suggested, not just me — that were politically damaging to the government.

We rose in this House — hon. Chair, you'll remember this — and asked the Minister of Health about it. He wasn't just emphatic; he was outraged at the suggestion that members of cabinet would be personally responsible for severing FOI requests. He was outraged that anyone would make that suggestion. He was outraged.

I am confident that, led by the Minister of Health, this amendment will pass today because of the position taken, because of that view that members of the executive council shouldn't be doing this. In particular, that view is important when you're talking about independent reports.

When you think of the subjects, the issues that have been the subject of independent review in this province are fundamental issues to the people of British Columbia. Rarely do we get to the stage of public inquiry unless an issue has in fact got enormous public interest and impact on the population of British Columbia.

In the case of those reports, it's especially important that this amendment pass. I think it's especially important that the people of British Columbia have the confidence to know that the author of that report is fully capable of understanding the laws of British Columbia. One can't imagine someone such as Thomas Gove not understanding that or being in a lesser position to understand that or being less capable of understanding that than, say, the Minister of Small Business and Revenue.

Who would one want to put in charge of this matter? Thomas Gove, Minister. On the issue of the technical application of the law, I think it's Thomas Gove. I think it is. I think it's the independent inquiry commissioners.

It's not a partisan question. I don't think that these important issues of understanding and protecting the rights of privacy of individuals in commission reports are well served by the notion of politics. The whole notion of the independent report — you see it elsewhere in this bill, and we all believe it — is to keep it separated from such political intervention. I would argue it's not even in the interest of cabinet ministers to have that power and that responsibility. It raises suspicion about the nature of the reports.

This is the genius, if I dare say, of the amendment by the member for Nanaimo. He's saying that the value, the role and the responsibility of a commission of inquiry and of a person who has been appointed to lead a commission of inquiry should, of course, include the protection-of-privacy rights of British Columbians. In fact, there is no need for cabinet to look over their shoulder, and there is a whole bunch of good reasons why cabinet should not be allowed to look over the shoulder of an independent commissioner of inquiry in British Columbia.

I want to say that I think most people who have led commissions of inquiry would agree with this. Most people in British Columbia would agree with it. Members of the opposition agree with it. I believe even the Minister of Health, in his heart of hearts, agrees with it. We have a building consensus, I say to the Attorney General, in favour of this amendment.

I ask members of this House to strongly endorse and vote yes on this important amendment.

C. Wyse: I rise in the House today to speak strongly in favour of the amendment that is in front of us here.

When we were at the committee stage and we were discussing the Public Inquiry Act, I shared with the Attorney General the concerns that I had about concentrating, for any government, the power to deal with information that should be made public.

Likewise, I've heard the comments and the rationale from the Attorney General dealing with looking after the privacy and the freedom-of-information information — points, in my judgment, that have been made very well by the Attorney General. Assuredly, none of us here in this House, all 79 of us, would wish to take one set of rights and move it and replace it with another set of rights — a point very well made by the Attorney General.

That leads me to my point to the Attorney General: this particular suggested amendment allows for that protection and, at the same time, protects the public's right for the information to be delivered in a fashion that doesn't leave the cabinet of tomorrow open to the accusation of having removed information.

To me, this amendment allows the House to achieve both of the principles that are in front of us here. It strikes me that the Attorney General would accept the wisdom and the insight of all members of this House in order to achieve the overall goal and intention of this particular bill that is in front of us.

None of us would be arguing about the need for the modernization of the bill. This amendment here allows us to protect the same integrity that has existed in the bill for the over 100 years that it has. It protected the integrity of the cabinet of the government of the day to not be open to accusations.

This leaves this mundane type of information…. Mundane may be the incorrect word to be using here, because privacy and freedom of information aren't meant to be mundane. As has been referred to by the Attorney General, having potentially tens to hundreds to thousands of pages to be reviewed — to have that left in the hands of cabinet, which has other jobs and responsibilities to do…. It also has that type of nature to be left in the hands of the commission, the people that have been doing the hands-on work.

I would encourage the Attorney General to convince all members of the side opposite to likewise be in support of the amendment that is here in front of the House.

I thank you, Madam Speaker, for providing me with this opportunity to present the case.

D. Thorne: I rise today to also support the amendment, which to me is the ultimate in logic and efficiency. I particularly liked the way that my colleague a moment ago referred to it as probably the genius of the amendment. I particularly liked the wording. But when I look at section 28, it is so clear to me, when I read this, that the important words in there are "must be."

What we're talking about here for exemption or withholding portions of the report for information is that "must be withheld by a public body under sections 15 to 19 and 21 to 22.1." These are givens. This is business as usual. This is not something unusual or something unexpected.

I cannot understand, and I don't think that the public would understand it anymore than I do, why a commission would do its work, make its final report to the government, before finishing what looks to me like just the business of the day — sections that need to be withheld, that must be withheld. It's very clear in section 28(3) that these are not willy-nilly sections that might or might not be removed. These must be removed. So obviously, the place to have that done would be at the commission level prior to it being turned into the executive council or the cabinet minister, whoever that person might be.

As my colleague said, this is not an amendment that would interfere with the principles of the bill. All principles would be intact. Yes, indeed, this would protect the cabinet and the minister from being open to any kind of interpretation by the public that people had their sections that they didn't want seen by the public or perhaps that there was something going on behind the scenes. This would absolutely protect anyone at the level above the commission from ever having any kind of interpretation or questioning done about their reasons for doing something or removing some information.

So I totally support this. I think that it's a given. I'm very pleased to hear that the Minister of Health is so in favour of this kind of an amendment. It cheers me beyond belief. It's made my day. I can only say that it's definitely made my afternoon. I thought I was coming in for just some duty. I did not know I was going to hear such good news. I get to speak to an intelligent, genius even, amendment to the bill, and I hear this good news from the Minister of Health. So thank you, Madam Speaker. It's been my pleasure to speak to this amendment.

M. Sather: I, too, rise to speak in favour of this amendment, which clearly and in very positive terms addresses the issues that the opposition has with this bill and with this section in particular. It speaks to the two salient issues of independence of the public inquiry, independence of the commissioner, and the issue of privacy. This is what we have a problem with in terms of this legislation. The fact that the cabinet would have the capability under this legislation to sever parts of the report is disturbing, and it's of a great concern to us. One would hope that that would not be the way that this government is going to proceed.

The idea of preserving the capability of the commissioner to make those determinations, and not having the cabinet in that position, is certainly a view that we support and that we're hopeful the members opposite will also support, as was alluded to earlier by the member for Vancouver-Kensington. You can't have it both ways. If the government side is going to say that it's anathema for cabinet to excise freedom of information and that we should depend entirely on the freedom-of-information legislation we have and those who are in charge of it, then the commission of inquiry, too, should have the same capability. The Attorney General spoke earlier about the need for the commis-

sioners to have — in a different role that they have, and a strong role that they have, to protect the public interest….

I am hopeful that government will reconsider this legislation. Certainly, the freedom of information and protection of privacy in this amendment, which would precede the subsequent amendment that speaks to the severing of the report by cabinet, are essential. We are supporting the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and it's named here in this legislation. That is the essential part of it.

I know that he didn't hear our pleas in second reading, but we're hopeful that the Attorney General's now had another day to look at it and that he will consider our amendment. As the member for Nanaimo has said, it's a friendly amendment. We feel it is, at least. It supports the bill and the principles of the bill and strengthens it. That's what we're here as legislators on both sides of the House to do: work together to strengthen legislation. I believe that's what this does, so I speak in favour of the amendment.

Hon. W. Oppal: Obviously, I oppose the amendment. And I'm not going to be long….

Hon. W. Oppal: I'd like to bring this debate to a merciful close. I want to start out by saying that this legislation satisfies all the principles of openness, fairness and accountability.

Lost in this debate is the fact that commissions of inquiry give advice to governments. That's why governments across this country have never mandated a disclosure of their reports to the public. We're the only government in Canada that's doing this. That's why legislatures across the country, governments across the country, have never released their reports to the public mandatorily. It's because it's advice to the government.

Having said that, there is political accountability here, where information is withheld under the appropriate legislation. The information is withheld for very good reasons: privacy and all of those reasons that I've already referred to. Now, when this information is withheld — I don't know if the opposition members realize this or not — the argument that has been advanced here is: "Why not let the Privacy Commissioner decide this instead of the executive council?"

Well, I have news for the opposition. The Privacy Commissioner has that right anyway. Where the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act applies to a report, once it is released, the Information and Privacy Commissioner may review any government refusal to disclose. So tell me: what's the point of the amendment? If the Privacy Commissioner has the power to review the cabinet decision to refuse to disclose, can anybody tell me: what's the point of the amendment?

L. Krog: Well, I must say I am somewhat disappointed by the Attorney General's response to the plaintive cries of the opposition here today to accept an amendment which is reasonable in its terms, protects the integrity of cabinet, shields cabinet from any possibility of conflict, restores public confidence and at the same time would have no impact whatsoever on the privacy rights of persons who might be referred to in the commission's report.

The Attorney General talked about bringing this debate to a merciful close. I detect in the Attorney General a certain lack of passion for what is an important public matter. The opposition is not standing here today simply to fill this chamber with noise. The opposition is trying to offer the government, with this amendment, a lifeline…

L. Krog: …a way out of the situation in which they have placed themselves by tabling this bill.

This isn't the first time they've trotted this horse out. They trotted it out last year, and it met with significant public opposition — and quite legitimately so.

L. Krog: My friend from Surrey-Whalley brilliantly says that it came up lame. What a wonderful, dry line. It came up lame. Well, by some miracle the government has decided, notwithstanding the lame nature of this particular horse, that they're going to trot it out once again this spring and that somehow the opposition is just going to sit back and let it be walked past us without comment and criticism. That just isn't the way it's going to be.

It would have been a wonderful opportunity for the Attorney General to stand here today and say that he had listened, that the government had heard the legitimate concerns of the opposition expressed on behalf of the people of British Columbia. This section detracts nothing from the protection of privacy — absolutely nothing.

All this amendment does is take that responsibility out of cabinet's hands. As the member for Cariboo South pointed out, cabinet's busy. Cabinet has significant responsibilities. Why would cabinet want to add to its many burdens the task of severing for purposes of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act? It is astonishing that they would wish to do so. One can only believe that the motives, frankly, are not good motives.

If the public, as I have said before, is to have trust in the whole process of government, is to have confidence that the people's business is conducted in an open and transparent manner, then why would the members on the government side support cabinet actually doing the job that should be performed by professionals? In this case, the amendment proposes that it be dealt with by the commission itself, those who have the greatest access to the information, those in the commission who have had an opportunity to hear all of the evidence.

I would have thought that on this particular amendment the government could have showed wisdom, restraint, buried the political hatchet, accepted the amendment, done the right thing and allowed the amendment to pass. But that is clearly not the case. The arrogance of this government in believing that the public is going to accept that cabinet gets to sever the results of a public inquiry, which may in fact be damning of government's behaviour or those who work for it, is beyond the pale.

In closing debate on this amendment, I must say that I wish the Attorney General had taken this opportunity to stand up courageously on behalf of British Columbians, who ultimately pay for the costs of public inquiries, and accept that this is a job not for cabinet; this is a job for the commission. It's a reasonable request. I encourage the members of the government benches to vote in favour of this amendment. Do the right thing. The opportunity is before you.

L. Krog: Section 28, as I stated earlier to the Attorney General, is the crux of the problem with this whole bill. Section 28(4) talks about following the review of the report. The executive council must direct the minister to lay the report, except any portion directed to be withheld under subsection (3), before the Legislative Assembly.

That is a dramatic change from the precedent of the initial Inquiry Act, Public Inquiries Act and the inquiry act as it stands now, which requires that the results be in fact tabled in front of the Legislature within 15 days if the House is sitting and within 15 days, if not, of the House recommencing sitting.

The Attorney General has advised that we're the only province in Canada that has that requirement. It is a remarkably thoughtful, appropriate and intelligent section. It is a section of the act that guarantees public confidence.

So my question to the Attorney General is: why is there no proposal or no section in section 28 that indicates some form of time limit? The Attorney General has expressed concern about receiving a massive public report that would require intensive study and so on. But the fact is this section as it stands — the way I read it — means that cabinet could review this report until the Legislature is dissolved. That is exactly what it says.

I'm asking the Attorney General: am I correct in stating that under section 28(4), cabinet can sit on the results of the public inquiry until the Legislature is dissolved?

Hon. W. Oppal: I already answered the question, but I'll do it again. There's such a concept as political accountability. It would be impossible for cabinet or anyone to sit on a report, particularly if it's a report of some import, without having that report released.

As far as not putting a time limit on it, it would be unrealistic to place time limits on reports. The member suggested ten days. I think that if you had a Gomery report with 3,000 or 4,000 pages — I think there's more than that — it would be unrealistic to assume that all the privacy considerations and issues relating to harm to third parties could be addressed in ten days.

The lack of a time frame is put there for obvious reasons, and that is to give some flexibility to people who are reviewing the report.

B. Ralston: The Attorney General insists it is cabinet that should make these decisions. Has he sought advice as to how the Conflict of Interest Act would apply in the case where cabinet is making the decisions about a report that may touch the interests of individual members of cabinet, employees or their relatives?

Hon. W. Oppal: Cabinet ministers take oaths. There's a duty on a minister to absent himself or herself if there's some matter that concerns a particular cabinet minister. It's an obvious conflict in those circumstances.

B. Ralston: In a case such as that, of what public disclosure is the minister absenting himself or herself from the discussion of such a report?

Hon. W. Oppal: I don't know what disclosure is required. If the issue comes before cabinet and a member of cabinet has an interest in the issue, the cabinet minister absents himself or herself. I don't know how much more clear I can be on that.

B. Ralston: With respect, the Attorney General hasn't answered the question. The issue is, then: what record is there that the minister or ministers, as the case may be, have absented themselves from such a decision? Or is it something that is done in confidence? The document is edited in secrecy, the minister absents himself or herself — or not, as the case may be, again in secrecy — and there's no record kept of that.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm not sure that I can answer this with any degree of certainty. It may show in the minutes. I can state that there's no transcription or recording of cabinet meetings.

B. Ralston: Isn't that the very issue, and the reason that there's a difficulty if the cabinet does it — because cabinet decisions and cabinet processes are confidential? How can the public have any confidence in a process that proceeds in that way when editing the report of a public inquiry? I mean, that's the very nub of the issue. I regret to say that I don't think, with respect, that the Attorney General has answered that.

Hon. W. Oppal: I thought I made it clear during the debate on the amendment — that is, the Privacy Commissioner may review any government refusal to disclose.

C. Wyse: I respectfully would ask the Attorney General if he might explain to me a little clearer a phrase that he used, because where I'm from upcountry the phrase "political accountability" in actual fact means election time. With all respect, the Attorney General has used a phrase of "political accountability," and that would determine when a report is released.

I'm asking whether the Attorney General is using the phrase "political accountability" as we would use it upcountry in the Cariboo to mean that the report would be held until the election time, and then it would be released, or released after the election, and that's the intent of not having a time frame within the motion in the bylaw itself.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, I would like to think that the definition of political accountability would be the same upcountry as it is here in the urban areas. Accountability means more than an election every four years, I would suggest with respect. It means answering to the opposition. It means answering to the media. It means answering to the public. That's what accountability means in any democracy. Accountability doesn't arise every four years, as the member suggests. It's there all the time in a democracy.

C. Wyse: I'm wondering whether the Attorney General would then be in agreement that in order to be accountable, it also requires having the information in order to be able to ask informed questions — and whether that enters into making the political accountability and the discussion and the debate around it really quite important. It's very significant under the Public Inquiry Act and the information being produced for the public.

Hon. W. Oppal: The report would be released to the public minus that evidence — that information that is subject to privacy considerations — and if a person is dissatisfied with that, you can always prevail upon the Privacy Commissioner to review whatever the government did with respect to withholding information.

C. Wyse: But the section we're dealing with is without having a time frame for when the report would be released, and there's where the discussion comes about. So the Attorney General still leaves me somewhat confused. At this moment in time the legislation does not provide for any set amount of time for this report to be held, and the Attorney General had used that phrase — that political accountability would help drive when the information would be released.

Therefore, I'm somewhat confused yet on how the lack of information and having a time frame contained in the motion would leave people without the information in order to discuss it intelligently. I will ask once more if the Attorney General could help clarify that still outstanding question for me.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, after a public inquiry has been concluded and a report has been filed, the public knows that. Thereafter, there is no time limit. The uniform Public Inquiries Act does not have a requirement that the report be released by a certain date. No other inquiry statute in Canada has a requirement that reports may be made public in a certain time frame.

I think that I've already made reference to the reasons as to why it would be unwise, in my respectful view, to put a time frame or a time limit as to when the report will be made public, because of various considerations and the length of time that's involved.

L. Krog: Obviously, this portion of section 28 is the most troubling, and that is the undefined limit on cabinet to actually direct the minister to lay the report before the Legislative Assembly. Notwithstanding that other provinces may not follow this practice, that it does not exist in other legislatures, does in no way make it a bad practice.

There were periods in our history where you could argue and state that citizens were restricted from the right to vote on the basis of colour. Some nations stepped forward and abolished that. Was that a wrong thing? I don't think so.

Therefore, hon. Chair, I would move the second portion of the amendment standing in my name on the order paper:

L. Krog: If the Attorney General during the course of his remarks today or some other member of this House had explained why there was some mischief with the existing section of the Inquiry Act — which has been in place, as I've stated, for 100 years — that required commissions to submit their reports to cabinet and then they had to be submitted to the Legislature…. If they could point to some mischief, some problem, some issue that required this change — some justification, something that would satisfy even the most minimal test — then I would have listened with interest. But I have not heard that put forward by any member of this House today, and most especially not by the Attorney General, who has brought this bill before the Legislature.

The amendment as proposed would give the executive council ten days. A hundred years ago — when there was not the incredible public service in British Columbia that we enjoy today, when there were not all those electronic communication devices — when none of that was available, somehow the government of British Columbia was able to function, notwithstanding that within 15 days of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council receiving the results of a public inquiry commission they were able to submit it to the Legislature. Somehow in those less sophisticated, more primitive times, we were able to manage it.

Now when we have a significant public service, many people available to assist government, then surely it is not unreasonable to ask that a time limit be placed on how long cabinet could have the report to review before it is submitted to the Legislative Assembly. The open-ended version of the section which allows that review to continue to the end of the legislative session, to the end of a government's term, the Attorney General says is something that would never happen, because after all, there is such a thing as political responsibility.

Hon. Chair, political responsibility would dictate that this amendment should pass. That's what political responsibility would dictate. The results of public inquiries should be just that — available to the public. It's not a novel concept. It's not an unreasonable request. Placing a strict time limit on it would force cabinet, would force the government of the day…. Whomever it may be — whether it be the members occupying the seats on the other side of the House today, or the members occupying the seats on this side of the House where I sit today — the effect will be the same. It will encourage confidence. It will provide the openness and transparency that the government claims to be a hallmark of its administration.

Open, honest and accountable government. What could be more open than requiring that government submit the results of inquiries to the Legislative Assembly, to the duly elected representatives of the people? Is that too much to ask? Is it so remarkable? Does it so offend the principles of democracy?

I don't think so. I think it is consistent with common sense. It is consistent with everything that the Premier in particular himself has said, and the quotes have been read back to him in previous debates on this issue. It's consistent with everything the Premier has promised. What we on this side of the House are saying is: why would cabinet be given an opportunity to essentially sit on and withhold from the public the results of an inquiry that might, in fact, be both politically damaging to government and assist the opposition in doing its job, which is to hold the government to account?

It amazes me that the Attorney General has not been able to provide any more cogent a defence of the position of the government in this bill than to say that it would be politically difficult or impossible, or words to that effect. Why would the government turn down this second opportunity today to do the right thing and allow the passage of the amendment — to hold their own feet to the fire and the feet to the fire of governments that will follow them — that will ensure that the great and legitimate curiosity of the public about the results of a public inquiry will, in fact, be delivered to them in a timely manner?

Surely, if there is some rot at the core of government that would be exposed by a public inquiry, why would the Attorney General and the government of the day not wish it to receive full public exposure and to deal with the issue and the problem that the public inquiry would expose? Why would we want to allow to fester some problem, some corruption, that might be discovered and exposed by the result of a public inquiry? How could that possibly be in the public interest? Because it is, after all, the Public Inquiry Act.

I say to you, hon. Chair, because it isn't in the public interest to have this kind of information withheld. The only party, the only body, whose interest would be protected by refusing to support this amendment would be the government of the day. That is the only interest that would be protected by refusing to support this amendment.

If we are to restore or create, depending on your viewpoint, confidence in the democratic process so that people have some belief that governments are doing the right thing, then by refusing to pass this amendment, we do nothing to enhance that. We do nothing here to enhance that. We indeed encourage the cynical belief that led to the demise of the federal Liberal Party in this country when they tried to fight the results of the Gomery inquiry.

The fact is that people want to know. People not only want to know; I submit that they have a right to know. They have a right to get the results of an inquiry.

The amendment proposed gives the government ten days to get its spin doctors together and to allow

the legions of paper preparers to figure out how to defend government. Then they should be prepared to do what governments are supposed to do — face the music in the Legislature.

I've told this little story before, but it bears repeating today. There's a beautiful art gallery in Qualicum Beach. It's the Old School House Gallery. It's in fact the old, original high school in Qualicum Beach, and it was built with a grand facade when times were tough in the school district. There was one poor trustee, a woman, who argued cogently and effectively to the school trustees of the day that the building, instead of being some ordinary-looking structure, should have a grand facade and a wonderful staircase leading up to the second floor.

Her argument that won the day was this. When schoolchildren came to that edifice and looked at that building, they would know that because it looked important, what was happening in that building was important.

Surely what we do in this Legislature is important. This is one of the grandest legislative assemblies in the whole of the country. This was, for the day it was built, a magnificent extension of public confidence in this province. The very bill that Bill 6 seeks to change and repeal was passed in 1897, at the very same time. Surely there is a message in that. The message is that what we do in this chamber is important and that the government of the day, notwithstanding the times in which they lived, agreed and acknowledged that a public inquiry should be made public.

There are some lessons of history that bear repeating. I would submit that this is one of those occasions. What happened a hundred years ago was a good thing. It was the right legislation. It contained the correct provisions around the results of public inquiries. It deserves as much preservation as does this very chamber, its history, its traditions and the very building which it occupies.

I say to the Attorney General and to the government members: support this amendment. Honour the traditions of this Legislature, not the traditions of other legislatures. Honour the traditions of this Legislature. Put a time limit on. Support the opposition amendment. Do the right thing. Ensure that what was a grand, progressive gesture in its day a hundred years ago will continue to be part of British Columbia's political traditions. That is that the belief in the people's right to know supersedes the right of government to act in secret.

That is surely something profound. It is something that deserves the support of every member in this chamber. I encourage the government as strongly as I can — again, for the second time today — to do the right thing and support this amendment.

B. Ralston: I'm speaking in favour of the amendment. The section here, 28(4), reads: "Following review of the report, the Executive Council must direct the minister to lay the report…before the Legislative Assembly." This amendment seeks to place a limit, a time limit, on the phrase: "following the review of the report."

Now, what the Attorney General has said in response is — and one can see the excuses of the government of the day already being constructed — "Well, the report may be very long. It may be complicated. We couldn't possibly do it in ten days." I think the intent of the amendment here is to place a definite limit on the time of review. So if the Attorney General thinks, for example, that ten days is too short but 20 days is right, I don't think that anyone on this side of the House would object to that.

The principle here is to place a definite time limit on that consideration because, notwithstanding what the Attorney General says, if it's left to the discretion of the cabinet to decide when to end the review, so to speak, there is no time limit. There's no time limit at all. There may be public pressure, but governments weighing the political perils of an explosive and damaging report may choose to endure a little bit of political heat by delaying the release of a report to a more convenient time rather than face the music of the explosive results of a public inquiry.

Executive power in creating an inquiry is well-fortified. The government gets to decide the terms of the report, the commissioner, the terms of reference and the reporting date. It can also introduce through their general power, the royal prerogative, further considerations in the terms of reference. They can add to the terms of reference as they go along. They control the financing of the commission. This adds yet another weapon or instrument in the hands of the executive controlling the release of the report.

When the object of a public inquiry is just that, to make public the results of an inquiry, it seems reasonable to place some limit, some reasonable limit, to a certain time on disclosure of the report to the public. Otherwise, the cabinet of the day can sit on a report indefinitely — certainly, at least until after an election — if they so chose. They would have to weigh the political consequences of that.

This would remove that temptation from cabinet and oblige them to release the report in a timely fashion. I think the amendment is very straightforward. It's very reasonable. I would urge the members opposite and the Attorney General in the legal advice that he gets from his staff to consider this amendment as something that might reasonably be incorporated within the bill.

S. Simpson: I also stand in favour of this amendment. I believe it is an amendment that will improve this piece of legislation. What this amendment essentially says is that it will put an obligation on cabinet to release a report of a public inquiry within ten days after receipt of that report.

This is not an unreasonable requirement. What we know is that the government has a wealth of resources behind it. The cabinet has a wealth of resources that will allow it to do whatever work it needs to do in regard to the freedom of information requirements.

Unfortunately, the recent vote that says that, in fact, cabinet will now have that responsibility to sever information.… I'm sure that there are enough resources and capacity in the government and available to cabinet to allow the cabinet to do the severing that it chooses to do before the report is released.

We also know that as the government decides how to manage the information in that report, they have a wealth of support to do that. I believe my friend from Surrey-Whalley has told me a couple of times…. I think there are 226 members of the public affairs bureau who are available to the cabinet to help them decide how to massage the information coming out of the public inquiry, should it be damaging information for cabinet or for the government.

There is no lack of resources available for the government to deal with these matters. Ten days doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to deal with that. The question is: why do we need to have that kind of promptness?

The Attorney General in previous comments talked about the public inquiry being there to provide advice to government. Certainly, the public inquiries are done to provide advice to government, but more importantly, public inquiries are done for the interests of the public. They are done for matters of significant public interest and public concern.

Public inquiries don't get done for frivolous reasons. Very seldom do we see public inquiries initiated, and when they do occur, it's because they are matters of importance and of critical concern for the public. In fact, I would suggest that the public inquiry is for the people. It's for the taxpayers. It's for the people of British Columbia when a public inquiry is done in this province.

That being the case, it then is my belief that the obligation of government, cabinet and the Attorney General is to those people of British Columbia. That means getting that report in as prompt a way and fashion as possible into the hands of the people of British Columbia for them to make the determinations — to have the information and to make their own determinations about what that information means and what it tells them on whatever matter they may be looking at.

This really is a question of openness and transparency. One of the things we know is that promptness in terms of delivering information is a key to accountability — not having people be able to concern themselves as to whether, in fact, reports have been held back for an extended period of time because of concern about what is or isn't going on with the report.

We also know that promptness is about transparency. It is about letting people see as clearly as possible what the results of, in this case, a public inquiry would be. That's about transparency. That's about providing the information in a prompt fashion to this Legislature and the people of British Columbia.

Of course, promptness is also about openness and about being as open as possible. If the government and the cabinet want to be open, transparent and accountable, then it is essential that they take the steps necessary to be perceived that way as well as, hopefully, to do it. What that means is being prepared to release this kind of information as quickly as possible. Ten days is not an unreasonable amount of time to be able to do that.

The other reality of this is that we're not talking here about a government that in most cases is going to be seeing this information for the first time because, as has been pointed out, the authority, the powers of cabinet in terms of this piece of legislation are extremely broad. The cabinet gets to set the terms of reference. When they set the terms of reference, they have the ability, as it says under section 27(2) here: "A commission may make an interim report to the minister on any matter relevant to the commission's terms of reference at any time before the commission makes its final report."

Well, what do we know? Those terms of reference can very clearly say: "You will make an interim report." There's nothing wrong with the terms of reference saying that, based on this.

We might suspect that in fact that's exactly what's going to happen on matters that may be of concern to the government, to the cabinet, to the Attorney General, to the Premier in terms of embarrassing information or information that is politically damaging to the government. I suspect chances are pretty good that the government is going to want an interim report so that they know where this thing is going and what they're up against down the road. Get those 226 people in the public affairs bureau to work.

The matter here is that that information will largely be available to the government — I believe, to cabinet — well in advance of the final report being written. The thrust of the report will be there. It will be clear.

What I would say to the Attorney General is that there is no reason, absolutely no reason, why the government should hold this information up. The Attorney General spoke about the political imperative that would compel the government and compel cabinet to release information sooner rather than later. Well, I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure that if you had a report, if you had a public inquiry….

Let's just suppose you had a public inquiry on B.C. Rail, and it showed a whole series of damning information in regard to the government. I'm just not so sure that we would see the government making the decision to release that information sooner rather than later. I'm not so sure that the government wouldn't rather be criticized for tardiness than, maybe, for the content that a public inquiry like that might in fact produce.

I don't think there's any reason for us to have confidence that the political imperative that the Attorney General spoke about earlier would compel the government to release information that would be embarrassing or politically damaging to the government.

I think the real issue here has to be: what is the public interest? The Attorney General and the cabinet should always be asking that question of themselves, particularly in the case of this piece of legislation, the Public Inquiry Act. What is the public interest?

I would argue today that the public interest is best served by getting the most complete final report of any

public inquiry into the hands of the public as quickly and promptly as possible. That requires that there be very clear demands and directives within this legislation that say when that will occur. Currently, this legislation says that the government could take a year, two years or as long as it wants. It can always find an excuse to make that case if it chooses to do so.

We need to have language in this legislation that compels the government to release these kinds of reports in a timely and prompt fashion, to release these reports to the people they belong to. They belong to the people of British Columbia. That's the obligation of government.

This amendment will ensure that that occurs. The current bill, as it's written today, will ensure that the government, for political reasons, if it chooses, can bury these reports for as long as they like. It's an essential amendment if you believe in transparency, accountability and openness. I would hope that the government will see that and support it.

C. Wyse: I likewise rise in this House to speak in favour of this amendment. I rise to speak in favour of this amendment because this to me is the nub of what this legislation is about. This legislation, as I've mentioned earlier in this House, is to ensure that the public inquiry information is placed in front of the people of British Columbia in a timely, orderly fashion.

Any government, regardless of what their political stripes are, will be tempted and will fall to that temptation not to release the information contained in a public inquiry, should that information be deemed to have political consequences to whoever the government of the day may be. This is a fact that runs clearly across all political parties, in my judgment.

A few moments ago the honoured member across the floor — opposite from myself — and I talked back and forth about what the two words "political accountability" meant. Lo and behold, two individuals here within the House had difficulty coming up with an understanding of what that phrase meant.

That, in essence, was the rationale behind not having a set date and time contained within the legislation to have it released. It is for exactly that reason: the fact that any political party will be tempted to bury any public inquiry that might contain information politically damning to them, to their future and to where they would lose the reins of power.

To have legislation put in front of the House that does not restrict that abuse of power says no to openness, honesty and public accountability. That, in actual fact, applies to any government because any governing party is going to have this temptation put in front of them. Should the government not agree with the amendment and put a time frame on it, to me it clearly allows whatever rationale the Attorney General has, from his point of view, for having introduced this legislation.

The amendment ensures that a public inquiry and the information that was obtained by that inquiry are placed in front of the population of British Columbia. The 4.4 million people of British Columbia get access to that information within a timed, reasoned point. It is for those reasons that I request the government to support the amendment and then to ensure that their phraseology of being open, honest and accountable will be maintained.

N. Macdonald: I, too, rise to speak in favour of the amendment, which deletes section 28(3) and sets a maximum time that the cabinet has to review the report from a public inquiry.

Now, there are elements of this bill that are of course supportable — and what we have said in second reading, and what members have consistently said, is that the problem we have with this is section 28.

We've made an attempt through an amendment to get rid of the ability of cabinet to sever the reports. That's a weakness, but the fundamental weakness is the ability of cabinet to hold from the public — at their discretion, for as long as they want — a report. It is a public inquiry, as many have said here. It is fundamentally important that it comes before the public as quickly as possible.

What is being proposed in this amendment is eminently reasonable: to set a specific period of time that the report can stay hidden from the public view with the cabinet. If you do not set a period of time, it opens up all sorts of opportunities for cabinet to take advantage of their ability to keep things hidden.

We know that this government will use every tool available to keep damaging information hidden. They know the rules, they will use every rule that's available, and it's clear that section 28 is put there for a purpose. It is put there so that information that may be damaging to this government will remain hidden. The amendment which limits it to ten days is in every way reasonable.

I would remind government, and I would remind members of this House, that we are in a Legislature that has evolved over time. Major changes are often made incrementally, and what we need to ask ourselves with section 28 is: is this an incremental improvement to this institution, or is it one that is incrementally damaging? I would argue, as I argued before, that this is a perhaps tiny, perhaps major step, incrementally, in making this House, and the government especially, less accountable to the public.

I don't see how anyone who sits and ran and was elected to be here can argue that that is a good thing. I have not heard a convincing argument about why cabinet needs the power to hold a public inquiry and the information indefinitely. I have not heard a compelling argument because there is not one.

There is no argument that can be made that says it is reasonable and in the public interest. It may be in the interest of individuals when they hold power, but this institution lasts beyond one government, and it's an institution that should be respected.

This amendment limits to ten days. It is reasonable. It is the way that we should be proceeding. I will be voting in favour of this amendment, and I would encourage all MLAs to do the same.

C. Trevena: I rise in favour of the amendment. I've been listening to the debate as it's been going on, and I have been hearing the Attorney General talk about political responsibility that would encourage people to release the content of reports within a timely manner. I think that, unfortunately, political responsibility and political expediency don't really always match. I think we often see a lot of political expediency, in which case we would see public reports — inquiries into public issues — hidden, buried, massaged and, effectively, lost.

This amendment, which I'm fully in favour of, gives a good time limit. We're talking ten days. Ten days will allow time for consideration, time for deliberation and then time for release.

What we have to remember when we're talking about this, both the bill itself and the amendment, is that it's a public inquiry. It's public in two ways, or it should be public in two ways. One, it is public in that it should be open for the public, or rather, it should be open and it should also be for the public. We need to make sure that both are recognized. If we don't have the time limit on it, it will neither be open nor will it be for the public.

The Attorney General may have the very best of intentions and be talking about the fact that governments wouldn't sit on this, cabinets wouldn't sit on this and that we would be able to make sure these things are open. But this isn't just this government. It's not just future governments. We're looking at legislation that has lasted a hundred years. This next piece of legislation, the legislation we're deliberating on, could also last — and if it's good legislation, should last — a long while.

We don't want to be changing the laws every ten, 15 years. So if this is good legislation, we would hope that it would last a long time, that it would go on, as this building and as the work within this building goes on, for many, many years to come, for several generations.

However, I think that this isn't a good move to not have a time limit. I think that we have to be very aware that we are working for this government and for future governments. We don't know what the makeup of future governments will be, and we don't know what their political expedients will be. So we have to go back to the very essence of this, which is that it's a public inquiry bill. We need to make sure that it will be open, and it will be for the public.

We cannot compare ourselves in this regard to other provinces. I think that we should not go for what everyone else does. We should, as my colleague from Nanaimo said, go for the best. We should really strive for this.

This amendment doesn't look big, but it really is huge. It makes sure that not just this government but all governments in the future will be accountable when it comes to public inquiries, that they will make sure that the inquiries are both public and open, that the interests of the public are best served, that we can make sure that we're not doing things behind closed doors, and that we are looking at complete openness and complete accountability and have a fixed time limit on it.

D. Thorne: Today we stand here talking about the lofty ideals of transparency, accountability and openness. I guess the question comes down to: are they lofty ideals, or are they or should they be business as usual? Should they be the business of government that we should always be open, accountable and transparent?

Well, I believe, and my colleagues on this side of the House certainly believe, and I'm quite sure from what I've heard this afternoon that the Minister of Health also believes, in transparency, openness and accountability.

It's my pleasure to stand, to rise again and support an amendment which I hope this time, with the help of some of the colleagues who are listening, will pass. I'm hoping that we will remove section 28(3) and add that the maximum time permitted for review by the executive council of any report would be ten days.

I think, as I talked about before, that there's always a key word in all of these arguments and all of these bills and sections and amendments. Surely the key word in all of this is "public." Public is the key word. Public inquiry. Public report. Public accounting. Surely the only reason that we do a report, the only reason we strike a commission to look into any particular act or issue, is to let the public know what has really gone on, what has happened, what they want to know. Surely that's the only reason we do a report.

Why would we not ensure that a report becomes public? How can we even allow a small opportunity for a public report to be, in fact, not or ever public? It can't happen.

I believe that we have made some very, very good arguments here today about why. I am sure that the Attorney General is listening, as I'm sure that the Minister of Health is listening. It gratifies me to think that there might be some saner heads and hearts on the other side who can see that surely a public report is in fact, and always must be, a public report, and that we must do everything to ensure that a report becomes public.

As one of my colleagues mentioned a few minutes ago: 226 members in the public affairs bureau to help the executive council get that report out in ten days. I would think it would be a piece of cake.

Openness, transparency, accountability — the key words we're based on. Let's keep them in force, let's keep them in, and let's vote for the amendment.

A. Dix: I was inspired by the remarks by my friend from Coquitlam-Maillardville to participate and to speak in favour of the amendment, because I think the amendment goes to the heart of much of the work we do here — the need for openness, the need for accountability.

When you think of independent reports and the need for independent reports, I think that is part, I dare say, of what gives reports their credibility and what makes them a hugely important tool of public policy.

I guess the questions that this amendment asks are: who decides when we have an independent commission of inquiry? Who decides when we should hear the facts, when we should hear the recommendations?

Think of all the great commissions of inquiry we've had. Who should decide when we hear it? Should it be

Justice Thomas Gove, or should it be the Minister of State for Mining? Who should decide? Should it be Justice Berger, or should it be the Minister of Health? Justice Krever, or the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources? These are the questions we ask.

We know, and British Columbians know, that when we bring forward a commission of inquiry and we pay for it with our tax dollars — and I know that the Minister of Revenue is without rest in terms of collecting people's tax dollars; there's never any hesitation there….

A. Dix: When people owe their taxes to the Minister of Revenue, there's no ten-day, 14-day or 28-day waiting period. He goes after it right then and there. I say that when taxpayers pay for an independent commission of inquiry, they have a right to see it right away.

My friend from Nanaimo is a moderate. He is making an effort to draw the cabinet in support of this amendment. He has said: "Let's give them ten days. Let's give the cabinet ten days from the day that they get their report to see it." The member from Nanaimo, I have to say…. I had to be convinced, but he has convinced me of how wise his course is. I believe, and I hope, that he will convince members opposite.

One of the reasons why, after I finish my remarks here, I'm going to ask that the House adjourn until tomorrow is to give members opposite the opportunity to reflect on the debate, to read the Blues, to read Hansard and to decide whether, in fact….

A. Dix: Especially the Minister of Health. I think when the Minister of Health hears the words and says: "Should an independent commissioner of inquiry make the decision about when we hear about the important issues that he has to report on…?" It should be that commissioner of inquiry who decides the timing of the release of the report that we all pay for, decides when we should have that opportunity, and not, I say with all due respect — not just to this Attorney General, this Minister of Health, this Minister of State for Mining…. Boy, it's a big cabinet.

A. Dix: I don't have time left in the day to list all of them. It's a big cabinet. It's very large — the largest in history. But even the collective minds of the largest cabinet in history are not, I don't think, the right people and the right set of, shall we say, intelligences to make this decision. It's an independent commission of inquiry, and an independent commissioner should make the decision.

I think that the case is clear, and so I'm asking members on the other side of the House to reflect on this. I know that they will. I know that our position has been compelling. I know that they're listening. To think today because they are now going to have, thanks to the new rules of the House…. I mean, thanks to the new rules, they're going to have now close to 20 hours to reflect on this amendment and to think about it, to think about what good sense it would make to leave this decision in the hands of an independent commissioner. They have 20 hours of decision, 20 hours to reflect.

With that, hon. Speaker, I move that this committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

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

J. Brar: I would like to start just from where we left off. At the end of the last question, the minister indicated the number of clients under the JP2 program was 31,000 people at that point in time when the $19 million payout was decided. Now can the minister explain…? Out of those 31,000 clients, how many were all the day

I know the ministry refers the clients to the employment programs, and from there the different service providers conduct the initial assessment, and then they get those people into the program. I just want to know how many clients were actually going through the program.

Hon. C. Richmond: All of them in that number would have been in the program — approximately 31,000.

J. Brar: I will take it this way, and the minister is certainly invited to correct me if that's wrong. All 31,000 clients at that point in time were at different stages, different milestones set by the ministry, with a maximum milestone of 19 months, where the service provider will get the maximum amount. If that's correct, I will move on, on that one.

My next question is: what was the original estimated cost for the entire JP2 program contract from July 2002, when they were awarded, to July 31, 2009, when they were expected to finish?

Hon. C. Richmond: From July 1, 2002, till June 30, 2006, the amount budgeted for the program was $156,589,594. The actual amount spent during that same time period was $112,779,681.

J. Brar: Well, I think I only got part of the answer from the minister. My question was…. I will repeat it, and if you can provide me the complete information: what was the original estimated cost for the entire JP2 contract from July 2002, when the contract was awarded, to July 31, 2009, when they were expected to finish?

Hon. C. Richmond: That number includes the amount up to and including 2009. It was all included in that amount.

J. Brar: My next question is: what was the total amount of money actually paid under the JP contract out of the total budgeted estimated costs? If the minister could explain that.

Hon. C. Richmond: That's the figure that I just gave the member. The program budget was $156.5 million, round numbers. The amount actually expended was $112,779,681.

J. Brar: The minister made the decision, in the middle of the agreement, to negotiate the end of the agreement and pay $19 million to those service providers. My question to the minister is: if the contracts hadn't ended early, as they did, what obligation would the contractor have had from March 31, 2006, to the end of contract, which is 2009?

Hon. C. Richmond: The contract definitions and payment provisions and extension of client intake period ended on June 30, 2006. So there were no more clients taken into the program after June 30, 2006. The contracts were then extended to July 31, 2009, so the contractors would have been paid their final instalment if the client reached the 19-month mark at 2009.

J. Brar: I think I would like to list a few things here. Things are not getting clear. Now, the minister decided to end the contract early — almost three years from the actual end date. The contract was supposed to go to 2009, and the contract ended in 2006.

During that time I understand that the service providers were supposed to get money when clients were reaching certain milestones. The maximum milestone is 19 months — when they get the maximum amount of money, which could be, as per my understanding, $4,304.

But is the minister telling me that other than making payments during those three years, the contractors had no other obligation at all?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'll see if I can explain it to the member so that he understands.

The JP program used three key measurements to monitor and track program performance: referrals, the number of clients referred to service providers; placements, the cumulative number of clients who obtained a job with an employer; and independent placements, the number of clients who commenced employment with a suitable employer that provided sufficient hours of work and income such that the client was no longer eligible to receive income assistance.

The JP program was flexible and tailored to meet the individual needs of clients. Depending on a client's job readiness and stage in the program, the service provider delivered a range of services and supports such as: pre-employment services and supports — for example, job preparation services such as resumé-writing and interview skills, accreditation required to obtain employment such as a driver's licence or first-aid certificate, telephone messaging services, skills in the workplace habits and personal grooming; placement assistance — for example, job search assistance, screening and matching services, safety equipment and clothing, transportation assistance to interviews and jobs, day care assistance; and post-placement assistance — for example, job retention and employability clinics such as interpersonal skills and anger management to support clients to remain employed; supports to employers, if requested, to facilitate job retention.

J. Brar: Thanks for the clarity. So in fact we did have, in the agreement, some follow-up services that the service providers were supposed to provide in order to get the milestone money, which as mentioned by you, for job maintenance there were follow-up services — help provided — by the service providers.

That's one part of the services, where the service providers were required to assist those clients who were already placed to maintain their jobs, whether it's anger management or whether it's assisting them just

to have a job on a regular basis. Also, there is one more piece missing yet that I want to ask you if you can give me some clarification on.

The number of clients who were placed by these people into jobs in the first place: sometimes it didn't work, and sometimes people lost a job again. My understanding is that it was part of the agreement that those people who lost jobs in the middle of the cycle will come back, and these service providers were supposed to help them to find a new job again. Was that part of the obligation as well?

Hon. C. Richmond: Mr. Chairman, in practice the post-placement assistance was usually minimal, as clients did not generally stay in contact with service providers. In fact, I talked to a couple of service providers, and they even asked them — and would call them — to stay in contact. But if they had a job and were working, mostly they didn't. I guess they couldn't be bothered.

If, as the member says, a person was in the situation where he worked for six or eight months and lost his or her job and ended up back on our rolls, the service provider didn't get paid for that final payment at the 19-month mark, because their employment ceased. They came back on our unemployment rolls — income assistance rolls is a better term — and therefore the contractor didn't get paid.

J. Brar: My question was a bit different though. I would like to rephrase my question again to get the right answer.

I understand that if somebody loses a job, the service provider will not be paid the milestone as set in the agreement. I understand that part. My question is: when somebody loses a job and is recycled back on income assistance, were these service providers, who had the contract to provide employment assistance, obliged under the agreement to support them again to find employment or not? That's my question. My understanding is that they were.

Hon. C. Richmond: Clients who come back onto income assistance now receive services under our new programs. In the calculation of the final payment, we took this into account on the probabilities — as I said earlier, one of the three things we went into, to negotiate the end of the old contract so that we could put out an RFP for the new contract. This was all calculated on probabilities and experience with people.

That's where the negotiation came in. How much do we end up paying these contractors for work that was already done, payment that they may or may not receive, depending on the probabilities over the next 19 months? It was negotiated to an amount of $19 million, and it would have been $24 million if we had not negotiated it.

J. Brar: I would take it, from the latest clarification of the minister, that yes, in fact those service providers were, under the agreement, required to provide them assistance to find employment — the people who lost jobs and ended up on income assistance again. So they were actually responsible. That is one of the things, per what the minister said, that has been negotiated and moved under the new contract.

That's one piece of the negotiation. What else under the follow-up services has been moved, under the negotiations, from the previous JP2 contract to the new B.C. employment agreement?

Hon. C. Richmond: Nothing was moved from one contract to the other. The old contract, the JP2, was terminated and an amount was negotiated for work already provided and the probability of work that might have been provided had we left it out there for the full 19 months.

That was negotiated. Both parties agreed to an amount, which was less than they would have been paid if the contract had run until 2009. Then that contract was terminated, and they were allowed to bid on the new contract. Nothing was carried from one contract to the other.

J. Brar: Let's make things very clear. Minister, what you're suggesting here is that there were pieces of follow-up services, which are significant in nature when we talk about this $19 million, by the way. It's significant in nature. So there were follow-up services.

I can count what you said to me, but I can count more. You were talking about follow-up services in terms of people losing jobs, recycled back. They were required to assist them to find employment. You were talking about the service providers being required to help them in anger management.

You were saying that the service providers were required to help those people who were already placed with job maintenance.

There could be more things. All those things, as the minister is telling me, were part of the negotiation, under which those pieces — if the contract had continued until 2009, as was said before — were negotiated to move, under the new agreement. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Richmond: The member is still insisting that something was moved from one contract to another. Not the case. Nothing was moved from the old contract to the new program. Nothing. The old program was terminated. We calculated the revenue stream to service providers for approximately 31,000 clients, based on experience to date.

What were the percentages of people staying on until the end of the contract? What was the likelihood of people dropping off and coming back onto income assistance? All that was negotiated, less the cost of services that service providers are no longer delivering because we're terminating the contract, plus a discount for receiving the dollars early.

In other words, we said: "If the contract goes right out to 2009, there's a probability that you will receive this much money." A probability. We couldn't say for sure because you don't know how many are going to drop off. But we said: "Given the experience we have and the probabilities, we will pay you this much" — a lesser amount — "to terminate the contract now, for work you have done and the probability of these contracts going through to fulfilment."

We negotiated that down from $24 million to $19 million. It was agreed to by both parties, and the contracts were then ended, cancelled. Then the new program went out for requests for proposals, and they could bid on the new program. I want to make it perfectly clear that nothing was transferred from one program to the other.

The minister indicated that there were 31,000 clients in the JP2 program when the program was ended. Where have those clients gone? Are they now being served under the new B.C. employment program, or are those clients not being served by anyone?

Hon. C. Richmond: Just because the one contract ended doesn't mean the 31,000 people all of a sudden came back onto our income assistance rolls. It doesn't mean that they all stayed in employment, but the greatest percentage of them did. A few might have come back on our income assistance rolls.

Of expected-to-work clients, 89 percent who have left assistance since 2002 and have not returned as of 2005 have employment income, other income or are attending education in the year following their exit. So 89 percent are either still working or have left income assistance for other reasons.

Expected-to-work cases that left assistance since the BCEP and have not returned are more barriered than those who left in the two years prior. In other words, we have more clients today with multiple barriers than we ever used to have.

Those leaving are older, are more likely to be single parents, have longer histories of income assistance dependence and have slightly less work experience. Although exiting expected-to-work cases have become more barriered since 2002, the proportion of those leaving assistance and going on to employment, education or other income has not changed substantively.

The proportion of persons-with-disability cases leaving and having employment income has increased from 13 percent in the two years prior to the B.C. employment program to 15 percent in the two years following.

J. Brar: My question was very simple. At the end of the contract there were 31,000 clients going through the program. What percentage of those clients, if any — one, two, three or none — are being served under the B.C. employment program, which is a new program?

Hon. C. Richmond: We don't have the exact statistics that the member is asking for, but most likely, most would have been successfully moved off income assistance. I can't give you an exact number. If clients return to income assistance, then they will have access to our new programs, either BCEP or CAPP, depending on which they require.

The ministry developed a strategy to transition clients who were participating in JP2 on June 30, 2006, to other appropriate programs and services such as BCEP. Approximately 4,000 clients were transitioned through this process. So 4,000 out of the 31,000 were not in employment yet, and they were transitioned through the new process.

Their transition to new programming was seamless to ensure no gaps in service for clients. As we said before, clients were at various stages of progressing through JP2 on to employment. Some were already in employment; some were in week 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5; and 4,000 transitioned to the new program.

J. Brar: I appreciate the frank response from the minister that the minister does not have the exact figures at this point in time. But I believe that the ministry must be tracking the movement of these clients — how many clients recycle back, how many clients stay for four months or six months — because I heard the minister saying many times that the majority of the clients who were ready for work stayed there only for four months. There must be some stats which can indicate as to what percentage of clients are going where.

My question to you is — if you can tell me this number, a simple one: on average, what percentage of clients who found jobs through the JP program ended up cycling back onto welfare? It's 10 percent, 20 percent? You should have that number.

Hon. C. Richmond: I just want to clear up something, and I might have misunderstood the member. If I did, I apologize. In his last remarks, he said that our clients just stayed off of income assistance for four months. Is that the way I heard it? They stay on.

I believe that the member has it right. They stay on our rolls for an average of four months. We don't have the statistic you're after.

Hon. C. Richmond: We can get it, but we just don't have the assistance of….

You asked what percentage recycled back onto income assistance. We don't have that answer, but we can get it for you.

J. Brar: The minister just made comments a few moments ago. We are talking here, basically, about the three-year window for which the agreement was actually negotiated and ended. I want to understand exactly what was going on there — what the agreement was, what has been negotiated — so that the people of British Columbia can have some comfort that they paid $19 million for some work. In our opinion, it has been paid for no work. I just want to get a clear understanding of that.

Responding to my questions, the minister mentioned that when it comes to the follow-up part of it and when people found jobs, my understanding is, as per the agreement, there was a payment made at that time. Then there were benchmarks after that. After six months they got the next payment. After probably 12 months they got the next payment. After 19 months they got the maximum payment of $4,304.

The interesting comment the minister made is that there was minimal contact by the service providers with the clients. That's a very, very interesting comment for me. It's interesting because that means the benchmark was more like a kind of a good-luck benchmark. If somebody just stays on the job longer, the service providers get more money rather than for doing some work.

I want to understand that. Once again, what were the obligations of the service providers in a more specific way to assist those clients maintain jobs for longer times to get more money?

Hon. C. Richmond: I just want to repeat what I said so there's no mistaking it. When we negotiated an end to these contracts, we calculated the revenue stream to service providers for about 31,000 clients based on experience to date. What I said was that in most cases where a person was placed into a job and they stayed on that job, there was minimal contact with the service provider even if the service provider requested it.

They wanted to follow up and know how they were doing: "Is there anything we can do to help you?" In most cases they didn't hear back. If the person had a job, they just forgot about it and kept on working. This I got from talking to service providers. They had a tough time getting them to come back, say, after six months or a year and tell them how they were making out.

But when we negotiated an end to the contracts, the cost of services that the service providers are no longer delivering was subtracted from those contracts in the negotiation. So when we had to terminate the contracts, we knew that there wouldn't be follow-up because we were terminating it. So we said that in light of that, we're going to discount the amount we're going to pay you by that. Plus, we're going to discount the amount we were going to pay you because you're receiving the money early — like 19 months early, or whatever it worked out to.

By negotiating the end to these contracts and taking those two items into account, we were able to negotiate and terminate those contracts and save about $5 million. Instead of paying out $24 million for work that was already done or work that was going to be done, it was negotiated down to $19 million, saving the taxpayers about $5 million.

J. Brar: What percent of $19 million was based on work that had already been done?

Hon. C. Richmond: In response to the member's question — what percentage was paid for work that was done by the service providers? — the answer is: all of it.

J. Brar: Thanks for the clarification. Also, the minister has been using one term, and I would like to get more clarification on that. What does the minister mean by work that had already been done? Can you give more specifics in point form?

Hon. C. Richmond: When the job placement program was permanently established by the ministry in 2002, as part of a fair and open tendering process we introduced employment verification. Service providers were only paid when clients became independent from income assistance due to employment. The first payment was made only upon receiving proof of a client's employment — that is, employer name, start date, location of employment, hours per week and wage rate.

J. Brar: Does that mean that basically the work that has already been done means assisting them in finding a job?

S. Simpson: I have just a short number of questions related to the sponsorship issue that we've canvassed before in question period. I don't know whether the minister is ready to do those now.

That's great. I just wanted to very quickly kind of lay out what my understanding of the position of the ministry is following the review. My understanding is that the ministry has said: "We acknowledge the situation around what is primarily women who end up in a violent situation after a sponsorship relationship where they are the sponsor." The women will be given relief — not forgiveness but relief — around payment of debt and interest accumulation while they are deemed to be at risk by the ministry.

Should they no longer be at risk, they then will be required to pay back the money and the interest. The decision over whether they are at risk will be determined through an annual review process that the ministry will conduct with people who are in that sponsorship arrangement.

Is that essentially the situation people are in, or could the minister clarify if I've not got it right?

Hon. C. Richmond: No, I think that basically the member has it right. Just for the record and for people who may not have heard question period the other day, when people enter into a sponsorship agreement, the agreement is with the federal government. It comes under the "Family class" section of the federal Immigration Act.

When they undertake to sponsor someone here — it could be a family member, a friend, a prospective husband, which is the case in certain cases — they undertake…. I want to quote from the agreement that they sign: "I promise that this sponsored person and his or her family members will not have to apply for social assistance benefits."

I guess I should really emphasize here that when people enter into one of these sponsorship agreements, they should be very aware of the document they are signing because it's a promise to pay if that person sponsored ends up on income assistance, which then becomes a provincial responsibility. Up till now it's been a contract with the federal government, but we have an agreement with the federal government that we will collect any moneys that are owed from people being on income assistance.

Most sponsored agreements work out very well. There are a few that do not. The few that do not, we are obligated to collect on behalf of the taxpayers of the province. The amount stands at this moment somewhere around $47 million. It was closer to $48 million, but it's down around $47 million. I'm just quoting round numbers.

Of course, this is money that is owed to the taxpayers. If we don't collect it, then I suppose the money would have to come from some other program, although — and I mean this sincerely — I feel great sympathy for these people and, as the member said, mostly women, who have entered into a bad agreement through no fault of their own. But they have signed a contract with the federal government, and if they are not in a demonstrated position of being at risk physically….

If there is substantiated proof of violence through a third party, then, we don't want to see anyone get hurt. We want them to come and talk to us if they're in a position where they're being threatened. It would have to be substantiated by someone like the police, a doctor or a hospital that they are in a bad situation.

We will talk to them, and if it's determined that they are in a violent situation, we will suspend collection of that debt that's owed to the people until such time as that situation changes and there is no longer a threat. Then we will revisit it, and we promise to revisit it as necessary, at least once a year, but we urge these people, on an individual basis, to come and talk to us.

S. Simpson: I would certainly understand, and I would agree with the minister, that in the vast majority of sponsorship cases, the position is clear. I support the minister's position that people have signed this agreement, and they should be expected to adhere to the agreement and to be responsible for the person they have sponsored in those situations.

The concern I have is that this is a very small number of people — we hope it's a very small number of people — who get captured in this area related to violence. I would also agree with the minister that we're talking about situations with individuals where there is demonstrated evidence, whether it's police reports, court interventions, whatever, but there's clearly no question about the occurrence of violence having happened. The question is: what happens next?

The question I would have for the minister is, as the minister said, $47 million, $48 million of sponsorship debt or potential liability out there…. I wonder if the minister knows, through the review that I believe was done by the ministry on this particular aspect…. Could the minister tell us how much might fall into the category of individuals who may have faced this kind of abuse or been in this circumstance? Do we know that number?

Hon. C. Richmond: I can give the member the cases involved, but we don't have the dollar amounts for them. This ministry is reviewing all existing collection files in which allegations of abuse have been made. At this time health and safety concerns have been identified in 158 cases. A review of each case has found that 108 cases indicated no health or safety concerns, 11 cases moved, 36 cases are currently pending a decision, and only three cases have been found to have an ongoing verified risk. As a result, debt collection in these cases has been suspended and will be reassessed in one year.

The decision to defer debt due to allegations of abuse is made by using the following guidelines. The allegations of abuse must be substantiated by clear and unequivocal verification by an independent third party such as a police report, hospital medical report or court order. The suspension and deferral of debt collection is temporary only until the sponsors have changed to reduce risk to health and safety. Status will be reviewed at least once a year. Debt and interest on debt continue to accrue until the debt is extinguished. The rate is prime plus 3.

S. Simpson: I find I understand the answer. I do find it unfortunate that in these instances — in what is obviously a very small number of cases based on the review that the ministry is doing — there's not some more permanent suspension of these dollars for those people who are clearly in this situation.

The question I would have is: could the minister tell us what the more detailed criteria would be, or make available the more detailed criteria, for approving an extension?

I give an example here. I have a case that the minister is aware of where the individual has been out of the circumstance for a period of a couple of years. They received, in fact, this requirement. They have filed a letter now from their physician as well as a letter from

Battered Women's Support Services that supports the continued trauma this individual faces in this circumstance to date. As a matter of fact, today is the deadline, the 30-day deadline for that person to be responded to. We know that that response, to my knowledge, has not happened as of 1:30 today. But what are the criteria — in some detail, if the minister has it — as to what will be considered in approving this?

Hon. C. Richmond: It's pretty much as I said in my statement. The suspension and deferral of debt collection is temporary, only until the sponsor's circumstances have changed to reduce risk to health and safety. If our ministry determines that health and safety and violence is no longer a threat, for whatever reason — the person has moved on or the circumstance has changed — then the person should be in contact with Revenue Services to arrange an appropriate payment schedule. If the circumstances have changed and the person is no longer under any kind of threat, then we will lift the suspension of that debt, and it is collectible.

J. Brar: Once again, I'd like to go back to where we left. Just a few moments ago the minister, responding to my question, mentioned that basically the $19 million basically payment was related to the work already done and the subsequent verification that that work was finding jobs for people. The contract ended on March 31, 2006. Then it was extended for three months, but that's a separate agreement. I'm talking about when the contract was ended and $19 million was negotiated.

So my understanding is that on March 31, when the contract ended, the ministry knew how many people had found jobs. The ministry knew all the information, and the ministry paid the money for all the work done to that date. Is that correct? Or was there more to it?

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer is the same as I gave before: there were 4,000 who were in the program but hadn't yet been put into employment that transitioned to the new program.

The other 27,000 were in employment…. I've got it a little wrong. There were 31,000 in employment, and there were an additional 4,000 that were just going through the employment program and weren't in employment yet.

So it wasn't subtracted from the 31,000. So 31,000 were in employment; 4,000 were not complete — hadn't completed their course — and had to be transitioned into the new program.

J. Brar: My next question is that when the ministry negotiated or decided to end the contract…. In any responsible government, you come up with a formula, which is basically based on clients and where they are in terms of milestones, and you present it to a different party — in this case, four different contractors.

Why did the ministry decide to negotiate in secret with each individual contractor without having a formula that is objective?

Hon. C. Richmond: Yes, I went through the three criteria that they used to bring these contracts to an end, and there were four service providers that we had to negotiate with that were all individual contracts. We negotiated individually with these service providers using the same formula that I outlined here two or three times a while ago.

J. Brar: Is the minister suggesting that exactly the same formula was applied for making the payments, whatever the payments were, to each and every contractor, which was four in this case?

Hon. C. Richmond: While there were some minor differences in each contract, the same criteria were used to negotiate an end to those contracts. So they are all individual contracts.

It's like when you say: "Why did we negotiate with them separately?" That was part of your question. Well, we have hundreds of contracts in this government. We negotiate with each provider separately. Whether it's this ministry or other ministries, we don't call them all into a room and negotiate collectively. But basically, the same three criteria were used.

J. Brar: Let me remind the minister that your ministry did extend the same agreement three times with exactly the same dates. It was a decision made by the ministry and given to these three or four contractors. But when it came to negotiations, that formula was not applied in this situation. Individual negotiations or secret negotiations took place.

The minister mentioned that there were some differences or variations — I don't know the exact words. Can the minister describe, in more specific language, what those differences were when you negotiated with different service providers?

Hon. C. Richmond: No, I can't tell you just off the top of my head what the small differences were in each contract. But they were awarded at the same time; therefore, they were extended at the same time. Whatever the contract read, we had to extend them so that we could get the negotiations done before we could get on with the new B.C. employment program.

I don't see anything sinister about this. All contracts are negotiated in secret — if that's the word you want to use. They're negotiated confidentially with one contractor at a time, and that's what was done when we terminated these contracts using the same criteria, by speaking individually with the contractors.

J. Brar: There were four contractors in this situation. Three of them were paid. I don't have the exact figure, but I can tell you that a couple of them, the bigger ones, were paid over $9 million. One of them was paid close to six-hundred-and-something thousand dollars, which is ASPECT. The other ones are West Coast and GT Hiring Solutions. The fourth one, the Cooper organization, didn't get anything.

I would like to know: if there was an objective formula, if there was the same criteria used, if there was fairness of administrative process, then why didn't those people get any money?

Hon. C. Richmond: I am told by staff that in the fourth contract, maximum payments had already been reached. Therefore, they had no more money coming to them.

I've just got to add that I do feel odd about the questioning of our senior staff negotiating these very expensive programs and doing an excellent job of negotiating — saving the taxpayer $5 million. These people do not give away money for nothing. These contracts were paid out for work already performed and, subsequently, verified by the audit that was done.

I have absolute faith that they have done a good job. They worked tirelessly through this, many long hours, negotiating an end to these contracts. They are satisfied that they got the best value possible and saved the taxpayers $5 million, and the auditors feel the same way. So I really don't understand where all this is going.

J. Brar: As I said, I do respect, as the minister does, the civil servant staff members and the extraordinary work they're doing. It's not a question about their integrity. As a member of the opposition I'm here to stand up and hold this government to account.

There are two audits and the minister chose to talk about only one. Both are done by your government ministry, and both are done by the Ministry of Finance. I'm asking questions on one, which questions your ministry, the actions of your ministry, which tell a totally different story than the ministry is telling to us. So I think I have the right to ask questions under that.

My next question and comment is…. The Kopar organization, from my understanding and from the response I take, was basically overpaid, and that matched. At the end of the day there was nothing due to the organization when the negotiation took place.

The document we obtained through FOI also includes speaking notes from a meeting between the ministry and JP2 contractors. These notes include department points: "Data cleanup occurs on an ongoing basis as service providers and their staff identify and adjust data discrepancies.

In anticipation of calculating a payment for services delivered as of March 31, 2006, under the current JP contract agreement, we will want to ensure collectively that the data is cleaned up." So that is the note from the ministry. It's not my note. I didn't make it up. My question to the minister is: what does this mean? Again: "We will want to ensure collectively that the data is cleaned up." What was that?

Hon. C. Richmond: Before I answer this question, just…. Again, I might have heard wrongly — and if I have, I apologize — but in your opening remark you stated that a certain contract was overpaid and, therefore, didn't have any money coming to them. That's the way I heard it.

Nobody was overpaid. They were paid in full for work done, so they had no more money coming to them. I just wanted to clear that up: nobody was overpaid.

What you are referring to is that at the end of the contract we insist that all data the service providers have is returned to us to protect the privacy of individuals. Once a contract is done, we have to have that data returned. What's meant by "cleaning it up" is getting it back from the service providers to protect the privacy of our clients.

J. Brar: It's very interesting, Minister, the comments you made. On one side the minister is suggesting that when the agreement was ended on March 31, 2006, the minister negotiated for the work "already done" with the service providers and paid $19 million in lieu of that.

Part of that was going between March 1, 2006, and March 31, 2009. Part of that payment negotiation was for that. Now, I asked you a question about Kopar — that there was no payment made to them — because they were serving the people as well. In my opinion — and I'm saying it again — the ministry had already made payment for that three-year window for which your ministry negotiated to pay $19 million. So there was actually overpayment made.

Hon. C. Richmond: Sorry for the delay. We were trying to come up with the right answer for this, one that I understand, so that I hope that I can make you understand.

At the time we needed an employment program, and we couldn't have a different model operating at the same time. To clarify this particular contract, it was very small, and it was a different model than the other three. He had already reached his maximum amount in the contract. By the time it came time to end his contract, there was no negotiation available to us. He had already reached the maximum amount of his contract.

J. Brar: I'll take it that the Kopar organization, if I understand it correctly from the minister's clarification, had a different set of agreements as compared to the other three. That's what my understanding from the minister is. If that is not right, my question stands again. Three other organizations were paid $19 million to end the contract. These people didn't even get $19. I don't understand the difference — until you can make it more clear, more objective, more specific.

Hon. C. Richmond: I'm told that the contract is the same, but their business model is different. They were a small contractor who worked up north. The way they worked with clients was different than the people down here, and they ran through their money — the

total amount of their contract — much quicker than the other ones did, probably because they were where they were and they worked with clients in a different manner than they did down here. So they literally used up their contract quicker than they should have.

J. Brar: I think to clarify this, my simple question again is: did they have in their contract the milestone payment for success or not?

Hon. C. Richmond: Basically, as I said, they're a small operator. They place their clients much more quickly. They reached their maximum allowable much quicker than the others, and there was literally no money left to negotiate. They had used up the full amount of their contract, including the milestone payments. They're a much smaller company than the others, and there was just literally no money left in the contract.

J. Brar: I understand the small contract. I understand the small amount of money. But at the end of the day, if they got the money — at that time all the money, which includes the milestone money, which goes beyond 2006 — then my statement was correct that the Kopar management association was overpaid at that time.

I would ask the minister only to comment if the minister thinks I'm wrong. But I was correct at that time when I made the comment.

My next question will be…. The document we obtained through FOI once again shows that the contractor was paid $1.7 million, $1.8 million and under $35,000 respectively to carry out services for April, May and June 2006, which was the extension for three months after these negotiations. My question is: can the minister explain why this three-month contract was necessary?

Hon. C. Richmond: I don't know if this is any more clear, but this small contractor that you are talking about put many more clients through much more quickly than the others and used up the money a lot quicker. We couldn't pay him beyond when the contract was terminated because he had run out of the amount of money that the contract was for. So it was run out, and we just couldn't pay him anymore.

The last question you asked…. I wonder if I could get you to have another go at that because we've got about three interpretations over here on what it was that you asked.

J. Brar: My question is: when the JP2 contract was formally ended after negotiation and making payment of $19 million and, at the same time, the contract was extended with the same service providers for three more months rather than starting the new B.C. employment program…. For those three months, the amount they were paid was $1.7 million, $1.8 million, and $135,000 respectively to carry out the program. That's my question. Why was there need of that extension when you were going to start a new program anyway?

Hon. C. Richmond: A fee-for-service arrangement for the period of April 1 to June 2006 was implemented to ensure uninterrupted services were provided to clients for this period. Service levels did not change during this time.

In total, the JP service providers were paid $19.07 million for services provided to March 31, 2006. The JP service providers were paid $4.24 million for services provided between April 1, 2006 and the commencement of the new B.C. employment program in July 2006.

J. Brar: I will try my question again. I knew the figures. I gave the figures myself. My question is: why was there need of an extension for a three-month contract when the ministry was going to start a new program after three months? Does it not make sense to just start the new program?

Hon. C. Richmond: Basically, it's because the new program wasn't ready to go until July 6. We couldn't have a gap in there of three months, so we had to extend contracts on a fee-for-service basis for those three months. Also, not knowing exactly who was going to be running the new program — which service providers — some of them required some time, too, to get up and running with the new program. Basically, we just couldn't have a gap in there for three months.

J. Brar: If you go back to the comment the minister made…. When the negotiation took place, when the determination was made for the $19 million payment, which includes…. There are two different definitions now on the record. One is that the money was paid for the work already done, which was finding employment, as of or before March 31, 2006.

But there is another definition provided by the minister, as well, which says that no, it also includes payment for the work they had done for the period, which was three years, from 2006 to 2009.

Having said that, if they were paid for that period, and then they were extended for three more months and paid extra money for that, is that not double-dipping — that you are paying the same contractor twice?

Hon. C. Richmond: On the first part, these contractors, service providers were paid $19 million collectively for work already done on the old contract — finished. Negotiated an end to $19 million. The balance, the three months, was on an interim basis, on a fee-for-service basis, to service clients who were not employed at that time, because we couldn't leave them hanging out there for three months having no program to service them.

We negotiated with these service providers who already knew the clients, knew the system, to keep the program going for three more months till the new program was ready to start.

J. Brar: Can the minister confirm, for the three-month contract, that it was not open for a bidding process?

Hon. C. Richmond: No, the new program went out for full tenders. In fact, it went through a tremendous amount of consultation before the request for information went out, and then the request for proposals went out. It was fully bidded in an open tendering contract. The three months was just a negotiated contract, a fee-for-service for the service providers. And no, it did not go out to tender.

J. Brar: The other clarification I would like to ask the minister is: did the type of services provided under the extended period of three months remain the same, or was there any change?

Hon. C. Richmond: The type of service they provided was the same, but we paid them in a different manner. It was on a fee-for-service. The old contract had been ended and we needed the continuity for three months, so it was strictly on a fee-for-service. The only thing that changed was the method of payment.

J. Brar: The different nature of question I would like to ask the minister is…. Under the JP2 program, what percentage of claims were assisted, if that's the case, by Community Futures, which is mainly in the rural area, in order to assist them finding employment?

Hon. C. Richmond: We're not aware of any program in our ministry with Community Futures. Maybe the member could elaborate a little bit more.

J. Brar: My understanding is that the JP program, when it comes to the actual assistance to people on income assistance finding employment, may not be available throughout the province. In some rural areas there were local programs funded by the federal government, called Community Futures, and there may be some other organizations as well, which are open to accept clients — their own clients, which are called EI clients. They are also open to accept clients on income assistance.

So my question, again, after that clarification, is: are you aware that your clients were actually using those programs? And if you are aware, what percentage of your clients actually used that service?

Hon. C. Richmond: The best we can determine is that any client that was on rolls might have been through the Community Futures program, which is an employment insurance program run by the federal government.

But they can't be on both. They can't be on employment insurance and be on our rolls at the same time. They could have gone through that program first and maybe were not successful. Maybe their EI ran out, and then they came onto our rolls later. But the program you're talking about is federal.

J. Brar: Thank you for that. I understand that that program is federally funded. But I also understand that the provincial JP program was limited to income assistance clients only, whereas the Community Futures job search programs are open to EI clients, which are their clients, and also other clients, which may include the people on income assistance.

I've spoken to some people, quite a number of people, who were on income assistance and went through some of the programs which are available in rural areas in B.C. So my understanding from the comment from the minister is that the ministry is not aware as to what that number is, what percentage and how many people that could be. Can you clarify that?

Hon. C. Richmond: No, we would have no way of knowing how many of our people went through that program.

J. Brar: I was also told that those clients who are going through Community Futures are actually working with one of the service providers who has the contract with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. In other words, they were referred to this service provider in the first place and probably in that area, because there was no program available to assist them to find employment. They referred those people to Community Futures because they did not have their own program.

I would like to ask the minister to clarify if I'm wrong. Also, if I'm right, then the ministry should know how many clients were there. Or if the ministry doesn't know…. The ministry has the right to know. The ministry has the possibility to know through the service providers.

Hon. C. Richmond: I think what the member is getting at is if one of our service providers sent them to Community Futures, which I suppose could happen because the service provider might also have a contract with the federal government through Community Futures…. Some of them have two, a contract with us and a contract with the federal government.

If they go to Community Futures, they must be released from our JP program. We did not release clients to go to federal programs. I guess what you're getting at, and I can see why, is that the service provider could be accused of double-dipping, of taking money from us and sending…. If they send them to Community Futures, they must be released from our job program.

J. Brar: Can the minister give me an assurance that those service providers, who were initially responsible to assist these clients sent by the ministry, referred those clients to other organizations, which include

community organizations or job search and assistance, where some people found jobs with their help and became financially self-sufficient…? Subsequently the service provider became eligible for payment for job finding as well as for the milestones.

Can the minister give me assurance that there would be no such payment made under the system the minister has?

Hon. C. Richmond: Yeah. What I'm told is that yes, there are clients who were enrolled in our job program with a service provider, and they got a certain amount of help — got cleaned up, learned how to write a resumé and look for a job, etc. Some of them wandered into a Community Futures program, because it is open to all British Columbians — without our knowledge, but they go in there.

Now, they might have, through that program, found a job. But they got a lot of assistance from our program too. If we found out about it, we would tell them: "No, you belong in this program. You have to come back to this program." Some of the time we wouldn't find out about it because a lot of people told us they got a job on their own. They didn't go to anyone else, and they used the services that our service provider gave to them — showed them how to look for a job, how to go get a job. They might have been so many weeks into the program, but then they claimed, "Oh, I went out and found a job on my own," which is fine. They might have. But they also might have gone and availed themselves of the services of Community Futures.

If we found out about that, we'd say: "No, you can't do that. You must stay with this program." But it did happen apparently, and I can't tell you how many times.

J. Brar: Thank you for the clarification. I take it that there could be any number of clients who were basically the responsibility of one of the four contractors of JP2 who may have received services from Community Futures and other organizations to find employment — where the taxpayers of British Columbia actually paid money for that success to the service providers for the work they never did. That's my interpretation of it.

If you don't know the number at this point in time, I would certainly suggest to the minister that that may still be going on under the new contract as well, because the structure of the program remains pretty well the same.

I think it will be shocking for the people of British Columbia if the service providers are double-dipping from the federal government, and at the same time, they are getting milestone payment from the government of British Columbia.

I would move on from that comment to the next question. That will be a simple question. Of the contractors who held JP2 contracts, which one got new contracts under the B.C. employment program?

Hon. C. Richmond: Just to clarify one thing, though. It's easy to say that somebody got a job because they went through Community Futures, and therefore one of our service providers got paid for work they never did.

Well, that's not quite true, because they might have done a lot of work with that client before the client decided to go and either find a job on their own or drop into Community Futures and see what they had and maybe found a job that way. There were even a couple of instances on the television where a person said: "Oh yeah, I went to the service provider, and I attended there for a while. But I went and found a job on my own." Well, they got a pretty good start a lot of times from the service providers.

So it's easy for them to say they got it on their own, but did they entirely? And a lot of them did. A lot them never even went into our employment programs and found jobs on their own, which is great.

The next question is the B.C. employment program — the new program and who got contracts there. This is consultation and procurement, and it's quite an involved process. An open and competitive procurement process was completed for the B.C. employment program in the spring of 2006. The process consisted of a request for information — an RFI — based on the proposed redesign, a request for qualifications and a request for proposals. So there were three stages in it — first of all, a lot of consultation and request for information; a request for qualification so the bidders could qualify; and then a request for proposals.

The ministry engaged in an extensive public consultation to determine the best way for the ministry to meet its objectives for new employment programming. The request for information was posted on B.C. Bid in August of 2005. Approximately 90 interested parties provided input to the ministry on the proposed redesign. The information received resulted in a program design that is client-centred, flexible, integrated and leverages community-based service providers.

The intent of the request for qualification was to prequalify respondents for provision of front-line employment-related services to clients and to ensure that community-based service providers continued to play an important role in service delivery. The RFQ was completed in January of 2006. A total of 186 service providers prequalified under the RFQ process.

The intent of the RFP was to select nine proponents to deliver B.C. employment — one contractor for each of the nine service delivery bundles. The RFP was issued February 14, 2006, and closed March 31, 2006. A total of 16 proponents submitted proposals to provide BCEP programming. The proposals were evaluated by panels consisting of representatives from the ministry and Service Canada.

Under the direction of the strategic acquisitions and technology procurement branch and the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services, the panels held extensive consensus meetings to evaluate the proposals. Proposals were evaluated on a number of factors, including the degree to which they would use

The ministry did not include the northeast area of the province in the initial RFP process due to factors relating to geography and demographics of the area. An RFP for clients in the northeast was issued February 5, 2007.

Three prime contractors were selected to provide BCEP programming in the line delivery bundles: GT Hiring Solutions; the B.C. Society of Training for Health and Employment Opportunities, THEO-BC; and WCG International Consultants Ltd.

Under these contracts, a total of 82 prequalified community-based service providers are subcontracted to deliver BCEP's services in communities throughout the province. The selection of the prime contractors followed an ongoing consultation with all interested parties and an open, fair and transparent procurement process. BCEP was implemented in July 2006.

J. Brar: I would like to ask the minister: what was the annual value of these contractors or each of these service providers?

Hon. C. Richmond: There were nine B.C. employment program contracts. First contract, Vancouver Island south, $3.3 million. Vancouver Island north, $1.9 million. Both of those went to GT Hiring Solutions.

Vancouver coastal contract 3, B.C. Society of Training for Health and Employment, $2.5 million. Contract 4, Vancouver coastal general, WCG International Consultants, $5.4 million. Contract 5, Vancouver coastal, GT Hiring Solutions, $2.4 million. Contract 6, WCG International Consultants, $7.3 million. Contract 7, the interior, WCG International Consultants, $7.9 million. Contract 8, northwest, WCG International, $1.5 million. Contract 9, Prince George, WCG International, $2.4 million. For a total of $34.6 million.

J. Brar: Thank you very much for the clarification, Minister. These documents we obtained through the FOI include a briefing note on the job placement program client strategy, which states: "In a situation where a JP service provider will also be the B.C. employment program contractor" — i.e., under the new round of contracts, which could be west coast, for example — "for an individual client, the ministry may choose to negotiate that the B.C. employment program intake fee of $100 per client will not be paid through the B.C. employment program contractor under the JP2 program as well."

So my question is: can the minister tell me if, for the contractor — as you mentioned, GTI, west coast particularly since they were part of the JP program as well — who held both JP2 contracts and now the new B.C. employment program contract…? Was the intake fee under the new program waived for them?

Hon. C. Richmond: The answer is no. If they were already a client of the contractor, one of the ones you mentioned, they would not get that fee twice. In other words, those 4,000 that were in transition did not pay the initiation fee twice. They only got it once.

J. Brar: My understanding is that the 4,000 people who were already there, who were moved to the new program…. The ministry will not make the $100 initial payment for them to the contractor who was already part of the JP2 contracts.

J. Brar: Okay. Under the new B.C. employment program, do the contractors — the old contractors, I'm talking about — have any obligation to re-assist people who cycle back on to welfare?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'll answer your question the best I can. If somebody had been through the JP2 program and been put into employment and they'd worked for, let's say, six months and come back on to our rolls, it would be unlikely that their worker would put them back into the B.C. employment program and pay for the same service all over again.

They might pay for them to do a special course, if they wanted a course in first aid or safety or something like that. But we would not be paying for the same client to go through the same course twice. It is very, very unlikely.

J. Brar: I think maybe I need to rephrase my question. That was not my question. My question was simply…. The people who find employment and somehow — whatever, maybe they lose their job — come back and end up on income assistance again…. I'm sure that the ministry, again, will assist them in finding employment.

It could be a basic job search program. I'm not talking about any special training program for people to improve their skills. I'm talking about a job search program. Under the employment program, a majority of the activity of a job search program is assisting people in finding jobs and maintaining jobs.

So my question is…. Those people who lose jobs who were part of the official program — when they lose a job, they will be referred back under the new program to the same contractors. Is that true?

Hon. C. Richmond: I thought I answered that. It is very unlikely that one of our front-line workers would put them back into the same program, or nearly the same program, that they had already had.

Let's say under the JP2 they went through the whole program from the service provider, got a job and lost a job for whatever reason. They come back on our income assistance rolls and want to go back into a job training program, which is basically going to give them the same course over again — a little more simplified course. They will stay with one provider through the whole course. But I doubt very much if one of our workers…. They'd have to have a pretty good reason

I think you hit it right on. They would probably be told: "You better get a job search program going, because you've already had a course and been given the skills of how to go out and find a job. So you'd better go into a job search program."

There could be extenuating circumstances, I suppose, like I said, where a person might need a particular course in safety or first aid or something that we might fund for this person to get a particular job. It's not very likely we're going to put him back through — and spend the money to put him through — a job training program that he's already had.

J. Brar: I'm interested to ask at this point in time: what percentage of people — if you have any numbers — lose a job in four, five or six months and come back on income assistance? Do we have any numbers?

Hon. C. Richmond: The only stat we have is that of the expected-to-work category, about 40 percent come back within a year. That's a pretty high percentage, higher than I thought it would be, but it's 40 percent. However, even of that percent — and that's all expected-to-work, whether they have been through a job training program or not…. Of that 40 percent that come back, though, they still have an average stay with us of four months.

J. Brar: So that's a significant number that way. I'm sure part of the contract which the ministry has with the service providers… There will be a clause to assist the recycled-back clients as well, because that makes sense to me — providing that program.

Having said that, of the people who were in JP, there will be 40 percent of people coming back under the B.C. employment program. My question would be: when we negotiated the contract, are the old contractors obliged to accept them and to serve them? Or will they have a fresh start again with them — a fresh start and subsequently a fresh fee?

Hon. C. Richmond: Under the new BCEP program, the fees are paid very differently than they were under JP2. They're much more tailored to the client's needs. Like I said, I doubt very much if we would put a person back in and say that he needs the whole program again. The person may have a barrier to employment. They are more barriered now, a lot of the people we sent out. Maybe that's why he wasn't able to keep a job. We may be able to evaluate why that person wasn't able to keep a job and specifically tailor a program for him or her.

Like I said earlier, if the worker decided they needed a specific program — maybe on safety or a first-aid program — to get a job, we can tailor it to that person's needs and only pay the service provider for that program. It's much more flexible than the old program, and we can tailor it very closely to the client's needs.

It may be they just need a work search program or a workplan. We can pay for someone to help them develop a workplan and a work search and go out and find another job.

J. Brar: My question is very simple. The minister mentioned very clearly that 40 percent of clients who find jobs with the assistance of service providers recycle back — in other words, lose their jobs. In four to six months they come back to the ministry for help again.

I will rephrase my question to get a more specific answer from that. I understand the changes of the new program. What percentage of the 40 percent who recycle back will be accepted into the new B.C. employment program in terms of offering them services to assist them finding employment? Would that be 1 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent? And what are the past records?

Hon. C. Richmond: I don't think that I can answer your question, because we just don't have that statistic. To clarify one point, the 40 percent who come back did not all go through a job-training program. A lot of them did not. It's our entire expected-to-work caseload. Some of them have barriers to employment.

If they lose their job, what we try to do or what the front-line worker will try to do is find out why this person lost the job — talk to the employer, find out why. Do they have a problem? Do they have a learning problem, a literacy problem? It could be any number of problems.

We can now, with the new program, if we find out there's a specific problem. It's all done on a fee-for-service basis. We can say to a service provider, "We want you to take this client. Here is the problem, and we want you to…." Maybe it's a literacy problem — I don't know — but whatever it is we can tailor it to the client's needs.

J. Brar: I have a few more questions on the JP program. Can you tell me, Mr. Minister, the total number of clients served from 2002 to 2004 under the JP program — just the number?

Hon. C. Richmond: The only statistic we have is between 2002 and 2006, Mr. Member. We don't have 2002 to 2004, which you asked for. Between July 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006, the total actual referrals were 108,966.

J. Brar: These were the people who were referred to the program. Can the minister provide information as to how many were actually employed out of that with the help of those service providers — what percentage, if not the numbers?

Hon. C. Richmond: Yes, I can. The total number of clients placed in employment was 32,233 during that same time period.

J. Brar: My next question is again a simple one. Can the minister provide an average cost for a client who found a job?

Hon. C. Richmond: I can give you an average milestone payment. This would reflect the increase in the average milestone payment from $3,700 to $4,300. It says, "Please note that these are averages. The actual client milestone maximums have never been publicly released, and these will vary by contractor" — so somewhere between $3,700 and $4,300.

J. Brar: The audit finding on the latest document that the minister presented this January, on page 10, says this: "From January 2005 the ministry verification process identified up to 12 percent of clients where independence was not due to employment." So that number was 12 percent, and that is after January 2005. If you apply the same formula, which was the same program, what will that number be — between 2002 and 2004, if you can? You can't tell?

Hon. C. Richmond: I'm told no, that you can't apply the 12 percent back to 2002-2004. It reflects results from a different verification process. So there's just no way we can do it.

Mr. Chairman, I just wondered if, on behalf of my staff, we might have a five-minute biology break.

The Chair: You anticipated the Chair's ruling, Minister. I would like to declare a five-minute comfort break.

The 40-percent client…. At this point in time, the minister is not absolutely sure as to what percentage of those clients actually come back to use the employment program. But I think the requirement under the controls of the ministry…. They are supposed to do the job search initially, probably for two weeks, and then they have to agree with an action plan developed by the worker, which will include the job search program of course.

My question is: if the ministry is not clear as to what percentage of the 40 percent of people come back and use these programs, then how can the ministry determine that the contractors, who were also contractors of the JP2 program, are not being paid twice for those clients when you don't have that information?

Hon. C. Richmond: The staff have been busy working out some averages earned for clients — except that earlier we indicated a maximum average of between $3,700 and $4,300. That's the maximum. It turned out that the average earned per accepted client by job placement firms was $2,200. That was the average.

Now, there are some interesting stats on the new B.C. employment program, too, which started last July 1. As of February 28 the B.C. employment program had accepted 7,800 clients into the program and 1,700 have been placed in jobs — so 7,800 accepted and 1,700 placed in jobs.

J. Brar: Somehow the minister didn't address my question. My question was…. The 40 percent of people who lose their job after finding a job with the help of the service provider…. They recycle back, come back on income assistance. Of course, they need help again to find employment.

If the ministry does not know, at this point in time, what percentage actually use the employment program and where they go, which service provider they are referred to, then how can the ministry divine that the service providers are not being paid twice, because that's part of the agreement? You said that those people will not be repaid at least their $100 fee.

Hon. C. Richmond: Our client files record which programs they have used. So anybody that's been through a job placement program is recorded, and our files show that.

To come back to the 40 percent again, that's not only clients that have been through a job program, that's all expected-to-work clients. So it's considerably more than those who have been through the program.

Again, it's a totally different program paid for in a totally different way, the new BCEP program. It's paid on a fee-for-service. If we did take a client who had been working for a period of time back in, we would target what training they needed to be more job ready, if that's at all possible.

In some cases it may not be. Maybe the client has too many barriers, maybe not. Maybe they need a specific program to get back into the workforce. We would tailor their needs to that specific program and say to the service provider, "This person needs a first-aid course" — or a safety course or something like that — pay for that service, and that would be it. They would not go through an entire job-training program again.

J. Brar: I still didn't get my answer. I'll try to ask my question differently.

The 40 percent of clients who come back — you know, lose jobs once after receiving help from a service provider, the employment program of the ministry…. Under the JP program, the 40 percent of clients who had lost jobs or would have lost jobs would go back to the contractor of the program for help again. Is that right? What percentage of those people go back to the contractor under the JP program, if that's the case?

Hon. C. Richmond: I am at a loss to come up with a different answer. First of all, again, all 40 percent did not go through a job-training program. I've said that

two or three times, but the member keeps saying: "Of that 40 percent…." They could have found jobs on their own — any number of things — but that's 40 percent of the entire expected-to-work category.

If they come back and they have been through a job-training program, we know which courses they've had. We do have a record of that. We wouldn't put them through the entire program again. It would be a targeted approach, if they needed specific training. Maybe it's a literacy program they need.

Nowadays it's pretty hard to do most jobs if you aren't at least able to read. Even driving a truck, or whatever, you still must certainly be literate and be able to read signs, etc. Believe it or not, some people can't. So it would be very targeted and very specific to that individual, but they would not go through a whole job-training program again. We have a record of everyone who has gone through a job-training program.

J. Brar: Let me maybe try another approach. The 40 percent of those people who recycle back onto welfare, who have previously gone to welfare, whether they found jobs themselves or with the assistance of the service providers, when they come back…. I think the suggestion the minister is making is that the ministry will assess whether they need a job search program or something else — a training program or whatsoever.

That initially will be done basically by the worker, by the ministry, and then it's going to go to one of these service providers. So my question explaining that would be: under the JP2 agreement, 40 percent or less than 40 percent of clients who recycle back to the welfare program…. Was that the responsibility of the service provider to assist them to find employment or not? That's my question.

Hon. C. Richmond: The old JP program was quite different from the new one. The service provider didn't get paid unless the guy was working for a certain length of time. I think it was up to 19 months. If somebody they had put through a course got employment for, let's say, four or five months, then lost their job and came back, it would be to that service provider's benefit to work with the client to get him back into the workforce so they could get paid. But that's the old program.

The new program doesn't work that way. So when you talk about these people who recycle back now, it's a totally different program, and their needs would be tailored to exactly what they need and paid for on a fee-for-service basis.

J. Brar: I appreciate that clarification. Things are a little bit clearer than before.

The clarity is that the 40 percent of clients who recycled back to the system…. It was in fact, for a significant percentage out of that 40 percent of people, the responsibility of the service provider to assist them finding employment or whatever, making them financially independent.

Now, the same 40 percent of clients — the same percentage…. I don't think it will change significantly, because the trend that we've seen in the past is to recycle back to the new B.C. employment program, where we have a new system — I understand that — and where we have a new fee-for-service system. I understand that.

But my question is…. Under the old JP2 program, it was their responsibility to assist those clients who recycle back without charging extra money, but now under the B.C. employment program, the contractors — the majority of them are the same contractor — will charge a new fee. Is that not double-dipping? Can you explain that to me? Why is it not double-dipping for those 40 percent of clients which you mentioned are going to be recycled?

Hon. C. Richmond: First of all, for about the fifth time, it isn't 40 percent that have been through a job-training program. It's somewhat less. I don't know what the percentage is. Again, it's not 40 percent.

Also, the service providers under the old JP2 program were not responsible to take that client back if they recycled, but it was to their benefit, because they didn't get paid if the fellow or woman wasn't in the workforce. So it was to their benefit to take him back and give him whatever he needed and try to get him back into the workforce.

But that program is over. Those people were paid — we've been through all that — for work done. They were paid, on a reduced basis, for people who were in the workforce on the probability that they would stay out there and stay in the workforce. That's why the fee was negotiated down. That's all in the past. They were paid for services rendered. The amount was negotiated. The staff did an excellent job — saved the taxpayers $5 million. That's all history.

Now we have a whole new ball game out there, if you like, with a new employment program where the worker will say to the person, whether they have been employed, whether they have recycled back or whatever, "We have to find out why you can't hold a job," especially in an economy like we have going now, where jobs are looking for people.

I can take you to my hometown in Kamloops. The store windows and hotels and motels are full of help-wanted signs. There is a hotel owner in Kamloops, one of the better hotels — unionized hotel — who cannot hire people to work in his hotel, to service the hotel. They have a new name for them, whatever they are now, hotel engineers or whatever, who make the beds and clean the rooms. He can't even hire people at $14.25 an hour. He can't find enough people.

So if there are jobs like that available, it's not likely that anyone, unless they have multiple barriers to work — they have mental health problems or they've got a barrier of some sort, who shouldn't be out there in the workforce…. The economy has never been more robust.

For that reason and the reasons that our caseload has changed dramatically, we changed the program. The old program is gone, and the new program is in. It's much more client-centred than the old one. It's tailored to a person's specific needs and paid for on a fee-for-service basis.

J. Brar: The question is not about the economy. We know about what's going on with the economy. The question is about the accountability of the program. The question is about spending $19 million — in my opinion, without any work. I didn't get a satisfactory answer at this point in time.

So my question to the minister, again, is…. After listening to this whole story for almost two hours, my understanding is that if the contract had not ended on March 31, 2006, and had continued until the end, which is 2009, the total amount under the agreement the ministry was required to pay was about $22 million. The minister can correct me. But it was about $22 million, because the minister keeps saying that we saved $5 million or 20 percent of the money. So 20 percent of $5 million becomes $20 million, but I said $22 million.

There was $24 million, the minister said, that was the money to be paid to those contractors for those three years' follow-up work, which includes making sure people maintain their jobs, providing people assistance with anger management, providing help to people to have good communication skills with the employer, giving people other skills to maintain jobs, or if somebody loses their job, coming back and assisting that client again.

Now having said that, the minister negotiated with those companies that the government pays $19 million, which is roughly, as the minister said, about $4.5 million less. So basically we paid 80 percent of the money to those people, and we relieved the contractor from all obligations they have.

Then the minister tells me that 40 percent of those clients who were put in place by those people on jobs are expected to come back to the ministry. Now, out of those 40 percent of clients who were assisted by these companies…. My numbers suggest about 66 percent of people were placed by these contractors. The minister paid $19 million.

Now, those people will come back under the new B.C. employment program, and the contractors, who are the same contractors, will be paid money again. So the government of British Columbia — the taxpayers of British Columbia — paid $19 million to those people, only giving 5 percent, which is $5 million, for all the obligations they were supposed to maintain, and is now paying another amount of money, which could be much bigger than the savings the minister is talking about of $5 million. I can bet on that — the cost the government is going to spend again.

So how can the minister justify that the minister saved money for the people of British Columbia? I say that money was paid. That was for negotiation. That money was paid for no work. The new contract could be brought in, and the people who were waiting on the list under the old agreement could have been part of the new agreement on a separate screen. I would like to ask the minister to respond.

Hon. C. Richmond: I think we've been over this 15 times since we've been here this afternoon, and I can't get through to the member. So I don't think there's really any point in going through it all again.

He insists that 40 percent is the number that went through a job training program, and I told him five or six times that's not true. He insists that the staff didn't do a good job negotiating the end to those other contracts, which is not true. I don't know how many times I can go over and over it again. I'm getting bored with it. I'm sure everyone else is here, and maybe the member is too. But I've answered it for the last time.

The Chair: If I may, it seems that we have entered a repetitive point of debate, so I'd request the member to change his line of questioning.

J. Brar: I would urge the Chair and the minister that the repetition must be taken care of on both sides, not only on the opposition side — that we don't repeat the question, and the minister also doesn't repeat the answer.

My question is simple, and I would urge the Chair to get me the answer if they can get me the answer. The answer is simple. I will rephrase my question. This is a very important question for the people of British Columbia. This is about $19 million of hard-earned money from the people of British Columbia, which was paid — and my position is that the money was paid without any work. Now, I will just summarize. The minister can say whatever the minister chooses to say, but I need that answer. I am here for the people of British Columbia to ask this question.

The negotiations for the JP2 program were conducted and the agreement was ended early, which was March 31, 2006, when it was supposed to go to 2009 — probably March 2009 — which was three years. In other words, the agreement ended three years before the actual date. There was a negotiation that took place. Under those negotiations, the minister made the decision to pay $19 million out of $24 million, which was the total obligation of the people of British Columbia to pay those contractors.

What we basically got out of that is that about $5 million was saved. But for $5 million, what we gave is: all the obligation of the rights which we had under the agreement, which was assisting people to maintain jobs, helping people on anger management, helping people who lose jobs and come back…. I keep saying 40 percent. It is not my word; it was the minister who said that 40 percent of people recycled back.

I understand that out of 40 percent, all may not find jobs through the help of service providers. It may be less. My understanding is that 60 percent of the clients, out of those 40 percent that the minister is talking

about, find jobs through the help of these organizations, which would be roughly about 30-plus percent.

I'm going to repeat. With that $5 million, we gave them the right not to help those people if they recycle back, which is a significant number — 30 percent out of 40 percent. We gave them the right not to assist them to maintain jobs. We gave them the right not to assist them in anger management. Then, saving $5 million, we gave the agreement to the same companies again to serve the same people, where 30 percent of those people will come back under the new contract, and these people — the service providers, which are JobWave and GT Hiring Solutions — will serve them again and will get the fee again — double time.

The people of British Columbia actually have paid that money for no work. I would ask the minister to respond a final time.

Hon. C. Richmond: Well, Mr. Chair, you can't keep asking the same question all the time expecting to get a different answer. The answer is the same.

The member is asserting that we paid $19 million for no work, and the answer is wrong. He is wrong on that. The staff negotiated an end to those contracts — I've been over it and over it — for work that was done. They did negotiate the amount of payment that was due in 2009 down to a smaller number for being paid for it now for people who had been put into the workforce.

We've been all through that and how we did that. Now not only is he questioning the negotiating skills of our senior staff and saying they paid $19 million for nothing, which is patently untrue, he's questioning the procurement, which I just went through. I read two pages of how we awarded the new contracts to the service providers.

It's quite natural that some of the same service providers are going to win the contracts. They're the people in this province that are in this business. If we ruled them out, who would we give the contracts to?

We've got a couple of minutes yet, so I can just wrap up by saying that we did not pay for work that was not done. We awarded the contracts to the service providers on a very extensive process. I read two pages of how we got there. It was all done openly and aboveboard.

I congratulate the staff for the negotiating job they did on the old contracts — rather than standing there and saying they gave away $19 million for nothing. It's just absurd.

J. Brar: Under the old contract JP2 was based on what we call a performance-based agreement under which the service providers were required to assist people to find employment. The only way they could get some money in return was to place people in employment, and they had to show proof that an individual client had found a job.

Subsequently, the payments were made, again, based on performance, and it depends on how long the clients stay employed. But my understanding is that the new B.C. employment program is fee-for-service-based, so I would like to ask the minister: is there any part or portion of the new B.C. employment program which is performance-based or not?

Hon. C. Richmond: The performance incentive payment is based upon the level of aggregate independence achieved for a cohort and ranges up to 3 percent of the total payments for client intake, direct work search, independent services and support client services, and excludes the direct work search and ISS participant support payment and the management fee. The payment will be based on the level of aggregate independence over an 18-month period for a cohort of participants for the service delivery bundle.

For purposes of performance incentive payments over the contract term, a cohort of participants is the group of participants referred on a quarterly basis, three months, as specifically defined in appendix J, "Aggregate Independence Technical Details," etc.

Since the payment will be based on the aggregate level of independence over an 18-month period, it will therefore be payable about 19 months after the date the last individual with the cohort was referred to the B.C. employment program or within 24 months after the first client in the cohort was referred.

J. Brar: Thank you for that clarification. My understanding is that under the new B.C. employment program there is an incentive. If a service contractor achieves a certain percentage of success, they will get some additional money, 3 percent, after a certain time. That is an incentive.

Basically, the new program, I understand, is a fee-for-service-based program. In other words, the client will come and attend the program, and the contractor will be paid irrespective of whether the client finds a job or not. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Richmond: Yes, there are still achievements expected; 25 percent of those clients accepted into Directed Work Search achieve initial BCEP employment within 60 days of Directed Work Search acceptance, calculated on a cohort basis. At least 25 percent of the total fees for Directed Work Search client services should be paid to arm's-length community-based service providers, calculated quarterly.

BCEP provides employment services and supports to individual clients who are deemed expected-to-work or expected-to-work medical condition. Other clients, including persons with a disability and some non-clients, may also access BCEP's services. Services include strengths and barriers assessments; direct work search up to 60 days, including resumé writing, counselling, job search strategies and individualized services; and supports up to 180 days, including life skills, short-term certificate training, employment services. Supports are also available to facilitate program participation and success, including public transportation, work clothing and equipment, and licensing fees.

J. Brar: I urge that the answer should be straight to the question. My question is a simple one, and I will repeat the question again because I hear the minister saying this is the sixth time. We need to get the right answer as well.

Now, under the old contracts, under the old agreements, the service providers were being paid only after somebody was employed and then paid more if that person stayed on the job for some time. The longer the person stayed on the job, the better the payment. That was the criteria under the JP2 program. In other words, the payment was based on how many people found employment, and the only time the payment was made was when people were actually employed by the service providers.

Under the new B.C. employment program, the service providers are being paid irrespective of people finding jobs. The service providers are being paid only if the clients are attending certain modules, which could be a job search program. Is that true? If that's not true, tell me that's not true.

Hon. C. Richmond: Yes, it's basically true what the member said: 97 percent of their fees are earned for services provided; 3 percent is based on whether the clients are employed. But I just went through a list of expectations that we expect out of the service providers. A couple of instances where 25 percent of…. Some 25 percent of the clients accepted into Directed Work Search achieve initial BCEP employment within 60 days, and at least 25 percent of the total fees for Directed Work Search should be paid to arm's-length community-based service providers, calculated quarterly.

So there are exceptions to that and expectations. But basically you are correct: 97 percent of their fees are earned on a fee-for-service basis.

J. Brar: Just to make sure that I have this entirely straight. The minister ended the JP2 contracts, which were performance-based — where the onus was on the contractor to place the clients in a job — paid out $19 million and then re-awarded them a contract without a significant performance-based system. Contractors are being paid regardless, whether people find jobs or not.

I would like to ask the minister…. My understanding was that other than the flexibility part of the B.C. employment program — where the new program has flexibility to probably tailor-make an action plan for the individual client — which was not available under the JP program…. Other than that, the minister designed a new program that is expected to be more effective, more efficient, where people of British Columbia get better dollar value.

What is the rationale not to have performance measures in the new program? I don't understand that. It doesn't make sense to me. If you can, clarify that for me.

Hon. C. Richmond: The information from the job placement and Training for Jobs evaluation — along the best-practices information — and feedback from stakeholders gained through a six-week public consultation process, was used to develop the British Columbia employment program.

Furthermore, in response to a changing caseload in the summer of 2005, the ministry undertook an examination of its employment programs, including JP, community assistance program, CAP, and Training for Jobs, TFJ. The goal was to redesign employment programming to meet the changing needs of ministry clients.

This is important. A key program initiative resulting from this examination is the British Columbia employment program launched in July 2006. BCEP replaces JP, TFJ and employment components of CAP. I think the best way to put it is that the caseload had changed so substantially from 2001 to 2005 that we required a different method of training people for employment.

Let me put it in the best way I can. The easy ones had been placed, pretty well. We had to place somewhere near 48,000 people back into the workforce. The easier ones to place have already been placed. That's why the incentive program of the first contracts made a lot more sense.

Now we're into the much more difficult client base to place — people with multiple barriers to employment, more persons with disabilities, people that need an awful lot more targeted approach than they did in the first contracts.

The latest statistics, of course, continue to highlight fewer British Columbians relying on income assistance. The number of people dependent on income assistance is the lowest it has been since the early '80s. The total caseload of 103,402 increased by 1,008 cases, or 1,423 individuals, over the last month. A January caseload increase is normal.

Today the number of people dependent on income assistance is among the lowest it has been in almost 25 years. Our caseload statistics show that the number of clients who are expected to work has dropped by nearly 80 percent. This is why I'm dwelling on the changing caseload. Those expected-to-work have dropped by nearly 80 percent since the B.C. employment program was introduced, while the number of barriered clients and persons with disabilities — citizens most in need — has risen.

That's the way it should be. People that can work are better off not on income assistance, and people who

need assistance the most are getting the most support. So 50 percent of all new expected-to-work clients leave the caseload within four months.

J. Brar: It's very interesting information offered by the minister. What the minister said is basically that when it was very easy to place people, the service provider could get $4,304 per placement up to the 19 months. Then the system the minister came up with was performance-based because it was very easy to place people. So the service contractors can get as much money as possible rather than the people of British Columbia's hard-earned money being spent on the right cause.

When it became difficult to place people, then the minister came back and said: "Okay, we don't need the performance-based agreement anymore. We will not limit you guys for payment only if you place somebody." I think, from the perspective of British Columbians, it makes perfect sense to have the contract performance-based when it is difficult to find employment because that is the time when you actually see the skill of those service providers assisting people finding employment.

The minister made comments many times about the good economy. The good economy may have taken a lot of people, and the people of British Columbia paid $4,000 per client who found a job when they were so-called easy clients. So my comment to the minister is that it is actually the time now to have performance-based agreements when it is difficult for people to find employment. That's where the real skill of those service providers comes to the test.

I would like to ask the minister why he became flexible when, in fact, it should have been the other way around. Is that support to the service providers, or does that support the client?

Hon. C. Richmond: First of all, the average paid was not $4,000, and I've made that clear to the member. The average paid to the service providers was $2,200. Since we have announced the BCEP program, we have accepted 7,800 into the program as of February 28, and 1,700 have been placed into jobs as of that same date. So I think it shows a considerable amount of skill by the service providers. They are very good at what they do.

Just to reiterate, the member keeps saying that the old contracts were ended and they were given new contracts. They were not given new contracts. I went through two pages of how they had to bid on these contracts. It was very exhaustive. It was done very openly and aboveboard on B.C. Bid, and they had to go through a very exhaustive process.

I really don't want to have to read two pages into the record again. It's on the record, but I will read it again if the member says again that they were given contracts.

J. Brar: What I said is basically that when it's a tough time for people to find employment, that is the time to have a contract which would be performance-based. The minister did not respond to my question on that one.

I think it is a mistake to have a contract — when asked for the minister's statement: it is hard for people to find employment — to give a free ride to the service provider, at that time when people are most vulnerable, and making a payment whether people find a job or not.

I have this document from an organization called ASPECT, which represents 125 member organizations, and they made a submission to the minister's office as well. What these people are saying is that a performance-based agreement makes sense.

These are 135 community organizations — I don't know from where. Again, I don't question the credibility of the staff from where feedback was taken to change the contract from a performance-based contract to fee-for-service.

I would like to move on to another topic here. The service plan and this claim here on page 41 that since 2001 over 48,000 clients have been employed through the employment program — in other words, JP1 and JP2 programs. My question to the minister: can the minister clarify whether 48,000 clients were assisted to find employment or, in fact, found employment, with the help of service providers, since 2001?

Hon. C. Richmond: In round numbers 48,000 people were assisted to find employment through our job placement program, and another 60,000 found employment on their own.

J. Brar: How confident is the minister on the accuracy of these numbers — 48,000 clients found employment? In this case 48,000 assisted in finding employment with the help of service providers since 2001.

Hon. C. Richmond: We are pretty confident of that number, 48,000, because it comes from databases working with our service providers. It's hard data, and we are very confident. We also know of the other 60,000. There have been lot of new jobs created, too, since 2001. I believe the figure, off the top of my head, is 320,000 jobs created in British Columbia since 2001.

The unemployment records speak for themselves. I can talk about my hometown, which has had a dramatic turnaround. In April of 2001 the unemployment rate in Kamloops was 14.1 percent. Today it's 3.9.

J. Brar: I'm going to read directly from the service plan here. Just a few moments ago the minister clarified that 48,000 people in fact were assisted, not found employment. I would like to read directly from the service plan here and ask the minister whether the service plan is right or wrong. Here on page 41, paragraph 3: "Since 2001 over 48,000 clients have found employment through employment programs (particularly in the hospitality and construction industry) earning an average starting wage of almost $11 per hour." So this

Hon. C. Richmond: Reading from the same page of our service plan: "Clients benefit from this approach…." Maybe I should back up further.

J. Brar: It's clear now that the previous statement made by the minister was inaccurate. It was not 48,000 people assisted; actually, 48,000 people found employment. That is the true figure. If there's confusion, I would like to ask the minister to clarify. That's what the minister said before.

Hon. C. Richmond: Mr. Chair, if there is confusion, there is no confusion over here. Listen closely, please. "Clients benefit from this approach, as 50 percent leave assistance for employment within four months. Since 2001, over 48,000 clients have found employment through employment programs" — through employment programs.

J. Brar: Thanks for the clarification. Initially it was a different statement, so I appreciate that. Can the minister provide, if possible, the yearly breakdown as to how many people found employment in 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2005-2006, and 2006-2007?

Hon. C. Richmond: We didn't bring those statistics for our 2007-2008 estimates.

J. Brar: I have some, so I will verbally try to help the minister on that one.

Now, the question I asked at the beginning is: how confident is the minister about 48,000 people? Now, I have the information which I am going to ask you again, Minister. This is your service plan. This is nothing I made up. This is your service plan that I'm going read from.

The service plan of the year 2005-2006, which is two years ago, indicates on page 26 under the title Ministry Employment Program Facts: "Placed 47,000 clients in jobs through service providers since 2001." I would repeat: "Placed 47,000 clients in jobs through service providers since 2001."

The service plan of year 2006-2007 makes no reference at all to the number of clients finding employment with the help of service providers since 2001. The service plan of this year, which is 2007-2008, again claims on page 41, as I said before: "Since 2001, over 48,000 clients have found employment through employment programs."

Based on those historical numbers put out by the ministry in the service plans, it becomes clear that only about 1,000 clients found employment with the help of service providers in the last two fiscal years. Can the minister confirm this, or accept responsibility for significant inaccuracies related to the total number of clients placed in jobs by service providers since 2001?

Hon. C. Richmond: On page 41, as the member says, it says "over 48,000 clients." We do not have the exact number, but we'll get it for the member. We just don't have it with us.

J. Brar: The minister has said two or three times that 48,000 persons found employment. I asked him very clearly how confident he is, and the minister said: "I'm fully confident." I have all the service plans with me. I can give you copies of all — it's your service plan, not mine — to verify that. Why can't you answer the question now as to what figure is right?

As for your service plans, of which I have copies, I have all three of them. I can give you copies. Only 1,000 people found employment with the help of service providers, and you spent $17 million on those people? Can you answer to the people of British Columbia on that, based on your number?

Hon. C. Richmond: We don't have the exact number with us; it's not exactly 1,000. This year's service plan says "over 48,000" but we have volunteered to get that number for the member as soon as we can. We might even have it before we leave here today, but we'll get the exact number.

J. Brar: In the meantime, will the minister accept that the figure of 1,000 is accurate, that 1,000 people found employment within the last two years?

Hon. C. Richmond: Just a few moments ago I gave the member numbers that have been placed since last July in the new B.C. employment program. It was 1,700 just since last July, and that's as up-to-date as you can get. That's as of February 28. Since last July we have placed 1,700. I'll come back with the exact number for the member just as soon as I can.

J. Brar: Just to put it on the record, I must say this on the service plans of the ministry, the last three of which I have a copy. The service plan of 2005-2006 indicates 47,000 people placed through the help of job

placement agencies. The service plan of this fiscal year, which is 2007-2008, brings that number only up to 48,000 people. The difference is only 1,000. At this point in time I would like to put that on the record. The minister is not clear. The minister is not confident whether those figures are right or whether those figures are wrong, but it is a part of the service plan.

The only debate I can do and the people of British Columbia can do is based on the service plan. If the service plan itself does not have accurate information, it's a serious concern. I would like to put that on the record from my side, because we cannot have meaningful discussions and debate on the budget estimates.

With that, I would like to move on to another question. Can the minister provide the budget breakdown of all employment programs of the current fiscal year? The service plan indicates $35 million per year for the B.C. employment program and $7.5 million for community assistance programs. I couldn't find any other information, so I would like to have specific information about all the employment programs, if that's available.

Hon. C. Richmond: First of all, I want to go back to the statement that the member put on the record, because we told him we'd come back with the exact figures. He keeps quoting 47,000 and 48,000. On this year's service plan it clearly says over 48,000.

I just pointed out there have been over 1,700 since last July to the end of February, so we're at nearly 2,000 there. But we'll come back with the exact number on that, and we'll put it on the record too.

The question that the member asked about: what is the budget for the B.C. employment program for '07-08? It's $35 million. For the CAP program, it's $7.5 million; for the employment programs for persons with disabilities, it's $22 million; for volunteer programs, it's $5.3 million; for bridging programs, it's $3.75 million; and for program management costs, $26 million — for a total of $97.9 million.

The service plan indicates that the new B.C. employment program will serve 15,000 clients with a budget of $35 million. It is interesting to note in the last year of the service plan — and I have a copy of that — it was claimed by the ministry that the ministry will establish performance measures to ensure that: "Services and resources will also be managed in the most effective and accountable manner." It's on page 36 of the service plan.

It was claimed that the performance measures will be the average percentage of clients with employment-related obligation who leave the caseload for each month. That was the promise made in the service plan last year by the minister to the people of British Columbia for changing to a new program called the B.C. employment program.

But in the service plan of this year, which is the current year we are talking about, the ministry had totally eliminated those performance measures, which were promised to the people of British Columbia, when the change was being made to the new program.

My question to the minister is: why was it not seen as important to have performance measures when it involves $35 million of hard-earned money of the people of British Columbia?

Hon. C. Richmond: The current program will provide employment programming that is flexible in meeting the individual client's needs to achieve sustainable employment. Job-ready clients will be assisted to reach independence as quickly as possible. We invest in clients with barriers to progress towards sustainable employment, and the percentage of B.C. employment program clients who achieve $560 or 70 hours per month…. Those are the measurements that we will be using in the new B.C. employment program.

J. Brar: I've been part of the non-profit industry providing employment programs for almost ten years. Each time you got funding from the government, there were very clear criteria as to how many people you are going to serve and how many people will find employment, and the contract was based on that.

In this one, that is not the case. But that was the promise made by the minister last year to the people of British Columbia — that there will be performance measures. The minister is aware that we are using the hard-earned money of taxpayers, so it's important to keep the service provider accountable. There must be some accountability.

Can the minister show me and tell me: on what page are the performance measures in terms of how many people are going to be referred to them and of what percentage of people will be required to find employment? Do you have that performance measure in the agreement with those service providers or not?

Hon. C. Richmond: The percentage of B.C. employment program clients who achieve $560 or 70 hours per month — the performance measurement is at 25 percent. I went through that a little while ago. There are two measures at 25 percent, and this is one of them.

The description of the measure. This performance measure indicates success of a client in securing sustainable employment. It has changed from last year to incorporate the focus of the ministry's new B.C. employment program.

J. Brar: Again, the answer I got was the old answer but not to the question I'm asking. I understand the financial independence of the client. The question is simply on the contractors.

We have given them a contract of $35 million, which is a lot of money. We didn't ask of them, under the new contract, that they must be placing at least 70 percent or 75 percent of people in jobs. That is missing

in the service plan, and that, I believe, is missing in the agreement we have with them.

If that is the case, can the minister tell me: is there a requirement by those people…? From the number of people which will be referred to them, are they required under the agreement to place a certain percentage of people in jobs? The standard part of that, as per my ten years' experience, is that about 70 percent of people have to be placed. That is a good contract.

Hon. C. Richmond: These are the service areas and the direct work search success. If less than 25 percent of direct work search participants achieve BCEP employment after four consecutive quarters, the ministry may claw back direct work search fees equivalent to the shortfall at the end of the fourth consecutive quarter.

J. Brar: It's very clear from the service plan that there are no performance measures this year, and there were last year. I would appreciate if the minister can send me the part of the agreement which establishes the performance measures for the service providers.

I'm now talking about the individual clients, as to what percentage of the clients they are supposed to place, because we are giving them 35 million hard-earned taxpayer dollars. We must expect some clear outcomes from them. We must place clear performance measures on them, and in this particular program, that is not the case.

If you differ with me, hon. Minister, you have to be very clear that there are performance measures for service providers. This is not the case.

I would like to ask for a last comment from the minister on that, and then I'll move to something else.

Hon. C. Richmond: I have outlined from the service plan on page 40, which the member keeps telling me he has a copy of…. In fact, it's a public document. Everybody has got a copy our service plan. I have outlined what is expected: "This performance measure indicates the success of a client securing sustainable employment."

Then I've outlined from the contract what the clawback is that we are allowed to take back after four consecutive quarters of direct work search not meeting its objectives. We have the ability to claw back from that service provider, so I don't know what more that he wants.

I just read in the figures of those who have been placed in employment in the last six to eight months. From July last year to February 28 of this year 1,700 have been placed in employment.

We have employment programs that work. We have a good record of employment, of placing people in jobs. Somewhere in the vicinity of 48,000 have been placed through work programs.

We have an economy that makes it possible for people to find jobs. B.C. is leading the country in creating new jobs, so there never ever has been a better time to find work, even for the most difficult and multibarriered clients. Granted, some of them are going to be difficult to find work for. The easy ones have pretty well all been placed. But we still managed to place 1,700 in the last six or seven months.

The member keeps mentioning the taxpayers. Nobody is more concerned about the taxpayers' money than I am. We also like to leave as much of it in their pocket as we can. We don't want to take any more money from them than we have to.

We look after our clients very well, and we do our very best to place them in jobs. So far, our very best has been pretty good.

J. Brar: Mr. Chair, I would just make a brief comment and then move on to another question. Service providers, under the new B.C. employment program, have no obligations to meet any performance measures when it comes to the percentage of people to be placed in jobs from the number of people which will be referred by the ministry. That is the new employment program.

I will move on to this individual story, if you can hear this clearly. Then I have a few questions on that one.

This is about a client whose name is Darrell Hoult, from Vancouver-Hastings. He is a client of this ministry. At present Mr. Hoult is trying to complete his grade 12 upgrade but is unable to pay for the registration fee.

He says that the ministry has provided him with no assistance for this fee despite his desire to complete his schooling in order to get a decent job so that he no longer relies on his disability assistance.

In addition, he can no longer leave voice mail messages or written messages for his caseworker. He says these rules are so ridiculous and far too strict. "My worker knows me, and the front-office person doesn't know me. There still needs to be some kind of contact with my worker."

My question is: given the ministry's primary emphasis on personal responsibility, what reason does the ministry have for the complete lack of support to Darrell Hoult in his desire to get an education so he can succeed in the labour market?

Hon. C. Richmond: The ministry believes that the best way to help employable clients is to get them quickly into paid employment.

I have to talk in generalities; I can't talk about an individual case. First of all, I'm not familiar with it. Secondly, I couldn't talk about it even if I wanted to.

We still believe that the best way to help them is to get them quickly into paid employment. Employable clients are encouraged to work and improve their education through part-time or evening study — same as a person who is working at the moment and wants to go and improve his education, maybe get his grade 12, and has to do it through part-time or evening studies, taking night courses.

The government has improved accessibility to adult basic education programs so that people can work and continue their education. Clients who are not expected to work have no barriers to educational opportunities and may pursue a variety of funded and unfunded programs.

It boils down to…. Our mandate in this ministry is to get this expected-to-work client into the workforce as quickly as possible. Then he or she can do courses like any other person in the workforce to complete their grade 12.

J. Brar: One more question. It's a simple one. I don't think it will take a lot of time, Mr. Chair, if you allow me to ask it — a very brief question or couple of questions.

What is the ministry's policy on scheduling an interview with an applicant who presents with an imminent need for food or shelter?

Hon. C. Richmond: An emergency needs assessment is a process used to determine if the applicant has an urgent need for food, shelter or medical attention. If they have no other resources to meet those needs, emergency needs assessments are typically completed immediately.

Individuals are not required to complete the three-week work search if it is determined that an emergency need exists. It is my expectation that when a client is assessed as having an emergency need, their eligibility for income assistance will be assessed as soon as possible, usually the same day or at least within one business day.

Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 33

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	James	Kwan
Ralston	B. Simpson	Cubberley
Hammell	Coons	Thorne
Simons	Puchmayr	Gentner
Routley	Fraser	Horgan
Lali	Dix	Trevena
Bains	Robertson	Karagianis
Evans	Krog	Austin
Chudnovsky	Chouhan	Wyse
Sather	Macdonald	Conroy

	NAYS — 42

Falcon	Reid	Coell
Ilich	Chong	Christensen
Richmond	Bell	Krueger
van Dongen	Roddick	Hayer
Lee	Jarvis	Nuraney
Whittred	Horning	Cantelon
Thorpe	Hagen	Oppal
de Jong	Campbell	Taylor
Bond	Hansen	Abbott
Penner	Neufeld	Coleman
Hogg	Sultan	Bennett
Mayencourt	Polak	Hawes
Yap	Bloy	MacKay
Black	McIntyre	Rustad