Hansard — Tuesday, April 17, 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		6775

Tributes		6775
	B.C. Hockey League champions Nanaimo-Parksville Clippers
	R. Cantelon

Introductions by Members		6775

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		6776
	Human Rights Code Amendment Act (No. 2), 2007 (Bill M213)
	R. Chouhan

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		6776
	Vandalism at Beth Tikvah Synagogue
	J. Yap
	Land Commission legislation
	G. Gentner
	North Shore Credit Union legacy fund
	K. Whittred
	Mountain biking on Sunshine Coast
	N. Simons
	Central Mountain Air
	D. MacKay
	George Mussallem
	M. Sather

Oral Questions		6778
	Management of Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre expansion project
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. S. Hagen
	R. Fleming
	H. Bains
	J. Kwan
	M. Karagianis
	Columbia National Investments development plans on Sunshine Coast
	N. Simons
	Hon. I. Chong
	Interior Health Authority layoff notices to nurses
	K. Conroy
	Hon. G. Abbott
	Log export approvals for Western Forest Products
	B. Simpson
	Hon. R. Coleman

Petitions		6782
	C. Wyse
	G. Coons
	N. Simons

Committee of Supply		6782
	Estimates: Ministry of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing (continued)
	B. Simpson
	Hon. R. Coleman

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		6806
	Estimates: Ministry of Education and Minister Responsible for Early Learning and Literacy (continued)
	C. Trevena
	Hon. S. Bond
	D. Cubberley
	S. Hammell
	H. Bains
	M. Sather
	M. Farnworth
	J. Horgan

C. Puchmayr: I have three guests in the crowd today from COPE Local 378: Lori Mayhew, David Black and Mike Bruce. Please make them extremely welcome.

Hon. M. de Jong: Earlier today in the rotunda, members may know we had the opportunity to celebrate the signing of four historic agreements with the Blueberry River First Nations. Those are agreements involving protocols around resource development and partnership participation between government and the Blueberry First Nations.

Joining us today in the Legislature are representatives from the Blueberry River First Nations: Chief Norman Yahey; Councillor Marvin Yahey; Councillor Sherri Dominic; Councillor Joe Apsassin; Daniel Talbot; Howard Southwell, the chief negotiator for the Blueberry River First Nations; his wife and member of the Blueberry First Nations, Frances Wolf.

Songhees elder Joan Morris provided a traditional greeting and prayer. She is with us today as well as David Price, vice-president of western Canada operations of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Paul Jenkins, executive director of the Oil and Gas Commission.

I hope members on both sides of the House will make all of these representatives welcome.

J. Horgan: Joining us in the gallery today are two representatives from COPE Local 378. They're two friends of mine. I'd like the House to welcome Gwenne Farrell and Lori Winstanley.

Hon. J. van Dongen: It's my pleasure today to introduce some special visitors from Australia led by the hon. David Hawker, who is the Speaker of the Australia House of Representatives. Accompanying him are Sen. Kay Patterson and Sen. Anne McEwen and also Members of Parliament Michael Hatton and Trish Draper.

I met with the Speaker and a number of people in his delegation this morning and had a very interesting conversation comparing Canada and Australia. I would ask the House to please make them very welcome.

Hon. G. Campbell: Today in the House we also have special visitors from Southeast Asia. Visiting Victoria for the first time are diplomatic representatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. With us are His Excellency Dennis Ignatius, the high commissioner for Malaysia; His Excellency Snonshart Devahousten, the ambassador for Thailand; Her Excellency Magdalene Teo, high commissioner for Brunei Darussalam; His Excellency Jose Briantes, ambassador for the Philippines; His Excellency Djoko Hardono, the ambassador for the Republic of Indonesia. We also have Vancouver-based Consul General Chin Kwok Foo of Singapore.

I had the opportunity to meet with them today, and we're looking forward to building mutual and beneficial associations between the ASEAN countries and British Columbia and Canada. I hope that the Legislature will join me in making them feel welcome.

R. Austin: I have four visitors in the Legislature today. The first are Suzanne Ewen and her daughter Luci. Luci is a Gonzales Cooperative Preschool attendee along with my legislative assistant's son Cameron Mears. Suzanne and Luci are joined by her grandparents Alex and Valerie Carley. Alex and Valerie are recently retired, newly married and on their first visit here from Toronto. I ask the House to please make them welcome.

Hon. G. Hogg: We have the pleasure of having four delightful and interesting people from Surrey–White Rock with us today, making their first visit to the Legislature. Would the House please join me in making Lawrence and Sharon Hamilton and Carol and Bill Morrow most welcome.

D. Chudnovsky: One of the very best high schools in the province is John Oliver Secondary School. It's at the corner of 41st Avenue and Fraser Street in what is the best constituency in the province, Vancouver-Kensington. Some 150 of the students from JO are here today with their teachers visiting the Legislature. Some of them are in the gallery, and others are visiting the museum. Could you please make them welcome.

I. Black: I have five guests in the galleries today. First of all, I would like to welcome two of them who are constituents. Mr. Richard Leem as well as a very well-known community leader in our community and attorney Michael Hwang are with us from northern Coquitlam.

They are joined by three associates from Korea who are visiting Victoria for the first time: Hyun-Seok Gee, Hyuk Choi and Sung Eun Oh. They are with an organization called Woongjin. They're exploring areas of common interest with respect to education and business investment. Would the House please make them feel most welcome.

R. Cantelon: A small indulgence. Not with us, though, are the Nanaimo Clippers, who last night won the B.C. Junior Hockey League Championship.

Hon. G. Hogg: I can't let the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca be the only one to introduce a resident of the riding of Surrey–White Rock. I'd also like to add

my congratulations and welcome Gwenne Farrell, who is here from Surrey–White Rock. I want the whole House to also recognize her.

R. Chouhan presented a bill intituled Human Rights Code Amendment Act (No. 2), 2007.

R. Chouhan: I move introduction of the Human Rights Code Amendment Act (No. 2), 2007, for first reading.

R. Chouhan: I am pleased to introduce the Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2007. In 2002, among various other budget and system cuts, this government passed legislation abolishing our Human Rights Commission. The commission had performed various functions, including human rights research, education, monitoring, investigation and dispute resolution. The results have been dramatic.

(1) British Columbia currently stands as the only province in Canada without a commission.

(2) Our human rights system does not accord with international norms and principles, and it flouts our international legal obligations.

(3) Human rights education, research and monitoring are no longer carried out effectively in this province and are clearly not priorities for the current government.

(4) Victims of human rights abuses are isolated and powerless without the assistance of the commission, and matters of systemic discrimination and harassment are not being addressed.

This bill will restore the B.C. Human Rights Commission. The new and improved commission will rebuild a human rights culture in this province through research, education and outreach. It will revive the public purpose of our human rights legislation by carrying out public interest investigations and litigation, and it will respond to the needs and concerns of British Columbians by providing information and assistance regarding human rights disputes.

Our human rights will not protect themselves. Our commitment to diversity and human dignity must be nourished to be fulfilled. Equality and freedom from discrimination cannot be achieved without active public participation. British Columbia needs a human rights commission.

I therefore move that this bill, the Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2007, be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill M213, Human Rights Code Amendment Act (No. 2), 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.

J. Yap: Yesterday in this House we marked Yom Ha-Shoah and honoured the memory of Holocaust survivors.

Today I rise to denounce the recent vandalism at the Beth Tikvah Synagogue in my riding in the city of Richmond. This crime of hatred has deeply affected everyone in my community. Personally, I'm shocked. I know that I can speak for everyone in this House, on both sides, in condemning this cowardly act. I would like to offer our sympathy to members of the synagogue.

One of the steadfast principles of our society is tolerance and acceptance of cultures from around the world. British Columbians take great pride in our multicultural mosaic. This is what makes our province a great place. In the face of these acts of hatred, we as a society must be vigilant in exposing prejudice and intolerance because they are not the true sentiments of British Columbians.

As a government we have a responsibility as well, through various programs such as the B.C. Anti-Racism and Multiculturalism Program. The province is working hard to ensure that everyone, regardless of their culture, has the right to live in strong, safe communities without racism and other forms of hate activity.

It is my sincere wish that this cowardly crime never rears itself again. British Columbia thrives on the synergy from the diverse cultures that make their home here. I know that we can all agree in condemning this act of vandalism against Beth Tikvah Synagogue.

G. Gentner: Today marks a very significant anniversary in B.C.'s political and cultural history. On April 17, 1973, after several amendments, the NDP government passed the Land Commission Act. The bill was more than just a shift in policy, for it was the beginning of an era of fundamental reorganization in the way we think as a society.

Today the bill is more important than ever, because how we manage and maintain our farmland will not only show what we as a society and province hold dear — the importance of local produce — but how genuine our obligation is in the fight against climate change.

During the postwar years, rapid housing and industrial expansion in British Columbia communities prompted concern about the loss of valuable farmland. Prior to 1972 about 5,000 hectares of arable B.C. soil were lost yearly to non-farming purposes. By 1973 some of the most productive land in the province had been lost to residential and urban development.

Only 5 percent of the province's land mass is arable, and less than 1 percent possesses a productivity rating of class one.

The act brought to a halt the subdivision of agricultural land in the province. Though it received a storm of criticism, the pending storm with its removal will

be severe. On this day and every day, I ask all British Columbians to embody the spirit of the ALR and to put human subsistence ahead of greed, ahead of private interest, ahead of any excuse and stakeholder, for it will define us as a species, a society, a province and a civilization.

K. Whittred: It's not often that any of us get an opportunity to attend an event as exciting as one I attended last week. The North Shore Credit Union, since its inception in 1941, has always believed in being part of and serving its community. That value of serving community was alive and well on April 11 when the North Shore Credit Union awarded a $1 million legacy fund to a North Shore organization. This one-time million-dollar grant is the largest single donation ever made by the credit union.

The three short-listed finalists for the million-dollar award were North Shore Hospice, North Vancouver Outdoor School and West Coast Alternatives Society. In judging the finalists, the trustees were looking for a meaningful community project that demonstrated the physical, environmental and financial wellness of the local communities served by the credit union.

In my view — and I work closely with all of those organizations — all finalists were worthy of this fund. I was very pleased, however, that following the opening of the envelope and the drum roll, it was North Vancouver Outdoor School that won the award.

The North Vancouver Outdoor School has been operating since 1969. It is recognized internationally for its hands-on natural and cultural history learning. The environmental learning centre is expected to be completed by late 2009 and will be operated by the North Vancouver school district to provide outdoor environmental and cultural education to more than 10,000 students, teachers and adults each year.

Again, congratulations to all the finalists and to the North Shore Credit Union for the fantastic work they do in my community.

N. Simons: The Sunshine Coast is fast becoming the mountain biking destination of choice, and not just for British Columbians who make day trips from the lower mainland. It's also known far and wide in the mountain biking community as a prime visitor destination because of its beautiful scenery, the variety of trails, and the excellent bike shops and services available to riders.

This world-class reputation didn't happen without the vision and leadership of individuals and businesses on the Sunshine Coast. In 1990 elementary school teacher Doug Detwiller developed the Sprockids program to introduce bicycling to youngsters in elementary school. Besides giving them the skills to ride safely and to maintain their bikes, they participate in trail-building and team events where every single child not only participates but participates equally.

This school program leaves a lasting impression on participants and their families. It creates lifelong cyclists and environmentally conscious citizens. It promotes good mental and physical health, brings together children and youth of different ages, and strengthens family ties. Most importantly, it builds school cohesion, well known as the most effective tool in preventing school bullying. It's no wonder that the Canadian Cycling Association enthusiastically endorses the program.

Something else that sets the Sunshine Coast apart from other places in B.C. is that it's home to the only post-secondary program in North America for young people who want to make mountain biking a part of their career. This one-of-a-kind program is coordinated by Caroline Depatie and is supported by individuals and industry professionals. It attracts young people interested in the tourism industry, event management and communications, and provides the necessary skills to promote the mountain biking industry.

Should I slow down? The energy that one gets from mountain biking is evident in this two-minute statement.

This Saturday I'll have the pleasure of witnessing the unveiling of a new teaching trail specifically built for beginners. Of course, Doug Detwiller and the Sprockids have been involved right from the beginning. With Sprockids, the mountain bike certificate program and our vast network of trails and remarkably sunny weather, the Sunshine Coast should be considered the mountain biking capital of British Columbia.

D. MacKay: In April of 1987 four people from Smithers started a small airline. Like most new businesses, they started out small. After all, there were only four people involved, and it was and is a completely privately held company.

Like many other airlines throughout the world, this small company experienced the dramatic increases in fuel costs and of course the fallout following 9/11, when air travel was reduced in great numbers. Some airlines sought court protection from creditors, and some did not survive.

I'm pleased to report that the airlines from Smithers suffered through those hard times. However, unlike many others in the airline industry, they did not cut services but continued to grow, and this month are celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Today they operate 15 aircraft and employ 298 people. I would be remiss if I did not say what great corporate citizens they are. Northern Thunderbird airlines, an associate company with another 12 aircraft and 60 employees, completes this company's portfolio.

Central Mountain Air services 18 destinations throughout Alberta and British Columbia 20 years later. They continue to participate in the provincial travel assistance program for medical travel for persons having to travel for health care, and have since the 1990s. The associate company, Northern Thunderbird airlines, provides services to the mining industry, for-

estry, medevac, mail, guide-outfitting and the oil and gas industry, to name a few.

I would ask members of this House to join me in saying congratulations to Doug, Lindsay, Patty and all of the other great employees who made and continue to make Central Mountain airlines what it is today — a great success story.

M. Sather: George Mussallem served four terms in this Legislative Assembly as a Social Credit MLA for the constituency of Dewdney from 1966 to 1972 and then again from 1975 to 1983. George served as government Whip and Chair of Public Accounts, along with serving on various committees and representing British Columbia in a variety of capacities within the province and across Canada.

George took over the family business and operated Mussallem Chevrolet Cadillac for over 30 years before being elected. The business was open for 88 years. George followed his father into both business and public life. George's father Solomon served on Maple Ridge council for 23 years — 21 years as mayor.

George retired from public life in May 1983 and continued to serve the community as a member of the GVRD advisory commission for parks, director of Douglas College Foundation, Maple Ridge economic advisory committee, Maple Ridge Foundation and the nominating committee for the Maple Ridge hospital board.

George was also a founding member of the convocation for Simon Fraser University. George was involved with the Boy Scouts, having started the movement in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows in 1947, and served as a Sunday school superintendent for St. Andrews United Church. An avid pilot, having attained his licence in 1929, George was flying his own plane well into his late 70s.

On April 10, 2007, George Mussallem passed away in Ridge Meadows Hospital. He was 99 years old. George is predeceased by his first wife Elizabeth and survived by his three children — Robert, Anne and David — and his second wife Grace, along with his siblings, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

George Mussallem served his community and the constituents of British Columbia well. I know that everyone in this House sends their condolences to the Mussallem family for their loss.

N. Macdonald: There's a clear reason that the cost of the Vancouver Convention Centre expansion project has doubled — a lackadaisical attitude by a succession of B.C. Liberal ministers, best represented by this minister's indifference to a project 100 percent over budget, and mismanagement by a board made up entirely of the Premier's friends and financial backers.

Let's look at one contract: the Pace Group — a major Liberal donor in the range of $60,000, as the minister would say. Managing director Norman Stowe is a close friend of the Liberal Party. He even worked on this minister's own election campaign. They received over $500,000 in contracts from the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project board and delivered 16 press releases, as far as I can see. That's $33,000 per release.

How can the minister defend such blatant partisan rewards when he cannot even tell us what the final cost of this project will be?

Hon. S. Hagen: We are not afraid to disclose that the costs have gone up for the convention centre. We've been very public; we've been very transparent. The reason the costs have gone up is that the cost of steel and the cost of concrete have gone up dramatically. Also, this project is being built in the tightest labour climate that this province has ever had. We have the lowest unemployment rate that we've ever had.

N. Macdonald: Let's look at this. The Premier has set up a government communications office of over 200 people. They have a massive budget. One would think that they could turn out a press release or set up a backstop — whatever is needed for this project's communications. But instead this board of B.C. Liberals decides to spend half a million dollars to hire a B.C. Liberal friend and donor to write press releases, and all of this is paid for by B.C. taxpayers. Is it any wonder that this is 100 percent over budget?

Hon. S. Hagen: What a punctilious attitude. I can tell this House that when that party was in government in the dismal, dark decade of the '90s, that government did more business with the Pace Group than this government ever has.

N. Macdonald: The minister has been in charge of this file for almost a year. He still has no clue of what the real costs of this project will be. When asked yesterday about the cost, he could not say clearly. When he was asked about Ken Dobell and the VCCEP and whether they would be held accountable, he said that they would not be held accountable for what's gone on.

Taxpayers deserve clear answers about the cost. The minister does not know the final cost at this time. When is he going to tell this House and the public how

Hon. S. Hagen: This expanded convention centre will put us in the leading-edge place in the world. This will be a world-class convention centre. They've already booked 50 conventions, 27 of which would not be coming to Vancouver without the expansion.

So my question is: why is the NDP against all these jobs that are being created there? Why are they against the 7,000 construction jobs?

Hon. S. Hagen: Well, the message is important enough to repeat. Why is the NDP against the 7,000 construction jobs that are on that site today from seven different provinces? Why is the NDP against the 6,000 jobs that will be created to run the expanded Trade and Convention Centre? Why are they against new business coming to this province? Why are they so negative, destructive and pessimistic?

R. Fleming: I wish the minister was a little more concerned about the world-class cost overruns occurring in British Columbia today. The minister had overnight to pin down a final cost. He hasn't done that. Perhaps he's done better at getting answers about the Auditor General's review.

Yesterday the minister was completely unaware that an audit of the project's governance structure and financial management was well underway. Ken Dobell is paying the Auditor General $60,000 for this review.

If the minister isn't able to explain why the project is $400 million over budget or if we've hit bottom yet, can he tell this House why he's paying $60,000 for an audit that he's not even going to use to guide his decisions?

Hon. S. Hagen: As everyone in this House knows, the Auditor General is performing audits on that particular project every three months. The audit that the member is referring to is an audit that was requested by the board of VCCEP to do a more in-depth audit. We are waiting for that audit.

The Auditor General, as you probably know, is independent of government. I don't tell him when to bring his report out. When his report comes out, we will examine his report, and we will deal with it.

R. Fleming: Yes, I do. The contract for the audit is in this minister's portfolio. It's available on the website. He'd know, if he has read it, that the draft deliverable for the report is March 30. Yet the minister has no idea there are recommendations pending on the governance structure of this corporation or on the cost overruns of the project.

Mr. Ken Dobell, the Premier's special adviser, has presided over $400 million of overrun spending, and climbing. The minister has been in charge of this file since mid-2006. It's now April 2007, and he keeps saying, "I don't know," when he's asked about the project's runaway costs or why its board changes. Perhaps the real answer is: "Ken told me to."

R. Fleming: I'll come to my point. If Mr. Dobell has neglected to inform the minister about the existence of the pending audit, how can he have confidence in him? The minister has admitted he hasn't been fully briefed about the context of these changes. Can he assure this House and taxpayers that the board changes will be put on hold until the minister obtains the final report and has the benefit of reviewing it himself?

Hon. S. Hagen: Let me say this slowly so that you'll understand it. The report from the Auditor General has not yet been received.

H. Bains: Listening to this minister, it's clear that he doesn't know his file. The friends of the Premier are making all the decisions, and no one is being held accountable for this.

In the 2004 service plan, Ken Dobell sets the budget at $535 million — $40 million over the original budget — and states: "I am accountable for delivering on the service plan." In the 2005 service plan, Mr. Dobell raised the budget to $565 million and again said: "I am accountable."

Mr. Speaker, you know what? He said exactly the same thing in 2006, and the budget ballooned to $800 million-plus. If Ken Dobell is so accountable for the skyrocketing overruns, why didn't the minister fire him?

Hon. S. Hagen: Mr. Speaker, we are in favour of the expanded Trade and Convention Centre. That side is not. We are in favour of the 50 new conventions coming to the province. That side is not.

We are in favour of the $850 million worth of new economic activity generated by that. That side is not.

We are in favour of the 7,000 construction jobs on that site. Obviously, that side is not.

H. Bains: We are not in favour of the massive cost overrun created by their friends. We are in favour of responsibility and accountability, and they are not.

The minister can't tell us how much the convention centre expansion will cost. All we know is that it's in the range of $800 million. That's double the original price, and the minister is keeping the person in charge of the boondoggle on the board.

The public wants accountability. By the Premier's own standards, Mr. Dobell should be fired. The minister chose to stand on the side of the Premier's friends instead of the B.C. taxpayers.

Why didn't he do the right thing on behalf of British Columbians and fire the four board members that he kept, including Mr. Dobell?

Hon. S. Hagen: You know, 22 years ago the leader of the NDP said, "I'm against Expo 86" — 22 years ago.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Members. It's a great example for the Speaker from Australia.

Hon. S. Hagen: Mr. Speaker, 22 years ago the leader of the NDP said: "What happens if we throw a party and nobody comes?" Well, 22 million people came to Expo.

Hon. S. Hagen: Mr. Speaker, it's as simple as this. They're against the project; we're in favour of it.

J. Kwan: In 2004 the Trade and Convention Centre expansion project was budgeted at $535 million. Today, in 2007, it is in the range of $800 million. How is this for accountability for you, Mr. Speaker? The Trade and Convention Centre project is on fire with cost overruns, and the guy responsible for the cost overruns tries to get off the hook for his failures by offloading his responsibilities to a new governance structure.

Why is this minister acting as a puppet for the Premier by protecting Mr. Ken Dobell, the Premier's friend and insider?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said previously, we're less than two years away from opening the doors of this brand-new world-class facility. It was a natural progression to merge the boards of PavCo. PavCo does the marketing for B.C. Place and for the existing convention centre, with the new expanded convention centre, to make sure that we're ready to compete with the world to get conventions and business here to B.C.

J. Kwan: Let's be clear. By the Premier's own standard, Mr. Ken Dobell should have been fired, yet this minister refuses to do so. Is indulging in hypocrisy easier than standing up to the Premier's orders?

Hon. S. Hagen: NDP stands for negative, destructive and pessimistic. I am amazed that the NDP can't bring themselves to say: "We're in favour of this world-class project. We're in favour of bringing new business to British Columbia. We're in favour of new jobs in British Columbia. We're in favour of doubling tourism in British Columbia."

M. Karagianis: It's quite apparent here that Mr. Dobell is actually the Premier's secret minister on all of these boards and many others. He oversaw this conference project with its massive cost overruns and no end in sight, a range that is yet to be defined by this government. He merged boards at this point to cover up for his own mismanagement. He's also the Premier's special adviser and special chief insider.

My question: is compromising his own integrity easier than standing up to the Premier and firing his friend off of these boards?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I've said, this is a natural progression to merge the boards of PavCo and the Trade and Convention Centre. We did that because PavCo brings with them the marketing expertise. We need to market this new facility to make sure we attract even more than the conventions that are already booked.

I can't imagine why the other side is against bringing all this new economic activity to the province. Why are you against the jobs? Why are you against the $850 million in economic activity?

M. Karagianis: Yesterday we heard that the reason the boards were merged was because they needed construction advice. Now we hear that they in fact need marketing advice. In fact, the merge of the boards was done before we hear the Auditor's report. The minister confessed yesterday that he didn't even know the report was coming.

Again, this is clearly around the Premier's minister on the inside, Mr. Dobell. Will the minister stand up and say that Mr. Dobell will take the fall for the mismanagement and overruns in this project, and fire him today?

Hon. S. Hagen: There we have another grassy-knoll conspiracy theory from the NDP with absolutely no basis and no foundation. We merged the boards to make the boards better. Yes, we brought construction expertise on. We brought marketing expertise on, and that's to market the new trade and convention centre in the best possible way for the benefit of the people of British Columbia.

N. Simons: And now for something completely different. I have a question. Ten months ago Columbia National Investments, a large development company with ties to the Liberals, bought over 3,000 acres of land on the Sunshine Coast. Three weeks ago this government passed legislation — controversial legislation, Bill 11 — amending the Local Government Act, which gives cabinet the power to create regions and resort communities out of nowhere.

Last week Columbia National announced their plans to plunk an instant community right in the constituency of Powell River–Sunshine Coast. Then yesterday the minister met with regional district representatives, who are clearly, obviously and well-deserved to be concerned.

What assurances can the Minister of Agriculture and Lands give us and give local communities that the local interests won't be subjugated to the interests of Columbia National?

Hon. I. Chong: First of all, let me say how very proud we are on this side of the House to pass legislation that would allow us to double tourism by the year 2015 by having resorts all around the province.

It's quite clear from the rhetoric I heard from members opposite during the debate that they don't want to see tourism potential around the province. They don't want to see resorts being built. They don't want investments. They don't want jobs. The difference is: we do.

N. Simons: Is it a supplemental? I can't really remember it. That had nothing to do with the first question I asked. I'll try again.

Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with doubling tourism. We're all interested in bringing people to British Columbia. We're all interested in that. I mean, we're not going to change the dates at which point we're going to double the tourism — and we are interested in increasing tourism — but the question is about regional government authority.

N. Simons: I didn't hear the minister address that. How is the minister going to guarantee the community of Sunshine Coast that its local government — the interests of the local government, the duly elected representatives and their interests — won't be put on second fiddle? Excuse me, to all of the second fiddlers. As a musician I point that out.

Instead of perhaps going back 25 years or talking about issues I'm not raising, will the government give some assurances, some guarantee that it will not use legislation to override the interests of the local government?

Hon. I. Chong: Local governments have received more dollars for infrastructure, more dollars for community and more dollars for regional districts. That's how we're supporting our local governments.

K. Conroy: Last week a report was released that pointed to a looming shortfall in the number of health professionals in our province, including the nursing profession. So imagine my surprise when also last week the Interior Health Authority announced that due to inadequate funding, they were going to have to lay off 11 nurses from the Kootenay-Boundary Regional Hospital.

Can the Minister of Health explain why he is forcing health authorities to lay off nurses at the very time when they need to retain them the most?

Hon. G. Abbott: The member is absolutely incorrect. No nurses will be laid off. That is entirely clear. The Interior Health Authority is doing a reorganization, pursuant to the recommendations that were contained in the Albo report. The nurses will be deployed in different roles, but there are no layoffs.

The member shouldn't be surprised. She was part of a government that in the 1990s….

Hon. G. Abbott: Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. She might have only been sympathetic to that government

of the 1990s that saw the number of nursing graduates in this province reduced from over 900 in 1993 to just over 500 five years later.

K. Conroy: Well, I don't think those nurses would find much humour in the minister's response. In fact, let's quote from the memo that was sent to them. The 11 RNs were given their displacement notice on April 1. If that's not a layoff, I don't know what it is. These are 11 nurses who've had ten to 28 years' experience. We're talking skilled nurses working in the OR, working all over the hospital.

They're skilled, valuable nurses. They were laid off. Are they going to be given other jobs? Potentially. Casual jobs they've been offered. Have they been given any kinds of security? No. Are people going to be displaced? Yes.

Nurses are going to be displaced when we can least afford it. This is a reality in this hospital, because it's millions of dollars in deficit. They need to cut, and where are they cutting? They're cutting nurses.

When is this minister going to intervene and stop this terrible situation of laying off nurses?

Hon. G. Abbott: I know sometimes the facts can get in the way of a really good question. I'll try not to let them get in the way of a really good answer, because I have the facts here.

Of the affected staff, four nurses are full-time, and seven are part-time. Every one of these nurses will be offered a position with an equivalent number of hours to what they had in their current job. Interior Health advises that no nurse will be forced into a casual position as a result of this change.

Again, to the point about health human resources. Imagine the hypocrisy of this group across the House that talks about a nursing shortage, when we saw over the course of that dark and dismal decade, the 1990s, a 32-percent reduction in the number of nurses that were being educated in this province.

B. Simpson: Over the last little while we've been canvassing the issue of the critical log shortage on the coast and the fact that many jobs are being lost or threatened with being lost as a result of that log shortage. We've shown that the minister continues to approve log exports despite the fact that we have that log shortage. However, there's another reason that we have that log shortage, and that is the monopoly that this minister has allowed Western Forest Products to have, particularly over Vancouver Island.

My question to the minister is this. Why did the minister not exercise his legislative authority and prevent Western Forest Products from obtaining that monopoly?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, let's be clear. There have been 700,000 cubic metres less in log exports from British Columbia in the first quarter of 2007 than there were in 2006. The other side of this thing is the fact that the members opposite always seem to think that they should decide how a company should be run. So why don't we go back in a little bit of history and remember the half a billion dollars you blew down the tube on Skeena Cellulose, with no results?

The fact of the matter is that you've got to let the forest industry compete. You've got to let it build a future. You're going to let it build a future, because you know what? You never gave it an opportunity to, and we're going to.

C. Wyse: I have some petitions to present. First petition: 188 signatures seeking a request to reconsider the decision to close the residential care facility of Deni House in Williams Lake.

An additional petition: 37 signatures requesting the restoration of adequate funding for child care resource and referral centres.

G. Coons: I have a petition from 77 residents on the north coast, in addition to the over 500 already, who request raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour and abolishing the $6 training wage.

N. Simons: I have a petition signed by 1,620 people in the Powell River region asking that the government provide long-term care facilities so that seniors can remain in Powell River without having to go far away from family and friends.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call Committee of Supply. For the information of members, in this chamber we will be discussing the estimates of the Ministry of Forests, and in Committee A the estimates of the Ministry of Education will continue.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
AND RANGE AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR HOUSING
(continued)

B. Simpson: For the minister and his staff, what I will likely spend the afternoon on is the revitalization strategy and various aspects of it and how it's working out. Because I note that one of the minister's staff members here is the financial whiz, I'll do some stuff around some of the finances for that while she is here.

But let me start. I need to clarify something with respect to an announcement that was made by the minister with respect to the Langley multicentre and $15 million that was put to that. Is that $15 million coming from the Ministry of Forests and Range budget?

B. Simpson: The rationale given around that was that it was in order to showcase beetle wood and so on. Where is a program like that, and how do other communities apply for it?

Hon. R. Coleman: The multiplex in Langley was actually a project brought forward by that community, like any other project, to government. When it was brought to me at the time as a local MLA, I basically said no. My comment back to them was: "I'm the Minister of Forests. We don't have a major wood project in British Columbia, so if you want anybody to advocate within grant programs or stuff within government for a project like this, I would like to see it built of wood."

It's no grant from this particular ministry. It comes through Economic Development, and if you have any questions with regards to that particular side of it, I would suggest you save those for the Minister of Economic Development.

B. Simpson: Let's just move, then, into the costs of the Revitalization Act, if I could. It's my understanding that we should now be finished with all of the clawbacks for all of the non-TFL areas, according to the act. That should have happened. According to the act, it's three years after March 31, 2003, which would have made it March 31 of this year.

With that, the first question is: was all of that clawback compensation completed?

Hon. R. Coleman: The coast is completed, and there are a few outstanding claims with some companies in the interior.

B. Simpson: I need clarification, because the Forestry Revitalization Act stipulates that orders under that section, with the exception of TFLs…. TFLs were given five years, but orders under all other licences were supposed to be completed by March 31, 2006. So under what legal authority is the minister acting, then, if it's not completed?

Hon. R. Coleman: All the legal taking is complete. So all the legal taking of the takeback is complete. There is still some work being done in operating areas with regards to that taking which is allowed to be done, but the legal taking is complete.

B. Simpson: I committed to go to the finances, so let's go to the finances. How much have we paid out for that clawback to date?

Hon. R. Coleman: In March 2003 the Forestry Revitalization Act was passed to revitalize and diversify the forest sector by reallocating 20 percent, as the member knows, of the harvesting rates. We continue to work with the licensees to identify specific areas to be returned to the Crown. We've done the takeback. That's complete, but we do have some operating areas we're working on.

On the financial side, there was $250 million set aside to compensate licensees for returning their logging rights to the Crown. To date, $203 million has been paid to tenure holders, representing about 85 percent of the takeback volume.

Negotiations with 11 remaining tenure holders, representing about 15 percent of the takeback volume and associated ongoing infrastructure, are pending. That is allowed to continue to go on because it's a financial negotiation. The takeback is complete, but the financial negotiation can go on for a while. We've actually only been recently engaged by some people wanting to talk about it with regards to their financial compensation.

B. Simpson: What is the estimated total that the clawback will then cost the taxpayers of British Columbia?

Hon. R. Coleman: Our estimate is that this won't go over $250 million, which was the original amount.

B. Simpson: I believe the original amount was actually $200 million, according to the Forest Act, not $250 million. So that's an increase of $50 million.

I'm not sure where the authority comes for that, because the act actually stipulates to pay not more than $200 million. Where is the authority to the minister to pay the additional $50 million, if that's what it turns out to be?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member is correct. The original amount was $200 million. Additional authority for the $50 million was sought and requested and then given to us by Treasury Board.

B. Simpson: I'm confused, because the act stipulates that in the 2002-2003 fiscal year the minister is authorized to pay not more than $200 million out of the consolidated revenue fund. Why stipulate an amount in legislation when you've now gone to Treasury Board and just got whatever you need, which I assume could be over another $50 million? It could be $60 million or whatever, depending on how it turns out. Why two different ways of accessing the funds?

My understanding is that the original $200 million was put in there to give some certainty to what the process was going to be, to let taxpayers know how much this was going to cost. Quite frankly, I wasn't aware there were additional funds here. I'm sure most

Hon. R. Coleman: For the member, just so I don't get it wrong, what I will do is…. We believe that the additional $50 million was provided for in year 2, which would have been somewhere around 2004-2005. I don't have in front of me whether that was done by supplementary estimate or access to contingencies or presented to Treasury Board or whether there had to be any amendment to legislation, but I'll get that information for the member.

B. Simpson: With that in mind, where can I go on the ministry's website to get an actual list of which companies have been compensated, how much, and how much they had to give up for that compensation?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's not posted on the website; that's why you can't find it on the website. But each one of these would have had a public announcement around it, so we'll provide the member with a list of the companies.

B. Simpson: I appreciate the offer, and I look forward to it. The real issue, though, is that it's very difficult for the public to go through all of that. I think one place under the forest revitalization webpage to roll this up would be helpful.

The $250 million estimate — what will that come out to on a per-cubic-metre basis?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's about $26 to $30 a cubic metre, which includes the tenure area plus the improvements of roads, bridges, etc.

B. Simpson: Because we have a bill before us, I won't talk about the improvements piece. It's in the bill, so we'll canvass that aspect of it, but I know that it's a problem. I'll leave that.

Are there additional costs? Did the Ministry of Forests and Range have to put a team together to negotiate this? Were there additional legal costs? Were there things that were incurred to the taxpayer as a result of having to negotiate these clawback arrangements?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have a small team that works on giving general direction. We have small teams in each area of the province that help with identifying the areas, and two people on a part-time basis who do the negotiation. There was never anything added to the operating budget of the ministry for that. We manage that within the budget of the ministry.

B. Simpson: I just want to be clear on the clawback. We're going to come back to the implications of this shortly. When the Forestry Revitalization Act was passed, I recall debating an amendment to this to take the list of companies out of the act and put it into regulations so that you could change it whenever you wanted to. But it's an interesting exercise in history in going through the list and seeing the companies that no longer exist.

When a company ceased to exist as it was bought up — Weldwood, for example, being bought up by West Fraser or Canfor buying up Slocan, etc. — did the compensation, if it was not done with the previous company, carry over? Did the new company get compensation for the entire land base that they held at that time?

Hon. R. Coleman: The answer is yes. For instance, when Canfor took over Slocan, it was a share takeover. They would have assumed assets and liabilities of the company they were taking over, including if there was something booked of value with regard to takeback, or whatever the case may be.

Whether they accomplished the amount that might have been booked at value at the sale I don't know, but certainly we didn't extinguish the 20-percent takeback because it was part of what we were doing across the sector.

B. Simpson: The reason I'm asking the question is because if the Forest Act had been left the way it was, there would have been an automatic 5-percent takeback in most of those circumstances.

As a consequence, we were paying more than we should have, then, because we would have gotten 5 percent back free, gratis. So that's a question as to how this was structured, given that it really accelerated corporate concentration.

One other question I have on this. The minister has indicated that the clawback has occurred. The compensation is still being worked out. In the cases where the clawback has occurred, are there licensees still operating in operating areas that have not been clarified as to who's getting those operating areas, whether it's B.C. Timber Sales or woodlots or first nations? Has that all been clarified now?

Hon. G. Hogg: We are joined in the gallery today by 24 excited students, who are interested and intrigued with government; a number of parents; and teachers Lorraine Whitmarsh and Tanya Freiter from the wonderful school in south Surrey that has gained great fame through basketball, education and community involvement. Would you please welcome these great students from White Rock Christian Academy.

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, there are a few companies. Some of the licensees are actually operating in some of the operating areas as we've tried to identify the areas for the other uses of the wood.

We have found, quite frankly, that as we've tried to negotiate this…. As you know, there's a changing landscape out there, particularly in the interior. We're trying to get our licensees…. We will push a licensee to an area where we think it's operationally more important at this point in time, while we're trying to negotiate, and see if there's another area we can negotiate on after because of the beetle.

We don't have that level of operational detail here today with regards to that, but it does happen.

B. Simpson: Just so I'm clear, a company could effectively have its clawback determined and be compensated, but it would not have an impact directly on their operations. They're still able to operate and still able to have the same cut levels that they had prior to being paid.

Hon. R. Coleman: In 2003 the cut level dropped by 20 percent. The AAC corporately was reduced by 20 percent. Even if they haven't identified the area, they're still down by the 20 percent of their AAC, and that hasn't changed.

B. Simpson: In the case of licensees that have operations throughout a broad area — for example, Canfor at one point had coastal operations and interior operations — could they shift their clawback around? Could they make the determination of where they wanted their clawback taken from?

Hon. R. Coleman: The companies didn't make the determination; we made the determination. It was based on trying to establish enough areas and variety to deal with the market pricing system. There were instances where, in the best interests of certain things like first nations, it was allowed that from one area to another we would allow for some of that, but it was on a very minimal level. It was really more geared to being able to have something for the first nations in those particular areas as much as anything.

B. Simpson: I hear it's B.C. Timber Sales that gets first kick at the can in most cases and causes quite significant grief for people who are looking for the woodlots that haven't appeared yet or the community forests that haven't appeared yet or areas where first nations haven't gotten it yet.

Between the licensees and B.C. Timber Sales, everybody is not getting any kind of opportunity to get a good profile out on the land base. So I dispute the minister's comment in that case.

I'll again be curious when we look at Bill 18, because there's an explicit right being given to the district manager to address this issue of licensees operating in areas that are not financially beneficial to the Crown.

Let's go on, then, to other costs associated with revitalization. There was also the forestry revitalization trust. In the original act, $75 million was put into the forestry revitalization trust. What was the total balance that the trust ultimately got?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have 127 FROs with first nations across the province out of 180-some that are possible. We've actually done a pretty good job of finding fibre for first nations. Basically, the legislation, which we'll debate…. The comment the member made about not being financially beneficial is really to push people away from any green wood, to give the regional manager the ability to push them towards the pine wood and leave the green wood for later.

The B.C. Forestry Revitalization Trust was initially set up with $75 million and subsequently increased to $133 million — an extra $50 million from government and $8 million from the investment income of the first $75 million, I guess it was. It's governed by a trustee who's advised by a board drawn from major licensees, contractors, organized labour and government. To date, a total of $85.6 million has been paid to 760 impacted workers and 198 contractors.

B. Simpson: Sorry, I was writing. That last one: how much paid out to how many workers, if you would please, Minister?

Hon. R. Coleman: To date, a total of $85.6 million has been paid out. That went to 760 impacted workers and 198 contractors.

B. Simpson: When does the minister believe that this trust will wrap up, and how many impacted workers is the estimated total?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's estimated that the total amount of the budget that will be used for the total impact of payments to workers is about $46 million, and about $72 million to contractors, for a total of about $118 million.

B. Simpson: Thank you for that breakdown again. Any estimate on the number of workers that that will be paid out to and the final numbers on workers or contractors impacted?

Hon. R. Coleman: I do have an estimated number of employees at 940. I don't have anything above the 198 estimated contractors. That's what I have in front of me.

B. Simpson: Has the ministry engaged with any other ministries to track these workers post-payout? Where do they go? What happens to the contractors? What happened to the workers?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, we don't have a tracking of that. We do know some of them are probably still back working in the industry, and we don't know what they decided to do. Some may have wrapped up their businesses and retired. Other people may have taken the payout because they were close to retirement, and some may be back working. We do not have a tracking of that.

B. Simpson: When does the minister expect the revitalization trust work to be wrapped up?

B. Simpson: One of the contentions around the revitalization trust — and we've debated it in this House — is that maybe the wrong group was targeted, that maybe there should have been a target there for the sawmill workers.

That's why I asked the question about where these workers went. If a number of these workers remained in the logging industry, didn't we pay them out for a job that they didn't lose?

Hon. R. Coleman: They were losing their job, or they were losing their contract, and that's why they were paid out. There was nothing that said: "Now you can't go back to work somewhere else." It's like anybody else that actually gets severed from a particular job. If they go seek out another form of employment or employment within the industry and are lucky enough to accomplish that, I guess that's for them. These people were going to be losing their jobs as a result of what we were doing, and the compensation payments were made to them.

B. Simpson: I guess the contention, though, that was never understood with the Forestry Revitalization Trust was that the cut wasn't disappearing. It was still supposed to be there, but people knew the rationalization that would occur would probably result in mills being rationalized, and that's where the job loss would come. Again, that's why we've raised a number of times that the real people who got hurt in this were the people working in the mills who lost their jobs, yet there was no revitalization trust for them.

I want to clarify one thing back to the land base, and my apologies for skipping back on that. Are there cases where a company has been compensated and then got an annual allowable cut uplift for whatever reason?

Hon. R. Coleman: It is theoretically possible, but there's none that we know of.

B. Simpson: I believe TFL 16, if I'm not mistaken…. There's a TFL that was under DFAM that got a substantial raise in their annual allowable cut. I think it's in the order of magnitude of 60-odd percent, if I'm not mistaken. That was one that was owned by Canfor. My understanding is that they were compensated for a clawback on that. I would suggest that the minister may want to look at that.

What about beetle uplifts, where companies got an uplift as a result of the beetle after a clawback had been compensated?

Hon. R. Coleman: It could happen in the case of a TFL with regards to pine beetle if the chief forester made, obviously, an increase in the annual allowable cut, particularly to deal with something like pine beetle. It would be a temporary lift because the lift obviously goes up, and the chief forester makes that determination.

B. Simpson: The minister talked about AACs coming up and down. On the coast haven't we reduced some annual allowable cuts on tree farm licences subsequent to the clawback and payout?

Hon. R. Coleman: While I'm waiting for my staff member to get here, there may have been reductions in the AAC on the coast for a number of reasons. One of them could have been as simple as a protected area was developed or another park or, in some cases, where the EBM is on the central and midcoast areas with regards to land use planning and some of the stuff that comes out of land use planning.

All of those things — as the member knows — can have a significant impact on what the ability actually is of the working area of the forest to really be able to function. It is one of the pressures that forestry is finding, particularly in areas of B.C. like the Sea to Sky corridor up through Squamish, where there's more and more population, and they want to see less and less logging and forestry.

Same thing with the areas like the Sunshine Coast, where it becomes more and more difficult — even the Fraser Valley, the upper end, into the area from Hope up through Yale. Those are all areas that I recognize are administered under a whole bunch of other pressures with regards to the ability to have annual allowable cuts.

Sometimes those annual allowable cuts may exist, and the reality is that because of spotted owl or other environmental issues or protected areas they can't be achieved. The chief forester has to take that into account.

If the member wants to just repeat the portion of his question about the specific TFL number, we may have the information available now.

B. Simpson: I don't have the luxury of having staff whip stuff into me, unfortunately. My recollection is that it is in the Clearwater area. It was formally a Slocan TFL, taken over by Canfor.

It should be easy to find, because it was a DFAM. It was one of the few defined forest area management projects where a rationale was made for a substantive increase in the annual allowable cut. As far as I understand, it was post-clawback-in-compensation.

While staff have a discussion, the point that the minister is making is that we've always adjusted annual allowable cuts up and down. Chief foresters made determinations. My point is that in locations, particularly on the coast, we have reduced annual allowable cuts without compensation.

We've got a situation in the interior where we've done a clawback, and in a number of cases we then went and gave an increase in annual allowable cut while we paid for the clawback in annual allowable cut. On the coast we've done a clawback, paid people

My question to the minister is this: how much would we have gotten back if we had just not done the 20-percent clawback, we had allowed the consolidation to occur, and we had accrued the land base back through the 5-percent takeback? Based on the consolidation that's occurred, how much would we have got back?

Hon. R. Coleman: Joining me now is Henry Benskin, RPF, deputy chief forester. Henry has some understanding of these TFLs — more understanding than any of us ever will, that's for sure — and their cut. TFL 37 on the coast did go down slightly. There was one in the interior that may have gone up slightly. That's the recollection, rather than getting back to specifics when we could get that from a computer at the office.

At the same time, we're not in a position to speculate on the 5-percent question the member is asking. We are not in a position to give him an answer today on that or speculate in any way whatsoever.

B. Simpson: I guess one could sit and do the calculation to find out what we would have gotten back. The government, at the time that they did all of this, knew that they were driving consolidation. They knew that it was going to happen. It was an explicit intent in the Forest Act changes over tenure and cut control and partitioning of tenure and ministerial oversight of tenure.

It strikes me that that ought to have been part of the deliberations so that we didn't have to pay out a quarter of a million dollars for clawback. Again, we're looking at $133 million for the workers that have lost their jobs as a result of that program. That's why I ask the question: could we have done this in a different way that didn't cost taxpayers as much?

Let me ask one more question on the finances on this before we get into the revitalization act itself., I believe the minister mentioned the $166 million for first nations forest range agreements. The minister stated something about the fact that we must be okay, because FROs and FRAs would have given volume. Well, that volume isn't coming out. That volume still has to be determined. They have to come and ask. The Ministry of Forests and the district have to go and actually find the volume. That's why I'm pointing out the problem with B.C. Timber Sales and the licences still operating. That volume is sometimes very difficult, if not impossible, to find.

The fact that they're given the right to come and ask for volume doesn't mean we've found that volume for them. But in giving those FRAs and FROs, which we'll explore in more detail later on, who bore the cost of that $166-odd million? Where did that money come from?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, we don't sign an FRO unless we feel that the wood is in the area that we can identify. We do that with the first nations in consultation as we come into the agreement. As we do that, after we sign the FRO, we find the operating area, because sometimes they want an area with other traditional values outside of just forestry.

So we work through that with each first nation as we come through it, but we are comfortable with the fact that we have the wood available. We have to identify it and obviously work with the other licensees in the area and the first nations, to identify the better operating areas for them.

The annual budget for 2007-2008, which is a revenue-sharing of the FROs, is $49 million. I used the round figure of $50 million earlier. That's in the operating budget of the ministry, and that's the same as it was in '06-07.

In '05-06 it was $39 million, and in '04-05 it was $29 million. It depends on how many more FROs we got. They're five-year incremental agreements. They get paid a quarterly payment for five years as part of the capacity-building, so that's why it's cash flow over a number of fiscal years.

B. Simpson: I want to be clear that this is out of the Ministry of Forests and Range budget. You have the line allocation for it, and the ministry is bearing the cost and their cost of operation.

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, it's in the operating budget of the ministry. It's a line item in the ministry for this particular purpose, and we carry it within our budget.

B. Simpson: Given those calculations then, $250 million or thereabouts for the clawback and $133 million — although if you take $8 million off of that, let's call it $125 million — and $166 million for first nations. Half a billion dollars for the revitalization strategy.

Are there other costs associated with the revitalization strategy that the taxpayers had to bear?

Hon. R. Coleman: Those are the three significant cost items. There might be some operational costs here or there, but nothing that would be identified.

I do want to be clear about one thing. Government was moving towards capacity-building for first nations and looking at opportunities, like forest and range opportunities, before the Forestry Revitalization Act.

I don't think the member intends for the discussion to be that the Forestry Revitalization Act shouldn't have been there for first nations or that first nations shouldn't be allowed to participate in the forest sector. Whatever cost that is with building capacity, new relationship, giving first nations opportunities, it needed to be done whether this Forestry Revitalization Act had ever been done or not. The fact of the matter is that the forest and range opportunities are something to help build capacity and build opportunity for first nations.

The member is right about a couple of things. One is that I personally as a minister have said to first nations forest council and the rest of them that I'd like to see more of the wood move. Some of that may have to do with how we manage to price it in the future to make it more economically viable for first nations and what we can do with that.

That work is ongoing, because I certainly would like to see growth in the participation of the first nations that have FROs in the actual on-the-ground management of the forest and moving the fibre. I think it's important that we get to the next step and get further than we have to date.

B. Simpson: I wasn't calling into question the need to do capacity-building with first nations. It's an explicit statement in the Forestry Revitalization Act that this would be part of the Forestry Revitalization Act. I'm trying to determine the costs of the forestry revitalization strategy. This was an explicit statement of costs, and that's all I'm trying to do.

With respect to FRAs and FROs and capacity-building, I'm not sure if the minister has read the Auditor General's report on treaties, which says they get in the way and that they're not very good for ongoing treaty negotiations. They actually may get in the way of treaty negotiations. We have circumstances where it has unfairly impacted first nations who either have treaty processes in the works or don't qualify for one. I want to put that on the record that there's a difference of opinion that the Auditor General has about how good these Forests and Range FROs are. I will explore in more detail the volume issue associated with that shortly.

The reason for trying to understand the cost is that this was a massive undertaking. I don't dispute the language of the day and the rhetoric since then — that this was a significant rewriting of the Forest Act, of the way that we do business on the land base, going from a prescriptive Forest Practices Code to the so-called results-based Forest and Range Practices Act. However, it was also a massive change movement and a massive change initiative.

At the same time that this act got put in place, the Ministry of Forests and Range also had a number of people taken out. I know from my experience that it's a recipe for disaster when you do those two initiatives at the same time — a massive change initiative and a massive downsizing of your capacity to engage in that change.

I want to read something from the heartlands economic strategy, the forestry revitalization plan. The previous minister, Minister de Jong at the time, in his introductory comments says:

The Chair: Member, just to remind you that you refer to the member through his constituency, rather than the name.

Hon. R. Coleman: I think today, if you look at the periodicals and different reports — whether they come from the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers or different publications — that British Columbia is actually leading the way in forest policy in this country. I do believe that in the interior of B.C. we have today one of most competitive forest sectors in the world. They probably have the best operations and technologies of anybody they compete with.

As the member knows, that's not the case for the coast. The coast is facing a bunch of significant challenges, not the least of which are aging plants and access to fibre, like the member mentioned earlier. Some of the stresses on the land base and issues in and around that we're trying to address, as the member knows, in the near future.

Did it accomplish its goals? I think it's a work in progress. I think it did accomplish a lot of its goals, and it has more to accomplish. That's why we continue to work on it — for us to be able to make the changes, if necessary, as we go along and learn from doing this. I think you learn by doing; you don't learn by sitting back and doing nothing.

B. Simpson: As someone who worked in the interior and knows the interior very well, I would challenge the minister's contention that it's competitive in the global marketplace. There are a lot of factors involved there.

Yes, they are very good sawmillers — no question. They have the latest and the greatest technology — no question. But the only year that they made significant money was the year that they got the most substantive beetle uplifts and had two-bit wood. The year after that, when the market in the U.S. was still hot, they started losing money. They started finding it very difficult to make money.

My question wasn't around whether or not we should have sat still or what we should have done. My question is: has the ministry or the minister done a substantive evaluation of the revitalization strategy — all of its components?

It had very explicit, stated, intended outcomes. Has that been evaluated against the fact that we are now four years into it and half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money have gone into it? Is the ministry or the minister's office doing a point-for-point analysis of whether or not we've made the changes that we were hoping to make?

Hon. R. Coleman: We benchmark annually. We feel there are areas of the forest sector that we have no control over as a jurisdiction, which are the U.S. dollar and markets — that sort of thing — because they're international.

The B.C. interior does better than any other area of Canada. It beats out a number of areas around the

world. The B.C. coast and interior are also ahead of a number of other jurisdictions. We have done things like global log cost variables — delivered log costs, global delivered log costs.

The ministry's responsibility is to have an environment that people can compete within. I think the significant change was trying to get to where we'd have a market pricing system so that people could establish the pricing of logs versus the old stumpage system that, as the member knows, was quite complicated and oftentimes under attack in some way or another.

We benchmark annually. From the Forests Ministry's perspective, which is the job that we're talking about here, and from the budget that is deployed in this ministry because we're in the estimates debate, we're having successes in our benchmarks and in our annual analysis, and we'll continue. We monitor that annually, and we'll continue to do so and adapt in the future.

The one thing you can't do — I know the member knows this — in this industry is stay static. If you stay static in this industry, you don't react quickly enough to markets and opportunities. We have to, as a ministry, be pretty progressive, which I think my staff are. My senior management, and actually my managers across B.C., are probably some of the best in the world. They benchmark. They watch it. They feed into the ministry and the minister, and we watch how our operations are.

B. Simpson: My question was more as a change initiative to the internal metrics, not the external metrics and not the benchmarking against elsewhere. There were explicit, intended outcomes in the Forestry Revitalization Act.

As an example, in the heartlands economic strategy it talks about 27 mills having closed permanently and 13,000 forest workers having lost their jobs in B.C. since 1997. How many mills have closed, and how many people have lost their jobs since 2001?

Hon. R. Coleman: I do know that during the last five years of the former government and the first five years of this government, there were more mill closures under the former government. I do know that. I'll try and get the member the list of those. I do know they were awful close, though, in numbers. I mean, let's be fair there.

The one thing that is an interesting fact and figure, which we do have for the member with regards to forest revitalization, is that employment in the forest sector in 2006 actually increased by 2.4 percent to 81,600 people. That's reversing the trend that had been experienced for years in the forest sector, particularly even in the previous three years. There had been a drop in numbers of people in the forest sector, and the trend reversed on the number of people employed in the forest sector.

B. Simpson: I think that's called mountain pine beetle salvage and private land logging, so I'm not quite sure how helpful that number is.

Again, what I'm hearing the minister say is that we haven't been tracking. Is that right? We haven't been tracking the number of mills closed and the number of jobs lost since the revitalization strategy was put in place.

Hon. R. Coleman: We can probably get the member the list of mills that have closed in the last 15 years. We can probably produce that list. We can't do it right now, but we probably could. We do know that a number have been closed for various reasons. As the member well knows, sometimes mills close because they change what they're doing, because they're underfinanced or because of markets.

We also know that in 2006, West Fraser had started up its new $110 million supermill in Quesnel — during the fourth quarter of 2006. TallOil is investing $110 million to create 640 jobs from forest licences awarded to the company to manufacture industrial pellets for the European bioenergy market. Ainsworth Lumber is to invest by 2009 with regard to an oriented strand board plant. Western Forest Products announced it would invest $13 million in its Cowichan Bay sawmill and in November 2006 announced that it would be investing $2 million in Saltair near Ladysmith. At the same time, in fairness, they closed the New Westminster mill to open Saltair, so one closed and one opened. There have been other investments made.

I don't know whether it's too early to just give the member all the numbers. I mean, we can do an assessment. We know how the industry is year to year, but I don't know that you can today make the decision that the Forestry Revitalization Act has been a total success or not a total success. I do think that it's changed the landscape and stabilized the environment.

People know there's a market pricing system, people know what the takeback did, and people know that first nations now have opportunities. It's set a pretty good direction that we will work with as we go forward.

B. Simpson: I will deal with the Ainsworth and TallOil claims later on, because those claims are questionable. Western Forest Products is again doing some of their adjusting. There were other mills that were closed, whether it was Cascadia or whoever. That's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is: what is the government internally benchmarking as the success or failure of a half-billion dollar project and as substantive change?

Let's go into it a little bit deeper. There's an unstated intent of the forest revitalization strategy, the act, the changes and so on — to prevent a softwood lumber agreement. If we changed the tenures, if we made our public tenure holding more like private, if we did the market pricing system, if we freed up mills from appurtenancy requirements, if we took the ministerial oversight away from tenure changes and everything else, there was an unstated intent — although there's some explicit documents to that effect — that this was an attempt to avoid a softwood

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, I guess the member is reading something between the lines that I'm not reading. The fact of the matter is that we did the Forest and Range Practices Act for domestic purposes, to change how we operate internally in British Columbia. There was no stated purpose that we would avoid a softwood lumber agreement.

I mean, how could you possibly even think that? How could you even say that in an environment where there's been 30 years of litigation with regard to this? Maybe one of the purposes was to reposition us better with regard to softwood, which I think was accomplished, but certainly there is no stated purpose at any time that the changes we're making were going to bring a removal of any softwood arrangement with the United States of America.

B. Simpson: Mr. Chair, let me challenge that. We had Mr. Aldonas up here looking at what we were doing here, with the express purpose of finding out if these Forest Act changes would allow us to avoid another softwood lumber agreement.

My question to the minister is: were we not in negotiations with the United States, and were we not conferring with United States members of their trade group, the Council of Forest Industries and the B.C. Lumber Trade Council to attempt through the forest revitalization strategy to avoid a softwood lumber agreement?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, we brought Mr. Aldonas up here. We explained to him what we're doing to show him so that when he was at any table in the United States with regards to discussions in and around softwood and duties…. At that time there were duties and there were arguments legally back and forth on softwood. But if the member thinks that Mr. Aldonas could possibly come up to Canada, see what we were doing — by the way, the right thing with regards to forest practices and the right thing with regards to moving to market pricing and the right thing for our domestic purposes to stabilize the future of our industry….

If he thinks that he could go back to the United States and deal with the softwood lumber lobby in the United States, which is a very strong political group in itself, in the southeastern part of the United States particularly — who, quite frankly, at any time will never, ever agree that British Columbia or Canada can have free access to their marketplace in forestry….

The reason for that is because there are inefficient operators, but there are also land barons down in the southeastern part of the United States who grow trees and want to keep the value of the tree up — to the detriment of their marketplace, quite frankly. But they actually do have the ability to push on any negotiation side where that situation can occur.

The reality for us was that we made these changes for domestic purposes, certainly with some optimism that it might mitigate a future negotiation that we may have with the United States. But I don't think that anytime anybody thought there wouldn't be any form of softwood lumber agreement having to be achieved if you're going to stabilize the market access to the U.S.

B. Simpson: So the minister is contending that the removal of appurtenance, the removal of tenure oversights, the attempt to claw back — and he states explicitly to get back to 50 percent free logs into the market — the removal of cut control, the market pricing system — all of that was not recommended to us as a way to avoid, not mitigate; a way to be excluded from a future softwood lumber agreement after the old agreement died in 2001. That between 2001 and 2003 there was not a back-and-forth with parties around how we avoid another softwood lumber agreement. That the wrap-up of all of these — the breaking of the social contract, the freeing up of tenures, the market pricing system, the clawback — was not an attempt not to mitigate but to avoid a softwood lumber agreement….

Hon. R. Coleman: The changes we made referred to our own domestic purposes. Certainly, there were back-and-forth discussions. As I understand it now, that was five or six years ago. I wasn't in on those discussions — whether it would buy us any peace or buy us anything with the U.S.

There certainly was, obviously, the U.S. Trade Representative back-and-forth, and discussions with the federal government would have taken place at that time. We would keep them apprised of whatever changes we would make in our forest sector. We were trying, obviously — I would surmise — to mitigate some of the concerns the U.S. had with regards to the punitive duties they were putting on our product after the expiry of the previous agreement.

I don't think that it would avoid a softwood lumber agreement, but it may get us to the table to get one that we thought might be fair or acceptable to our industry and to our country — as one of the players in the country perhaps.

Certainly, we made these decisions back in 2001, 2002, 2003, because we had reports from people like Peter Pearse and recommendations from people across the country and experts in forestry that said: "You need to change the dynamic of your forest sector going forward." So we made a lot of those changes because of that type of work that was done in and outside of government, as I would understand it. But we didn't make the decisions and make these changes solely for the purposes of something to do with the U.S. and softwood.

B. Simpson: I won't belabour that point, but let's take the minister's own language. It was an attempt to mitigate. Did it?

Hon. R. Coleman: I have learned one thing as a minister. It's a long road when it comes to softwood, but I believe that, yes, it did accomplish a number of things.

First of all, we were continuing to win on certain areas with regards to litigation, which I think brought the U.S. to realize that a lot of the changes that we made were defensible. We have our market pricing system recognized in the softwood lumber agreement, which we would have never had before. It has brought us closer to being able to start some discussions with regards to logs for lumber, with regards to some of the issues on the coast, on private logs, as the member is aware.

More importantly, I think it's a body of work that leads us down the road to — whether it's four or seven years when this agreement expires…. It protects us against future countervaillance with regards to it, because I think that people are seeing the system working for a period of time and the changes in place, and it gives us a stronger case going forward. That's the advice I get from people that are way more trained in trade law than I am and ever will be, quite frankly.

I think that a lot of the things we did actually have had positive results with regards to that piece of the file.

B. Simpson: In what way was B.C. treated differently than the rest of Canada? If we had done all these changes, we had created the kind of pain that we've created in many coastal communities, the clawback and all of the change that occurred…. The minister said part of the intent was to mitigate a future softwood lumber agreement. What kind of a better deal did B.C. get than the rest of Canada?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, as I said, the MPS system is recognized in the softwood lumber agreement. Now, that's very significant. Nobody else has an MPS system across this country that has a system recognized within softwood.

More importantly, it's going to help us deal. It will have a huge impact on our softwood exports in the future and our whole milling and everything in the interior as we see the decline in the value of the mountain pine beetle, simply because the market pricing system will reflect that. That allows for not having an argument over whether we set artificial stumpage or not, with regards to the declining value of that particular stuff.

The other issue in and around softwood was that the rest of this country, I think, wanted to go for a quota system that would see a lower tax but wouldn't allow for an identification of market share. It was to their benefit to do that, because they were actually seeing declining markets, whereas our market share was going up in the U.S. So we protected our market share in the agreement — plus 10 percent, plus a 1-percent surge.

Those two things were probably different than anything else. But I have to remind the member that the deal is actually a U.S.-Canada softwood lumber deal. It's not a B.C.-U.S. softwood lumber deal. It is an agreement for a country. The federal government certainly knew at that time — and the previous one too — and will balance off based on whatever issues are in front of them with regards to these things too. That's why it is a very difficult, dynamic file — quite frankly.

B. Simpson: Did recognition of our market pricing system result in a lower border tax for British Columbia?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member knows directly that it did not — right? Fine, I'll accept the question in the spirit that it's given. However, the tax — whatever it is at the border at any given time — is based on what price people are being paid on a market pricing system for wood. So if the wood price goes down, the tax goes down.

It doesn't go down by a percentage. It stays at the same percentage of value, but if the value goes down, it's a percentage of a lower value. That's where the biggest advantage of an MPS system and a tax that's tied to it is — on the value side. When you see the price come down at the border, then it has an effect, because that's how we calculate what they pay us in stumpage.

I said that wrong. They pay us lower stumpage — right? — which brings the first-mill price down, which should give them an advantage on what hits the border. They're still tied to the U.S. composite price, but the market pricing system will bring down the price that they're paying for the raw fibre simply because if the price comes down, that's where the benefit comes in.

B. Simpson: Wow. Bottom line — basically, we didn't really get a mitigation on the deal. We got the same deal as everybody else. Yes, we got an adjustment on quota. But you know, one could argue that B.C. could have done that anyway.

The minister's comments with respect to "it's a Canada-U.S. deal" fly in the face of comments that the minister was making last year about being the big dog. "I'm driving the bus. B.C. is the biggest player in the industry." The whole works.

Because I challenged the minister in the House, the minister said that B.C. was driving the bus and making sure it was a deal that was good for B.C.

If we were driving the bus and the intent of the revitalization strategy was to get some mitigation on a future deal — if not to avoid the deal, as I contend that it is — then the answer to my question is: we didn't get much of a deal. We got the same as everybody else. We're getting a 15-percent border tax and, when we go into surge, 22.5 percent.

The minister has raised interesting comments. First, on the market pricing system: what is the U.S. scrutiny of our market pricing system?

Hon. R. Coleman: Quite frankly, in forests in this country British Columbia is the big dog on the block. We ship more to the United States than most jurisdictions combined. The fact of the matter is that when we were doing the softwood negotiations, if our companies had not agreed to the framework agreement — and told me that they agreed to the framework agreement — we would never have said to the federal

government that we were in favour of the framework agreement. We would never have gone there, because it was a negotiation.

They were engaged nationally, across the country, with other lumber trade councils like the Canadian lumber trade council, which was also out here at the time. They actually were very much a big part of the decision to go forward, and if they hadn't said so, we wouldn't have.

Just so the member knows, we have an obligation under article 17 of the softwood lumber agreement, which means that we provide information to Canada, because again, I'm reminding the member that it's a Canadian-U.S. softwood lumber agreement. In that particular agreement between the two countries, we provide information with regards to changes that would be made, but MPS is grandfathered in the agreement. Our market pricing system was protected in the softwood lumber agreement, and it was done very much because that was a position we were not prepared to move off of.

On the clarification to the member — just on the other thing, the convoluted answer I gave earlier, which I will try and improve on — there are two systems that came out of softwood. A jurisdiction can go on either one of the two systems. They can choose to either go to a quota system, which was option B, or to a non-quota system, which was option A, based on market share. Most of the rest of the country, with the exception of Alberta, went with option B, and we went with option A, like Alberta did.

The companies discussed that decision with us as we came through. They agreed to the structure of those two opportunities. The reason those two were there was because, quite frankly, a couple of the jurisdictions in this country I don't think have a very big vision for the future of their forest sector.

They think a quota is just fine, because they'll just ship to the border, by quarter, a certain amount of volume. They actually are probably seeing that they've been overharvesting for too long, and their annual allowable cuts are going to come down. Their mills are not efficient enough to compete.

Under the quota system, you can take a smaller tax, but you get less volume. When you're dealing with an issue like we are with mountain pine beetle, we felt it was important to go the other way. That's why the two options were there.

And no, because it's a national tax, hon. Member, we didn't get any different percentage of tax at the border than anybody else. It's based on the U.S. composite price at the particular time. It could be anywhere from zero percent to 15 percent. If there is a surge under the one system…. Under both systems, actually, the tax goes up by 50 percent if there is a surge in either one of the two systems.

The market pricing system grandfathered. The important aspect of that was that we knew very clearly in our minds as we came through this negotiation that if we grandfathered MPS, which was the system that was acceptable in the agreement to price our wood, and if we saw a price come down, then the price would come down without argument with the United States. We would be able to point to our market pricing system and say: "These are the bids. This is why it's down by whatever — $1 or $2 or 50 cents — a cubic metre. Because the market pricing system has dictated that."

That was a very important nuance, I think, particularly for the interior of B.C. But it's also a nuance in some other areas that will emerge over the next number of years as we see how forest health gets affected, maybe in the southern interior down through Merritt into the Okanagan — hopefully, not over to the Kootenays, but you never know. What we're going to have to look at, at some point in time, which is an area that we don't export to the United States…. We don't have any lumber manufacturing like the northwest. How we're going to look at that….

We felt very strongly — and so did the companies in this negotiation — that the MPS needed to be protected, and that's why it was.

B. Simpson: I'm not sure what the minister is referring to about forest health problems making their way into the Kootenays. They're already there. I just came from there. They're dealing with mountain pine beetle and various other pests. That's already happening.

Question to the minister: is the minister saying that if we get a significant downward trend in the market pricing system, we are absolved from any potential arbitration under countervail in the softwood lumber agreement?

Hon. R. Coleman: We think so. However, we never know what the other party in an agreement is going to do. We have certainly, by grandfathering it, had greater protection and recognition for our pricing system, and we're in a way better defensible position than we ever were in the past.

B. Simpson: Would that include adjustments to the actual formula? So leaving the formula as it is, as it was negotiated and as it was explained to the U.S., we start to get a bit of a downward trend. I hear the minister saying that hopefully — fingers crossed, legs crossed — they don't take us to arbitration on that. But what if we want to adjust the formula because the formula, we believe, needs to be adjusted? Is that subject to countervail?

Hon. R. Coleman: I caution the member saying that I say: "Cross my legs. Cross my fingers." I have no doubt that we've made the right deal here and that we have the right language in this agreement.

I do know the history of litigation, though, and I do know the history of agreements. At times there can be reasons for people to ask questions about it. Frankly, that's why the agreement is there. It's much better for us if at some point we go and have a discussion rather than somebody heading off to court and starting one more legal action again, as was happening in the past.

We think, quite frankly, that the language in the agreement gives us the ability to change the market pricing system to be more…. If we think it makes it more statistically accurate or gives it more predictive capability of the model, which the U.S. would welcome, we inform them if we do that.

Obviously, we haven't done it yet, but if over time we do come across a more statistically predictive capability, then we would inform them, and they can ask for an explanation. They can take us to consultation, but my advice is that the language in the act allows us to do that. It was put in there specifically for that.

B. Simpson: The language of the act is an interesting statement because, as the minister is well aware, a lot of people are saying the language of this act — the deal — is so loose and so nebulous in many areas that it's going to be very difficult to interpret, and we're going to be in all kinds of arbitration disputes with the U.S. So I'll look forward to seeing what happens as we try to adjust our market pricing system, and I hope that we're not in arbitration.

A couple of quick things before I get into some substantive issues with softwood lumber. The minister mentioned the lumber produced from private logs. Have we convened that table to have that discussion?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have spoken to the federal government about it. They have had conversations with the USTR. They are setting up the chairs. They actually have set up the chairs, and then they will sit down and work out a date when those meetings can start taking place.

The chairs, just for the member's information, are a gentleman by the name of Paul Robertson from the department of trade for the federal government of Canada and a guy by the name of John Melle from the U.S. Trade Representative's office in Washington.

B. Simpson: What's the time frame for that? Because as the minister is fully aware, we're going to have difficulties resolving the private log export issue unless we address the issue of tax on lumber from those private logs. Does the minister have a sense of the time frame for a resolution to that issue that was left hanging in the deal?

Hon. R. Coleman: I don't have a definitive time line. It's the federal government that's dealing with that, and they will. We do know that it's one of the priorities, given the communication that went on around softwood from the U.S. Trade Representative back to Canada.

I never thought at any time that what we have to do on the log export issue — as we move forward, which we're going to do shortly — would be driven by waiting for that to take place. Because it was something that we couldn't get done in the agreement. I felt that it would take some time to get the agreement working and settled down before they would actually engage on that particular subject, and then whether they truly want to engage will be an interesting subject in itself.

We will deal with log exports. What we need to do with them in those decisions in the ensuing weeks from now…. We won't be tied to the time line with regards to this because I think it's a discussion that takes place between the two countries.

B. Simpson: There were a number of people at the time who were echoing what I hear in the minister's words. That is that once we got the deal, there was no opportunity for us to get resolution on the lumber from private logs. We'll see if that remains to hang out there, particularly since the whole deal has now been brought into question.

Another tidy-up question: does the minister know what happened to the billion dollars we left behind? Is that reported out to Canada?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear. I did not say and never have said that I thought we could never get the logs-for-lumber deal done. I thought it would take some time and some work. We had to have people recognize the United States, as we build a working relationship for the first time in a long time, and that maybe people could be trusted to accomplish things.

Canada received all the dollars back and then, under the agreement, dispersed money back to the United States. Approximately $500 million went to the coalition, which was part of the agreement and agreed to by the parties on both sides of the border. Some $450 million has basically been dispersed to foundations for joint Canada-U.S. wood promotion and some charitable purposes — things like Katrina and that sort of stuff. Then some money has been retained to set up the dispute resolution office for both countries.

B. Simpson: Is there a more detailed reporting of that given to Canada and through Canada to the provinces, particularly on the $450 million that came on the table late to leave for charitable purposes? What is the reporting mechanism for how the Americans ended up using that money?

Hon. R. Coleman: The way this worked is that the foundations have received the money. Canada has reported to us what those foundations were and how much. We can get the member a list of that — in the United States. As I understand it, the reason it took a little longer to disperse the money than some people thought it might is because the U.S. was actually doing a due diligence on, basically, the qualifications of the recipients and the background of the foundations that would be flowing it to recipients, so that it was going to the purposes it was intended to go to.

B. Simpson: I would appreciate it. We'll keep a list, like we normally do, of things that we will follow up on.

The minister mentioned the language of the deal. Are there questions about the application of the deal that are causing a dispute between ourselves and Canada or between Canada and the United States?

Hon. R. Coleman: The member may know that on Thursday of this week the federal Minister of Trade and the U.S. Trade Representative are meeting with regards to the calculation of the surge. There's been no mediation or dispute requested. It's just strictly a conversation as to how that was done — how Canada calculated that in, I think, the month of January, which is the first time we've had that sort of conversation take place.

I will obviously be kept apprised of what those discussions are by the minister as they come through, but we're not at the table dealing with it. It's federal government to federal government.

B. Simpson: That's what my information says — that we are now in the dispute around surge and that it may result in a countervail action against us, depending on what the discussions are. But what level of assistance is provided by the provincial government for mills, particularly independent smaller mills, etc., to make sense out of all of this? Does the province have anybody providing assistance to smaller operators to make sense out of what the implications of this deal are for their business?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I want to correct the member on his language, because we don't go to countervail anymore. This agreement allows us…. If the U.S., after discussions, wanted to go to mediation, they could, but not to countervail. Countervail is when somebody just puts a countervail duty on a product at the border, and that's what we eliminated by doing softwood — not getting into that.

We brought the federal government out to explain it to our various companies in B.C. way back at the beginning. Our regional staff have contact numbers for any company that needs one-to-one visits with regards to any of the issues in and around softwood, and they can make those calls to our regional staff, or they can call my ADM, Associate Deputy Minister Bob Friesen, at any time. He has staff that are available to deal with it.

We have regular contact, also, through any association meetings. We have staff at them. We've operated seminars and workshops for people, and we'll continue to do that. So if anybody has any issues, they can…. To be honest with you, in talking to folks at the different meetings I've been at recently, they're pretty complimentary about the access to staff and information. There is also a website, so they can go to that as well.

If somebody has a particular one-on-one difficulty that you come across, I would suggest that they contact the ADM's office, and he will ensure that they have someone who is a resource to help them with their questions.

B. Simpson: I guess the struggle I have is that a lot of the independents…. I'm happy to hear that there are resources there, but a lot of the associations are struggling to try and figure out how to make sense of this. Particularly, now we've added….

I guess there is an irony. The softwood lumber agreement was supposed to add certainty. And here you have, particularly, a smaller operator — I'll talk about reman in a second and some of the things they are having to live with — who doesn't know from one month to the next what his costs are going to be, because he has got to wait for the calculation to occur, and then he has to look back to the next month for his cost to be fully realized.

Now with a potential — even the nature of it being potential doesn't matter — dispute over the calculation of surge that may take 12 to 18 months to resolve…. All the while that individual is operating, not knowing what last month's charges are going to be and looking forward and not knowing that if there is a finding against Canada, he may end up having to pay retroactive taxes for anywhere between a 12- and 18-month period.

When you have those independents who have been hurt as a result of them having to give up tenure because of this deal, as a result of the botch that occurred on taxing the independents…. I'll get into that in a second.

We've got a letter from Revenue Canada that states explicitly that there was an oversight in the deal on how the tax was categorized for independent remanufacturers. We have not added certainty. We've added uncertainty into the marketplace in a way that these individuals are really struggling to stay afloat. That's why I raised the questions about how much help these folks are getting to understand that.

Also, is it possible that if we get into a situation where we are going to have this surge tax retroactively applied….? If we are going to have mills that are going to have to deal with the implications of that, do we have the capabilities of assisting those operators to float them, whether it's loan guarantees or whatever, to get over the hump?

Hon. R. Coleman: I know the member is totally opposed to the softwood lumber deal. I know he wants to find every negative opportunity to criticize it. I know he doesn't want to admit that there's anything good that came out of it — which is fine; I accept it. Also, it drives his questions, which is, obviously, going to be the case. I have no problem with that either; I accept it.

We're at the information-exchange stage in one month of surge, in the early stages. We haven't gone to arbitration. We haven't had a ruling against anybody. If there's a company that has a concern, that wants to know how they could calculate and figure out how to manage this for a single month — versus when we used to get changes in duties that could come from anywhere, jump up as high as 27 percent and move all over the map, as the uncertainty was prior to softwood — they can contact the ADM's office, and we'll work with individual companies.

At the same time, I'm not going to preconclude what the…. Even if it goes to mediation, it may be settled in the conversation that takes place in Ottawa on Thursday that nothing more needs to be done. That's the agreement. It doesn't take us to litigation, mediation and arbitration immediately. It allows us to try

and manage, through cooperation, the calculations of things that should work for this agreement, so I'm not going to prejudge that.

I will tell the member that if he knows someone who has a question, he can certainly contact my office, the deputy's office, the ADM's office or the regional office, and we will have people who will work them through their concerns.

B. Simpson: It always interests me when the minister seems surprised that the opposition is standing in opposition. That's my job. We've had that discussion in this House before.

However, in this case, the minister is correct. This deal is a silly deal, it was an unnecessary deal, and it has done nothing for the industry. It has not brought certainty; it has brought uncertainty. As we're seeing, for many individuals it's starting to fall apart.

Let me raise the question here again, going back to the independent remanufacturers. This is a letter dated March 19, 2007, from Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. It has to do with the calculation of the export charge on the export price for secondary wood products as defined under the trade deal, and the issue is the difference between independent remanufacturers and dependent remanufacturers.

On secondary products, it says: "The calculation of the tax may indeed be lower than the first-mill value that the independent remanufacturers must use, which of course results in a lower export charge." So there's a preferential treatment based on the definition of whether you are non-dependent or dependent.

The letter states categorically: "It seems clear that this matter was not foreseen by government or industry when preferential treatment for independent remanufacturers was negotiated under the softwood lumber agreement." Basically, it says we can't do anything about this, and they're going to have to live with it.

Has the minister been apprised of this issue? If so, what are we going to do to help out the folks that have been hurt by this deal, by an unfair circumstance in the tax allocation, or the tax accorded to their products, between whether you're a non-independent remanufacturer or dependent remanufacturer?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, we are aware of the Canada Revenue Agency letter. I haven't had an opportunity to have a discussion with David Emerson with regards to it. On that particular side there is no question that when the CRA rules, the CRA rules, federally. Canada Revenue Agency is not one that usually negotiates — at least if you're being audited or anything like that — that I know.

I think that our operators are…. Some of them have begun to adjust to this particular ruling and will. It really comes down to the fact that they want to have on a lower-grade product something below the first-mill price and on a higher-grade product a different price. In actual fact, they get caught in the first-mill price of the average, and I think that's what the interpretation is from the CRA. So we will work with industry to see if we can find solutions to that.

B. Simpson: Just a question on this, then, because it seems that other things are coming up: how to calculate surge, whether the taxing has been thought through and are there language issues and what people are calling "loose ends" in the deal.

Who provided oversight for British Columbia during the negotiations and signed-off on behalf of British Columbia that we were comfortable with the deal in its final form?

Hon. R. Coleman: We have a legal counsel on both sides of the border. We have a variety of staff that provided technical input.

This was obviously all given to the federal government because they're the ones that were writing the agreement and sharing the drafts with us in British Columbia. As well as legal counsel for the various…. The B.C. Lumber Trade Council, I believe, had somebody that was looking at various aspects of the language, as well, as we came through this. So it was a collaborative effort by about six or seven levels of government, through their staff and legal counsels, plus the federal government and legal counsel in Washington.

It went through a pretty big scrub, I guess, as we came through the agreement down to the legal agreement that was signed by the…. I think the first draft was initialled by the minister, and then the final draft was signed by the two heads of state from the two countries. That's where that would have gone.

I do believe that this agreement, frankly, has great management opportunities to build relationships between the two countries, rather than people running off and having legal action every time someone blinks. I think that that's what the spirit of the agreement is. That's what we'll have to work through over the next number of years.

B. Simpson: I guess we'll see how much of that $50 million we've set aside for arbitrations speaks to that question of how far we're going to run. This time we're not going to run in North America; we're going to run over to London. So I'm not sure how much we've made progress on that.

The question of oversight, though…. Mr. Dobell has a contract in the Premier's office that explicitly states that he was involved in the softwood lumber agreement. What role did he play in signing off on the final deal?

Hon. R. Coleman: He didn't sign off on the deal. That's not his role. He was a facilitator of discussion between the various members of industry around the table as we came through that process and also provided advice on certain issues with regards to the deal to me as a minister, as one of the people that was involved in some of the discussions.

The signoff on the deal was…. It's a Canada-U.S. trade agreement, so we don't sign off on the trade agreement. The two countries sign off on it.

Mr. Dobell did some very good work with my staff and with people across the country, in a good working relationship that had been established over many years with regards to Canada-U.S. relationships through his role in various roles in government. He was a participant in the discussions and gave feedback on those discussions, whether it was with the B.C. Lumber Trade Council or with the conference calls that were taking place during the move up to the framework agreement or through some of the discussions with regards to coming down to the document itself.

B. Simpson: Is the minister suggesting, in what he just said there, that if B.C. didn't want this deal, we couldn't have stopped it?

The minister keeps saying it's a Canada-U.S. deal, but it's my understanding from other comments the minister has made in past history that if B.C. said they didn't like it we would have stopped the deal cold in its tracks because we are the largest player. So we must have had some influence, and we must have had some ability to influence the outcomes. I'm not quite sure why the minister keeps referring back to that it's a Canada-U.S. deal when we are a signatory to the deal in some capacity.

Was Mr. Dobell engaged through the Premier's office, flying back and forth and going out to Ottawa and doing any negotiations on our behalf?

Hon. R. Coleman: There wasn't a bunch of flying back and forth from anywhere taking place, because the room that was set up to basically discuss the stuff going into the framework agreement was set up in Vancouver. Mr. Dobell and some of our technical staff had gone to the U.S. to work with the federal people with regards to some technical aspects and to relay conversations and interests of British Columbia back to that table — if you want to describe it as a people.

The member's previous comment was correct. I believe that if B.C. had decided that it did not want to sign on to the framework agreement, that the federal government would probably not have proceeded. But the reality is that we did, and we did because we had every major company in British Columbia and a list of companies from all over B.C. — small, medium and large, and I talked to them all personally — that clearly indicated that they wanted the deal to get done and they supported the framework agreement as it stood.

We moved forward, and so that's it from that standpoint. From the other standpoint, commissioner Dobell is a very capable individual who had a very good understanding of the entire softwood lumber issue because of his involvement over many years with folks involved in the industry and the legal community with regards to softwood and also because of his previous roles within government and the relationship that he had with people in the United States. He had an understanding of the players, I guess, and at least on some personal level knew them, and was able to articulate with our staff and our technical staff the concerns of British Columbia as we came through the discussion of the framework agreement.

It wasn't, as the member describes, flying back and forth to Ottawa or something. It was actually work being done on a very collaborative basis. Mr. Dobell was part of that team of people, including people in my ministry who stayed up and worked very, very long hours and people in our law firm in Washington and our other legal counsel in Canada that provided us with advice with regards to the discussions. Also, all of those people had a relationship with people at the federal level, who had legal counsel and people in drafting.

The first step was the framework agreement. After the framework agreement, then the writing of the actual softwood lumber agreement took place, and that moved into very much the technical, legal, drafting and conversations back and forth and discussions with regards to that, which were handled by legal counsel on both sides.

B. Simpson: Is the minister saying that West Fraser mills agreed to the deal?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm not going to get into individual conversations with individual companies or CEOs. I will tell the member this: that I canvassed the industry. There were some that perhaps were not as supportive of the deal but were also saying: "Maybe you should get it done." Others were highly supportive. For the most part, that would be the majority of the industry that were highly supportive of that.

I did a very good job of canvassing the industry prior to taking anything forward to cabinet and caucus with regards to the framework agreement, prior to the Premier announcing to the Prime Minister that we would proceed as one of the participants in the framework agreement.

The process was very defined and very rigorous. I was satisfied that the majority of industry in British Columbia supported the framework agreement, including members of a number of companies across British Columbia.

B. Simpson: I'll go back and look at Hansard after this, because I believe the minister has now moved from pretty much unanimous to a majority. West Fraser mills is a major player, and to this day, the CEO of that is still stating publicly that he didn't believe that industry had any choice in this deal, that they were forced into it.

Those are public statements that he has made. He believes that we were forced to jump the gun and that we should have pursued litigation. So I'm not quite sure how the minister canvassed when a large player in this whole fiasco was saying: "Let's proceed with litigation."

What about the independent lumber remanufacturers? Were the independent lumber remanufacturers supportive of the deal?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm the Minister of Forests, and I've been in a number of meetings with the CEO of West Fraser, who has never made that comment

directly to me. It's fine to say something after the fact, and people can have those conversations and what have you.

For the independent lumber remanufacturers…. I phoned most of the lumber remanufacturers in British Columbia personally as we came through this process. Their part-time executive director has never, ever supported the deal. He has done that publicly. He is the voice of them.

I can tell you that a whole bunch of their members really support this deal. Members of that organization are quite frustrated with the message that comes out from the one individual. I've sat in rooms…. As recently as three days ago I sat across the table from one company that now employs 150 people, which was in CCAA a year ago — thought that they were going to go bankrupt. They sat there and said to me: (a) "You saved our company by making softwood happen," (b) "The high-value cap has actually put us in a better marketing position than we've ever been in history of our company. We're making money, and our people have long-term, sustainable jobs." They believe that.

Now, some of those people are members of this particular individual's organization. A number of the people in that organization have actually apologized to me for the comments of that individual from the one organization that purports to represent the small remanners in British Columbia, which I am finding increasingly is not the case as I meet the individual companies across B.C.

B. Simpson: Does the minister believe that there have been no remanners, no companies, independents, that have basically called it quits as a result of the addition of this deal over top of fibre supply shortages, over top of having to give up their tenure? I mean, part of this deal that makes no sense to anybody is that we institutionalized the remanufacturers into the deal. They were supposed to make sure they were not even there.

What the individual that the minister is talking about says, quite clearly…. And I guess his association can deal with him if they don't agree. He is still retained by them. He's still part of that organization and represents that organization. His indication, as well as other CEOs who were negotiating at the time, said that first-mill price should never have been in the deal because it institutionalized that a whole group of other players were now part of the softwood tariff process that shouldn't have been. We should have actually got the reverse. They should have been taken out, and it should have been pure dimensional lumber products only.

My question to the minister is this. There are a number of independents who, because of the first-mill price arrangement, because they've had to give up B.C. timber sales at a time of some of the most constrained log market and fibre supply that we've had, are now faced with this tax. Do we have the ability to put a package together to assist the value-added remanufacture sector through all of the struggles that they're having?

Can we assist them with financial support? Can we assist them with stumpage support or access to fibre support? Can we put a package together for this group that appears to be hurt by this deal in a way that the larger corporations can absorb and they cannot?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I will tell the member that I met with a number of remanners way before the beginning of softwood, and they were the first ones who told me they needed a first-mill pricing on their product. They're the ones who told me they needed it. They're also the ones that said they need a high-value cap. Large numbers of them — and I don't have the numbers here — have all certified for first-mill status already.

We do have a consultant under contract now to go out and visit with remanners to see how we can help them to adjust in the market going forward. We're doing that because we've always said we would work with these groups to try to build capacity with them and deal with their issues as they came forward.

It's interesting to me. I had one company that sat across the table before softwood and said:

I've seen that individual since — right? — who tells me that they're investing more money in their plant. They got the duties back. Their debts are down, and they're in better shape than they've ever been as a company in a generation, as he put it to me. Those are the types of things I think we tried to accomplish in softwood.

Now, as we go through this, there are always the naysayers to a deal and those who would rather stay at 27-percent duty at the border forever and watch all of those small operators that were sending a higher-value product to the border — that would probably for the most part not even be in business today. They've told me that. I could actually sit down with the member and send him to companies in B.C. that told me that. I'd ask them, first of all, if they would allow me to tell him who they are, because oftentimes I accept a conversation from somebody in my office as confidential unless they tell me otherwise.

It's amazing to me. Before Christmas a bunch of companies came to me. They weren't there to ask for any fibre, and they weren't there to ask for any access. They were there to thank us for softwood and saving their organizations and their employees' long-term future in some pretty small communities across the province which really rely on those jobs big-time.

I think that we have moved along the road to where we will work with the remanners on the first-mill issues. We will have our consultant work with them as we come through this, and we will continue to try to improve all the time on everything that we do with regards to their particular business case.

Now, Madam Chair, we have been going for about three hours, and I wonder if we could take a five-minute recess, please.

The Chair: I will call a five-minute recess, and we will reconvene at five minutes after five.

B. Simpson: The question I asked was quite an explicit question, and I would like to see if I can get an answer to it. Irrespective of the minister's comments about who's happy with him and who's not, we've had this debate in here already. We have defined roles. I usually get the people who are not happy with the minister, and the minister gets the people who are happy with him. That's just the way the world works in a legislative democracy.

I don't think anybody can dispute that the value-added sector is in trouble. The remanufacturing sector is in trouble. The independents are in trouble. You just read the most recent version of the Truck Logger Magazine and the one before it. You look at what's going on in the interior and some of the questions around log supply, etc.

My question to the minister is this. Let's put aside whether softwood lumber has been good or not good on balance. We have a sector of the industry in trouble, a sector that has been included…. For whatever reason, many of those players have been included now in the softwood lumber deal.

Do we have the ability to put together a package to help out that sector with financial aid, loan guarantees, assistance with research and development or training or whatever? Do we have the ability to go and put something together for that sector?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, we don't do business subsidies. This government has never done them. It won't start now. The reason for that is…. Quite frankly, if the member knows the history, even around softwood, one of the biggest arguments of the U.S. was that we always subsidized our industry — whether through stumpage or whatever the case may be.

In Bill 18, which the member and I will be debating in the near future, we're talking about non-refundable forest licences for some independent sawmillers, for the value-added community. We'll have that discussion. I can't discuss those clauses in this particular environment, but we will when we discuss the legislation.

We are working on a program that would assist the sector in marketing products, providing information to the sector on new product technology and sources of input material supplies. We're working on that, and we will be releasing that package in the not too distant future.

B. Simpson: Let's move on to another issue that I canvassed with respect to softwood lumber, and that is with respect to policy changes. Are we constrained in making any policy changes as a result of the SLA?

Hon. R. Coleman: As the member knows, there's an anti-circumvention clause in the softwood lumber agreement. That's so people don't go running around trying to circumvent the deal. We can't just go and do any policy that might circumvent the deal. We have the ability to have discussions if there are some major changes or whatever that we want to make with the U.S. We can go and have a discussion with them.

There is anti-circumvention language, and it's there for a reason. We're very mindful of that as we manage our policies going forward.

B. Simpson: It shows you how our brains work. What I was referring to when I was using the term "countervail" was actually anti-circumvention. It's just hard-wired in my head for countervail, for some reason.

The anti-circumvention, though. One of the questions we had during the whole softwood debate was with respect to: would we give up any sovereignty over forest policy changes that we wanted to make in this province? My question to the minister on this is…. The minister, on December 12, 2006, sent a notice out to the Federation of British Columbia Woodlot Associations saying that they were going to get a pricing change effective January 1, 2007. That pricing change could not be brought into effect. Why was that?

Hon. R. Coleman: Just so we're not going to confuse this as part of softwood, there would have been some discussion, probably with pricing, on woodlots if I'd moved forward on it with the U.S. — maybe or maybe not. The reason I didn't move ahead at the time…. There were a number of reasons.

One is that we couldn't seem to get agreement among the woodlot federation members. We had the coast. They wanted a certain price on one area of the province versus another area of the province. They had some discussions back and forth. My staff had spent an inordinate amount of time over about a five- or six-week period, and I wasn't satisfied that we had reached the level where we were going to come to accommodation and agreement between the parties.

So I wrote the letter at the time that said I'm not doing the pricing change at this time. That was for three reasons, actually. One was that I wanted further engagement with the woodlot federation on efficiencies and what have you, which they could find if we improved certain ways of doing pricing, because we're trying to also drive out some of the costs for them.

In addition to that, I wanted to see how MPS would work over the next few months, to see how that would affect the interior numbers versus the global numbers that were being discussed at the time. So we've actually just engaged again with the woodlot federation in the past week with regards to this file, and we'll continue to work through it with them.

The member will know if he had been around the industry for any length of time — and I know he was in the industry at one time — that there's a lot of work done on woodlots with regards to how we try and price and do the stuff with them. I'm trying to get to something that is sustainable for the long term and that can find the efficiencies on the ground for them on the cost drivers, so that we can work this out together. That's the commitment I made to them, and that's why we are engaged with them now that we have some more data.

B. Simpson: Again, I think the Hansard comments here might be of interest to the woodlot federation because they understood that the December 12 letter, which thanks the federation for participating, states categorically that what follows is a summary of changes to the pricing of Crown timber from woodlot licences. It talks about the interior licences on or after January 1 — this is going to happen — and recognizes the coast — there's still work to be done. The expectation among woodlot owners was that the minister was giving direction to fix that interior pricing while you continued to work on the coast.

It's my understanding that the problem with this was the SLA. So was this run by the representatives of Prime Minister Harper's government for any kind of approval or sign-off? Was it taken out to Ottawa?

Hon. R. Coleman: Subsequent to the letter the member refers to in December, my staff felt that there needed to be some more work done. There was some modest concern, but I wouldn't say particular concern, that drove this decision with regards to the softwood lumber agreement. It was also included with regards to how the changes to the interior pricing manual would work and the table rates and that sort of thing.

So what we did, basically, on January 12 was approve an amendment number 18 that directed immediate reappraisal of woodlot blanket salvage permits. That interim reappraisal set stumpage rates at 35 percent of table rates until April 15 to get them through this winter's logging season so that we could, as we came through to now, engage on what we could find as being the long-term solution for woodlot pricing.

Certainly we intend to get there. I have found, though, that it's not a very easy one to accomplish, but we're going to get there. We've done a lot. We've moved it along, but we do have more work to do. That's why we're engaged with them now.

B. Simpson: Is softwood lumber now just simply part of the dialogue whenever we want to do policy changes? The minister has admitted that it had to be part of the discussion around the woodlot. Is it part of the discussion around the coast revitalization, phase 2 or strategy 2 or whatever, that Mr. Dobell has brought forward? Is it part of the discussion around the log export policy review?

Is softwood lumber and the possibility of anti-circumvention now simply part of what we have to do in due diligence for forest policy changes in the province?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, not all the time, but certainly when it affects pricing, which is one of the issues around circumvention. If you would subsidize an industry so that they could compete with your trading partner, I think there has to be some lens put on it. It will be part of some of the things we do.

I want to be clear about something the member said, though. There's no plan coming from Mr. Dobell on anything. To make that comment is relatively inappropriate from the standpoint that it doesn't exist. I just want to clarify that with regards to the coast plan 2, or whatever you referred to. There is nothing to that comment, and I want to be clear about that. I don't want the member to be misinformed on process here.

As we do that, like anything else we do, though…. Quite frankly, probably the biggest one on that will be how we can address log exports. On the log export one it's actually not that tough, because we have Crown timber that we're responsible for, and we can make our policy decisions on that. On the private lands it's federal statute and governed by federal law, so we don't really have any control over what can happen on the federal stuff with regards to log exports. We can only give suggestions to the federal government, if there's something we would like to see them implement.

I think that on what we're looking at with regards to the coast, none of it that I have seen — that is across my desk as I work through to a final presentation — at this point in time has to worry about softwood.

B. Simpson: I'm going to come back to the comment the minister made around Mr. Dobell here. I was going to do it later on; I'll do it now. I want to finish off some of the questions around softwood.

If we think that something may be a problem under anti-circumvention, what steps must we go through before we can make an effective policy change in British Columbia?

Hon. R. Coleman: We can make any changes we want. We make them in our own jurisdiction. It's our own decision and our own authority, whichever is under our authority. We do advise the feds when we make changes. Now, in some cases the changes wouldn't necessarily have to be advised to the feds because they're not policy changes that may be contained in softwood. We advise them. The federal

government then can choose whether or not they feel that the USTR should be advised of the change, seeing if they think it's material to something or whatever the case may be.

If they do advise USTR, then we help the federal government to describe what the change is and why and justify it with the feds to USTR as part of the agreement.

B. Simpson: Does Mr. Dobell play a continuing role on that stage in softwood? Is he still playing a continuing role on softwood for British Columbia?

Hon. R. Coleman: Directly today he's not engaged at all with regards to the day-to-day stuff on softwood, though he is available to me as the minister or to staff as a resource if we choose to ask him for comment or advice — not that I can think of recently where we've had to use that. But he is still available to us if necessary, because he has a strong history of the file.

He also has a history of relationships, which can be very helpful when you want to go somewhere and say: "Do you know X?" It would be nice to open the door for that person to have a conversation — whatever the case may be, I guess. But he's not engaged in a full-time role or a role, frankly, that has to do with the operation of softwood within the ministry or within Canada today.

B. Simpson: Before I come back to Mr. Dobell with respect to the coast, the buzz in the industry has to do with the fact that we're in a minority government federally. We have a Prime Minister who hung his hat on getting a softwood deal. The feeling is that we're not advancing that deal. We're not clarifying that deal. We're not doing work with that deal. Very significant, high-level members of the major corporations in British Columbia have said that the current federal government is playing politics with the deal and not getting on with the job of clarifying and securing that.

What capacity do we have in British Columbia to move that deal along? Do we have a team that deals with that? Do we work through the B.C. Lumber Trade Council? How do we deal with the situation or the contention by senior members of the major companies in this province that this deal needs significant work done to it and that the current federal government is playing politics with it and that the work isn't getting done? Who champions that on behalf of British Columbia?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I'm not going to bite on something about politics federally with regards to anything to do with this because it's just not fair.

The senior staff at the Department of Foreign Affairs and other departments of government are the people that manage the softwood deal on behalf of Canadians. They regularly consult with British Columbia and other jurisdictions across the country. We have a team within the ministry that is in regular consultation and discussion with them with regards to all the trade issues that we deal with because it's an important part of our business.

The B.C. Lumber Trade Council, other trade organizations like the Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance, and other jurisdictions in Quebec and Ontario are also in communication with the Department of Foreign Affairs. This is at a staff professional level. It is not at a political level.

B. Simpson: As the softwood lumber deal was being negotiated, there was talk towards the end that it would only last two years. I'll put the minister on the spot. I'll understand if he doesn't want to answer, but how long does the minister think this deal is going to last?

Hon. R. Coleman: Frankly, we have a seven-year deal. I expect it to last seven years.

Tax calculation. What is the ministry's projection on tax calculated going forward? What do we expect for the tax charge to our industry, and do we expect to be in surge over the next little while?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, we would like to manage this deal so that we don't surge. We'd like some discipline on behalf of our companies and what have you. That's why we have a website and the federal government has a website with regards to that.

There may be some learning process for everybody as we do that management, but my expectation is that we don't surge because, obviously, we know what the impact of that is in any given month.

We are currently paying, as the member knows, a 15-percent export charge on lumber exports to the U.S., collected by Canada. The nuance on that is that before, at 27 percent when it was a duty, it was all collected in the United States and kept in the United States. Today that tax is collected in Canada for Canadians, frankly.

We think it's likely that the export charge, the 10-percent tax…. Well, it will be in the 10-to-15 percent range for much of 2007 and into 2008. Basically we think there's some time needed for the markets to firm up in the United States.

As the member knows, there's been a dramatic drop in housing starts in the U.S. The prediction we have, which is the best information we can get from economists and people like that, is that that's when it will firm up. Then prices will change, and the tax will come down further.

Hon. R. Coleman: It actually comes back to consolidated revenue in the province.

B. Simpson: Does the Ministry of Forests and Range report it as a line-item input on their revenue?

Hon. R. Coleman: When we do our budget, in our ministry summary of revenues we identify the total

ministry stumpage revenue, which is the revenue. But we also do other forecast revenues which would include that border tax.

However, we don't bill it, we don't charge it, and we don't collect it. We just put it in there so that it can basically inform the Ministry of Finance and Treasury Board what is expected as they're doing the budget on revenues. We do the work to identify what we think the tax would be in any given fiscal year, but that's where it stops for us.

B. Simpson: When the Ministry of Forests and Range reports total revenues within the Ministry of Forests and Range, is this border tax embedded in the total revenues figure?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're going to find out to clarify it for you. We believe no. For instance, stumpage is actually collected by the Minister of Revenue. He shows what his revenue projections are, and government shows what their revenue projections are. It never flows through our books, but we may, in our summary accounts….

I do have a summary page for estimates debates, for instance, that shows what the total revenue would be with that tax in, but I think that's just to inform. I don't think it actually goes into us. We're not a revenue…. We receive a budget for operations, and the only income-expense side that we would probably show would be B.C. Timber Sales, which is treated like a Crown, which then shows its revenue and expenses as part of our presentation.

On the actual revenue side, all the money goes directly to general revenues. Then we get our budget through Treasury Board processes. I'll check for you, but we're pretty sure that's how it is. Nobody can remember seeing us putting a revenue item into our budgets.

B. Simpson: I don't have my documentation with me that stimulated that question, so I will go look. I may bring that question back in again. The reason it's important is because there are questions now about Ministry of Forests and Range from the perspective of costs against the revenue.

Particularly as we start to see any decline in stumpage or as we start to see a falldown in the interior and more costs for land-based work, that calculation of how much it costs us to run Ministry of Forests and Range against revenue derived directly from the land base becomes important. In looking backwards, it's a calculation that didn't include any revenue from that source. I'll look that up as well.

I want to come back to the minister's comments around Mr. Dobell, because they confuse me. Mr. Dobell was brought on — I remember hearing the buzz about him being brought on — and it's my understanding he was brought on to deliver to the minister recommendations in some form of plan for the coastal forest sector. So I'd like the minister to clarify for me exactly what it is that Mr. Dobell is doing if he's not doing that.

Hon. R. Coleman: Maybe I can clarify this for the member. As we came through softwood and then started to look at the coast, many of the people that had been involved through the B.C. Lumber Trade Council and companies through softwood had asked me as the minister whether I would consider a facilitator to try and bring some of the ideas together in a couple of the groups that were involved in trying to look at the coast — truck loggers, small manufacturers, companies, Coast Forest Products Association and people like that.

They identified that they thought that facilitator could be Mr. Dobell. They had confidence in him to facilitate. So he was asked to basically facilitate over a six-month period; to progress through to where ideas could be brought together; to be part of what would come to me, including other information that I'm getting from the ministry and from other organizations — I'm meeting with communities — and to help me with my ministry staff to, quite frankly, come up with what would be a strategy for the coast.

He's part of the puzzle, but he wasn't asked to write the plan for the coast. He wasn't asked to be the person that would direct the policies on the coast. He was asked to facilitate, because they felt that that would help them to focus their discussions a little better as they worked through some of their issues.

I thought it was important, quite frankly, because I felt that the previous six months which had been going on with regards to the coast recovery stuff…. I felt some people were spinning their wheels and not being challenged. I thought a facilitator would be of value to them. Since they'd identified that the individual they were confident in doing that work with was Mr. Dobell, I agreed to that, but it wasn't to the fact that he would actually be writing the plan for the coast.

B. Simpson: I was at the truck loggers' convention when Mr. Dobell gave his presentation. It certainly didn't suggest to me that he was facilitating anything. He was inviting consultations from people. In fact, one of the mayors went up to the mike and said: "How do I get in touch with you?" He said: "Get in touch with the Premier's office, and come and talk to me about what's going on the coast."

I've also caught wind of other groups that have said that he was — I mean, he called himself the coastal czar — the guy that was charged with the responsibility of figuring out what it was we needed to do on the coast to further re-revitalize the coast.

Let's try this. Did Mr. Dobell have an actual terms of reference for the work that he was supposed to do with respect to the coast forest sector?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, I have known Mr. Dobell for some time, and I would be surprised that he actually called himself the coastal czar. Some reporter or somebody might have decided to coin that description of him, but I certainly have never heard him say

that, and I've never heard him attributed as saying that. It certainly would not be his style.

I mean, he had terms of reference with regards to this, and it was basically that he would oversee and facilitate a joint industry-government working group on coast revitalization. Then in addition to that, he would do exactly as a facilitator….

My expectation would be that if a mayor wanted to give Mr. Dobell some input, he would take that input, if it was another organization. That is what a facilitator does — brings the information and the ideas together and then basically forwards them in to us so that we can boil them down into some form of an action plan that we can move forward on.

Certainly, it wasn't a request to him that he write the coast recovery plan. That was never in my request of him and my understanding with him as we worked through this. I must say, though, that he has been a very good facilitator — by the feedback that I get from people — and that he did manage to focus people on specific things that are deliverables, which we think can be of value as we take this package through to discuss it.

At the end of the day, the coast recovery plan is a product of the ministry, of facilitated discussions that Mr. Dobell may have been involved in, of people in the industry itself and in communities, of individuals and — very much so — of the expertise and experience of the people that work in the ministry itself.

B. Simpson: Where do Mr. Dobell's costs get covered? Where in the system do they get covered?

Hon. R. Coleman: Mr. Dobell's costs, if he does work for the ministry, are covered by the ministry. I'm not aware of where else he would be compensated with regards to any other work that he would do. But if he does work for the Ministry of Forests, he's compensated by the Ministry of Forests.

B. Simpson: That's interesting, because I've seen a contract through the Premier's office that includes softwood and includes other work done. So is he getting paid twice? Is he getting paid through the Premier's office on contract and then drawing from the Ministry of Forests and Range? I'd like a clarification on that.

Hon. R. Coleman: I am happy to clarify. I should have clarified that as of this fiscal year he is paid for by the ministry. How he was compensated was on a contract, as I understood it, through the Premier's office, prior to that.

B. Simpson: Was the work that Mr. Dobell did up until January 1 of this year covered under the contract that he had with the Premier, or did the Ministry of Forests enter into a different contract with Mr. Dobell for the coast recovery work that he was doing?

Hon. R. Coleman: When I asked the Premier whether I could use some of Mr. Dobell's time with regards to the coast recovery stuff, he agreed to that. Mr. Dobell came over and did the work for us under whatever contract he was under with, I would assume, the Premier's office at the time.

We felt that coming into the fiscal year, now that we were changing years, we should probably have it where if he did any work directly for us, it would be contained within our operating budget, and if he does any work for any other ministries, it would be contained in their operating budgets.

B. Simpson: Does Mr. Dobell now have a contract with a workplan and terms of reference, and all of that, with the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, he doesn't. He has terms of reference, but the contract itself is right now being finalized for this fiscal year. The fiscal year just started April 1, and basically that's where it sits right now. Whatever compensable stuff will come once the contract is finished from April 1 on will be on the Ministry of Forests account.

He would give us, obviously, billing with regards to that. He would have a workplan and terms of reference with us. As we move through the coast recovery stuff, we'll probably decrease the amount of time that he'll actually spend with this ministry, because the facilitation work is basically completed.

B. Simpson: My apologies; I just get a bit more confused. Mr. Dobell has been working on the coast recovery. Previously he worked under the auspices of the Premier's office.

Is the minister aware if he was given additional resources under his contract when he picked up the coast recovery work through the Premier's office? It wasn't in his original contract with the original price that was negotiated. Was he given additional compensation for doing the work on the coast recovery plan through the Premier's office until January 1 of this year?

Hon. R. Coleman: My understanding is that we were being lent him, because he had time available to do some work with us. I don't know anything other than that fact. I couldn't tell the member…. My understanding would be that whatever his compensation was, was his compensation, and some of his time was allowed to be used by us.

B. Simpson: So that's an unknown. As of January 1…. It's now April 17. The minister has indicated, as I understand it, that Mr. Dobell has mostly finished this facilitation work, yet the minister says you're still negotiating a contract with Mr. Dobell. Is that correct? He's been working without a contract up to this time, and it's still in negotiation while the bulk of the work has been completed.

Hon. R. Coleman: We're talking about 17 days right now. The end of the fiscal year for government is March 31, so the new fiscal year started April 1. We're basically negotiating what I guess would be best

described as a part-time, on-call consultation agreement time with Mr. Dobell so that if we felt we needed his expertise and advice with regards to something — particularly, probably, to do with the historical side of softwood….

We feel that that resource should still be available to us. We will have that negotiated in order to have that done. I don't anticipate, frankly, other than that particular use of his time, anything in addition to it that the ministry would be using him for.

B. Simpson: I referred a number of times to January 1, because that's what the minister said, that as of this year…. Was I incorrect about "as of this year" meaning the fiscal year and not January 1? He was under contract to the Premier, working under whatever that arrangement was, until March 31, and now he's getting a new contract when the coast recovery work is done. The minister has indicated that they've got other processes involved with softwood but they're going to have a part-time, on-call relationship with Mr. Dobell for April 1 on. Am I catching that correctly?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm not, first of all, aware of the terms and time frames of the contract that Mr. Dobell has with the Premier's office or any other ministry of government. If the member wishes to discuss those, he should do those under estimates for those particular ministries.

We were allowed, basically, to use Mr. Dobell's time under his previous contract to help us with some facilitation in and around the coast. So that gets done. Come April 1…. Since April 1 we can't think of a meeting that we've actually had Mr. Dobell at with regards to any of this stuff, but we did say we felt that we would like to have at least the terms of reference in an agreement on a contract with the individual, going forward, on things that would be directly needed by this ministry, particularly related to softwood lumber from his historical experience.

We will deal with that as we finalize the details of it. My understanding of that would be a contract that would be out for public information. I'm comfortable with the member knowing what that is when it gets done. On the other side of the coin, I was very thankful, quite frankly, that back in October or November we were given the ability to use some of Mr. Dobell's time to help us facilitate things on the coast.

B. Simpson: Does this contract that's in negotiation with Mr. Dobell involve a retainer fee? You're going to hold his time for the ministry by paying him a fee irrespective of whether you use his services or not? What's the nature of the contract that's being negotiated if the minister isn't even sure what they're going to use Mr. Dobell for?

As we all know, Mr. Dobell seems to be a very, very busy man. Are you having to pay to hold his time for when you need to call on him? Is that the nature of the contract?

Hon. R. Coleman: We haven't finalized the contract yet, so I can't answer the member's question. When I do have the contract, I'll gladly make the information available to the member with regards to that.

As I said earlier, we are not aware of the terms of other contracts that this individual may have with other ministries of government. We just don't have that information. I don't know what the terms are. I don't know how long they run. None of that information am I privy to, so I can't answer his questions. I would refer the member, if he wishes to ask questions about that, to the other estimates.

All I'm saying right now is that, as of April 1, we made the decision that we would take a contract with this individual. The ministry would pay for it going forward. To date, he hasn't done any additional work, so it's really not a problem. It's a matter of the parties being in the right place to finalize the details, given everybody's busy schedules. They will get that done, and then that contract will be available for information.

B. Simpson: I lived as a consultant for a number of years. I've never heard of anything like this. This is quite bizarre to me.

You're saying that the man is too busy to sit down and write a contract with. We're not quite sure what we want him for, but we think we want his experience around because he did this stuff through the Premier's contract for us.

How do you hold his time? Are you going to describe in the contract…? The minister is saying that we'll find out about the contract when we get to the contract. Surely, if the minister's decided he wants Mr. Dobell around, the minister must know what he wants him around for. Usually the client describes the nature of the contract, not the consultant.

So what is it that the minister is describing that he wants Mr. Dobell to do? How much time does he want from Mr. Dobell in availability and over what duration? Otherwise, I don't understand the nature of this contract at all.

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, first of all, he may not want a contract. He may decide that he doesn't want to work for the Ministry of Forests. I don't know.

I was a consultant too, actually. I had a stable of clients that would pay in different ways depending on what work they wanted to do. We will negotiate with Mr. Dobell, but just so the member is clear, the reason I would like to have a contract with Mr. Dobell is so that he can be there as a resource for the ministry if we get into, for instance, a discussion and get the opportunity to go to the table and have a discussion around logs for lumber. I think he would be a valuable resource because of his understanding of the file and the fact that he has had discussions with the U.S. as we came through softwood.

He's done on the coast. We're penning the plan. We don't need Mr. Dobell on a contract to do anything to do with that. It's strictly to do with the issues that may arise and other opportunities around softwood.

So I would like to have the opportunity to use this individual as a resource on a basis that he would know that if we wish to use him, he would be paid a certain amount of money for his time. I think that's pretty clear.

The reality is, though, that we don't have…. The member wants me to tell him what's in a contract that isn't negotiated yet. When it's negotiated, I'll give him a copy. He can find out what it is. We'll make it public. It's not a big deal.

If he chooses, in actual fact, to say to us, "I'm phasing out of everything, and I'm retiring," then we won't have access to the resource at all. We just felt, in discussions as we came through this, that going into this fiscal year it would be nice if we could formalize that. Because I don't think that the time we were generously given from the people who had the previous contract was something they wanted to continue to pay on behalf of the ministry, if we wanted to use this individual's time.

We now are negotiating to see if we can use some of his time under a certain level of terms of reference. If we can't get there, nothing will happen. We'll live with that. But the reality is that all we're doing in this fiscal year is saying that the Ministry of Forests, because the fiscal year has changed, would now like to have — with any resources we use of this individual's time — a contract in place for that.

B. Simpson: The minister said a couple of times that the contract will be public. Is that correct, or would we have to go through FOI? We had to go through FOI for his contract with the Premier's office. Which is it? If you sign a contract with Mr. Dobell, will you actually make it public? I think that Mr. Dobell might want to have something to say about that. In the past we've had to go through FOI, so I'd like clarification on that point.

Hon. R. Coleman: I think the member knows this. The legislation of any contract of proprietary business nature between government and the client has to go through an FOI lens before it can go out public. That's the legislation. That's the law that we have to follow in order to do that. We will take the contract through FOI and make it public.

B. Simpson: Is the minister saying that he's going to do my FOI work for me? I mean, I just want to be clear here, because the minister did say — that's why I asked the question for clarification — that he would give me a copy of the contract once it was signed. That was the minister's comment. Is the minister now saying that you'll walk it through the FOI process, and we can have Mr. Dobell's contract once you sign it?

Hon. R. Coleman: It has to be screened through FOI, and once it's screened through FOI, we'll make it available. We'll screen it through FOI.

Hon. R. Coleman: No, not at this stage. The member would be aware that there's a large portion of the ministry that has contracts attached to it that are allowed to be issued by the ministry. It's a line item within the budget. We have some consultant contracts for all kinds of things. It's in the millions of dollars that we spend, so we don't break it out by specific contract. When we do that, we have a line item. We have the ability within our budget to manage something that would be this, frankly, small with regards to our budget. That's how that stuff is reported.

B. Simpson: Going back to Mr. Dobell's previous work. Under whatever contract he had with the Premier, with respect to that work, a clarification of the coastal czar…. Mr. Dobell did reference himself that way, partly tongue-in-cheek, at the truck loggers. That's what he found people were calling him, so he referenced himself. Secondly, he indicated in his presentation there that he was tabling a report with the minister, that his work would be brought to the minister in some form of a report. Did the minister get a report from Mr. Dobell?

Hon. R. Coleman: I wasn't at the truck loggers, so I'll take the member on that one straight up. I was actually in Kenya and Tanzania at the time on an extended holiday with my wife for the first time in about 30 years. As I said to somebody on that holiday, I had an overdraft in the bank of points with my wife, and I was going to pay my overdraft back and put some money back in the bank. The truck loggers were generous enough to let me do a video greeting to their convention, knowing that was the only time of year that we could actually go. They were very good about that.

Mr. Dobell has not — not — provided me with a report. Mr. Dobell has facilitated information. He has brought individually different issues to me as they've gone through them, worked through them as a group. He has worked through the ministry. We've compiled the feedback from that and other areas internal to the ministry via myself, the deputy and my senior management staff. That is what is penning the plan, and that is us.

Mr. Dobell's work as a facilitator is completed. What he dealt with at the table and gave us feedback on we have, but he never provided me with a formal report of any kind.

Hon. R. Coleman: At the truck loggers convention in 2006, the truck loggers organization asked me to reinvigorate the coast recovery group process. The people that were on that group at the time were the ministry, the truck loggers, the corporations, independent manufacturers, groups like the Coast Forest Products Association, who represent a number of companies, etc. They started the work in 2006.

It was the fall of 2006 after softwood was being completed that the request came for Ken to come in as

a facilitator for that group to work through issues they had and feedback to the ministry, both through the staff that were at the table and through management of various levels of the ministry, depending on the issue that they needed a resource to have a look at it. That was the group that he facilitated.

B. Simpson: What's the difference between the coast recovery group and the coast steering group?

Hon. R. Coleman: My understanding from my staff is that the coast recovery group was broken into two groups: the steering committee, which Mr. Dobell facilitated, made up of the parties; and the working group, which was a working group that dealt more in the regions at a technical level for all the technical feedback and what have you from the working group. So it was broken into two and was a collaborative process that was completed by those two groups.

Hon. R. Coleman: There weren't minutes per se, as I understand it. Of course, I didn't actually attend the meetings. But there were outcomes from the meeting and action items identified and workplans attached to different groups that would go do a certain amount of work to come back to a meeting with their feedback on a particular issue or get some technical information or whatever the case may be. I would assume that's how it worked. That's how we understand that it worked, and that's the advice that I have from my staff present.

B. Simpson: It's a stark contrast here. B.C. Timber Sales did a structural review, reported out on a continuous basis. Submissions were on their website. They gave continuous updates. It was a transparent process. Here we have a process of a substantive nature — another kick at the can around coastal revitalization — and there's nothing on the webpages or nothing available to the general public.

Two questions that this raises for me. Mr. Dobell had submissions sent to him because nobody understood what it was he was doing. There were submissions explicitly sent to him because people were worried that their voices were not being heard in this process. Where did those submissions go?

Hon. R. Coleman: The process was that he would bring that material forward to the steering committee and advise them that he had received the information. I also received information directly to me, oftentimes from the same groups, which I also read and kept in a separate file in my office — if I received any information from anybody.

B. Simpson: Without documentation, how do all of those groups know that their information went forward and into the mix? There's no documentation to suggest that that's the case. He may have forgotten. My understanding is that a lot of his discussions were at the Starbucks over at the Vancouver caucus offices or cabinet offices, where people would go to him specifically there and say: "Gee, I hear you're working on the coast. Can I give you some information?"

How do we know that information made it into the mix? My understanding is that you had couched him as a facilitator of an existing group, not as somebody to go out and do a consultation process. People were forcing consultation on him. How do we know he brought that into the room?

Hon. R. Coleman: Quite frankly, because I trust his integrity. That's what he was there to do — to bring that information forward.

B. Simpson: We have no reports, no interim reports, no minutes. We have a group of people sitting at the table who I've canvassed before with this minister. They're people who have been engaged in this industry for a long time, who come up with very similar solutions. The very similar people in this group went through the Competition Council process, which seems to have somehow disappeared into the ether — the very same people that Mr. Wright and Mr. Dumont went and talked to, although they broadened the scope, because a lot of people said: "You need to talk to us."

Where are workers and communities in this coastal recovery process? They're not on the list. How do they get a voice in that process?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, to labour. Steelworkers were invited to be part of the process and refused. They decided they didn't want to be part of it and would not participate. They were, however, briefed in detail a couple of times through this process by the deputy minister so that they were kept apprised of the progress that was taking place. That was important.

I have met with a number of mayors and community leaders from across the Island and the coast over the last number of months and years. The reality, though, is that this is about what we can do to attract investment back into the sector. It really has to do with the issues that are germane.

I do take the member's comments about some of the same people being at the table. But I also, quite frankly, have challenged everybody to think and have gone outside all the groups to ask all kinds of people around the industry and the history of the industry for their feedback on the coast as well. I've tried to get to the point where we can get to the final recommendations, which will be very much a part of the final recommendation report coming from the deputy minister and the minister in this particular case.

Hon. R. Coleman: Obviously, because of confidentiality with regard to cabinet, particularly, I cannot advise the member when it may or may not be on an agenda, but it is my anticipation that in the not too distant future the entire package will go forward.

B. Simpson: The minister's contention is that this is about attracting capital to the coast. There are people sitting at that table that have money in their pockets. There are people sitting at that table that are representatives…. In fact, one of the CEOs was on a panel with me and said explicitly to the people at that convention that he has money in his pocket to invest.

We canvassed this the last time. What this group will ask for is no surprise: lower taxes, particularly lower municipal taxes, lower input fees, lower wages and more flexible wages and less regulation. If I'm not mistaken, that's what the forest revitalization strategy was all about, that's what the Competition Council said, and that's what this group most likely will come up with as well — because what we're not asking, and the reason that I'm asking about workers in communities, is: where is the public good from our public forests?

Where are those community interests being taken into consideration? Maybe the communities want to have their whole land base under their control. Maybe they have different ideas about how we should be investing and attracting capital. I question the independent manufacturers' representation at the table because there are a lot of people who are saying that they're not there. Woodlot folks are not there.

My question to the minister is about when this long-awaited, much touted, not quite a plan or whatever it is, comes forward for another kick at the can for revitalization. I'll remind the minister: part of the 2003 target was strengthening the coastal forest sector. It doesn't appear that that happened in the first go-around, with the same people at the table.

When this document, or whatever it is, comes forward, will the minister commit today to engage in a fulsome public consultation process, community by community, using town hall meetings or whatever? Hire Mr. Dobell to facilitate it if you need to. But will you take it out and have communities, workers, citizens of this province, say yea or nay to this — instead of, as this government is wont to do, asking the corporations one more time: "What more do you need?"

Hon. R. Coleman: A nice little rant by the member opposite. Frankly, if he thinks that I'm going to solve the labour contract on the coast…. It's a public sector labour contract. We're not going to be involved in it. That's between the companies and labour. The contract comes up in June, and that may actually determine a lot of the things for the future of the coast of British Columbia. There are pieces of the plan we're working on that will go out for more consultation because it will require that type of input from communities.

If the member thinks that the government of B.C. is going to give up its Crown lands to communities to manage forests in little pockets all over Vancouver Island and the coast, I don't think that's a policy that this government is going to pursue. I guess maybe the member opposite wants to recommend that. I don't know, but the reality is this. We have done a great deal of work.

I have not just listened to companies. The member likes to always say we only listen to corporations. I don't. I've met with steelworkers, I've met with the pulp and paper union folks, and I've met with pulp and paper directly. I've met with communities. I've met with people who are loggers, tree farmers, woodlot owners and private land owners. I've got to tell you that this is a very complex file. If the member thinks there's a panacea decision that can be made that's going to change the scope of this thing at any time, he's dreaming in Technicolor.

At the same time, he can also accept the fact that a lot of thought and work will have gone into what we do. I know that even though it's going to be beneficial and though it may set the stage for what could be some long-term goals in the forests of British Columbia, I fully expect the opposition to completely oppose it, whether they're good for communities or not. As he said earlier, it's their role to oppose, to criticize and never to agree with a good idea.

Having said that, Madam Chair, I move that the committee rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
AND MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
EARLY LEARNING AND LITERACY
(continued)

C. Trevena: I would like to ask the minister a few questions about the StrongStart program that has been initiated by the Ministry of Education.

I'd like to start off by just going through some of the very basics. I know that there were a number of StrongStart facilities that were set up in the early part of this year, end of last year. I just wanted to know how many of those facilities were set up and how much was invested in those facilities at that time.

Hon. S. Bond: I'm happy to talk about StrongStart. We had 16 pilot projects across the province. We are currently working through setting up a number of StrongStart projects. The initial grant is $30,000 for operating funding for a year, $20,000 for startup grants. In the second year, obviously, the $30,000 operating continues.

C. Trevena: I'd like to ask the minister: how much actually was budgeted in total for the 16 pilot projects?

C. Trevena: I wondered if the minister could tell me where this $1.4 million came from — whether it was from the Ministry of Education budget or whether it came from the agreement with the federal government on early learning and child care.

Hon. S. Bond: StrongStart B.C. is a partnership with the Minister of Children and Family Development, and those dollars were a partnership that we engaged in with them — great discussion across a number of ministries. Certainly, that funding was a partnership with the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

C. Trevena: So the Ministry of Education only put in $1.4 million, and the MCFD then put in the extra money. Is that how it worked? If so, I don't know whether I should be asking this minister how much MCFD put in or whether I have to save that for later.

The Chair: Just one moment. All questions should just be directed towards this ministry and be on the funding for the upcoming year. Just for clarification.

Hon. S. Bond: StrongStart B.C. is a partnership between the Ministry of Children and Family Development and a number of ministries across government. In total there is $5 million set aside for StrongStart B.C. over the next number of years. The first two years is $1.4 million. That is a partnership between MCFD and the Ministry of Education.

C. Trevena: I'd therefore like to ask the minister whether the money that has been set aside came from their own budget or came through the agreement with the previous federal government and the early learning and child care agreement.

Hon. S. Bond: It came from the Ministry of Children and Family Development under the umbrella of early learning.

C. Trevena: I have a couple of questions about that, then, before I go on with some more substantial ones.

As it's being done in partnership with MCFD and it's looking at early learning, I just wanted to know, I guess, what standards there are. B.C. obviously has very rigorous standards for child care — some of the most rigorous standards in the country. I wondered whether those similar sorts of regulatory standards are going to be there for the StrongStart programs.

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, StrongStart centres are being placed in schools across the province of British Columbia. We have an incredible partnership in the province between early learning educational leaders and school districts. Are there standards? Yes, there are. The key standard is that the employee that works in the StrongStart centre must be a qualified B.C.-certified early childhood–trained person.

C. Trevena: What I was wondering is…. This is a partnership with MCFD, and looking at this as a form of early childhood learning, one of the things in the standards and regulations is that if you are running a child care centre, you have to be regulated through the various health authorities. They have to come in and make sure that you meet certain standards, and these are the standards which…. I wondered whether there were going to be any equivalent levels for the StrongStart programs.

Hon. S. Bond: This is not a child care centre. This is not being run in partnership with health authorities. This is being run cooperatively with school districts across the province — and embraced, I might add. One of the key differences in this case is that it is adult participatory as well.

C. Trevena: I'll just go back quickly on the funding issue and then take on the way that they are going to be developing. I know that there are some StrongStarts that are going to be happening in my own school districts. I know that the minister was up in school district 85 last week and that there's great enthusiasm for them.

The concern raised with me is the actual level of funding — $50,000 to get it all going and then $30,000 a year to keep it running. I wondered if the minister could explain how that $30,000 is supposed to be keeping staffing levels up for a five-day-a-week program and supplies and all the other things necessary for running an early childhood education program such as StrongStart?

Hon. S. Bond: The modelling we've done, based on a model that's in Burnaby and other models we've looked at, says that $30,000 is sufficient. The commitment we've made is to ongoing operating funding. The demonstration that we looked at in Burnaby, actually, operated for less than $30,000. We feel that $30,000 will cover the staffing costs and the operating costs necessary for these projects to continue.

C. Trevena: Taking it on a little, we've had 16 pilot projects. I wondered if the minister could say how many projects there are going to be across the province by the end of this financial year.

Hon. S. Bond: Our throne speech commitment was up to 80, and I am absolutely confident that we will make 80, if not more than that.

C. Trevena: I know that my colleague, the critic for the minister, has further questions on this, but I wanted to ask the minister a little bit. If you work in partnership with MCFD, how is StrongStart actually going to run? We are seeing — I think this is not a question that is going to be deflecting — that there is a lack of child care spaces. We are now seeing 80 StrongStart programs operating that will have, as the minister says, adult involvement.

I'd like to ask the minister, through the Chair: what is the thinking behind these StrongStarts — that it will work to have parents coming along with their children when many parents actually need to go to work and can't take their children to StrongStarts?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, I would encourage the member opposite to spend some time with her school board or with any school board across the province. The member did reflect on the fact that there is enormous enthusiasm about this project.

This is about trying to find a way to provide additional supports to children and families. Particularly in the pilot cases, we looked at using the EDI work that Clyde Hertzman did. We strategically targeted the pilot projects to neighbourhoods where there was obviously a need for additional support for children and their families.

The thinking behind StrongStart is that not only do we need to resource children, but we need to resource the meaningful adults that are in their lives. This is not only about parents. In fact, in the StrongStart centres that I've been in, there have been grandparents, aunts and caregivers. There have been a number of adults in the room with children.

This is an attempt to deal with the one in four children who are developmentally not ready when they reach kindergarten. The early successes that we have seen in models like Toronto — and, in fact, in our own school system in places like Burnaby — tell us that not only is this an important development but also that we need to move these centres as far across the province as we possibly can and as quickly as our financial commitments allow us to do that.

C. Trevena: I think that the minister is obviously very well aware of the research, and it's something that we can't disagree on — the importance of investing in children and making sure that when they get to school they are completely ready for school, and that the significant adults in their life are also there to help them.

I just wondered how strong the partnership with MCFD might be and whether some of the resourcing and some of this commitment can be going on — as well as building up these 80 StrongStarts across the province, which are obviously very valuable — and whether that encouragement can happen to provide other forms of assistance for children and their families.

Hon. S. Bond: Specific questions around child care provision can be directed to the Minister of State for Childcare. But I think our whole point is to look at enhanced services and increased opportunities in a variety of ways.

The minister and I have talked frequently about hub models, which see not only StrongStart centres and early learning–type opportunities, but also child care centres located in schools. When we think about what drove the agenda….

I say we have a partnership with the Ministry of Children and Families. We also consulted and worked with the Ministry of Health and with other ministries across government to talk about how we serve the needs of families well. This model was designed after a significant cabinet consultation across ministries. We talked about how we do this better.

It's very exciting. It is focused on preliteracy skills, an important gap that we think needs to be filled in the province. We're confident this is going to make a difference. I know that as we move forward we will partner with other ministries to look at new ways to do things.

I think one of the things that we canvassed earlier today was the issue: can we keep doing things the same way forever and hope for better outcomes? The answer is no, we can't. This is one attempt to say that there are children who need additional supports, and this is one way of providing those.

C. Trevena: Just taking it one step further. I'm not sure whether this is something that the minister is working on as part of this program or another program, but it's the part of child care issue which goes beyond the age of six. It goes to the age of 12 — the legal responsibility.

I know the minister is very conscious of using empty school space. I wondered if the minister is also looking at projects there that will take it through for the ages of six through 12 — after-school care and holiday care.

Hon. S. Bond: It's a really good point. It's not something that we currently have on the front burner of our agenda. We are making sure that we do the zero-to-six initiatives well.

I think that's a very good point. One of the things that communities really want to have a discussion about is the access to a public asset, which is that school building. After-school hours are critical in terms of how support is provided for children.

As we explore new initiatives, that's a very good suggestion. It's not something we are looking at imminently. We're working really hard on those early years at the moment, but I think it's a good suggestion and one that needs to be considered.

C. Trevena: I know that my colleague wants to move on. I just have one last comment and that is, from my own constituency, what is happening with the Robron Centre. It's very interesting. It's using a former school, and there are now lots of opportunities there for the whole community to take education through, basically, from children and the child care drop-in family centre right the way through to adult basic education. If the minister would like to come up at any stage, I'd be happy to show her around there.

Hon. S. Bond: Thank you for those comments. One of the challenges we face is excess space because of a very significantly declining population. That's a very tough decision for school boards to make, to close a school. But I think that when we can find ways to utilize those kinds of facilities in different ways, that's exactly what communities should be considering.

That has implications for us, though, in how we manage capital — who owns it technically and how we share those resources. They are public assets. I unfortunately didn't see that while I was in that particular school district.

My goal is to finish the first round of visits, and then I appreciate the offer. I think that anytime we can look at creative ways of meeting family and community needs using a physical piece of space, that's a really good step forward. I thank you for that invitation.

D. Cubberley: Just to continue along on the subject, the member has opened up the question about use of school spaces to deliver other aspects of care. I'm interested to know…. Obviously, the ministry is embarking on a new direction with the early learning program, and that is tied to — what did you call it? — an adult participatory model.

There are other sectors of the continuum of care and development that don't involve having a parent or a designated caregiver along for the provision of care. I'm interested in what sense the ministry has of what role access to licensed child care spaces, preschool spaces or out-of-school-care spaces plays in children's development and whether that is part of the continuum, which is equally important to the ECE stuff that we've been discussing.

Hon. S. Bond: I do want to be cognizant of stepping into my colleague's world in terms of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and the Minister of State for Childcare in terms of her role with child care provision. But I think that the member opposite's question is broader than that. I think it's about what kinds of services in general are important.

We think that the more choice parents have, the more opportunities they have across a broad spectrum. Whether it is a child care space or an early learning program, it's important to have all of those options available. Our major role in the early learning agenda is to look at the utilization of excess space in creative ways — for sure.

I have seen some incredible partnerships around the province, where there are day cares and after-school programs running within schools now. So I think it is certainly not to replace existing programs, because great things happen. We've got Mother Goose programs, Success By 6, all kinds of amazing things. I think ours is to enhance and broaden and provide more choice and opportunity.

D. Cubberley: One of the things that the minister mentioned was the focus on pre-literacy skills. I'm just wondering what role the ministry would see creating a more universal access to preschool programs within the K-to-12 family of programs based substantially in schools…. What role might that play in helping to address the developmental challenges that children have?

Hon. S. Bond: I think we've agreed that we know it is an important area to look at. I think it is an important place to invest both resources and time as we develop those programs. We haven't contemplated a more significant link to K-to-12 other than the StrongStart centres at the moment. But we have built a series of programs that I think lead to better success — things like Ready, Set, Learn, which targets the three-year-old.

With StrongStart we are looking at children right from babies. I've been in some of the centres, and there are single moms there with children of two or three ages in the centre.

I don't think we want to replace existing resources. We're not thinking at this point about a program attached to before kindergarten, for example, that is throughout all the school districts. I think we're in the early stages of saying that we recognize that early learning is a pretty important thing. We're analyzing the success of our 16 pilots and making sure that we are seeing some improvements.

Certainly, as I shared earlier, the Toronto model has demonstrated significant results. We're not looking at institutionalizing significant additions in the early learning side, other than StrongStart, at the moment.

D. Cubberley: Given that there is a surplus of space in elementary schools in particular, and an increasing amount of that space because we do have some declining enrolments…. We have a quite chronic need on the part of parents to access child care spaces so that parents can be engaged in the economy, and at the same

time, we have a need to have children be more developmentally ready for kindergarten. Would the minister not agree that having a policy which officially encourages school districts to develop partnership arrangements with preschool providers to utilize those spaces would make some sense in the context that we're in?

Hon. S. Bond: I think ultimately we are building on what we see as best practice across the school districts. In fact, there are a number of school districts who actually already engage in those kinds of activities. I'm not sure a policy is the answer, but I know that we are looking at two new things that I believe will make a difference.

One is the mandate of school boards as we look at those early years, and that will be a part of what school boards are looking at. That's just catching up with what school districts are already doing, so it is not some big, broad expansion. It really says: "Here is what you're already doing, and we think that's important."

I think that building on existing capacity…. In programs like School Community Connections there are dollars available through the UBCM and school trustees to talk about those connections between the community providers and the school district providers and bringing them into some sort of partnership.

The other thing that will be beneficial is that we will be asking school districts to prepare a literacy plan. Our suggestion, at least at this point, is that it would have boards dialogue with other providers of those services in the community.

What we're trying to say is that boards should have a discussion about early learning opportunities, that it should include community providers and that we should be looking for new ways to incent those partnerships to take place within schools. We're not contemplating policy, but we are making changes to the mandate of school boards and, also, to some of the expectations we have for them.

D. Cubberley: Could the literacy plan that you envisage include as a direction for school boards that they would broaden the partnerships that they have with community groups that supply some of these kinds of services?

Hon. S. Bond: It certainly could. I know that the member opposite and I will certainly be discussing this as we proceed through legislation in the future. I'm cognizant of that as well. Yes, I think absolutely it will.

The thing that's interesting about this is that I don't think it takes a lot of prodding of school boards. They have recognized very much already and have some dynamic programs in place that reflect their understanding that if we deal with those early years and partner with community….

Can we encourage that more significantly? I think we can. We also have to look at that in the capital context. Are there ways that we can manage capital differently that encourage that kind of thinking?

D. Cubberley: I'm very pleased to hear the minister embarking in that direction. I would urge her to make districts aware that she is supportive of that direction.

I can tell you from a number of vantage points, because I am a parent with a relatively young child myself, despite my age…. Pierre Trudeau was the example. I felt if the Prime Minister of Canada could do it, I could as well.

It's fascinating to go through, as a parent, the array of challenges that confront you when you're a working parent and have to accommodate that or, if you're a two-income family and both parents are working, deal with access to care when and where you need it — and care with a developmental component.

I think most families probably don't struggle too hard to find the initial years of care in proximity to where people live, and worklife can then continue. But over a certain age there is a requirement for a level of care that's much harder to provide in a neighbourhood day care. It requires a different kind of setting. It is very challenging to find that delivered by trained early childhood educators so that you get the developmental component worked into the program.

My wife and I found that to be a huge challenge. It led us, prior to making our ultimate choices about school location, to a school that was far away from our neighbourhood but was a public school. It was one of those schools that you're describing, which had developed an innovative relationship with a care provider.

That operated on a number of levels. It was preschool. It was more than preschool, because preschool, I believe, is typically a year before kindergarten. They were taking kids from age three on into a centre. They were providing out-of-school care as well. Without being able to have access to that package, it puts you in a very difficult position for maintaining an employment contract. At the same time, without having access to it, it may place a child in circumstances where they're not getting the developmental advantages they would get by being exposed to that.

One of the things that I see as a parent and have the opportunity to voice in this role as a critic is the opportunity to carry that direction of supplying those aspects of care and developmental education — through partnerships but on school grounds, through school districts, in buildings where there may be surplus space. I simply put it out that I think it is, for a variety of reasons, becoming more compelling that we move in that direction.

I have a little further to go with that, but I'll let the minister respond to that.

Hon. S. Bond: I think we would pretty much completely agree with that thinking. I think what we have to do is what we're trying to do, which is take what we've seen — examples such as the member opposite shares — and encourage and incent that kind of thinking across the province. I'm not sure that kind of incentive always exists when you look at the current capital strategies we have and those kinds of things.

It does mean change, and that makes people very uncertain about how we manage this and how we look at that. But I do think there is a growing sense that first

of all, we have a physical asset which is becoming more and more available to us because of the dramatically declining enrolment, which in and of itself is a very challenging story for us to manage.

In many ways, it's an opportunity for us to take something that is a more negative circumstance for many communities and say: "What can we actually do with this space?" I think we are at a place of opportunity, and our goal is to incent and encourage districts to be creative.

One of the things I have learned in all of the literally hundreds of classrooms I've been in is that very often school districts are miles ahead of us. When they recognize that need, they respond quickly. Programs like the one that the member opposite's child is in exist around the province, and I think we have to find ways to encourage that to continue and expand.

D. Cubberley: Yes. I think one of the virtues of having a high level of decentralized decision-making through school districts — and even at a lower level than that — is that you free some creativity, and people are enabled to take advantage of opportunities that are there. At the same time, there are challenges, because some schools do and some schools don't. The need is more universal. So there is the challenge of taking those good ideas and distributing them more widely throughout the system.

One of the things I want to examine…. It's perhaps a little bit touchy as a topic, but obviously…. As the Progress Board says, in a time of shrinking school-age populations, choice will inevitably intensify competition for enrolment. We see that within the public school system. Schools have different capacities to compete for their share of shrinking enrolment, which is a very difficult thing for the schools that are least advantaged to deal with it. At the same time, they have to compete with private schools, which as we've determined, are growing their population at a time when there is shrinkage in the public school population.

One of the questions is: are we — the ministry, the minister — looking at how many families may be disposed to choose a private school option not because the education their child will receive there is better but because the services that run in tandem with participation in a private school are more complete? I'm thinking of working families — the access to out-of-school care on the same site where education takes place.

Hon. S. Bond: We don't have the opportunity to do sort of exit interviews of families that choose, perhaps, an independent school education. It may well be that a more full-service model is something that attracts those families. I think, though, that in many, many school districts there are those schools — as they were in the member opposite's case — that provide a similar type of service. I'm not sure that it is that. We really don't quantify or, in essence, sort out the reasons that people make choices.

I can give you one example, though, of where that decision was clearly conveyed to us. It was during the labour dispute. There were many parents who contacted me and my office to say: "We just don't appreciate this break in service for our children and, frankly, the climate in terms of the relationships for a long time in this province." That was one of the catalysts that we could actually identify.

We don't have a clear sense of why parents choose an independent education. We think, though, that much of the growth is at the kindergarten level, so people are making that choice right at the beginning of a student's career. I hesitate to reflect on a number, because I don't know it, but much of it is faith-based as well. If you look at independent schools, a large number of the independent schools that are funded certainly are faith-based.

D. Cubberley: That comes back really handily to the point that I want to make. Public schools are in competition with private schools. It's just the nature of it. Leave aside how one feels about that; it's a reality.

The public school system, which is our primary concern, has to be enabled to compete effectively, especially in the context of shrinking enrolments. We have a situation where in the kindergarten years children's participation is required at a public school — at an elementary school — but there is no provision for the rest of the day.

At the very entry level, when you are making a choice as a family about where your child is going to go, in order to choose public school, you have to be able to deal with the fact that for over half a working day you are somehow going to have to facilitate another arrangement. You are probably going to have to leave work and do the driving to and from to get the child to that other arrangement.

When I look at that, I think to myself…. If one is thinking about enabling the public school system to compete effectively with private schools and if at the decision point there is a missing service that imposes an additional hardship on families that are working, is that not likely to become an element of choice? Is that not likely to be something that will encourage families to go someplace where they can get full service?

Hon. S. Bond: Certainly, I would agree that…. In some ways there is even a sense of competitiveness between public schools, when you think about that. I think there is an inherent sense of that in some ways. But I actually think that school boards across the province have done a remarkably good job for a very long time of accommodating parents' choices.

I see some lighthouse districts — for example, when I visited Kelowna as part of that school district. They're unbelievable programs in terms of the connectivity for children for daylong programs and child care and all of those things — a real sense of being driven by that agenda.

That is happening more and more, and I don't think that's being driven by a sense of competitiveness. I think that's being driven by a sense of what's really good for families and for kids.

I must say that I think the vast majority of parents are choosing public education. It's not that they end up having to go there because they may not be able to afford an independent education. I think they are choosing public education because we do have outstanding results in this province. I am still concerned about 11,000 kids that don't complete education. I think the member opposite agrees with me that that's something we need to be concerned about together.

There is some inherent competition. I don't think it's directly independent and public; it's even between public and public. I don't think we'll ever remove or find ways to eliminate that. It's probably healthy to some degree as well. It helps people to strive to improve.

As I've suggested, we're not thinking of policy direction that institutionalizes longer care, particularly for kindergarten students. So we're going to have to grapple with this as we move forward.

D. Cubberley: I'd ask why we're not thinking about that. I'd be interested to know why we're not thinking about it. I'll tell you that in my own circumstance my wife and I are very, very lucky. We have an elementary school which is top-notch and right down the road from where we live.

Nothing could be better for a family than to be able to walk a child to school in the morning and start. But we were not able to choose that public school to send our child to. That is because that public school — which is an excellent public school; it has a French immersion stream in it now and a very good reputation — has no provision for care of any kind, especially not developmentally based care, in kindergarten. So that's simply a parental responsibility.

In the years beyond that, it has a very, very limited — and I would say unacceptable, because it's not developmentally based — form of care available for the later years. The net result of that decision, because of that situation with the elementary school, was our choosing a school two and a half miles away from where we live.

There are a ton of implications to that, not the least of which is having to add that driving time into every day, which is a substantial commitment. But that is a school that is a much newer school. It has a very engaged relationship with a very talented early childhood education community and provides the complete suite of services.

That school is oversubscribed with families wanting to come in from far beyond its catchment. The other school is doing fine, especially with the new immersion stream, which gives it an ability to compete with other schools. But in the case of parents like me, it led me to make another choice of school.

In looking at that, that's such an important situation when you consider that the majority of families — in fact, I think over 70 percent — are either two-income families or lone-provider families, almost all of whom have parents working. To have K as less than half a day of involvement creates incredible constraints for parents and poses the problem: what does the child do in the rest of the day?

The situation now is very much a patchwork quilt. My sense is that there is not nearly enough access. My question is: why would that not be something that the ministry is looking at as a way of both addressing an economic issue and optimizing the development of children now that they are in kindergarten?

Hon. S. Bond: I probably — not intentionally — may be too directive in the answer. It's not something that's on our imminent work plan. But I think as we see these services evolve…. In the bigger-picture policy side, it is. When we think about the mandate we're looking at for school boards, we're saying that you need to think about these things.

We're not looking at it, at this point, in a directive sort of way or in the short term. But we are talking very much about where we need to invest resources and time and energy. I think we've recognized clearly that it needs to be in those early years.

The member opposite has identified some of the gaps that exist for parents, which have existed for a long time — for an example, all-day kindergarten. If we were to talk about that universally across the system, that still isn't enough to cover the rest of the day in terms of that gap either.

There is a long way to go to fill all of those gaps. There are some model schools and some exemplary school districts. Again, we are looking at school districts to grasp that innovation, especially within the new mandate we hope to give them shortly.

There's work to be done. I didn't want to imply that it isn't something we would contemplate or think about. It's just not in the short term and not something that we've had a lot of discussion about, even with stakeholders or partners.

D. Cubberley: I didn't want to leave any impression that I'm suggesting all-day K in the literal sense of extending the lesson plan throughout an entire day. It's much more a matter of seizing that portion of the day and using it to do developmental education, which is substantially based on directed play and contributes to both mental and social development — which is equally important, I believe.

Just to follow it along a little bit, one of the things that happens with shrinking enrolments, obviously, is elementary school closures. We're seeing more and more of that. There are some very, very difficult choices, which I know the minister is aware of, that school districts are pressed to make because the funding simply isn't in the equation to allow some of the schools to continue.

We've talked a little bit about some ways in which schools might buffer themselves against having to be closed. I've advanced some suggestions along the lines of incorporating partnerships with out-of-school-care providers and preschool providers as a way of drawing new families towards those schools who may be struggling in an era of intensifying competition. But as it happens, some schools eventually are chosen for closure. One of the things that happens along with that….

I've seen this play out in our region in the last little while with two schools that were being considered for closure. Both of them had complements of child care spaces attached to them, provided by not-for-profit providers, and out-of-school-care or after-school-care spaces. When the decision was made around closing these schools, there was no real consideration of that either as an asset or as something that might be lost with the closure of the school.

This, I think, is a serious problem in a context where we have too few spaces already. One of the things I want to ask is: has there been some thinking about saying to boards that there needs to be a no-net-loss policy around this? If a school is going to be closed, there has to be facilitation of protection for the existing spaces we have. Otherwise, the impact of the closure of the school in individual lives is enormous.

I've had some conversations with people around the closure of Lampson, who have indicated they will have to change work arrangements in order to accommodate it, because they are not going to be able to get out-of-school-care spaces at the replacement elementary school. They are oversubscribed already.

I know it's difficult to look into that area, and we will want to talk more about school closures, but it strikes me that something that gives some protection of community assets by way of a policy for school districts should be considered. I would ask the minister to comment on that.

Hon. S. Bond: We have not considered a no-net-loss provision for school boards. I think what we require of school boards is that there be a public consultation process attached to any…. They must have a policy around that. There are no specific expectations about no net loss.

I also believe that school trustees…. Maybe it's because I've been one, and I sort of have a sense that people who run for office in that way…. I would assume that those are the kinds of social capital issues that would be contemplated in a school closure. I know that even if we were to suggest that we would like a no-net-loss policy, that would not always even be possible for a board to deliver, because the dramatic drop in enrolment is going to continue.

When you think about where the resources need to be spent, they need to be spent in classrooms with children in them, not in buildings that are half empty. Eventually, by amalgamating those students into a facility, the resources in the classroom, hopefully, are more significant. But they may not be able to accommodate some of the very important programs that the member opposite has raised today — those child care spaces.

I guess at this point it is an assumption that school boards contemplate the loss of social capital — all of those kinds of community-asset questions — in their deliberations before they make those decisions. I know that despite all of that, there will be times when programs are displaced. There is not an easy way to replace those, because it's not a neighbourhood school.

I think the challenges will not only continue to exist; they are going to increase. We do need to be thinking about doing things perhaps somewhat differently. But it isn't our intention to, in essence, provide specific directives to school boards. We want to give them as much flexibility as possible to make a decision that is absolutely locally based.

The worst thing we can imagine…. Although I know there is a desire for people to have the minister step in and stop school closures and do all of these things, I personally and truly believe that if you elect someone locally to make those decisions, they do that with the best information that they have. Me, sitting in Victoria…. I can't tell you what's best for Lampson School because I don't know the neighbourhood. I don't know the people. I don't know the circumstances. So we have not made those kinds of suggestions.

There has been a look at the Ontario school closure policy, which brings more shape and framework to a decision that a school board makes. We have looked at that, but we certainly made no move toward something like no net loss.

D. Cubberley: Just to follow that along a little bit. Are there any requirements under legislation now placed on a school district apart from a requirement for public consultation? For example, if a school district is closing a school or if they are contemplating the sale of lands after a school has been closed, is there a requirement that they notify and meet with local government around the fact that a school is being closed or lands are being sold?

Hon. S. Bond: The simplest way, I guess, to describe what expectations there are and what sort of legislative requirements there are is that there is only one requirement, and that is that school districts must have a policy in place, when they are considering the permanent closure of a school, to consult publicly.

The job is that they must have a policy, and it must include public consultation. But that's pretty much the extent of what legal parameters or what policy there might be in place around that decision. It is a school board decision. They must have a policy that outlines clearly — it must be made public — what the school closure process is, and it must include public consultation, but that's the limit of it.

D. Cubberley: Just following that along one more step. There would seem to be a very, very good reason why, in the event that a school district was thinking of liquidating space, putting it onto the market, to go through a development process…. In order to assure consistency with community plans and the like, they would notify local government and meet with them to discuss development plans or potential development plans for the site. Now, I know that in relation to one of the school districts that I dealt with as a municipal councillor, that was in fact a standing practice. But I believe that in relation to another school district

It strikes me that — just in order to meet the test of community planning and to ensure that lands don't suddenly start moving in a direction that's completely at variance with what community expectations are — that would be a good requirement to place on school districts.

Hon. S. Bond: I think, generally speaking, that would likely be the practice. I have a terrific capital staff, and I think we can assure the member opposite that in most cases that would happen simply because they are good community partners in a school district and municipality.

But having said that, I think that the member opposite raises a very good point about the disposition of public assets and who else should have a conversation about that. I think it's bigger than just even communities. Government should be able to have a discussion about the disposition of an asset that has been funded by the taxpayers of British Columbia so that we're looking at uses perhaps across ministries. Is there a health reason that we might want? Is there something we need in terms of health care? Again, in concert with communities, what can that facility be used for?

Really, that's the kind of discussion we've been having over the last number of months, to say: "This is a publicly owned asset." While in essence school districts claim ownership of that, we think we need to be talking about the best utilization of what is a publicly funded asset. That would of course include cooperation and consultation with municipalities, but there is also an opportunity for governments to say, "We want to talk about this too," because there are obviously needs in long-term care and health care and all of those things.

D. Cubberley: Yes, and there are also other kinds of assets in the form of access to recreational facilities, sports and playing fields. There are environmental features that can be significant on school sites. I know in this area we have quite a number of remnant Garry oak meadows that happen to occupy a portion of a school site. We have community use of sites. Some of them function as connecting links in trail networks. There is a whole array of things that are assets.

As I was in the case of the provision of child care spaces and out-of-school-care spaces or preschool, so I am in this case looking for an indication that the minister recognizes that and that there be some process — I don't mean to be too specific about what it should be, but in a general sense — that obliges not just community consultation but that talking with government, local government in particular, occur prior to a disposition of assets.

Hon. S. Bond: I can assure the member opposite that we would agree with that sentiment and that we are contemplating how we move forward with a capital strategy that would include not only discussion with municipalities or whatever the local level of government is but also with the provincial government.

D. Cubberley: I'm going to leave that discussion for the time being and move into another area. I'd like to talk a little bit about special needs kids, the teaching and learning environment and some issues around Bill 33 and the like.

I will begin just by trying to get a sense of what resources are put into play by the ministry in order to support the delivery of education to special needs kids in the classroom. I know we don't have targeted amounts, but I assume we have an FTE amount for special needs kids, which is different. I would like to get a sense of what's in that allocation and whether that has increased, stayed stable or decreased over the last while.

Hon. S. Bond: If we want to talk about resources in general, I'll try to break this down. It is a complex funding circumstance, but we can take it by pieces if that's all right with the member opposite.

When we changed the funding formula, where some categories were funded previously by targeted funding, we took those dollars and in essence de-targeted them. So we only have three levels of supplementary funding for special education students. That's levels 1, 2 and 3.

The amounts of dollars for those students when you look at what those designations bring: level 1 would receive $32,000 in addition to their base funding. Just as we would provide an ESL student or a first nations student with additional dollars, children with special needs who are in category 1 — and that means they are either deaf, blind or dependent handicapped — would receive an extra $32,000 a student. Level 2 would get $16,000 supplementary funding, and level 3 would be $8,000.

We have seen an ongoing increase in the funding for those particular supplementary funding levels. When you look at the funding level in '06-07, we increased that by $6.5 million because those numbers went up, and the total amount there would have been a $6.5 million increase for the supplemental funding.

Hon. S. Bond: I'm sorry, '06-07 — so last year. I'm looking at those numbers. That's the supplemental funding in those three categories.

If you look at 1, 2 and 3 across all of the school districts' funding levels, the total amount we spend for that alone is $285.5 million. That's the supplementary part. The base funding for those students — which would be their per-pupil, basically — would be $120.9 million.

In addition to that, when we de-targeted…. There were other categories that were covered, and school

districts said: "We want more flexibility, etc." So those are the only three designated categories at the moment. We took the money that had been attached to other categories and rolled it into the block. School districts still get those special education dollars. They're just not targeted. That amount for that year would have been $230 million. That's outside of the funding for the 1, 2, 3 categories, but we kept it because that honoured the…. Well, we de-targeted. We said that we're leaving the money in the system for the school boards to decide.

In addition to that, we have $26 million in the provincial resource program line, and there is $19 million for special needs funding in independent schools. So when you look at total funding for students with special needs, the number is $681.6 million. That's our best estimate. Well over half a billion dollars a year is the general funding envelope for children with special needs.

I want to just add one other item because I know the member will have lots of follow-up questions, but I'll just sort of give him the complete context. The other fact that the member needs to be aware of is that from 2005 to 2006 — so 2005-2006 to 2006-2007 — our student population of children with special needs actually went down. We've got funding in the same way going up, and we've got fewer special needs children. Let me give you those numbers: 61,277 in 2005, and in the 2006 school year it went down to 58,576. That's the general picture of special education funding.

D. Cubberley: I'm just going to defer to my colleague from Surrey to finish off the questions she was running with just before the break.

S. Hammell: I'd just like to start out by telling the minister what I'm trying to understand. In Surrey somewhere around 40 to 45 adult basic ed teachers are being laid off, fired, terminated because they do not have the teacher certification that is required. In Vancouver between 30 and 35 teachers are having to acquire those certificates, and they're doing so through a program being offered by UBC that can run between ten months and two years. Those teachers will become qualified over the next two years.

So my question to the minister is…. I don't understand why the teachers in Surrey are being terminated, and the teachers in Vancouver are being offered a program to acquire this certification.

Hon. S. Bond: We have done some work on this. I should make it clear that we have yet to receive a phone call back from the Vancouver school district, so I'm not going to make a comment on the Vancouver school district and the remedy that they're proposing.

I'm hopeful that the member opposite has actually had a conversation with the Surrey school board. First of all, we need to clarify for the record that this has nothing to do with an amendment to the School Act. This circumstance has nothing to do with a change that government made. In fact, it has everything to do with the circumstances in the Surrey school district.

In fact, there was an investigation into a personnel matter in the school district. Upon working through that investigation, they discovered that the school district had not been in compliance with the School Act. So this is currently the school board trying to work through a set of circumstances to bring themselves into compliance.

Is it uncomfortable and difficult and a concern to us? Yes, it is. In fact, we are working with the school district to make sure that they are sorting this out. There are two issues in the Surrey situation. Again, I'm not going to comment on the Vancouver school district because obviously our staff has worked to try to connect with them and has not been able to do that yet. There is an issue of the certification of the teachers that are involved in this circumstance, and there is the issue of funded students.

If students are not being funded for courses leading to graduation — in other words, if we're not funding those students — the certification of the teachers is not an issue. The challenge that we have here is that these students are or were or have been funded as if they're moving toward graduation. So that is a funding issue. Consequently, certification of those teachers is required, and that has not been the case up till now.

What the Surrey school board is trying to do is bring itself into alignment with the School Act. If we're going to fund students leading to graduation, teachers have to be certified. That's the law.

This is an internal issue in many ways to the Surrey school district. I think that's an accurate characterization of the update that we've had this afternoon. We will certainly continue to look into the Vancouver side of this, but this really is an issue of graduation-program students and courses leading to graduation.

In essence, when we look at how we fund students, there are some issues with what's occurred with the Surrey school district on this file. We're trying to sort that out. Students have to be on a graduation program if they're going to be funded, and there must be a certified teacher, and that's the law. So at the moment we have two issues: certification and the question of whether or not those students should have been funded. Were they on those courses leading to graduation?

It's very complex, but certainly brought to the attention of the Surrey school board through an investigation of a personnel matter not related to the School Act.

S. Hammell: What I need to put on the record is that these teachers are very well qualified in their own area and have been in fact teaching — some of them over a decade — in the Surrey school district, and they are now going to lose their jobs. One of them not only teaches at adult basic ed but also started a creative writing program, has a master's in social work and teaches literacy courses to convicts in the jails.

Through, obviously, some kind of movement down a path that was not in sync with the regulations, there is a problem. If I understand you correctly, if they were not funded heading towards a graduation program,

then the certificates would not be an issue. But because they are funded, and I assume that's at a higher level, then the certificates are required.

My question to the minister is: are she and the ministry prepared to assist the school board in finding a win-win, not only for the students but for the teachers and for the programs, so we can transition from a place where teachers, through misunderstanding and being hired with these qualifications, do not lose their livelihood, and the school district does not lose a group of highly qualified teachers — maybe not qualified but highly experienced and with a great deal to offer to the district — because of this mixup?

Not that I'm saying for one minute it's not a serious issue, but I think it's one that we all need to work through to find solutions so that we have a situation here where Invergarry, Newton and some of the other adult basic education programs are not hugely affected.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, first of all, we have actually been working with this school district to try to sort this out, and this is a significant issue.

We don't take this very lightly in fact, and I certainly want to be on the record with the member opposite. I don't know the individuals personally, but I can assure you this is not about them or their teaching skill or anything like that. I'm sure they've made an incredible contribution.

The problem we have here is that the students were reported as taking part in programs leading to graduation, which means that they were funded, and you need to have a certified teacher. Many of these teachers are obviously incredibly well qualified adult educators, but they don't have a teaching certificate. If you don't report students as taking graduation programs, and they're studying ESL, for example, that's fine. Unfortunately, that's not what happened here.

We are working with the school district. The superintendent did inform the ministry about their discovery. Together we have talked to the College of Teachers, we are working with the Advanced Education, and we're looking at working with the Attorney General because of the connection with ESL programming and all of those things.

Are we willing to work for a win-win? Yes, we are. The challenge we have is that this is a very serious situation that we also need to have clarified within the Surrey school district. We are working on it, and we are committed to working hard.

I am also concerned that the member opposite references the Vancouver school district, and we will find out about that as soon as we can actually make that connection. We've tried over the lunch break to do that.

That's the latest information I can give the member opposite. I'm also happy to offer an opportunity for the member to sit down with one of our staff to work through where we've been made aware of the circumstances and what steps we're taking. We're happy to provide that information at some point to the member directly as well.

S. Hammell: Let me say right at the outset that your description of the situation to me makes perfect sense in terms of the funding and the qualifications. I understand the issue from a funding perspective, and I understand that there's a historical problem here. I acknowledge that.

I do want to raise the issue that my understanding is that ESL is not taught at Invergarry. It's an adult basic education program. ESL long left the school district, so to my knowledge, it is not being taught there. What is in my interest and obviously in the interests of my community is that somehow the parents, the kids, or the students — many of these are obviously not kids; they are adults — and the teachers not be penalized for something that is in the past.

What we have here is an opportunity to somehow work through the certification. If you talk to the teachers, they also understand the issue around certification, and they are prepared to make the effort or take the courses that take them to certification. I think in finding that solution, they can actually participate in getting a certificate while they continue to work, and we do not disrupt the whole adult education in Surrey because of some other people's playing out of whatever was going on that made those mistakes.

I would like to make the case that the students or the teachers should not pay the price for those mistakes, if they are prepared to do their part to rectify.

Hon. S. Bond: I certainly appreciate the concerns. I have concerns about the issue as well. I cannot, as the member opposite can imagine, commit today to dealing with the specific job issues, or those kinds of things. I can commit to our staff working very closely with this school district.

We would obviously like to find a win-win. I mean, it's a disappointing circumstance, to be honest, and we need to work through this. It certainly is having an impact on people's lives, and I think that's very unfortunate as we go through this. It is an issue that this school district has to deal with. Again, we commit to the member opposite that we will work with them as best we can.

We will follow up on Vancouver, and we will also provide staff information, as possible, to the member opposite. We will continue to work hard on this. I appreciate her bringing it to our attention. I understand what a concern it is, and we will continue to work on it.

H. Bains: I would like to stress a similar point, if I may. What I would like to talk about is these teachers who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a situation where they were hired with a promise. They were hired with the qualifications they had; that was what was needed. They went their way, and they did a superb job in providing the teaching services that we needed in that area.

I do appreciate the minister's sincerity in dealing with this issue. My question is: what is it that we can do to take this message to those teachers who are right now, at this point, facing that they may not have a job

at the end of the day because of this situation that they have nothing to do with? It's something that the system created. It's not that they were hired just yesterday; some of them have been there for years. All of a sudden they found that the courses they're teaching require a certificate.

That's the point that I would like to stress as well as my colleague from Green Timbers. These are the teachers who live and teach in our areas, and they are looking up to the minister. They're looking up to the system to help them out of this issue that they're facing right now.

Perhaps the minister could comment on how it is that we could accommodate these teachers, so at least they could have, after today's comments, assurance of some sort from the minister that they will have a job — or if there's a way to grandfather their situation so that they don't have to lose a job as a result of the situation that was not created by them.

Hon. S. Bond: I wish it was as easy as me being able to guarantee either grandfathering or whether the jobs will exist. I have to work through due process, and right now that process includes us working very closely with the school district to sort through the issue.

The other thing I'm obviously concerned about is the employees. I think this is a very unfortunate circumstance, and we need to work through it. I'm also concerned about the students. We need to make sure, in all of this, that we don't forget they're pretty important to us, and they need to be taken care of as well.

It is complex, and it is a challenging circumstance. What I can say to both members opposite is that we will work as hard as we can to hold the school district accountable, to work through this process with them, to ensure that the employees — I know many of them are not short-term; I understand that — will be treated with respect.

We will try to find a win-win. If there are other circumstances being explored in other school districts that may be applicable which we're not aware of, we could also suggest that that be considered. From my vantage point, I need to be involved from the perspective that my staff is working with the district. I can't circumvent a process or a decision. I can only assure you that we've heard you today clearly, and we will continue to work with the school district.

Obviously, we'd want to expedite this. This is a tough situation for families and for employees and also for those students. We will reconnect with the school district later today and also follow up on the Vancouver concern.

H. Bains: Again, I want to thank you and the staff for taking this issue. Hopefully, we will come out of this in a win-win situation.

At this point, I want to once again stress that the law which requires the certificate for the funding purpose for a course that leads to graduation was there, and we allowed this system to continue on without the fault of these teachers. They came to work on a daily basis with the promise that everything was fine. All of a sudden we found that there's a problem with the law and the funding. We as a government have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure that they do not fall victim of a system that they had no control over. The system was there. Someone didn't enforce it for a long period of time, and all of a sudden, now it's the teachers who are paying the price for this, I guess, oversight.

I want to make the point again at the end to the minister that we will assist, if there's any way that we can, and work with your staff, so that these teachers can at least have some comfort that there will be something for them — if it's not grandfathering, then something else — so that the students continue to get the service they need and the education they require, and at the same time, the teachers can actually rest for a period of time that their jobs are going to be there one way or another.

Hon. S. Bond: Again, we will work hard to try to find some resolution. I think it is a very accurate description that this circumstance happened. Certainly, the people involved in the teaching side of it were hired, and they were doing their job. It was not a School Act change. It was actually an internal investigation that brought the information to light that there were some problems and some issues with how this is being worked on.

I am reassured by my deputy that the superintendent is working very hard to find a win-win. Again, if there is a way, for example…. We have to check with Vancouver, and if they have a similar circumstance and have found a way to help work through this, that's something we should look at. We will go back and check both with Vancouver and with the Surrey superintendent to see if that dialogue…. I've been reassured that the superintendent is working very hard to try to find some resolution to this.

M. Sather: I wanted to give the minister a little feedback on conversations I've had with the school district in Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, which is school district 42, and ask the minister a few questions.

The school board tells me that they're appreciative of the resources that are linked to the ministry that will assist them with their efforts toward inclusiveness. They want to ensure that there's an open level of communication between them and the ministry. On the other hand, they are concerned about their autonomy as we move into a period through this year where it seems that the ministry or the minister has a little more active role, perhaps, in the education system.

With regard to that and my board, can the minister make some comments for their edification in terms of their autonomy as we move along this year? They do have some concerns around that.

Hon. S. Bond: Chair, I'm not certain if this is the venue for that question, only because that is the subject of future legislation, in terms of the role of school boards and some of the changes we'd be making.

I hope we will engage in that with legislation, in terms of when we move forward. But just generally speaking, I will be meeting with school trustees over the next number of days and in the months that lie ahead. I can only assure the member opposite that our goal is to concentrate together on improving student achievement in British Columbia. There will continue to be a role for school boards, and obviously an expanded role, as we look at early learning and at literacy, in particular.

There will be some change in the system. But it really is designed to deal with the achievement agenda, which looks at 11,000 students who are not completing their graduation. I can understand some anxiety, but we'll be happy to discuss that further as we debate the bills — but also as I meet with school trustees to work through some of the concerns they've expressed.

M. Sather: I think the district is looking forward to working with the minister and the ministry throughout the processes that are taking place. They also said to me that whatever processes and procedures are put into place to address student learning, they need to be clear and that they were looking for some clarification on that. I think the minister, perhaps, will provide more of that as we move into, as she said, the legislative aspect of things.

They were unclear, when the minister talks about educational endeavours done in the public interest, about how the minister identifies the public interest and who identifies that. Is it the minister and the ministry? Or is it the school board that has the primary impetus on the question of what's in the public interest?

Hon. S. Bond: Again, I think the member opposite — I'm assuming — is referring to legislation that's in front of the House, because there is a test in some of the legislation around the public interest. So again, we can have that discussion as we move forward.

Generally speaking, I think what's in the public interest is determined by us collectively as a society and as a province. We work with school districts. When we talk about what's in the public interest, obviously our primary interest, when it's in the education system, is students. But I think there is not a specific definition of public interest. Collectively, we look at what we value and what's important, but the significant test for us would be what's in a student's best interest, when we think about some of the adjustments that we're going to make to the system.

M. Sather: Finally, before I move on to another area, in terms of consultation…. This is another issue about which I expect my district is probably not the only one to have some concerns about consultation between the minister, the ministry and themselves.

Who does the minister consult when changes in the education system are contemplated in general and more specifically?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, consultation has taken up the majority of my life as the Minister of Education — I can tell you. While there may be some concerns about what the formal mechanisms are, let me give the member opposite some of those.

We have the Education Advisory Council, which meets monthly with an agenda that includes all of the partner group representatives. We have the provincial round table, which we meet with not as frequently as the Education Advisory Council.

In addition to that, I have attended the vast majority of BCCPAC general meetings or workshop sessions, to present and have dialogue; the B.C. School Trustees Association; B.C. principals and vice-principals; and I've visited the superintendents.

In addition to that, I think the most significant consultation that I could ever have asked for was…. At this point I have visited 47 school districts across the province. That has never been done. When I visit a school district, I meet directly with the school board, meet with a group of education partners, try to meet with a group of parents and students, and I visit schools.

I can honestly tell you there is no shortage of information or policy suggestions. We have literally spent the last year consulting across the province with every partner group and in 47 of 60 school districts.

M. Sather: Another issue that came up was the issue of the FSA or the foundation skills assessment. The concern that they have is the monetary part of it and them having to pay for this. I wonder if the minister could comment on that and if there's any possibility that there may be some financial relief for the school district around the FSA.

Hon. S. Bond: I'm not certain. We're a bit puzzled by the question in the sense that there isn't a direct cost in terms of: "Here's the FSA, and here's how much it costs."

There may be additional time required from an educational support worker of some sort to help administer the foundation skills assessment, but it takes up a relatively small period of time in order to actually do that.

If the member opposite wants to share with us a specific question, either now or later, about the cost implications…. I think, generally speaking, there may be a suggestion that there's additional staffing requirements or something along that line. There is no direct charge from the ministry for foundation skills assessments.

M. Sather: Thank you to the minister for the response. Finally — with regard to what I talked to about as to the school district — the minister has mentioned that school boards will have an expanded role in the education system. I know that's going to be the subject of some legislation, so I don't want to go there, particularly.

If she can answer this question, though: what does the minister see as the benefit of having school districts take on a greater responsibility for early learning?

Hon. S. Bond: One of the easy answers is that in many cases they're already doing it. As I have travelled across the province, I have been incredibly impressed with the emphasis on early learning. I think it's because research tells us that if we concentrate on those early years, hopefully we can catch some of those students for whom arriving at the kindergarten door is a challenge in terms of their developmental readiness.

I think the easiest way to describe why the focus and why we're looking at the school board's mandates is because many districts are way ahead of us, and that's not unusual with others and governments. Usually, governments are running to catch up in many ways, but I've certainly seen that it is making a difference in many school districts across the province. I would suggest that, really, it is capturing a practice that already takes place today.

Other than that, the most compelling reason is that one in four of our children arrive at the kindergarten door, and they're not developmentally ready. What that means is that as you work your way through — especially kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2 — if that gap isn't closed and if that child doesn't catch up, so to speak, they have a very hard time.

We looked at the correlation between one in four arriving, being 25 percent of our children, and 21 percent of our students not completing. We think that if we invest in those early years, we're going to not only have a better opportunity for those students, but ultimately our completion rates will improve in the province if we concentrate on those early years. Generally speaking, boards have been very supportive of that thinking.

M. Sather: I wanted to ask the minister a couple of questions around school district corporations, because when I talked to the school district about that, they felt that the Trillium report had come back with good recommendations and so on. When I talked to the Maple Ridge Teachers Association, they had some questions about it. One of the things is the lack of clarity around whether the corporation is a public body. Or is it a private body?

Hon. S. Bond: To the member opposite: once again, this is the subject of future legislation. Suffice it to say that the sole shareholder is the school board, but the gist of the Hibbins report and the legislation we're bringing forward is to bring increased public accountability and transparency. We hope to implement measures that would increase transparency. That was one of the criticisms, certainly, of parents who had concerns about our district corporations.

We have a number of steps that we will be bringing forward, while we have actually tabled the bill. I think that discussion is probably best held for the discussion of the legislation, if it's specific to the changes that we are bringing to business companies.

M. Sather: I just wanted to wrap up on that part of it and say that the board did express confidence in the public education system. They did express some disappointments that the problems that exist are not being fixed, in their view, and they don't want resources diverted from the public to the private system. Those were the messages that I got from them, in meeting with them.

Talking to the district staff about the StrongStart centres…. The minister may recall that I had written regarding the desire to get that program in our district. The question was around the ECD mapping project that involves implementation of the early development instrument, or EDI, in B.C and this data being collected in 2004 and then more recently. They weren't sure which data the ministry was going to use to assess our district in terms of whether or not we would be getting more StrongStart.

Hon. S. Bond: If they have had their second-round evaluation, their second-round review, done for EDI, we would use the second-round data. If not, we would use the first round. Having said that, I think that perhaps since the member wrote to me with that expressed desire, we are actually looking at having one StrongStart centre, to begin with, in the member's school district.

Our view is that as we move forward, we want to see one in every school district for sure. Our commitment is for up to 80 by the end of this school year, so we're very…. Not this school year but looking forward, our throne speech commitment was for up to 80 in the next year.

Round 2 — if they've had it, we use that data and round 1 if they haven't had their round 2 information done. The good news is that the member's district will be receiving a StrongStart centre.

M. Sather: I'll bring that back to them and discuss it with them further, because I know they were concerned about the 2004 data being used. I don't understand the ramifications of it, but they said that because of the distribution of needy schools in our district — we have pockets of them; they're not well distributed — that would make a difference in the outcome.

I wanted to ask the minister. She's aware, I'm sure, of the trade, investment and labour mobility agreement that has been signed between British Columbia and Alberta. School districts will come under TILMA, as it's called, as of April 1, 2009. Has the minister had discussion and input on TILMA? Can she advise on how she sees it affecting or not affecting schools and school districts?

Hon. S. Bond: First, we'll go back to StrongStart just for a moment. To assist the member, as well, I'll make sure that a member of our staff talks to the school district about the concern on how the data is being used, because that would be the most direct way for us to deal with that. We certainly don't want there to be concerns about how and which data. I've asked one of my staff members to contact the district about that concern, and we can update the member with that information as well.

In terms of TILMA, we obviously are very supportive of TILMA. One of the things it will allow us to do is look at a similar credential that would allow for the

mobility of our teachers both to and from Alberta. We know they're coming this way, so that's a really good-news story.

That does involve some work. We are in the third year. We are on the list in terms of looking at the credentialing issue in the third year of TILMA. Our staff, though, is currently working and involved in those discussions about what implications there might be.

The College of Teachers will obviously also be significantly engaged in that discussion, because there is some difference between the credential in Alberta and in British Columbia. That will be a negotiation. It will be part of a process that others engage in as well. We are involved. We are supportive. We are working on that with the College of Teachers. Our ministry is involved in that.

If there are other specific issues around TILMA, obviously the best minister to canvass would be the Minister of Economic Development. From our ministry's perspective, we have been included in the discussion, and we will be negotiating, in essence, the certification issues that exist between the two provinces.

M. Sather: Well, the minister had mentioned the difference in credentialing between the two provinces, and it's stricter, if you will, or a higher standard here. Is the minister anticipating that the Alberta standards will move up to match ours?

Hon. S. Bond: I think it's too early to speculate. I think we have to do a lot of work between now and then. It will literally be a negotiation, as it will be I'm sure with other professions as well.

I have met — I can't say recently because recently would be in the last couple of weeks — in the recent past with the College of Teachers. That concern was brought to our attention by the members of the college executive that met with us. We assured them that there would be a negotiation and discussion about how that takes place.

We see it to be beneficial. We think it's an important agreement, and obviously what we want to see is the ability for us to both attract teachers here and see that mobility exists. So there will be a discussion. There will be a negotiation, and it's too early to speculate how those credentials would look at the end of that discussion.

M. Sather: Just to clarify on that point: does the minister anticipate then that it will be standardized between the two provinces one way or another?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I think the key point of TILMA is mobility. It would allow a teacher to be a teacher in British Columbia or Alberta. That means we have to discuss the credentialing issue, and I think it would be safe to say that the way Alberta would describe their standard is that the standard is different, not higher.

I think we want to be cautious about that too because I'm sure they have excellent teachers in Alberta. Certainly, some of their results are slightly ahead of us. So we're working to catch up to them in that department, but the standards are different, and that's the discussion that has to take place.

M. Sather: The issue, though, is that if the standards are not harmonized, if they're not the same, then a teacher from Alberta could conceivably have a case to bring forward under TILMA that they're being discriminated against, which is contrary to the agreement. So I would think that the minister…. I'm sure they are keeping that in mind.

One other question I wanted to ask about TILMA. There are a number of ramifications that could occur. One of the things I know from being on the standing committee on health charged with studying childhood obesity is that junk food in schools came up over and over again. Now under TILMA, I'm sure the minister is aware, there's a provision under the "no obstacles" article that says there must not be restriction or impairment of investment.

We are moving, hopefully — and it's the right direction — to get junk food out of schools, but that obviously would have an effect on the investment capacity of those that are putting the food into the schools. Has the minister discussed that issue, and how does she see it being resolved or not?

Hon. S. Bond: Certainly, I concur with the member opposite that we hear an awful lot about healthy schools and making sure that we have healthy alternatives within our schools. We actually are working to expedite the removal of junk food. Right now, we're trying to look across a number of initiatives, including the provision of junk food in public buildings as well. We want there to be a comprehensive strategy, so we're doing lots of work across ministries.

I think the very specific question that the member asked might better be canvassed with my colleague, the Minister of Economic Development. He would far better know the ins and outs of TILMA, but I can give two general principles that might be helpful. Let me read it so that I get it absolutely accurate: TILMA does not apply to government rules and policies regarding water, taxation, labour standards, occupational health and safety, procurement of health and social services or aboriginal policies and programs.

In addition to that, TILMA does not affect legitimate policy objectives in such areas as public safety and order, labour standards, health and social service delivery and is intended to improve trade, investment and labour mobility.

So generally speaking, there will still be the opportunity for us to have legitimate policy initiatives in British Columbia, but in terms of just the specific question, if the member would like a more specific answer, I would urge him to canvass the Minister of Economic Development. I would feel comfortable with him referring that question directly.

D. Cubberley: We were just embarking on the beginning of some questions around special needs, and

the minister provided some information about funding levels. I just wondered, to complete my awareness on the topic, whether…. She gave an example of level 1 funding — or a couple of examples — which was the highest level. Could she give me an example of what a level 2 would look like and what a level 3 would look like, and whether any of those would be applied to grey-area kids?

Hon. S. Bond: Let me provide some specifics for the member opposite. Level 1 is $32,000, and each of these categories is identified. There is in essence a very specific diagnosis, so it's very clearly articulated.

To answer the last part of the question: does it cover grey-area students? No. Having said that, let's go back to…. I know I gave a lot of information all in one fell swoop there, and it was interrupted. There is also $230 million in the budget in the block funding amounts for students outside of these specific categories. It's really hard to talk about these without, you know…. Because these are children we're talking about here. I'm trying to find a way to be sensitive about how to talk about these because there are children attached to every one of these levels.

We left this funding, as the member opposite would hopefully remember, despite my very rapid-fire listing of all of these things. We did leave $230 million in the block funding amount, which would have previously been targeted to some other categories of children. So in many ways, no one really defines grey. In many ways, it's come to be whoever isn't covered off in these three categories.

There is money that was left in the block amount for children who do not carry a diagnosis. There is money there. Are they specifically targeted? No, and really, what school boards asked us for was some freedom to say: "Let's have this money with fewer specific targets, hopefully, to have us address a variety of needs that may not have been captured." There is money there. The argument will always become, from many people's perspective: is it enough, and does it cover every child?

Going back to our supplemental funding levels, level 1 is $32,000. Those are students who are dependent, handicapped or deaf-blind — obviously, significant needs. Level 2 is $16,000. Those would be students who have moderate to profound intellectual disability, have physical disability or chronic health impairment, have visual impairment, are deaf or hard of hearing or have autism spectrum disorder. Just recently, in the last year, we have added another category to our autism funding as well and included Asperger in that. We have broadened that spectrum.

The final level is $8,000 — remember, these are supplemental to their base funding — where we have students who require intensive behaviour interventions or have serious mental illness.

D. Cubberley: The minister mentioned as well that '06-07 sees a $6.5 million lift in the total amount. I just want to confirm that that's correct. Was this supplementary, then, or follow upon Bill 33? Is this funding that was in anyway earmarked?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, in fact, what that funded was…. I gave the numbers earlier to the member opposite. Overall, our students with special needs dropped — right? But what happened was that level 2 — which, going back to our definition, would be students with moderate to profound intellectual or physical disabilities, the bigger category in terms of the number of criteria that are there — went up in terms of the number of students. So we honoured that with additional funding to cover the additional students in category 2. Level 2 went up. The general number went down, but level 2 went up specifically. That's what the funding is to cover.

I should also point out that we did make one other addition. In addition to the $6.5 million, we're investing $3 million, and this is a really significant response to a school district concern. That's for students with special needs who move from one district to another or who are identified after the September 30 count.

If you think about that…. I know the member opposite is familiar with this, but I'll just reiterate this. If you have a level 1 student who moved from one school district to another or suddenly appeared in October, a school district would receive no funding. What we said is that we would do a second count and actually honour the funding for that student past September 30. So that brought an additional $3 million.

D. Cubberley: Thank you, Minister, for that. It has indeed been brought to my attention that that rankles with school districts. I think by extension — although it's a lesser amount of money — the same kind of case could be made around refugee ESL students, who are arriving in unpredictable numbers at various points in the school year. I think that can be a bit of a challenge to accommodate as well, but that's an aside.

To come back to my theme of special needs kids, when Bill 33 was brought in, it placed a cap of three special needs kids per class, which was in some sense a soft cap because it didn't mandate that there be no more than three. It simply mandated that a process would follow if there were to be more than three.

My sense from what I've heard the minister say and what I've read in response to this is that wherever the cap has been exceeded, there has been a consultation with the classroom teacher. I believe that that is probably the case, because superintendents have signed off on that, so there is some level of comfort that a conversation has taken place.

There are somewhat under 10,000 classrooms in B.C. that are operating in excess of that cap. My question to the minister would be what the actual purpose of the cap was intended to be. What's it there to do? Is it just to secure a consultation with the teacher, or is it intended, in some fashion, to trigger a process that could lead to an adjusted allocation of resources?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, Bill 33 came about as a result of a great deal of discussion and compromise, I think, on the part of a number of people, and that's a good

thing. We worked hard. The area we reached compromise on that was most obvious was the actual class size limits in the grades 4-to-7 area. Where there was not consensus was about how we actually deal with secondary school class sizes and also how we deal with children with special needs, within a class size discussion.

There are no caps for the number of children with special needs in a classroom. Obviously, one of the things that was very strongly felt by parents, trustees, superintendents, principals, vice principals…. In fact, I think it's fair to say that the strongest-held opinion was by the B.C. Teachers Federation around making sure there were hard caps for children with special needs, and that was not at all something that was supported by the other partner groups that were at the Learning Roundtable.

Our best place of compromise was to be able to say that at least there should be a thoughtful and meaningful discussion about how a class is created. I think the best way to describe it is that it really is a trigger for a process, a trigger for a discussion to say: "If you're going to put children with special needs in a classroom, we want to make sure that it's the appropriate learning environment for those children and the other children in the classroom."

Really, Bill 33 was more about a process in terms of consultation and agreement. Obviously, there isn't the requirement for teachers to agree in the secondary school. There is a consultation requirement. I think it really was a thoughtful and, certainly, a very long discussion. There was no consensus about caps, so no caps exist. It really is about what is the best grouping of students with the best teacher in front of that class.

D. Cubberley: I thank the minister for that. I guess the question is whether a conversation with a teacher can lead to an adjustment where the teacher is not satisfied that the mix in the classroom is optimal from the point of view of all of the learners and from the manageability of the situation by the teacher.

What options are open to a teacher where there isn't responsiveness on the part of whoever that conversation is being had with — whether it's principal or superintendent; I believe it's the principal that you would have it with — where there simply aren't additional resources? What position is that teacher in, and what ability do they have to try and change a situation that they may professionally consider to be less than optimal for teaching outcomes?

Hon. S. Bond: Certainly, we know that it does lead to adjustments. A significant part of Bill 33 was to ensure that professionals talk to one another about the placement of children. In that discussion they include parents, so that there is really a sense of: "We want the best placement for all of our children in public education."

I have to admit I was surprised and somewhat disappointed to learn that there was a feeling on the part of many teachers that classes were created without that kind of discussion. Administrators would tell you that that happens in most places. There was that kind of dialogue that actually led to Bill 33.

Really, Bill 33 is about what we believe best practice is, which is professionals talking to one another about the placement of children in classrooms. Yes, it can lead to additional time with an educational assistant.

One of the things that our reporting around the numbers doesn't articulate is what additional supports are in a classroom. For example, in the classes that the member opposite cites where there may be more than three children with special needs, it's very likely and there's a high probability that many of those would have additional staffing resources attached to those classrooms. I would be surprised if there weren't. One of the reasons you do at times group children with similar needs is because you can provide additional resources.

Yes, I think that discussion can influence what happens to support a particular group of children. I guess ultimately the principal makes the decision to sign off to say that this is the best learning environment that we can create in this school. The superintendent then signs that off, and ultimately the school board must sign it off as well.

If a teacher is completely dissatisfied — although we have certainly found that Bill 33 has worked really well in its first year, and I say that knowing there are some circumstances where there are issues — I guess a teacher could file a grievance. I can't think of another process, and certainly my deputy reminds me that that may be one of the options a teacher could ultimately choose. If they were totally unsatisfied, they could file a grievance.

D. Cubberley: Just to pursue that a little bit. That might be an avenue in the event that they felt that adequate resources weren't being supplied for the number and mix of special needs kids in a classroom?

It would suggest that there is a standard of some kind — I'm just thinking out loud here — for each type of child who would qualify for special needs assistance. That would suggest resources should be travelling with a child of that kind, otherwise it would be hard to see a basis for a grievance.

I have other questions, but I'll just see if the minister wants to add anything to that.

Hon. S. Bond: Certainly, if we look at what might be grievable by a teacher, it would have to be something that's in legislation. Ultimately, it would be that consultation may not have taken place. If you were going to look at what a teacher would grieve, it would be: "I wasn't consulted with."

But I do think that we need to rely on the educational leadership of principals to work with teachers, to know that their ultimate goal is the same as parents and certainly ours, both of us here in this House, to make sure that children are served well.

For the most part, I think that principals work very hard with their teachers to provide the resources to support them in their classrooms. Are there complex

situations? Yes, there are. I have been in classrooms where there are certainly challenges, but again, this is about putting the child at the centre of the agenda and having our professionals work with families to try to find that placement that benefits them most.

D. Cubberley: I would agree. I think the inclusive classroom is a challenge. It's a noble objective, and I believe it's the right objective. I think it presents all kinds of challenges to achieve an outcome that's balanced and fair and at the same time allows every child in the class to try to reach their potential.

It's a very challenging situation, and I think B.C. has a lot of positive experience in the area. My own personal feeling is that going in that direction is the right direction to make that classroom work.

What I hear in talking with teachers is a sense of frustration at the numbers of kids and, especially in classrooms where there are higher numbers of kids, at what they perceive to be inadequate resources for the mix they are having to deal with. I suspect that may have something to do with the fact that the number of specialist educators who have traditionally been in schools and played a role in supplying supports for special needs kids and provided aspects of their educational program…. To some extent, there are fewer of those people — I would be interested in knowing if that's true — and they are being replaced. I don't know if it's one for one. It would be interesting to know. But we are seeing, at the same time, a growth in educational assistants, who play a different role in relation to special needs kids in the classrooms.

I've heard quite a bit from teachers anecdotally about that. I'd be interested in knowing whether the number of specialist teachers has declined over the past number of years and whether the number of educational assistants is increasing. We'll leave it there for now.

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, there have been increases. I'm looking specifically just for the member's answer, because we have all kinds of numbers here — learning assistants, teachers and special education teachers. I can give the member the numbers from '04-05 up to '06-07. I'll just read them.

In '04-05 for learning assistants, special ed, there were 3,311.6. I'm not sure how we have a 0.6, but we do. In '05-06 there were 3,357.9, so it went up — remembering, of course, that our number of students has gone down in terms of even special education numbers. And in '06-07 there were 3,442.9. So I think we can see a significant increase, especially over the last year, because of Bill 33 and other initiatives to put resources in. Those are learning assistants and special education teachers.

In addition to that, we had 176 new teachers overall. Aside from these numbers, there were 176 new teachers added — that would be because we're looking at class-size reductions and all of that — and 400…. Is that seven?

Hon. S. Bond: Four hundred and seven. We're very accurate. I was going to say 400. But it's 407 new teaching assistants as well.

D. Cubberley: I'd be interested in knowing whether the growth is in those who are not trained as teachers or whether it's in the group who are trained as teachers but non-enrolled, as I believe they're called.

Hon. S. Bond: The non-enrolling component that we would have referred to would have been the language arts and…. I'm sorry — the learning assistants and special ed. I'm going to have you really confused here in a moment. Learning assistants and special ed are non-enrolling positions. So the numbers that I read the member from '04-05, '05-06 and '06-07 are those non-enrolling teachers that would be directly related to special education.

Hon. S. Bond: They're specialist teachers. The others would be teaching assistants, of course, who are not necessarily not teachers for the most part. So those would be 407 new teaching assistants.

D. Cubberley: I just wanted to continue along a little bit and ask whether B.C. teachers receive preservice training in dealing with a blended classroom, whether that is mandatory for them in the current training programs that we have or whether there are in fact new teachers who find themselves in one of these highly blended classrooms who haven't got an appropriate background in how you deal with that situation.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I know we had a general discussion about this in relation to English as a second language or even first nations components of teacher training. This would be another one we could add to the list. The credentialing is managed by the College of Teachers. So when we look at what's required to be a teacher in British Columbia, we don't have influence in terms of what those courses would look like.

I think it's safe to say that as much as we're aware, if you are a new teacher, they don't take specific courses that would deal with a blended classroom. Obviously, lots of skills are taught. Teachers would get a lot of experience in their practicum.

In terms of formal training, specialist teachers would take additional courses to be able to work directly in the areas that I've articulated. In terms of a general teaching program in the province, we're not aware of specific courses or elements of a program. They would get a survey-type approach to the type of children with special needs and how that might take place and what that might result in, in a classroom, but not really a lot of emphasis on some of those specialty areas.

D. Cubberley: One of the things that I've heard over the time since I've been Education critic, and in fact dating back before that, were complaints from

parents who have special needs kids about the length of time that it takes to get a child assessed with that clinical assessment in the public school system. I've heard anecdotally that for some families it can be as long as four years to get a clinical assessment completed.

I even have heard reports from parents whose children didn't receive an assessment until they were in high school for what proved to be a significant disability. My question is: is the ministry monitoring wait times for access to assessment, and are we taking steps to ensure that appropriate resources are available to school districts to ensure that those assessments are delivered in a timely fashion?

Especially in light of the fact that some kids who are struggling with disorders like autism…. There is some evidence indicating that early intervention is required in order to optimize outcomes. Intervention can't really flow until there is assessment and an education plan is authorized around it. I'll leave it there.

Hon. S. Bond: This is an issue that has certainly been brought to our attention at the provincial round table, and I think that it's something that warrants more work. The challenge we face is that it's a very different process in different school districts. Who is referred, and how that's done…. I think there are a number of issues.

We don't directly monitor wait-lists because they are taken at individual school district levels. But the complexity is even more challenging because we have a shortage of people who actually do the assessments. So we're dealing with the same kinds of personnel issues that the member and I have canvassed on other topics. We are facing some challenges just in terms of actually getting the personnel to do the assessment.

It's a correct and valid observation to say that it's hard to begin intervention until you have an assessment. I think this is a valid issue that was brought to the Learning Roundtable. We would love to have the opportunity, and we committed to that, I believe, in that meeting to talk at one of our provincial Learning Roundtable meetings about the issue of wait-lists and assessments. How do we get a better handle on some consistency around that? It is very different in different districts, and that's part of our challenge. It's not something that is a surprise to us or new to us. In fact, there is work to be done there.

The B.C. college of school psychologists received a grant to assist them in their work to support educators to meet standards and enabling more individuals to be available to practise school psychology. We are trying to incent and invest to try to make this easier to do. But in fact, it's an issue that is on our table and, certainly, one that we would like to see more discussion take place on at the Learning Roundtable.

D. Cubberley: I thank the minister for that response. A question I have is: do parents who find themselves in a position of waiting for, in an open-ended way, an assessment to be done have recourse to go out and, if they have the funds, purchase an assessment on their own time lines, and in that manner move their child forward in whatever queue there is?

Hon. S. Bond: I think, ultimately, we do need to continue to be aware of the wait-lists that exist within school districts. Obviously, that's where we want children to be assessed. We have to work harder to sort out what the issues around that might be, including how we find the personnel to actually do the assessments.

The reality is that a parent can seek an outside assessment, should they choose to do that. Obviously, there would be a cost attached to that, which would be a parental choice. Obviously, that's not possible for some parents, but that is an option. The challenge we face is that that assessment may not translate directly to what is needed in a school setting. So it may well be something that some school districts, having had that experience with certain assessments, may accept and be able to utilize. That's not always the case.

Again, there is not a guarantee that if you went out and sought a personal assessment, that it would necessarily translate directly into the school being able to apply an intervention strategy. That's not an easy route for parents either.

The other thing is: who is put on the waiting list for an assessment? We also need to be thoughtful about the number of children that are on that list and why they are getting on that list. That's not something that we have a consistent way of monitoring across the province.

So the answer is yes, you can go out and do that. There is a cost attached, which would be personally borne. Secondly and probably even more importantly, it couldn't guarantee that it would necessarily translate to school usage.

D. Cubberley: I would suggest that in a situation where parents feel that they're waiting too long, and possibly indefinitely, for an assessment, there might be a strong motivation to simply try that avenue because it's an avenue.

One of the strong impressions that I have in talking with parents about their experience of how the school system currently handles special needs kids…. The front-end frustration is in getting the diagnosis completed, because access to resources won't occur in the full sense of the word or be tailored to the individual until such time as the assessment is done.

In much the same way that we see in health care, the absolute necessity of ministers engaging in wait-time reduction strategies in order to bring down the length of time that people are waiting for access to service, my sense is that it should be a priority of the ministry to look at the resources that are in play with school districts and where needed bolster them so that timely access to diagnosis can occur. Parents then begin their relationship with the school system on a much more positive note. I'd just like to know if that priority is shared.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, certainly our commitment is to try to see improved student results for every student in British Columbia. I think part of that is obviously having an intervention strategy when that's necessary. I think that today we certainly want to reiterate our commitment to have a discussion about this with our key partners that are represented, at the round table in particular. I don't think there's a quick fix or an easy solution, particularly when we look at the personnel issues related to simply getting the assessments done.

I can tell the member opposite that this is an issue of importance for us and that as we work forward on the rest of our achievement agenda, this is an area that we think is important enough to continue the discussion. Again, not an easy fix because there are very different circumstances in all of our school districts. I think that's the beginning of the discussion: how big is the problem, and what can we do to try to resolve some of the wait-list issues?

D. Cubberley: The other thing I've heard a lot of from parents with special needs kids is the necessity they feel to become involved at various points in arguing for changes to the individual education plan or, where there is discretion, in arguing for added supports to tailor that plan to their child.

On the one hand, the potential for advocacy on behalf of whatever interest is one of the hallmarks of democracy, and one would always want that option to be kept open. There is a question in my mind as to whether the current way that things are done is placing too much of a burden on parents to become engaged and whether, despite their best efforts, some don't get the attention that's required and that it leaves open a situation where those kids who don't have parents advocating on their behalf are open to a different standard of treatment.

I just put that out, not because I'm saying there's an overwhelming pattern of this, but I simply hear it over and over again from parents with special needs kids — that they have had to become involved in advocacy at their school to see the right things done for their child. I would ask for a comment on that.

Hon. S. Bond: There is a requirement under the IEP order for parents to consult or, at least, for there to be an offer to consult. So parents must be consulted if a child is going to have an IEP. After the end of that process, if they are unhappy or concerned about that IEP, there is an appeal process, so the parent can appeal the particular plan that's been put in place for their child.

For us that's a very important piece. We absolutely have to have parents involved in those discussions and to make sure that they have a chance to be a part of the program planning for their children. That is a requirement. It is part of an IEP order.

I think that if there are specific circumstances where parents feel there is a sense of frustration about the process, it's certainly something I'd be interested in hearing about. But there is an absolute requirement that they be consulted, and there is an appeal process if, at the end of that, they are unhappy with the plan that's been put in place.

D. Cubberley: I'd like to canvass for a moment a particular situation which is occurring currently. It has to do with Vancouver school district, which is dealing with a significant budgetary shortfall and looking at making cuts in a number of areas to try and offset that shortfall. What I understand that they are looking at…. It is significant. They're looking at eliminating three vice-principals, a systems analyst, 34 special education assistants and 133 teachers — most of whom are probably non-enrolling resource teachers who support kids with special needs, ESL kids and other vulnerable students.

I would ask if the minister and the ministry are aware of the situation, whether they are concerned about the direction of these cuts in particular — because they would appear to be landing fairly squarely on the special ed apparatus in the Vancouver school district — and whether work is being done to find out what can be done to assist.

Hon. S. Bond: Are we aware of the circumstances? We absolutely are aware. Not only have we been aware of it for this year, I have just…. I'm looking at the funding history of school district 39, which is in Vancouver. The member opposite needs to know that since 1997 in fact, this school board has had a series of concerns.

Let's start with 1997. The district actually submitted its preliminary budget under protest. In the fall the Coalition to Save Public Education reviewed "reductions" of budgets and concluded there were $16 million worth of funding cuts. At the end of that year the Vancouver school district had a $3.9 million surplus. The same happened in 1998 in terms of a surplus and in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

In 2002-2003, the board presented a series of funding shortfall scenarios which indicated an overall shortfall of $20 million. They had an $11.8 million surplus, and as we look at their information coming forward this year, we still anticipate that they will have a surplus amount of money. Since 1997, the fact of the matter is….

Let me just give the member opposite what the increase in funding to the Vancouver school district has been. Next year the Vancouver school district's funding is estimated to have increased by $56 million since 2001-2002. That is a 15-percent increase. At the same time — let's just get the other part of the story — they have lost 2,500 students.

It is time for the Vancouver school board to actually take the time and effort to sort out how they're going to meet the needs of their students with a $56.7 million increase since 2001-2002.

D. Cubberley: Presumably, their increase would be based on FTEs in the way that other school districts

would have been, and it reflects whoever is showing up at the door. So I'm not sure what the budgetary increase would imply. Maybe it makes them richer than other school districts; maybe it doesn't. I don't really know.

The one thing I did want to ask about — and the minister didn't comment on this — is that the proposed cuts are essentially aimed at special ed apparatus, from what I understand. At the same time, and perhaps the minister could confirm this for us, the number of special ed students in that district is growing. Enrolment is declining, but the number of special ed students, I believe, is increasing.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, we can certainly look up the numbers in terms of special education students versus the decisions that the school board is about to make. I simply need to remind the member opposite, and certainly, those who will ask this question….

When we look at declining enrolment, this province, this government is actually providing — and we walked through this with the member opposite yesterday — the enrolment decline supplement. I called them buffer grants in the sort of general sense of the word. That funding alone to the Vancouver school district would be approximately $1.3 million.

I don't know the number in terms of the special education students. We'll look that up and get that information for the member opposite. So 2,500 students left between 2001 and 2007. They have received an additional $56 million, and we're having a discussion about whether we're cutting special education staffing?

For the member's information, the Vancouver school district has increased its staff, at a time of losing 2,500 students, by 212 FTEs from 2004 to 2006. It includes 51 teachers, 16 principals and vice-principals, 90 educational assistants, 51 support staff and four other professionals — with 2,500 fewer students. I can honestly suggest that it is important that school districts work within the envelopes that they have been provided with. We are looking at record levels of funding and continuing declines in enrolment.

The other issue that we have to look at is the resource allocation within school boards. School districts are making very difficult decisions. The member opposite referred to one literally in his backyard recently. As I understand it, the Vancouver school board is not contemplating school closures either. One has to ask about the capacity to continue to keep buildings open that are half-full, when resources can be directed to classrooms.

Our job as a government is to send resources — the biggest amounts we can send — to public education and to school boards to make decisions. There are going to be some challenging decisions for the Vancouver school board, as there have been all across this province. There is significantly declining enrolment.

Last year alone, the Vancouver school district lost 1,000 students — 1,000 fewer students. One has to look at the staffing component. Obviously, there are going to be some decreases in the staffing component when you have 1,000 fewer children. Tough decisions? Yes, but that's the demographic challenge we're facing across the province. The Vancouver school board is not alone in having to make those decisions.

M. Farnworth: I'd like to just take this opportunity to let the minister know that I want to talk about some local issues in my particular constituency. If they've already been canvassed with the critic, please understand. I want to touch a little bit on seismic upgrading and get a sense from the minister in terms of the number of schools that are anticipated or are required to be seismically upgraded and the number of schools that have actually been seismically upgraded.

Hon. S. Bond: When we start looking at the numbers…. We made a commitment to 95 high-priority schools and expected to have those underway. I think it's important to recognize that we said between 2005 and 2008. That doesn't mean they'd all be finished in 2008, but certainly underway or completed. At the moment, we have nine that are completed or under construction as we speak. We have 15 more that will be in construction by the summer. The balance of those are in a variety of stages within their school districts and feasibility studies. There's a process that we go through.

The balance of those schools are either in feasibility studies at various levels…. We want to find a process to expedite the feasibility process as well. We're working on a couple of initiatives which we will make public very quickly, because we need to speed up the feasibility stages. Our intent is to have those projects either completed, under construction or beginning in 2008.

So to the member opposite: it's nine completed or under construction; 15 going to construction by summer — in fact, just today I approved two more of those, and those will be heading out to school districts very shortly; and the balance of those underway within 2008.

M. Farnworth: I thank the minister for that answer. In terms of the money that the seismic upgrading comes from, it is a separate pool of capital funding, as opposed to the regular school construction capital program. Is that correct?

Hon. S. Bond: Yes, the member opposite is absolutely correct. The number for the seismic projects over the next 15 years is $1.5 billion, and that is a separate envelope. The member is correct.

Where we have asked there to be some change is when we look at the planning process, that districts do that in an integrated way. The money envelopes are separate — $1.5 billion and approximately $700 million over the next three years on the capital side. I'll verify that to make sure with the school years. But $1.5 billion, $700 million, and we are looking at a more integrated planning approach with school boards. So that would not necessarily be as separate as it has been before.

M. Farnworth: There are two other questions around this that I want to ask. If a school is to be seismically upgraded, there is an assessment done on it and it's determined what the cost of that seismic upgrading is going to be. But if it's 70 percent of the construction of a new school, then it would not qualify for seismic upgrading. Is that correct?

Hon. S. Bond: That's generally true in the sense that it's not a hard and fast rule. It's not that once you reach 70 percent, we're looking at a completely new building.

Those are some of the complex questions we're asking ourselves now in times when the construction industry and costs and all of those things are rising. The member is correct that we would look at a threshold of about 70 percent if we're looking at a renovation. Then we have to ask the tough question: is this a reno or a new build? That is accurate.

The other thing we have to point out so that we can get the complete context…. With the changing demographics, the other thing that has caused us to think especially about the capital side, is whether we are going to need these buildings two and three years out. We're trying to be sensible about the investment of public dollars.

That has actually changed over the last number of years as people have seen: "I don't need a new school anymore because the numbers are dropping so dramatically." So we have to look at other options. The demographics have certainly added another dimension to our capital planning, and we're trying to think about three and five and ten years out — more so on the capital side obviously than on the seismic, but there are those considerations that we're making today as well before we finalize those capital plans.

M. Farnworth: The other question related to the seismic allocation that I'd like the minister to explain is the 95 percent utilization rule within a district as a whole, because that also impacts on the issue of seismic upgrading.

Hon. S. Bond: I appreciate the question from the member because there has been confusion and concern about the threshold, especially being applied on the seismic side.

We've just walked through the utilization capacity. The member is correct. It is 95 percent, which we typically use on the capital side. So if you are looking at a new build, we want to be sure that we actually need a new building.

We have also contemplated it on the renovation side. So if a building is half full, should we actually be renovating this? We have not applied the 95 percent utilization principle to seismic. We're looking at that differently, so it has not been applied on the seismic projects. It has been looked at in the build and reno side.

M. Farnworth: I want to thank the minister for that clarification because I know in my local school district 43 that has been a significant question, and it's a challenge because that district is one of those districts that encompasses a number of different communities. The boundaries aren't conterminous. So in some parts of the district you have very low growth and very old neighbourhoods and then in other parts you have significant growth taking place.

As I like to remind colleagues when we're talking about growth, my constituency from '91 to '96 grew from 52,000 people to 85,000 people in four years. Another part of school district 43 basically remains static. There was very little change. So that has a significant impact, and older schools are in need of seismic upgrading. That's an important issue, so I thank the minister for that clarification.

The other question, and it comes back around the issue of new builds and renos and the cost of where seismic goes over…. If you're building a school and it goes to 70 percent and it's decided what's really required here is a new building, then the funding for that doesn't come out of the seismic envelope, it comes out of the regular capital that you would build a normal school by. Is that correct?

Hon. S. Bond: A complex question and probably a confusing answer, but I'll do my best because I have a great capital team. We attempt to keep them as clearly designated as possible. Seismic would be funded out of seismic, and if there was an additional cost because it was a rebuild, a building, we would take the additional costs or the premium costs out of the capital side.

But the seismic component would be reflected out of the seismic budget. We're trying to keep the funds as separate as possible, maintaining that commitment to the $1.5 billion seismic upgrading component. If that doesn't quite answer it, if you clarify the question, I'll work the answer out.

M. Farnworth: I'll give you an example. Let's say you have a school and its costs…. For the sake of argument, let's say the estimate on doing a seismic upgrade initially was $5 million. You went in and did the work and you realized it's actually$10 million — it's an elementary school. So you could build a brand new elementary school for that $10 million. Would the school then be built out of the traditional capital funding envelope or would that $10 million come out of the seismic envelope?

Hon. S. Bond: Okay. If you were to take that example with the $10 million, if the seismic estimate was $10 million and it required a new school, that would be completely funded out of seismic. In the member's scenario, that would be funded out of seismic.

M. Farnworth: Okay, I'll give you an example. Lincoln School in my district was one of those schools that was recommended for seismic upgrading, and the school district had an initial approval. The assessment was done. It significantly increased the cost of that school, and it was past the 70-percent threshold. To fund that school the question then becomes…. If it's

over a threshold to rebuild that school, it would have to be a brand-new school. Does it come out of the regular capital allotment, or would it come out of the seismic funding allotment?

Hon. S. Bond: I guess what I want to do for the member opposite is separate out the school closure decision, because we would not influence a school closure decision based on the cost of replacement or seismic. I don't know the exact details about Lincoln or the choices that the school board made.

I should say to the member opposite that I did meet with the school board and certainly have a good sense of the pockets the member described, because the board did speak to me about threshold and capacity and varying areas. I had a very productive meeting with the school board when I visited the district.

I don't want to mislead the member, because we would not link a school closure to the cost of rebuilding that building. If a school district decided, for example, that Lincoln was a school that was to stay open, then we would sort out what happened to that building. But at the end of the day, I am assured that the decision was based on educational and other reasons, and it wouldn't have been influenced by the funding for either replacement or seismic.

M. Farnworth: I appreciate the minister's answer, but what I'm trying to get a sense of, though, is exactly how it works. I think an important question that's asked locally is around how a school goes from the approval of seismic. We have this threshold of 70 percent. I use Lincoln because it did have an approval of 70 percent, so I'm trying to understand. If it is over that 70-percent threshold, then to rebuild a brand-new school, does it come out of a traditional capital envelope or does it come out of that seismic envelope?

Hon. S. Bond: Okay, here we go again. Going back to your $5 million, $10 million example, the reason that one would have been completely taken out of seismic is because the seismic upgrade or the new building would have been exactly the same cost. It all would have come out of seismic. If we use the threshold example — and let's suggest that it's 80 percent of what it would cost to build a new school — 80 percent of it would come out of the seismic, and the 20-percent premium to build the new build would come out of the capital side. So we would honour the seismic piece, the 80 percent out of seismic, and 20 percent would come out of the capital build envelope.

M. Farnworth: In terms of coming out of the capital build envelope, the traditional model, would there be any recognition of how the ministry approaches the approval for that in terms of the rest of the school coming out of seismic? Or would it have to compete with all the other priorities that the ministry is looking at?

Hon. S. Bond: I think the best way to describe that is that its priority would be driven by the seismic side of the capital plan. Those would more than likely be the driving effects. It wouldn't compete directly in the capital envelope side. The priority would be moving the seismic agenda forward.

M. Farnworth: If a school district determines that a school is a seismic priority, and then there is the seismic funding, then clearly, if that's a priority, then within the traditional allocation that the school funding would come out of…. The funding would come out of that, and it would be viewed as a priority as well.

Hon. S. Bond: The clearest way to articulate that is: the seismic agenda would rank as the priority.

Now having said that, my terrific staff has given me the flip side. Another circumstance could develop, and it would likely be the exception rather than the seismic portion. If, for example, the seismic build was responsible for 40 percent but there were a number of other things that would happen in a school building that would drive toward a new build, in that circumstance it would likely be considered in the context of the capital building side, mainly because of the smaller proportion of the seismic side. That would give it a bit of a different context. But if the vast majority, the 80 percent threshold, were on the seismic side, it would be driven out of the seismic envelope, and that would continue to be a priority.

M. Farnworth: The minister used 80 percent. I'm just wondering, because I've mentioned 70 percent, and 70 percent does seem to be a standard. Is there any reason why we….

M. Farnworth: Okay. If the minister could explain that difference, that would be great.

Hon. S. Bond: I am sorry. You were correct. It is typically 70 percent. We were trying to make it even more graphic so that we could suggest the 20-percent premium. The member is correct. It's around 70 percent.

M. Farnworth: The reason I raise these questions is because I think one of the issues that school districts do struggle with, particularly with some seismic school situations, is the cost of the seismic and the replacement. As a result, they are making decisions when the real issue is that the school needs to be seismically upgraded.

That's why I'm raising the issue around the cost and around Lincoln. I think that is an issue of concern. I would ask the minister to work with boards in ensuring that while boards have to make difficult decisions, they also understand that the issue of seismic is one where there is this ability. It's not a question of either the seismic pool or the traditional capital pool. What the minister is saying I think gives school districts the ability to look at schools — in the case of Lincoln — in a way that would have predicated a different outcome.

I've got a few questions, not too long, to deal with a number of other local issues — some of them concerning PACs and some of the priorities that I think PACs are concerned about. One of the issues is: what does the minister feel that the role of the PAC is? I know that's a very open-ended question, but I really would be interested to hear the minister's opinion as to what she thinks a PAC is or should be doing.

Hon. S. Bond: They're actually trying to rein me in. They know I love to talk about PACs. We're trying to keep this down to a shorter answer here.

I do want to go back, though, before we go to PACs. I was very sincere in thanking the member for bringing the question forward around the seismic capital sort of juggling and how people view that. What we will do is pursue that through a discussion, particularly with secretary-treasurers, who obviously work with that. We certainly don't want the impression to be that it's either/or in terms of where the funding might come or what the priorities might be.

I think that has been an issue, especially as you're going through school closure discussions, and all of those things. We want to be sure that there's some clarity. I appreciate that, and we will make an effort to connect through the school district secretary-treasurers and then on to the board with that information.

I think as a person who was a parent advisory council chair — it seems like many moons ago — that there's a fundamental role for a connection between parents and schools. I think that PACs play that very important role. It is about providing advice and being in communication with school districts. I hope it's also a place where parents are meaningfully engaged in things like the school configuration, and how classes are created and school planning is done. So I think there's a vital role.

I think we're challenged in this day and age with the way parent advisory councils are structured. I discuss this with BCCPAC regularly. With the working world that many parents face, they're struggling to keep PAC membership up. In fact, one of the questions I get most often when I meet with parents across the province is: "What can we do to get more parents involved?"

I think there continues to be a vital role. I think it's about connecting parents to schools in ways that give them a meaningful role, and that's one way, obviously. Parents are involved in a number of ways.

M. Farnworth: I appreciate the minister's answers, because I think that's what many parents involved in PACs would like to be doing. But one of the challenges that many parents and PACs feel is that, depending on the area and the school they're with, they spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising for books and for activities — and that takes away from what they themselves, the minister and the parents involved think that a PAC should be doing.

My question would be around the issue of funding, because it comes into a number of things. For things such as books, is the government looking at ways of eliminating that need in the sense of saying: "Okay, maybe we need to recognize that some of these things are integral to the education process. Those are things that we really need to make part of the core education process and that we really should be funding"?

Hon. S. Bond: It's interesting how these processes develop. My staff just handed me a note that says: "Hot dog mom." It's a reference to me, and it's about the role that parents play. I was a mom who actually served hot lunch for a long time. I'm hoping that's what my wonderful staff meant by that.

I think we do believe that. As a government, two years ago we sent $10 million to school districts because we'd heard from parents that they had textbooks that their kids were sharing and photocopying. That is a responsibility that school districts should be providing — the learning resources that are necessary for courses. We sent $10 million to school districts and said to superintendents…. I think we made them sign off on something to say they took care of the textbook issue, because it's an issue that parents had.

The challenge we face is that we've been talking about thresholds when it comes to capital. I think that as parental expectations continue to rise — and they do — around what public education should provide, parents continue to want to do more for students.

Obviously, government has a responsibility to fund public education, and we think that's important. I know that members opposite at times roll their eyes when I say we're at the highest level of funding ever, and that is true. I think that fundraising would continue no matter what levels of funding we were at. Should there be textbooks provided for students? Yes, there should. I think there are basic expectations that we hope public education meets, and parents certainly provide additional dollars to enhance opportunities for students.

M. Farnworth: I understand what the minister is saying, and I would agree. I think you always will have fundraising, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It does involve involvement.

I think where parents get frustrated is on things — books and equipment — that are integral to the school and the learning process. I think that's what we need to address, and I think that's what I'd like the minister to recognize is a challenge for PACs. We need to pay more attention to that, and we need to be devoting more resources to that.

The other, on a similar line in terms of the issue around PACs, is school planning councils. I'll ask the minister a similar open-ended question. What does she think the vision of the school planning council is? What does she believe the function of the school planning council should be?

Hon. S. Bond: I had a hunch this is where the member was going, because I know one of the challenges that I think parents themselves are struggling with is what the role of school planning councils are.

How does PAC relate to that? How does the district parent advisory council relate to that, especially when we have a limited number of parents in many schools that are actually involved at all?

I think the vision behind school planning councils was: what better way to organize and plan and strategize for a student's success than having parents, administrators and teachers sitting down and working together on that plan? Our vision was, in essence, to require at this point — it would be great if we could just assume that parents would be included in those ways but, in fact, we made the choice to legislate that — that parents have a role in the design, planning and strategic planning of a school.

School planning councils and the parents that are involved in that take on that role. It shouldn't, however, be disconnected from parent advisory councils. We do believe in the importance of both of those organizations. Obviously, PAC representation on school planning councils is essential. I think there is a connectivity, but there is some differentiation in the roles as well.

M. Farnworth: I guess the minister does touch on the crux of the problem in terms of interconnectivity. As in any group, there are a limited number of people who actually will be engaged, and many times you find they are the same people. Burnout becomes an issue.

Is the minister aware of how many schools currently have fully functioning school planning councils? Do all schools have fully functioning planning councils?

Hon. S. Bond: We don't have the numbers specifically about school planning councils. There certainly are schools that do not have school planning councils. There are a variety of reasons for that, not the least of which, as the opposite member might suggest, is that it's the same group of people in many cases. One of the things that I could let the member know is that we are constantly having discussions with BCCPAC, which of course is the organization that represents parents. Is there overlap or duplication in the roles of parents? How do we engage new parents? That is an ongoing discussion.

Certainly in my meetings with them, both in their planning sessions and their AGMs, those are the kinds of discussions that are taking place. There is a strong belief, though, in the importance of having parents at that table, which is the planning or sort of strategizing table. School planning councils have been, for the most part, fairly well-received by parents.

The challenge is a manpower issue, a person-power issue. What is the role? Are there separate responsibilities? And how do we get parents to help us in this role? We are having an ongoing dialogue about the role of district parent advisory councils, parent advisory councils and SPCs. We welcome suggestions from parents about how that might look a little bit different, if that would be their choice.

M. Farnworth: I'm going to, after a final question/comment, yield to my colleague the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca, who has some questions — after I do this last little bit. I'd like to thank the minister for the answers to our questions. I'm going to leave with one question and a statement.

One of the things that I think a lot of parents feel strongly about…. I share this view, because I feel very strongly about it as well. In this particular case, it came out of a discussion I had with the Southside of Port Coquitlam PACs known as the Southside Family of Schools, and it was around the issues of libraries in schools and school librarians. I really think that we need to get back to having librarians in schools.

As much as computers are an integral part of the learning system today, I think that in terms of literacy, a fundamental part in the development of literacy is a book — the ability to go and get a book and read it. Not having librarians in schools doesn't allow for the full development of literacy in the way in which I think we all want to see it.

So I would ask the minister: is she giving thought to bringing back funding for having full-time librarians in schools? For parents I talk to and have met, that was a top priority. They felt strongly about the need to have fully functioning libraries that are not just open one or two days a week or with specific hours but open all the time for students, to be accessed at their leisure with a librarian in there who can show them and do all the things that a librarian does.

Hon. S. Bond: We are not contemplating formulas around non-enrolling teachers, which would have been, obviously, where the librarians would have fit into the formula prior to this. There is some good news on the horizon, though, that we are really pleased with. Two years ago, when we put $150 million into the budget of school districts, one of the areas that districts looked at was librarians.

I don't know the situation for Coquitlam, but I can give the provincial context. In 2004-2005 we had 692.6 librarians, and today, in '06-07, we have 746.6 librarians. Despite the fact that we have not targeted or had specific formulas for non-enrolling teachers, we have seen the number of librarians go up, and I think that very clearly indicates the importance that school boards are seeing with the very comment that the member has made.

We are not looking at non-enrolling ratios. We are certainly focusing on literacy. I think that one of the things that boards will be contemplating as we look at a requirement for them to create a literacy plan is exactly how they are going to do that within the context of their school district. So I think the member opposite might see even further interest in looking at that particular resource in schools.

M. Farnworth: With that, I will yield the floor to the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca and leave the minister with one thought. Given what she just said, I think that that points out the value of school librarians and that one of the best signals she could send to school

J. Horgan: It's a delight to be involved in the Education estimates again. I know that the minister is probably thinking after our two bouts in the 38th parliament what possibly do I have left to ask that she hasn't already answered, but I do have a couple of things I wanted to raise on the record for my community of Malahat–Juan de Fuca.

The minister will know that there are two districts within my electoral area: district 62, which has stable or increasing enrolment — certainly, projections are for an ever-increasing enrolment as south Vancouver Island's population grows — and also district 79, which has a declining enrolment.

We had the good fortune, the minister and I, to be at a school opening this week in district 79. We'll be at a school opening next week in district 62 — my children's school, Happy Valley Elementary.

The challenge for me as an elected representative — certainly, I'm sure, for the Minister of Education, and she'll see how this would be a challenge for me — is: how do I reconcile the parents in district 79 who are full of anxiety and concern about the declining enrolment and closing of schools and juxtapose that with the parents that I meet at the district PAC every month who say we need bigger schools, more schools right now? I understand the challenges that she faces as a minister as a result of the yin and the yang of my electoral area.

The particular issue I want to touch upon is Cowichan Station Elementary, which, sadly, was one of the schools that district 79 elected to close in this round of reductions of physical infrastructure. Parents in the community have contacted me. They've done a great deal of research on the ownership and the history of the land in question. In particular, they wanted me to ask if I could get some clarity on land disposition policy at the ministerial level. There have been comments made in the public press by the secretary-treasurer of district 79 alleging that the district has full authority to dispose of all lands that were under its control.

This particular parcel is complicated inasmuch as there was Crown land involved in a transfer to the district almost a century ago. The community is of the view that that Crown land should be an opportunity for them to continue to have this public property at their disposal. The district seems to have a different point of view. I'm wondering if the minister could clarify land disposition policy and particularly if she could focus — I know it's a specific question — on district 79.

Hon. S. Bond: We would like to have some discussion with that school district and with the member opposite, because if it is indeed Crown, there is a different process. So we are not aware. We will certainly look into that.

It's good for us to hear that concern, because if it is owned by the Crown there is a reverter clause. In fact, that means that that property would revert to the Crown. We would be very willing to have a discussion. I'd be happy to have our staff have some discussion with the member about that and what process that involves.

That is a different process than what a typical disposition of land might look like. Currently school boards can dispose of assets, and they make those choices themselves. I think the member opposite, certainly having been a vigorous critic and one that did his homework, would know that we are exploring the whole capital disposition and acquisition process because of the very kinds of concerns that the member is expressing.

These are community assets. They are technically owned by taxpayers. The deed might say something, but these are $8 billion worth of taxpayer assets that are around the province in education. It's time we had a discussion about what is the best use of that physical asset and that property before it's simply disposed of.

We are in the process of having discussions about the capital process in general. But specific to the member's district, we would like to engage in some discussion about that particular school site.

J. Horgan: I'm pleased to hear that there aren't absolutes on this issue. I expected that was to be the answer. I'll put a further twist on it. As a rural member, the minister will understand even more so, I think, than…. I look around, and I'm a semi-urban rural representative.

In district 62, which is becoming increasingly urbanized, the disposition of land or assets is less important. In a rural area, if the school or the public property has been the core, the centre, of the small community, it becomes an enormous issue. Through the minister's answer, I appreciate that she understands that full well.

In this specific case, we have parents who went through a tremendous amount of work. I engaged with the minister's deputy last year on the school closure because it was a rural traditional school that the previous minister and the deputy had helped establish. The community was very engaged in the process.

They have their dispute with the school board, and they'll deal with that at election time, and all the power to them. But they have gone the extra step of doing the research to ensure…. Not that I'm suggesting that the school board would dispose of the land in a reckless way to advance other causes. But feeling abused as a community, they want to ensure that this area, which they have researched with legal help and so on — the significant parcel of the school property — was Crown land that was passed on to the school board so they could expand the playing fields and so on.

I'm wondering if the minister, in thinking of how we go into looking at this specific area…. Has the ministry contemplated the significance of these public assets in rural areas versus urban, or is the ministry trying to develop a homogenous policy across the province? If you haven't gotten there, my recommendation would be that we do look at the urban-rural because, as she knows, that's very important.

Hon. S. Bond: In the work that we're doing, we haven't necessarily contemplated a geographic or urban-rural kind of process. What we really want to begin to look at is a broader consideration of the use of that asset. Is there a government use for that asset and property? Is there a community use? Is there a district use? I think what we're looking at is a broader umbrella and some different lenses than exist today.

Today it's up to the school board. For the vast majority they do a great job, and usually it's because they are taking that asset to leverage it for another asset. Obviously, that's what's important, and we've actually insisted on that.

I appreciate the comments about rural-urban. I think if we were looking at a process that allowed for an analysis of government, community and district uses in rural districts, that would be a value that would be considered when you're using those new lenses. So I think that's an important consideration.

In light of the Crown issue here with the school that was mentioned, the other thing we have to be cautious about, because it reverts to the Crown, is that that wouldn't necessarily mean that it would be: "Here's a parcel of land. Now over to you." There would have to be discussion about value and those kinds of things. I'm certain people would understand that if they've done their homework.

That discussion certainly needs to take place at the local level. More broadly speaking, we hadn't looked at rural-urban. We'd looked more at a broader discussion between parties that might have interests.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for her comments and her answers. Again, this is the internal conflict within my community that I represent. I fully understand that the minister has to take my conflict and transpose it across 60 districts in British Columbia — 59 plus one.

In 62, where a higher best use or best highest use…. I'm not sure what the exact term I heard was — not from the minister but from staff. That's saleable. If you are taking land that has become surrounded by industrial or commercial activity, maybe that's not the best place for the school. Let's dispose of that land. Let's capture that value and run it into a place that's more appropriate. That makes perfect sense in a growing urban area.

But in these smaller areas or far-flung districts like 79, where there are distinct communities…. I know the minister fully understands that what happens in McBride has little or no relevance to what's happening in Prince George.

Similarly, in my community I have a group of parents that have become activated on the education question for half a decade. This is not a new thing. It was well before her time and well before my time. To try and keep that school going didn't work — best efforts and all of that. Now they want not to be given, as the minister said…. They recognize there is value in this land, and they want to capture that as Crown land for community purposes.

I'm wondering, in the process of developing policy in this regard, particularly when it comes to an area that has these two chunks of land, one Crown and one owned by the district, if the minister is contemplating policy in the short term, in the near term.

I may as well be blunt about it. The sense in the community is that there was a deliberate closure of this school to capture the wealth of the land to jam into another capital project further down the road — three or four communities down the road. That's the sentiment in the community.

I have no evidence to prove that case. I know the district works very, very hard to grapple with the challenge of a declining enrolment and excess infrastructure. That's how they feel. They told me to come and ask the minister about it. That's what I've done. If, as the minister suggests, she could avail some of her staff to spend a few more quality moments with me on these issues, I'd be delighted to take her up on that.

Hon. S. Bond: I know my staff would be delighted to spend some time working through this issue with you. I know they always found the working relationship to be very positive, so I appreciate that.

The best way to describe it — and we were trying to think of what we actually said in the throne speech — is that we're looking for use that represents the maximum public benefit. I think that's what we're talking about. Maximum public benefit is the best way to describe it, and I think that was in the throne speech.

Yes, we are working on the process that we would like to implement soon. We think it's important to actually look at whether there are provincial needs, local needs, government needs or community needs of that asset.

What's compelling us to want to do this is the fact that we're seeing it happen more frequently all across the province. That's part of the challenging story. We want to make sure we're using those assets to the best public use that we can find, so we are looking at doing that. I would hope, as the member opposite does, that that wasn't the motivation in terms of looking at the decision that the board made about: "Let's do this quickly so we can utilize that."

We certainly would commit to having staff sit down and work through the issue of the Crown property in particular. I can honestly say that I can understand the parents' concern and passion for that building and that piece of property. They are the hearts of communities, and this is very difficult stuff. We need to work with that parent group, and we would commit to having staff meet with the member opposite.

I know we've only got a few moments left before we stop, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to just comment on some of the changes that have taken place since I used to have his job. I wanted to say that I'm encouraged, particularly on the graduation portfolio question.

The minister and I had a lot of discussion around that, and I want to leave her with this: it wasn't that I

was against expanding our students' ability to do a whole host of things. I was concerned about linking it to graduation, as was my son who was in the first class going through. He's delighted that he's been given…. I've lost the word now. I don't have to think about it anymore.

J. Horgan: Well, it wasn't "reprieve." There's actually a term that the superintendent passed into my ear.

J. Horgan: Standing granted. That's right. He's very proud to have said to me after, I don't know…. I asked him a thousand times if he was meeting his requirements, and now he says: "Standing granted, Dad. It doesn't matter. I don't care anymore."

I'm very pleased that the ministry and the minister recognize that best efforts is a good start. If this takes hold and communities, students, teachers and school districts embrace it, then it's a good thing. I'm very pleased that the minister and the ministry have decided to go slow and make it work to the best interest of everyone concerned.

With that, although the minister may want a rebuttal…. She doesn't seem to. We can do it another time. I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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