Hansard — Thursday, May 3, 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		7513

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		7514
	Mission Foundation Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill Pr402)
	R. Hawes

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		7514
	Courage to Come Back award winners
	H. Bloy
	Millside Elementary 100th anniversary
	D. Thorne
	Contributions of seniors
	D. Hayer
	Medical use of marijuana
	N. Simons
	Memoir of nurse Gertrude Ladner
	V. Roddick
	Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House 30th anniversary
	J. Kwan

Oral Questions		7516
	Comments by former Finance Minister regarding municipal politicians
	J. Kwan
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Call for investigation of media activities by Liberal staff
	L. Krog
	Hon. W. Oppal
	B. Ralston
	Comments by former Finance Minister regarding municipal politicians
	R. Fleming
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Call for investigation of media activities by Liberal staff
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Comments by former Finance Minister regarding municipal politicians
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Government policy on ministerial appointments
	J. Horgan
	Hon. C. Taylor
	Funding for Mary Manning Centre
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. T. Christensen
	Government consultation with first nations on release of private lands
	C. Trevena
	Hon. M. de Jong
	Vancouver Convention Centre expansion costs
	G. Gentner
	Hon. S. Hagen
	H. Bains

Tabling Documents		7520
	Environmental Appeal Board, annual report, 2005-2006
	Hon. B. Penner

Committee of Supply		7520
	Estimates: Ministry of Environment and Minister Responsible for Water Stewardship and Sustainable Communities (continued)
	S. Simpson
	Hon. B. Penner
	J. Horgan
	M. Sather
	Estimates: Other appropriations

Point of Privilege		7543
	J. Horgan

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		7543
	Estimates: Ministry of Finance (continued)
	B. Ralston
	Hon. C. Taylor
	J. Horgan
	Estimates: Management of public funds and debt
	Estimates: Other appropriations

Hon. L. Reid: I have the pleasure today of introducing three amazing women. Rheta Steer has joined us. Many of you will recognize that lovely face as the person who took my babies around this building in the early days. Karen Legeer is with us as well, the godmother to my daughter Olivia. And my dear mom is here, Cathy Reid. I would ask the House to please make them all welcome.

C. Evans: On behalf of the member for West Kootenay–Boundary, I'd like to introduce Mary Bermel from Castlegar, who is a constituent of the member for West Kootenay–Boundary, and her sister Lillian Nechvatal from Armstrong. Will the House please make them welcome.

Hon. G. Abbott: It's my pleasure to welcome to the House today two ladies, Ashley Kroening and Sarah Prud'Homme. They are in Victoria taking part in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's mother-daughter breakfast program.

The Mother-Daughter Breakfast Tour travels to 40 communities across the province each year, raising awareness, very appropriately, for breast cancer prevention and detection with young women and their mothers. I'd ask all members of the House to please make Ashley and Sarah most welcome.

C. Puchmayr: I have four guests in the audience. Monira Karim and her daughter Nafisa Karim are in the gallery today. Make them welcome, first of all.

Hon. J. van Dongen: Today I would like to acknowledge some special visitors to this House from Norway. I ask the House to join me in welcoming His Excellency Tor Berntin Næss, Ambassador of Norway to Canada. He is joined by his trade commissioner, Mr. Tor Mühlbradt, and honorary Consul General Mr. Stein Gudmundseth.

This is the ambassador's first visit to British Columbia, and we look forward to strengthening the bonds that exist between our two jurisdictions. I ask the House to please make them all very welcome.

N. Macdonald: Jeff Dean is one of our research officers. His mother Gayle Gavin is joining us in the gallery to see what we're up to. I'd like you to join me in making her welcome.

J. Nuraney: In the gallery today we have two very good friends of mine, Don Jones and Marilyn Buchanan. These two people have been really very helpful to me right through my political career, and Don Jones is a great Rotarian. Would the House please make both of them feel very welcome.

R. Chouhan: I would like to introduce our intern researcher, Sarah Wiebe. Not only do I want to welcome her, I also want to wish her a very happy birthday. Please join me to do that.

B. Lekstrom: Today in the gallery and throughout the buildings, we have a number of motorcycle enthusiasts that have joined us. May is Motorcycle Awareness Month in the province, which brings awareness to the safety of riders on the roads of British Columbia. I would like the House to make them all feel very welcome.

G. Gentner: It's a great deal of pleasure to introduce three very special guests here today in the gallery and the Legislature. The first two are from Gainesville, Florida. My daughter Noelle is a doctoral candidate in medical anthropology at the University of Florida. She announced to me today that she has won the fellowship, and she's off to Africa. With her is my grandson Flynn — and he's a Florida Gators fan, both football and basketball — and of course my dear, lovely wife Shirley. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. G. Hogg: We are joined in this House by a couple who truly understand the essence of community and have made significant contributions to the communities of this province, firstly, here in Victoria and now in Surrey–White Rock. Would the House please make most welcome Barbara Courtney-Young and Michael Young.

I. Black: It's a pleasure for me to welcome to the vicinity 45 students from Hampton Park Elementary School in my riding. They've been here taking a tour and going to the Titanic exhibit next door. They've just had a terrific day. They're a great bunch of kids. I had a chance to spend a little time with them. Specifically, I want to welcome Eric and Adam Chattan, two boisterous little kids who also happen to be next-door neighbours of mine.

D. Hayer: I have many special guests today. It gives me great pleasure to introduce 50 grade 5 students visiting from Pacific Academy from my riding of Surrey-Tynehead. Joining them are their teachers Mrs. Sharon Douglas and Grant Wirtz as well as 30 parent volunteers. It also includes Connie Johl, who's one of our constituents and hard-working volunteers. All of these parents have taken time out of their busy schedules to accompany these students. Would the House please make them very welcome.

I have another special guest. My wife Isabelle Martinez is here. She volunteers in my constituency and helps me whenever I need help. Would the House please make her very welcome.

J. McIntyre: It seems that we have lots of students here today. I just want to add a voice of welcome to a

class from Brackendale Elementary in my riding. They will be here later this afternoon at three o'clock, so I'm giving them an advance welcome.

R. Hawes: I move that a bill intituled Mission Foundation Amendment Act, 2007, of which notice has been given on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time.

R. Hawes: The Mission Foundation is a charitable organization in Mission that does incredible good works for the community. The name Mission Foundation has not been truly descriptive, and so they have requested that their name be changed to the Mission Community Foundation. It's a fairly simple straightforward bill for a great organization.

I move that the bill be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Bill Pr402, Mission Foundation Amendment Act, 2007, introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

H. Bloy: I recently had the honour of serving as a judge in the 2007 Courage to Come Back Awards. I was a judge for the mental health category, and I can tell you that the selection of the three finalists was an incredibly difficult process. Every single one of the 29 nominees deserved to be acknowledged for what they have gone through in their lives.

I would like to take a few moments to talk about one of the award winners, a Burquitlam resident, Merle Smith. When Merle was just 14 years of age she was hiking with friends, and a whiteout hit. Her group fell off a cliff, resulting in Merle breaking her neck and making her a quadriplegic. Her school was not accessible at the time, but her friends helped her. She graduated from high school, and she went on to complete a BA at Simon Fraser University and then a master's from the University of British Columbia.

She got a job with the Ministry of Health in 1973 and was soon appointed the ombudsman for the handicapped. In 1975 she was dealt another severe challenge when her car was struck by a drunk driver, resulting in life-threatening injuries. Once again, Merle refused to give in.

Today Merle continues to work for improved accessibility and services for the disabled. She is a relentless advocate, and it's easy to see how passionate she is about her life's work. Merle is a worthy recipient of the physical rehabilitation award.

Another winner from Burnaby, Leslie Nelson, received the social adversity award that night for overcoming a lifetime of drug abuse and now works tirelessly to empower others and help them to confront their own challenges.

I would also like to recognize the other recipients from that night: Loyanne McCuaig from Vancouver, John Morrison from Prince George, Hersh Abramson from Vancouver and Kaytee Tuomola from Vancouver.

D. Thorne: Millside Elementary School, which began as a two-room school on what is now Brunette Avenue in Maillardville, is marking its centennial this week. In 100 years, a lot of learning has taken place there, and a lot of lives have been touched.

Alumni and others are invited to drop by and enjoy displays and events designed to honour and celebrate some of the world events that have transpired since 1907 — for example, the year 1925, when Winnie the Pooh had his literary debut; 1945, VE Day; 1958 and the Hula Hoop craze that hit Canada; and finally, the start of the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope in 1981.

Mr. Speaker, we need to step back in time a little to comprehend how this little school came to be. In 1907 Fraser Mills was severely handicapped by the lack of skilled workers. They decided to build a school to attract workers whose children could then get something very new, actually — a free education. Many new arrivals from Quebec still chose to enrol their children in the Catholic school after they arrived. But during the Depression this all changed, and enrolment ballooned as people could no longer afford to pay tuition fees at the Catholic school.

The two-room school grew finally to 232 students by 1936. Additional buildings were built, and eventually a gym and finally a computer lab. Services increased as organizations like the SHARE Family and Community Services Society offered early childhood education and a family resource centre.

Through the past 100 years, children and their families from many countries have learned they could be part of the larger community simply by getting involved in their local community school — Millside. It is the memory of this sense of belonging that the school hopes to rekindle in its alumni and their families when they drop in to travel back to another time in their lives during this week.

I'd like the House put its hands together and say happy 100 to Millside School, the little school that did.

D. Hayer: I had the pleasure of visiting the Elim Village seniors housing complex and the opening ceremonies of the Guru Nanak Niwas assisted living complex for seniors. I also visited the Surrey Lawn Bowling Club for the annual opening ceremonies.

I had the privilege of meeting many seniors who are on the front line of volunteerism, contributing their time, their skills and their enthusiasm to helping thousands of others.

It impressed me to see how much our seniors contribute to our society, how they're so willing to step up to the plate to help others. I acknowledge how important our seniors are and how much they have contributed to our society, to our community and to the lifestyles and prosperity we enjoy today. As well, it is because of our pioneers and our seniors that we enjoy our right to vote and the freedom and democracy that we also hold precious.

Our seniors are role models that everyone should look up to, who we must recognize are the builders of this province, this country and the community. Age, it seems, is no deterrent because no matter where you go in Surrey or throughout the province, you will find seniors actively participating in making a difference in our community. The example they set is outstanding.

Therefore, I ask everyone in the House to join me in thanking seniors across British Columbia for the contributions they have made, both in the past and the present, which have made our province the best place on earth to live, work and do business in.

N. Simons: I rise to speak about a specific health care problem facing people in every one of our 79 constituencies. These are people living with a range of illnesses and conditions, including multiple sclerosis, cancer, spinal cord injuries, HIV and AIDS, epilepsy, chronic pain and arthritis.

They have found marijuana to provide relief from their symptoms. Among other things, marijuana helps in the management of their seizures. It assists those with anorexia and wasting, and it combats the numerous horrendous side effects of pharmaceuticals.

We're coming up on ten years since the right to use marijuana was granted to Jim Wakeford by our courts. Despite his victory, patients continue to suffer in this province because of the difficulty they have in finding a free, consistent and quality supply of their medicine.

Doctors know that marijuana will help their patients. In order to exercise their rights, patients have to break the law or get gouged with high prices and poor quality. The fact that they have to pay anyone — a drug dealer, a compassion club or the federal government — goes against the principle of fairness.

While the federal government charges less than the average drug dealer, they charge tax and shipping. It's estimated that the markup on government-approved marijuana is in the range of 1,500 percent. Over 200 doctors in British Columbia and almost 1,000 doctors across this country refer patients to marijuana.

Over one and a half million Canadians use marijuana recreationally. Over half of Canadians support its legalization or its decriminalization. The marijuana industry in this province is estimated to be worth $6 billion. I'm hoping that a rational, levelheaded and even-tempered discussion on this subject will result in patients getting good consistent quality marijuana at no cost to them.

V. Roddick: May 6 to 12 is National Nursing Week. This week provides us with the opportunity to recognize the invaluable contribution of nurses, the heart of health care. Three local women in my community of Delta South recently wrote a book on a remarkable woman from our past, Labour of Love: A Memoir of Gertrude Richards Ladner, 1879 to 1976, written by Valerie Grant and Sheila Rankin Zerr and Glynneth Zilm.

Based on the enchanting story of a young nurse of the early 1900s, this book provides insights into the life of a remarkably spirited and independent young woman. Her account certainly gives a different historical picture of a professional nurse of 100 years ago. At that time there were no doctors in the Ladner area. She was a one-woman health care delivery system and, from all accounts, damn good at it.

The book is based on a family diary dictated by Gertrude Ladner to her daughter Edna Ladner and based also on family photographs and documents. This book contains background on the Richards and Ladner families, both of whom made — and continue to make — important contributions to the history and future of B.C.'s lower mainland. Two chapters contain primary data on the history of the provincial Royal Jubilee Hospital and on nursing uniforms of the day.

Nurses have played a critical role in caring for us in times of illness since Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, and will continue their precious work taking care of us long into the future. I ask that the House join me in acknowledging and celebrating the incredible contributions that nurses make to our communities each and every day.

J. Kwan: Last Thursday there was a party for over a hundred people at 800 East Broadway in my constituency. Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House was celebrating its 30th birthday. Vancouver's neighbourhood houses have a long and distinguished tradition of providing places where people can gather together to get information, share ideas, access service and, most important of all, connect with their neighbours. Neighbourhood houses are the living rooms of our communities.

Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House was particularly lucky to have had the late David Adair serve as the founding executive director for the first 25 years. With the local board members and its amazing band of volunteers, he guided the development of programs to respond to the evolving needs of the community.

This tradition continues today. The range of services includes a mobile service to help people file their income tax forms, child care, ESL programs, seniors groups, access to health care services and much, much more. The neighbourhood house works in partnership with non-profit groups, educational institutions, government departments, businesses and, most important of all, the people in the neighbourhood.

At the anniversary celebration there was a video presentation in which local residents talked about the value they place on neighbourhood houses. People of various ages from a wide range of ethnocultural backgrounds spoke about the warmth of the welcome they get, the pleasure they get in meeting with people from the community, the support and services they receive from the staff and of course its many, many volunteers.

Last week I wished the Vancouver Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House a happy anniversary. This week I invite all the members of this House to join with me in congratulating them on their 30th anniversary and wishing them continued successes.

J. Kwan: Yesterday we learned just how far the B.C. Liberals would go to defend their broken promise of B.C. Rail. It was much more than dirty tricks. B.C. Liberals were actively attacking local municipal leaders. A transcript of just one recorded conversation is shocking.

Dave Basi: "Bill Vander Zalm will be on with Barb Sharp, mayor of North Vancouver. I wanted to have the mayor of Squamish, who's a good friend of ours, rip Barb Sharp a new…." Expletive. "Is that okay?"

Surely someone, anyone, on that side of the House will stand up and denounce such personal attacks and dirty tricks. Or will this government stay silent and protect their B.C. Liberal friends?

Hon. W. Oppal: Obviously, the member from the opposition is making reference to evidence that's being led in the trial. She's reading from transcripts, apparently, of what was wiretap evidence. Obviously, we can't comment on that.

J. Kwan: Mayor Barb Sharp was doing her job, standing up for the people of North Vancouver and the hundreds of B.C. Rail jobs that this government was ripping away. She was standing up for her community, but this government was desperate — desperate enough to tear her down. The former Finance Minister gave the go-ahead for a dirty personal attack.

It is a simple question to the Attorney General and has nothing to do with the court case. Is this something that the government supports, or will the Attorney General admit today that such actions are simply wrong?

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, we simply don't have the luxury of passing judgment before the trial concludes. The member opposite may have that luxury, but it would be improper for us to do that.

L. Krog: Every day we learn just how low the B.C. Liberals are willing to go. Today it is truly a new low. Not only were B.C. Liberals deploying dirty tricks on the opposition; they were attacking a respected municipal leader behind her back for defending her community. They set her up on a radio call-in show. Fake calls, on-air ambushing, personal attacks — and they were all signed off by a senior Liberal cabinet minister.

To the Attorney General: how much more evidence does this government need before they investigate their own dirty tricks?

Hon. W. Oppal: Surely the member opposite knows, as a member of the bar, that these are allegations that are made at trial. It would be totally, totally improper for anyone in this House to comment on them, let alone draw conclusions from them.

L. Krog: A transcript is a transcript. Dave Basi, Prem Vinning, Steve Vander Wal — they've all been caught playing dirty tricks. Now we can add the government's former Finance Minister and House Leader to that list. But this government won't denounce such dirty tricks, and they have every opportunity to do so.

I say to the Attorney General: will the government not only investigate this pattern of dirty tricks from the Premier's office all the way down, but will the Attorney General denounce them today in this House as he should properly do?

B. Ralston: I have a simple question, and it is not sub judice. Is this government today — today — actively engaged in dirty tricks and personal attacks against municipal leaders? A yes or no will suffice.

Somebody made a comment over here, and I would expect that they would take that back.

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, all of this arises out of the same source, and that is the trial that's going on before the Supreme Court. I would have thought that the last two members who asked would know better. Both are lawyers; both have practised before the courts. It is totally improper for anyone in this House to comment on evidence that emanates from that trial.

B. Ralston: There are interpretations of the sub judice rule other than the one that's put forward by the Attorney General. Other parliaments, including the British House of Commons, have said that the presumption should be for discussion rather than for stonewalling.

This is a question that we're asking about what's taking place today. So again to the Attorney General: will he commit to investigate the lengthy pattern of dirty tricks and assure British Columbians that they have stopped?

Hon. W. Oppal: First of all, I don't conduct investigations of that sort. Secondly, if the member has any evidence of wrongdoing, then he should take it to the appropriate authorities.

R. Fleming: You know, part of accountability is taking it to the proper authorities, and the proper authority is the Attorney General in matters like this.

The B.C. Liberal dirty tricks aren't limited to a few political aides. We know the names Vinning, Vander Wal and others. They have nothing to do with this trial. It's now clear that at least one senior cabinet minister was giving sign-off for these dirty political tricks.

Will the Attorney General stand up and condemn the actions approved of by his government's former Minister of Finance so the public can know clearly what the government thinks of these actions and whether they will admit that they're right or wrong?

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, there's a judge presiding over this trial. The judge will make the appropriate findings. It's totally irresponsible for anybody in this House to suggest and to conclude that any of those allegations are accurate or truthful or factual.

R. Fleming: The Premier is today speaking to an audience of elected municipal leaders in Merritt. I'm sure that in his set speech, he's not going to explain why government ministers and why B.C. Liberal staff orchestrated personal attacks on the mayor of North Vancouver.

But will the Attorney General, here in this House, assure mayors and indeed all British Columbians that his government is no longer paying staff or awarding contracts for dirty tricks campaigns against elected officials on the airwaves of our province?

Hon. W. Oppal: Some of the mud may even stick some day. The fact is that if there is any evidence of wrongdoing — and the member there has suggested all types of wrongdoing — then take it to the appropriate authorities. The Attorney General doesn't investigate conduct of that type.

N. Macdonald: Very clearly, the Premier sets a standard. He said so himself. At the same time the people I represent in Columbia River–Revelstoke were being told that there is no money for forestry workers…. They had to go. There was no money for biologists, no money for a conservation officer, no money for nurses, no money for teacher-librarians and no money for special ed. At the same time government was saying that they could do without that, they had the dirty tricks squad.

The question I have is: why is that not being investigated? Why will the Attorney General not stand up and say that is not acceptable and promise to this House that it will be investigated and turned forward?

Hon. W. Oppal: I was going to say that this is good theatre, but it isn't. It's bad theatre.

You know, it is being investigated now. It's being investigated before the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Why don't we wait to hear what that court concludes?

M. Farnworth: I didn't know that the actions of the former Finance Minister are currently on trial in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. If they are, would he please enlighten this House?

What we are talking about is the conduct of a minister of the Crown. If we have concerns about that, he is exactly the individual that we should be raising those concerns with, hon. Speaker.

A minister of the Crown is sanctioning a dirty tricks program on another elected official at another branch of government in this province. That is unacceptable. So my question to the Attorney General is this. Does he

think that it is ethical for this type of behaviour to take place? If he doesn't, will he kindly let the rest of his cabinet colleagues know that this type of behaviour is unethical and it should cease forthwith?

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, that was quite dramatic. The fact is that if the conduct is as flagrant as the member suggested, this is something that should be taken to the authorities. Obviously, this is something that you should be taking to the authorities.

M. Farnworth: Well, if the Attorney General feels that he does not have the authority to deal with this allegation, then perhaps he will communicate it to his boss, who most certainly does have this authority. Communicate it to the Premier of the province and tell the Premier of the province when he's speaking to local government officials that he should apologize to them for the dirty tricks campaign being waged out of his office.

Hon. W. Oppal: I think there was a question there, and I'll do my best to answer it.

Hon. W. Oppal: Again, if there's evidence of dirty tricks on the part of any cabinet minister or any member of the executive council, the member opposite knows where the investigation begins.

Hon. W. Oppal: That indicates to me how little they know about the role of the Attorney General.

J. Horgan: Former ministerial aide Max Logan has left government to take up work with the Canadian Retail Council. On his departure, the Minister of Finance wrote to Mr. Logan advising him that he was prohibited from contacting the Ministry of Finance for one year.

Can the minister confirm that this is now government policy and that there are post-employment restrictions on ministerial appointments? If that is government policy, when did it come into effect?

Hon. C. Taylor: In fact, this was an agreement that was reached between Mr. Logan and myself. He is a talented young man that I expect at some point we might even see in this House representing a community in B.C. He has gone on to the next step in his career, which is with the Retail Council.

I felt very strongly — and he echoed that as well — that it would be proper, since it is a direct relationship with the Minister of Finance, that for the next year we have no contact. He accepts this, and I'm led to believe — I haven't received it yet — that the Retail Council is also sending me a letter confirming that.

J. Horgan: Well, Mike Marasco has a six-month prohibition from engaging with Partnerships B.C., an agency that the minister was responsible for. In one instance, it's six months. In another instance, on the minister's whim, it's 12 months. With respect to Ken Dobell it's ten, and Richard Turner, seven months.

Wouldn't the minister agree with me that it is high time there was some consistency in this policy? The elasticity of the ethics on that side of the House is difficult for the public to comprehend.

J. Horgan: Will she agree that it's time for legislation to make it clear to all British Columbians what the standard is?

Hon. C. Taylor: In fact, I think you've proven the point that every case is different. Even with the Mike Marasco…. Just so that I can correct the record….

Hon. C. Taylor: In the Mike Marasco case, since the name has been mentioned here, I will explain a little bit more in detail what the actual contract agreement is with Mr. Marasco. He is not the CEO of Partnerships B.C. He is one of the executive team. The board felt this was an important issue that they had to look to. So they went to an outside firm, and they asked in the business and commercial case — which this is, because he was certainly working on Partnerships B.C. issues — what would be the proper way to firewall Partnerships B.C. from this individual as he went forward with his career.

The recommendation that came back was to do a complete six-month ban. In fact, it requested that he not even attend the Vancouver offices of the Plenary company. So he is working out of Toronto for that six months.

It goes further than that. It said that Mr. Marasco was in fact working in Partnerships B.C. on some health issues and health developments. In those developments that were in the works when he was there and that he would have had information on, he is not allowed to participate in any way. It doesn't matter how long it takes. It might be nine months, or it might be a year. Who knows? But he's not to participate at all until a proponent has been chosen.

M. Karagianis: In February in this House I asked the Minister of Children and Family Development if he would commit to adequate funding for the Mary Manning Centre. It provides therapy, court support and victim services for sexually abused children here in Victoria. I alerted the minister to the likelihood of staff layoffs if he did not help the centre. The minister said at that time that his government is committed to ensuring that children who are in need of counselling services receive those services.

Well, now the centre has had to lay off three counsellors due to the lack of funding, which means longer waiting lists for those children. The minister has reneged on meeting with this organization. So I'd like to ask: why is this minister abandoning these vulnerable children?

Hon. T. Christensen: The Ministry of Children and Family Development continues to fund the Mary Manning Centre. We have engaged in a process at the local level with service providers, community stakeholders and client groups to determine how to allocate new resources. That has resulted in an increase in the base budget to the Mary Manning Centre this year of $25,000, and we will continue to respond to local consultations in determining how to allocate new resources.

M. Karagianis: As the minister knows, the centre actually needs $170,000 of one-time funding. It is a small amount, given the kind of surpluses we have seen from this government. In fact, a former government MLA, Sheila Orr, has called on this government today to come up with the funding for the Mary Manning Centre.

I'll tell you what. Here's what a parent has to say about the situation over there: "There shouldn't be waiting lists. You can't take a child and say: 'Okay, you've been sexually abused for three years, but now you're going to have to wait for months on a waiting list before we can even talk to you.'"

I'd like to know why this government is abandoning these vulnerable children and what this minister has to say to those parents who have children on waiting lists for counselling.

Hon. T. Christensen: On the south Island, over the course of the last two years, the Ministry of Children and Family Development funding has gone from just under $50 million to just under $58 million.

Hon. T. Christensen: There has been a significant addition of resources. The ministry committed to work through its regional office with local communities in determining how resources would be allocated. We have done that. Since the member raised this issue back in February, ministry officials have met on a number of occasions with representatives from the Mary Manning Centre. Just on April 27, by a letter, the executive director for the region committed to continue those meetings to try and address the challenges of the Mary Manning Centre.

But it would be irresponsible, after a community consultation process has been undertaken, for the ministry, for the minister, to now step in, undermine that community direction and decide that we should remove funding from some service providers to increase the contract with one.

C. Trevena: The elected Chief of the Kwakiutl First Nation has appealed to the Premier to reverse the decision to remove private lands from TFLs 6, 19 and 25. The band wasn't fully consulted, and this removal has extinguished their aboriginal rights.

The Minister of Forests and Range used his authority to take those lands from the TFL, but in a letter to the Chief he says: "I have no authority to reverse this decision." It does beg the question of whether the person who has the authority is Ken Dobell.

I would like to ask the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation whether he will step in and make sure first nations rights are being protected.

Hon. M. de Jong: The government, the Crown in the right of the province of British Columbia, take very seriously our obligations to both consult and to accommodate interests of first nations where those interests are being impacted. We pursue that at every opportunity with diligence and determination.

C. Trevena: A very interesting response from the minister, because the minister, when he was Minister of Forests — before it was Forests and Range — was reprimanded by the courts for doing the same action as his successor has done.

I would again ask whether this statement by the minister is a commitment that he will reverse the decision made by his colleague the Minister of Forests and Range and make sure that the Kwakiutl band's aboriginal rights and aboriginal heritage are being protected.

Hon. M. de Jong: When it comes to discharging the obligations that the Crown, in the right of the province of British Columbia, has with respect to first nations, the nice thing — the good thing — is that the member doesn't actually have to take my word for it. I suspect at times she is skeptical about doing so. But what she can do is look at the record. She can….

Hon. M. de Jong: I heard someone talk about the Hupacasath. I was actually in Port Alberni just a few weeks ago. We signed a protocol with Chief Judith Sayers providing for hundreds of thousands of dollars to work cooperatively with the Hupacasath — another example of how we're working together. Mr. Speaker….

Hon. M. de Jong: You know, we are the first province to have fully embraced the notion of resource revenue-sharing with first nations. Not theoretically, not on some piece of paper — but we have signed over 100 Forests and Range opportunity agreements with first nations right across British Columbia.

As always, I appreciate the member's question. But before she casts aspersions or calls into doubt the motivation, I suggest she look at the record of this government, which is second to none right across the country.

G. Gentner: Ken Dobell from day one mismanaged the Vancouver Convention Centre project, along with the project's handpicked B.C. Liberal team. This project is well behind schedule, and the provincial portion is 100 percent over budget.

When the Premier was in opposition he said that sort of performance should get you fired. Now that it's a friend doing it, it's suddenly changed. When the Premier was Leader of the Opposition he said: "No-cost contracts." He said that cost-plus contracts were a foolish way to proceed. But on this project Mr. Ken Dobell uses cost-plus contracting. Can the minister responsible for this mess explain why?

Hon. S. Hagen: I think I just heard the member opposite say that he supports P3s.

Hon. S. Hagen: What the member is talking about is the project that is going to be showing off British Columbia long into the future. Because of this project we were able to book 50 conventions, 27 of which we'd never be able to book in this city.

H. Bains: I think for the minister's knowledge, this side of the House supports the fixed-price contract.

H. Bains: For weeks we've been asking this minister the true cost of the convention centre fiasco. For weeks this minister is denying that information.

In February he was quoted in the media that he would know the true cost in two weeks. That was over four weeks ago. Can the minister today tell this House: what is the true cost of the Olympic convention fiasco?

Hon. S. Hagen: I can say to the member opposite that a stipulated lump sum contract is being negotiated at the present time. There are a lot of tough negotiations going on. It's a very complex project, as the member well knows, but at the end of the day we are going to end up with a facility that's going to attract people from all over the world to this great province — the best place on earth.

Hon. B. Penner: I present the 2005-2006 annual report of the Environmental Appeal Board.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENVIRONMENT AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR WATER STEWARDSHIP
AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
(continued)

S. Simpson: So that the minister and his staff are aware, I've got a couple of questions just to close out on environmental assessment stuff that we didn't quite finish. I know I have a colleague coming to finish a couple of questions that didn't get done yesterday afternoon on some of the constituency stuff, and then we will be talking about parks. We'll be spending time on parks. After parks, we'll be talking about species.

The question I do want to ask, though…. It relates, again, to environmental assessment and to one specific area of environmental assessment. It is one of the areas where it's my view that there is a significant deficiency in the environmental assessment process, and I'd like to get the minister's view of this.

This is in regard to the issue around measurement of cumulative impacts on environmental assessments. We know that currently most of the environmental assessments that are done look at very specific impacts and project-specific effects. They don't necessarily look at cumulative impacts.

An example of that may be a case in an area like Squamish to Lillooet where…. We've talked about things like run of the river before. Setting aside our debate about that, we know that when there's a significant number of projects being proposed and potentially going ahead in an area, there may be a question about whether the impact of all of those projects once they're operational adds new dynamics in terms of environmental impact, over and above the impacts of any one of them on their own.

My question to the minister is: why has the government decided, to this point, not to measure cumulative impacts as one of the specific requirements in environmental assessment?

Hon. B. Penner: The member is correct. Neither the original 1995 version of the Environmental Assessment Act nor the amended version from, I believe, 2002 have a specific statutory requirement to consider cumulative impacts.

However — and I guess this was the case with the previous government as well — the government relies on a strategic foundation for cumulative impact assessment, which is embedded in land use plans and associated resource management directions, utilizing protected areas, species-at-risk policy, various resource-specific resource management guidelines, regulatory requirements, strategic policies and various associated resource plans — such as the water strategy, which I've talked about previously, a clean air strategy that we're working on in the ministry, and the mining plan and energy plan, etc.

S. Simpson: This is, I think, a deficiency in the Environmental Assessment Act. In this case, it's not a question of whether it was there in '95 and not there in 2002. I think it's a matter for us all as to where we get to today.

It seems to me that particularly as we see growth in development…. I'll give the minister another example that I think is a good example, and it's one where it fell down. When we look at what went on around the work related to the container port expansion at Roberts Bank for Deltaport…. I believe there was a federal assessment specifically talking about the need for a cumulative effects assessment, but it never occurred, as I understand. That's partly a responsibility provincially, federally. But it didn't occur.

The problem I see here is that there you had a case where you were going to do a significant container port expansion, but in terms of the impacts on that marine ecosystem…. You had the B.C. Ferries operation that was already there, a coal port that was already there, an existing container terminal that was there — all of which have an impact that we may or may not have confidence that we know what the effects are.

It seems to me, as we look at how environmental assessments are going to move forward in this province, that when you start saying, "Okay, and we're going to add a terminal for three container terminals, but we know we have these very significant developments already there," maybe we should be looking at what the effects of those are and how does this compound the problem.

It doesn't appear to me that the environmental assessment allows that to occur. My problem with that is that I've got to believe it ends up in a situation where the minister, who has some responsibility to make a judgment on the environmental assessment in terms of what he's going to require in this case…. There's a lack of information there that's pretty critical information that is there to support the minister's decisions as to what will occur.

I guess my question to the minister is: does he have any concern at all that environmental assessment doesn't look at the cumulative impact question specifically through this office, which obviously has a huge responsibility for our future sustainability because of the work it does?

Hon. W. Oppal: In the Legislature today are students from David Thompson high school from my riding. I'd ask that the House make them welcome.

Hon. B. Penner: We're just checking on the details of the Deltaport 3 review, and the executive director will get that information shortly.

In terms of how the reviews are conducted…. In fact, the terms of reference do take a look at what incremental impact a specific project or proposal will have. Part of that consideration is taking a look at the existing or current environment which could be influenced or impacted by existing development. So those kinds of things are taken a look at through the environmental assessment process.

The B.C. environmental assessment office is highly regarded. Its reviews are thorough and comprehensive, and I think by any measure, the B.C. environmental assessment office is a very successful entity. In fact, they received the Premier's award for excellence last year. That's something that the staff at that office are justly proud of.

S. Simpson: I'll look forward to the information about Deltaport, which I was using as an example. But maybe we can be enlightened by it.

I don't want this in any way to be seen to be besmirching the environmental assessment office. Those are people there that work very hard doing the job based on the piece of legislation that they're asked to administer. I know they work very hard, and they're very diligent. They do the best job that they can.

I would hope with this that the minister will talk to this issue. He can choose to talk about where we may or may not disagree about private power and run of the river. He's free, obviously, to go there if he chooses, but I would really like him to talk about this one issue.

This is another example where the cumulative impact question sort of jumped out at me. It was raised to me by the Squamish-Lillooet regional district folks, who we know have had some concerns around some of the run-of-river projects in their region. They approved a number of them before Bill 30 came along. They no longer have that responsibility.

One of the things they asked for, I know, at the point when that whole issue was heating up around the Ashlu…. I believe they sent a request to look at a plan for what was the 20 or 30 or however many potential projects there were in their region. One of the things they asked about was the cumulative environmental impact of these projects, acknowledging that in many cases, the one-offs can be totally determined to be not a significant impact. In many cases, they clearly aren't, but when you put them all together, they were concerned that the result may be different.

At least to this point, I believe, the government has chosen not to look at cumulative impacts, for example, around those projects. They look at them as individual applications when they come forward for their environmental assessment.

In those instances, how do we deal with that question of cumulative impact? Really, the legislation doesn't allow for it. Each one is a separate application looked at as a site-specific application. Certainly I stand to be corrected, but I don't see where it gets all weaved together to look at it as one package, or as a package in a potential plan.

I'm just trying to figure out: how do we deal with that issue — because sustainability is about cumulative impact as a huge responsibility or a huge implication for sustainability? I'm just trying to struggle with how we get around that.

Hon. B. Penner: If the member is referring to small run-of-the-river hydro projects specifically, we did canvass that topic extensively last year. I remember we talked about how in the water licensing application process and the reviews that are done by the ministry, in fact, the cumulative impacts that power projects would have on a particular watercourse are taken into account in the water licensing process.

Beyond that, go back to my earlier comment that the government's approach is to lay a strategic foundation for making decisions that affect land use or affect the land base. This includes government policies around species at risk, it involves things around our water strategy for British Columbia, and it includes the land use planning process. So if conservancies or parks are established in particular locations, then that has an implication for any other decisions that may be considered or requested about uses on that land base. If someone's interested in doing something in a provincial park, they have to turn to the Park Act to see what rules apply in that park.

That's the broader context on the issue of specific applications for specific projects. You'll recall from last year that we did have extensive discussion around this and that the cumulative impact on watercourses where a licence is being applied for is taken into account.

S. Simpson: I think we'll just move on at this point. The one other question that I had — a question in regard to the environmental assessment, and then I have a question that kind of transitions out of that — is the site-specific nature of the applications, of the reviews and the assessments.

I understand the difficulties or the problems in saying: "Okay, if it's not site-specific, if it's not the footprint of the project, then how far do you go and what do you look at?" I appreciate that some of that's a judgment call and it's difficult to suss out where you go with that. It certainly seems to me that in some instances, something broader than site-specific becomes important.

I'll give an example of comments that have been made to me. I was up in the Fernie area, and I did have some discussion with people in relation…. Actually, I think it was with the chamber of commerce people in Fernie. I met with them and was very interested in their comments around the Flathead and the Cline mine and what their feeling was about that.

It was mixed opinion. Certainly, there was support for the mine. There were others primarily interested in hunting and that, and they were somewhat less supportive. But one of the comments that was made that seemed to be acknowledged by a number of the people there — and again, I would note these were chamber folks — was that they were looking…. They said their understanding of the environmental assessment in that case was the footprint of the mine site and the haul road and that it wouldn't necessarily look past that within an assessment.

The concern they raised is that they wanted some confidence that it was a big enough parameter to be able to deal with what was their uncertainty. They weren't certain one way or another. They just weren't so sure that the footprint for an environmental assessment would kind of give them the confidence that it

was as broad an assessment as they felt they'd like to have so that — whatever the result of that assessment was and whatever the government chooses to do at the end of the day, based on that assessment — it was going to protect their interest.

As the minister knows, that's a community that's been built on the coal industry. There's a whole lot of support for the coal industry there, but there's also a whole lot of support for habitat and wildlife and hunting and fishing. That's extremely important to the people in that community as well. There are people who are torn by that, and they just weren't sure about that.

So my question to the minister is: is the minister confident that the very site-specific nature of the environmental assessments that are done under the act meet the needs in all instances, or are there cases where the minister believes we really have to broaden those parameters because of the potential impacts?

Hon. B. Penner: I think as I heard the member describe it, he's suggesting that just the physical footprint of the mine is something that would be considered in terms of an environmental assessment or in terms of studies about potential environmental impacts and/or the need to mitigate those impacts. That's not correct.

In fact, the environmental assessment does go to great lengths to try and determine what the potential scope of the project might be and its ramifications for any aspect of the environment — whether it is watercourses, the forest, or wildlife resources. Those are things that are considered by the environmental assessment review, even if it takes it beyond the physical footprint of the mine shaft or the various outbuildings that would be constructed to support any mining operations, should the environmental assessment process conclude that it's a project that should be issued a permit.

That project has not yet completed that review process, and in fact, I think it's got a long ways to go. It is still in the preapplication stage. So it is some way off.

S. Simpson: I was using that particular project as an example. I wasn't actually looking to talk about that specific project, though we might get a chance to do that at some point.

When I talk about the footprint, the discussion really is that this is the site-specific impacts that are looked at. Broadly, as I understand it, it's the impacts on that immediate area that are considered.

I don't see in the act where it looks past and considers the implications of, say, in the case of an area like that, the broader habitat. Is there an impact on broader habitat outside of that area — I just don't see where the act allows for significant review of that.

If it in fact does, I'd be interested to see that and where that occurs. Because it seems to me it does look at the impacts of the specific site or project. It doesn't look in a broader way. Maybe the minister could point me in the direction of projects where the environmental assessment has looked at those broader implications based on the terms of reference. I'd be interested to see that.

Hon. B. Penner: Just before I do that, it looks like the Energy critic is wearing a mango-coloured shirt. I'm not sure that's the appropriate name for that colour, but it certainly looks like mango to me. That's maybe some energy we could do without.

Just to give the member one example, to go back to the Deltaport 3 expansion, in fact I'm told that if you look at section 16 of the assessment report, there are comments there addressing the cumulative effects from that particular review.

S. Simpson: In issues related to that…. I believe that that was a project done under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Obviously, the province is an active participant in that, but it was driven by federal requirements around the assessment. Is there a difference here versus the provincial requirements of the assessment? Would that have been a requirement provincially?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not fully apprised of all the workings of the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, but the member is correct. That was a harmonized review that took place with the Deltaport 3 project.

I'm going to ask one more question because I know that we have the environmental assessment folks here. Then I'll give my colleague here a chance. This kind of becomes almost a transition question between Parks and environmental assessment, but I'm looking to figure out a bit of the chicken-and-egg here.

This may have been canvassed to some to degree by my colleague from Coquitlam-Maillardville yesterday afternoon, but I didn't have the opportunity. I was called away to other responsibilities when she had the opportunity to ask some questions. It is around the upper Pitt and some of the power projects. I know that there's a preapplication in play right now for those projects. I think Ledcor has seven licence applications there. But I also believe that since the Pinecone Burke Provincial Park is a class-A park, it would require it to be dealt with through a park boundaries amendment, which I don't believe has occurred for that park.

What I'm trying to determine here is…. The application for transmission lines through the park is currently not allowable because there hasn't been a park adjustment done, to this point, on the park that would allow that to occur. So my question is….

When I read the guide to the British Columbia environmental assessment process, it says, "Environmental assessment is conducted within the context of existing land use plans," and it goes on to say: "It is a project-specific review mechanism and has no authority to act as a land use planning mechanism or to reopen previously approved land use plans." So we have a class-A park. We have a very clear park use. A land use plan is there. The company is seeking to put a

There hasn't been an adjustment to the park to allow that use. So how can the environmental assessment office entertain an application when there hasn't been a change made to the legislation to allow it to occur?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised by the executive director of the environmental assessment office that this particular proposal is in what is referred to as the preapplication stage with the environmental assessment office. Under the legislation, their review processes are triggered by whatever the statutory mechanisms are in the Environmental Assessment Act.

As it relates to energy projects or, more specifically, electricity projects, an environmental assessment office review is triggered by a project that is 50 megawatts or larger in size. So presumably, the proponent determined that their project was 50 megawatts or larger in size and contacted the environmental assessment office to start making inquiries about how they would proceed through the environmental assessment process. That's how they get to the preapplication stage.

None of that presupposes what would happen in terms of an application for a park boundary amendment, if that's what the member is suggesting. To the best of my knowledge, the ministry has not received any application for a park boundary amendment or adjustment related to Pinecone Burke Park or this particular proposal.

S. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's answer, and I'm trying to figure out what the process is here. I understand preapplication is not application. Am I to understand that the environmental assessment office will not entertain an application for this project until such time as a park adjustment has gone through?

My sense here is that I don't see how this particular application does not fit with the approved land use plans today. How does the environmental assessment office assess a project that is outside of the approved land use plans without having those plans adjusted?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that should this project proceed through to a formal environmental assessment — and that will be determined on the part of the proponent, if they're going to pursue this project — and if it's 50 megawatts or larger in size, then they must go through the environmental assessment process in order to get approval. The environmental assessment office will advise the decision-making ministers about whether or not the project is in compliance with the existing land use plans.

S. Simpson: Does the environmental assessment office accept an application that it knows is not in compliance with currently approved land use plans?

There is no question that you can't put a transmission line through a class-A park without having gone through a park adjustment. That's my sense. If I'm wrong about that, the minister can tell me. But today you can't put transmission lines through a class-A park without adjusting the boundaries of the park to allow that to occur.

That has not occurred, to the best of my knowledge. Therefore, if the environmental assessment office considers or even accepts the application, it's saying: "We're prepared to consider applications that contravene approved land use plans."

The guide to the British Columbia assessment process says it "is a project-specific review mechanism and has no authority to act as a land use planning mechanism or to reopen previously approved land use plans." If it's entertaining the application, it's certainly heading in that direction.

Hon. B. Penner: As I was indicating to the member, those issues about whether or not a project would be in compliance with existing land use designations or requirements would be identified during the environmental assessment process. The environmental assessment office's opinion regarding that would be forwarded to the minister, who is making the decisions as part of their report about that project.

S. Simpson: Then is it the minister's position that the environmental assessment office could do an environmental assessment of this application, proceed through that and, presumably at the end of the day when the assessment was completed, file a report with the minister that says: "Here's our answer to all the questions about this project, but it doesn't comply because there hasn't been a park adjustment done — the legislative change for park adjustment. So that's what we're telling you, but we've completed the environmental assessment in all other ways."

Hon. B. Penner: Proponents always bear the risk that they won't make it through the environmental process. In fact, I'm advised by the environmental assessment office executive director that about 15 percent of the projects that have entered the review process don't make it through for a variety of reasons. They stall out. They withdraw. They go dormant.

One of the things that happens during the environmental assessment process is that various issues are identified that the proponent needs to address and deal with in some fashion before they're going to be granted a certificate in order to proceed.

S. Simpson: So 15 percent of projects may stall out or go dormant. It's my belief that the environmental assessment has never said no to a project. Some of them have decided on their own to walk away. I understand that, but the environmental office doesn't say no to projects. It tells them how to fix their projects, and then proponents decide what to do with that.

Based on what the minister is saying here…. Am I to understand that the environmental assessment office is prepared to look at pretty much any project that gets

put in front of it by a proponent who is prepared to go through the hoops — pay the fees, whatever they might be, but go through the hoops — of the preapplication and the application process?

This office will consider pretty much any project and put it before the minister if a proponent wants to bring it forward — is that what we're saying? — regardless of whether it breaches existing land use policies or, for that matter, breaches pretty much anything else. Ultimately the process will acknowledge that, but that's what I hear the minister saying.

Land use plans, legislated — it doesn't matter. They can be breached in an application. Clearly, the minister would have to consider that when he looks at the project at the end of the day. But they can go through an environmental assessment regardless of that? Is that my understanding now?

Hon. B. Penner: The environmental assessment office operates in accordance with the Environmental Assessment Act, and as I've described to the member, there are a number of triggers. So if somebody wakes up one morning and says, "I've got an idea. I want to build a 50-megawatt — or larger — power project," guess what. They are captured by the environmental assessment office process, and they have to go through a review.

I understand that in this case someone has come up with an idea to generate some electricity. Apparently it would be zero-emission, 100-percent-renewable electricity. I understand that the members don't like IPPs generally for ideological reasons. But setting that aside, they have to go through an environmental assessment process, and — I don't know how I can be any clearer — they bear the risk that they may not make it through the end of that process for a whole variety of reasons. Either they don't comply with various legislative or regulatory requirements, or what have you.

That's their business, frankly. They have to decide if they're going to spend their money to go through a process where they may encounter roadblocks. That's the risk you take if you're an entrepreneur.

I understand that the opposition doesn't like private investment in that sector, and that's their ideological choice. But given that the environmental assessment office has to follow the legislation that's in place and obey the law, that's what they do. A proponent comes and knocks on their door and says: "Please review our project." If they pay the fees, that will trigger a process, and the proponent may find out that there are some obstacles to their project.

S. Simpson: Certainly, the minister's interpretation is important, because he is the minister. But it seems to me that the guide, which says that you don't reopen previously approved land use plans, should suggest to somebody that the environmental office at some point says: "Go out and get your project in line, or make the appropriate applications to make your project comply, and then we'll talk to you." But that's not what I'm hearing, and that's fine. It is the minister's prerogative to interpret this, I guess, however he sees fit.

I'm going to pursue one more question on this, and then I'm going to let my friend from Malahat–Juan de Fuca have some questions that I know he wants to ask.

Am I to understand, in the case of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park, that what will occur now…? Of course, the proponent could walk away at any time; I understand that. But where we're at now, should the proponent choose to proceed past the preapplication stage that they're at now and put a completed application in, that application will go forward.

At the point where it's completed, including comment about the fact that it is inconsistent with the land use plan, then the environmental assessment office will bring that material forward to the minister. The minister then makes a decision or then receives a second application from the proponent on the question of a park adjustment. Or how does that proceed?

After the environmental assessment is done, how does the park adjustment process proceed at that point? And what information in addition to the environmental assessment will be required?

Hon. B. Penner: Just to correct something that I think I heard the member say and may not have meant to suggest — that it would be the environmental assessment office that would seek a park boundary adjustment…. At all times it's the responsibility of the proponent to do whatever it is that they need to do and meet whatever requirements are in place.

In terms of the park boundary amendment policy which we debated at some length this morning — I think for about an hour in this chamber — the comments that applied there apply equally here in terms of the six specific topics that need to be considered. That policy has been on our ministry website since about 2004. It's there to be downloaded and read at your leisure.

In summary, I can advise that the ministry, when receiving an application — and at this point we have not — for park boundary adjustment, considers those applications on a case-by-case basis and examines whether there's a substantial public benefit from making any proposed boundary amendment, taking into consideration the economic, environmental and social impacts of the proposal; possible mitigation measures; possible alternative sites or routes for the project; and the results of consultation with stakeholders, local governments and first nations.

S. Simpson: I wasn't suggesting for a minute that the environmental assessment office would bring forward a park adjustment. I fully appreciate that that's a responsibility of a proponent who wants to advance that. But in terms of the work…. We did talk around this question this morning during committee stage of Bill 24. We canvassed the six specific requirements or conditions and expectations of the park adjustment policy.

My question is this. If we have an environmental assessment done, the environmental assessment office knows full well that in order for this project to proceed it will require the proponent at some time to do a park adjustment in order for it to be eligible for consideration. Does the environmental assessment office then review and ensure that there are answers to those questions required in the park adjustment? Or is that a wholly separate process done by somebody else subsequent to the environmental assessment?

Hon. B. Penner: It would be B.C. Parks staff that would consider the application, if one were to be received, for a park boundary amendment in this case, just as it was the case, for example, with Mount Robson that we debated at length this morning.

As we discussed in reference to Mount Robson, information obtained during the B.C. Parks process of considering the economic, social and environmental impacts of that proposal in Mount Robson…. Just as some of that information was used in the environmental assessment that took place under the auspices of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act…. Just as some of that information was used for multiple purposes, here too one could conceptualize that information obtained for one process could be also used by the proponent in another process if it's relevant.

S. Simpson: But the project director for the environmental assessment office doing the assessment of the project wouldn't necessarily do any of that work unless they felt it was specifically applicable to the environmental assessment whereas, obviously, the park boundaries have other considerations that are separate and distinct from the environmental assessment — in addition to environmental questions, of course. But there are other issues there, like economic impacts and those kinds of things, like alternate routes. For example, I know in the park boundaries…. I know in the case of the Pinecone Burke there is talk of a second route that might come down the boundary of the park versus the one that cuts across the park.

Now, would it be fair…? I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth that this would or wouldn't be considered, but that wouldn't necessarily be a consideration of the environmental assessment office as to whether it was this route for the transmission line or a southern route on the park boundary, because that's a park adjustment issue, potentially. The environmental assessment office wouldn't necessarily look at that question — would they?

Hon. B. Penner: Maybe I should offer the member a BabelFish so he can better understand what I'm attempting to communicate here. There is, as the member is aware, the potential for some parallel processes. The environmental assessment office has in the past looked at optional routes or the option for another route. An example is the Sea to Sky Highway project, where two different routes were examined and considered.

According to the member, if I hear him correctly, the proponent for the upper Pitt River hydroelectric projects does have the option of a power line route, I think as he described it, outside of the park — going south, I think he said. I guess there is that potential.

Certainly, as identified in the B.C. park boundary adjustment policy, alternative routes are required to be considered and examined. Again, this goes back to the discussion we had this morning about Mount Robson — that as part of our park boundary adjustment policy, alternative routes to the existing pipeline right-of-way were examined and looked at in terms of whether they'd be feasible environmentally, socially and economically. In that case it was determined that to move the pipeline from its current routing so that it would be completely outside of the park would have more environmental impact than leaving it inside the park where it already is.

S. Simpson: Just a quick question. I know that the park boundaries adjustment looks at economic impacts and those issues. If the environmental assessment office, in terms of what it looks at…. I know that we talked about the fact that there's not the explicit list of purposes quite in the same way.

Now, if the environmental assessment office looks at, for example, transmission line across the park versus transmission line along the boundary, does it consider economic impacts and implications for the company, or does it look at this almost exclusively as an environmental question?

Hon. B. Penner: Just seeking a clarification from the member. Was his question whether or not the environmental assessment office considers only the environmental aspects of a proposal? I thought that's what I heard him say, but I might be wrong.

S. Simpson: We know when we talked about the park adjustment, that it specifically has the half a dozen things it considers, and the economic impact is clearly one of those six for park adjustment. I don't see where that's clearly one of the things that the environmental assessment office looks at when it does an environmental assessment, so I'm trying to determine: would that be a consideration for looking at the transmission line through the park versus around the park for the purposes of the assessment?

Hon. B. Penner: It would be the B.C. Parks staff that would be taking a look if an application were received for a park boundary adjustment, about whether or not the park boundary adjustment was justified according to the six criteria that are listed in the park boundary adjustment policy.

In terms of the environmental assessment office and their process, they're required under section 10 of

the Environmental Assessment Act, subsection (1)(b), to consider whether a project would have "…a significant adverse environmental, economic, social, heritage or health effect, taking into account practical means of preventing or reducing to an acceptable level any potential adverse effects of the project…."

There's a legislative requirement on the part of the environmental assessment office to consider not just environmental but also economic, social, heritage and health effects as part of the equation.

J. Horgan: It's a pleasure to rise again and participate in the estimates for the Minister of Environment. He and his capable staff, I'm sure, will have some answers to the questions that I'm about to pose, but before I get into that, I'd like to maybe go back to some of the issues that I raised yesterday, particularly with respect to contaminated soils in and around the Cowichan Valley.

When I posed the question about the Evans site, the minister suggested to the House that the materials arriving there were residential fill. That seems to me to be inconsistent with the information that I have. I understand that the material is industrial fill. The whole challenge, initially, for the people in the community was that in the CRD, the capital regional district, the soil was declared contaminated and unfit for residential zoning and therefore removed from Victoria to the Cowichan Valley.

In transiting the Malahat highway, which the members will know from my various interventions on that issue, it becomes industrial fill. So I'm wondering if the minister could clarify that for me before we start. Is it residential fill that's arriving at the Evans site, or is it in fact industrial fill?

Hon. B. Penner: Just to make sure we're talking about the same particular site. I think that yesterday we were using different terminology to perhaps identify the same location.

Could the member tell us what he calls the site and whether in his mind it would be referred to as the Koksilah Evans Redi-Mix site, or is he instead referring to the Spectacle Lake site — Malahat?

J. Horgan: I appreciate the minister's confusion. We did go back and forth on that yesterday. The Spectacle Lake site is the one that the ministry demanded a remediation plan from the proponent that was to be forthcoming in the spring. We haven't heard anything in my community about where that is at. That's the Spectacle Lake site or the Malahat site.

The one in question, though — he is correct — is the Koksilah Road Evans Redi-Mix site. The challenge there is that residents are concerned that there's no containment strategy in place at the Evans site, and it is nestled between the Koksilah River and Calvin Creek, both fish-bearing streams.

The question is: did the minister misspeak yesterday referring to the soils or the materials as residential fill, because it's our understanding that it is, in fact, industrial fill.

Hon. B. Penner: I'll just ask the member in that tantalizingly coloured shirt to answer, or just to nod for me: are we talking, then, about the Evans Redi-Mix site on Koksilah Road in Duncan?

Hon. B. Penner: If so, what I'm advised is that the soil that the member refers to originated from the Dockside Green development — are we talking about the same thing so far?

Hon. B. Penner: Samples were taken and analyzed in accordance with Ministry of Environment technical guidance. Sample results confirm that the soil met standards for residential land use.

J. Horgan: Then the question that that raises is: why would it not have stayed at Dockside Green? The second issue is that there was also a site on Humboldt Street, just around the corner from here, where there were not just hydrocarbons but other heavy metals in a site that I believe local residents would call the old B.C. Hydro site.

Just around the corner where they're putting in a new hotel, there were 1,200 truckloads coming from that site last summer. That was the genesis of the concern in the community. If it — the Dockside Green material — was in fact residential fill when it left Victoria, it surprises me that it would not have just stayed in Victoria.

Perhaps the minister and his staff could tell me what the status of the Humboldt Street material was.

Hon. B. Penner: Unfortunately, it looks like the information we have here only pertains to the material that was moved from the Dockside Green development site. I don't seem to have anything here that refers to Humboldt. I think that's just a couple of blocks from here, just down the way. No, I don't have any information here about that, unfortunately.

J. Horgan: In the interest of time — I know we've got a fixed calendar here that we're working with — I'll provide the minister and his staff with the information that they provided me last summer, and perhaps we could have a discussion on line. I know the minister's staff are always available to me and to the public. So I'm happy to do that.

Just for the interest of those who are unaware: I am colour-blind. I wear this because my spouse wanted to entertain not just the House but Hansard, as well, today. I have no idea what this shirt is, but I'm pleased that the minister is happy with it.

Moving away from the contaminated soil. Again, if the minister in his response to my next series of ques-

tions, hon. Chair, would confirm a commitment to allow me to interact with his staff to get some clarity on that issue, I'd be delighted.

The other area I wanted to touch upon before I wrap up my comments on the minister's estimates…. TimberWest is a large landowner on Vancouver Island. Between TimberWest, Island Timberlands and other forest companies, almost 950,000 hectares or 2.35 million acres of land on southern Vancouver Island is under their control. Within that land area, or 28 percent of Vancouver Island, 20 lakes are stocked by the ministry.

For the record, those lakes are Anderson, Barsby, Boneyard, Boulder, Coronation, Dixie, Fourth, Nanaimo, Gooseneck, Heather, Holland, Holyoak, Jarvis, Little Echo, Lomas, Macdonald, Mere, Radeau, Rowbotham, Shelton and Tugwell. They are stocked or have been stocked over the past 30 years by various organizations with what I would consider to be a public asset — fish that are there for the enjoyment of anglers and recreationalists on Vancouver Island.

TimberWest has denied access to the public on their lands. As a result, recreationalists and those who want to go back to the wild and enjoy those parts of Vancouver Island that used to be accessible no longer can do so. I'm wondering if the minister has contemplated any initiatives that would allow the public back onto these lands so that they can fish those lakes that were stocked with public resources.

Hon. B. Penner: I have been aware of this issue for some time now. A couple months ago, I think, a reporter here at the Legislature actually brought it to my attention. He is someone who works for CBC radio — but I won't identify Jeff Davies by name — and who enjoys going fishing from time to time.

Since then the ministry has been working with the Freshwater Fisheries Society and the B.C. Wildlife Federation to make a request to the private forest managed land association to work on this issue together. I'm advised that we — or now, more accurately, the Freshwater Fisheries Society, I guess — will not be stocking the 20 lakes that have had the public access closed. So that's one measure we're taking, to begin with.

Legal advice does suggest that the landowners are acting within their legal rights in terms of restricting access to their privately held lands. However, we are concerned about the enjoyment that people derive from pursuing, among other things, the virtually omnipresent rainbow trout in British Columbia. So we are working in a collaborative way to see if we can't find some satisfactory resolution to this issue.

J. Horgan: I don't know how the Freshwater Fisheries Society not continuing to stock the lakes is helping access those lands. It's just, I would suggest, discouraging people from accessing those lands.

I know that the minister in particular and his ministry in general are interested in encouraging urbanites, city dwellers, to go back to the country and go into the backwoods of British Columbia to see the splendour we have here. Of course, it's been here well before 2001, despite the branding of B.C. as the best place on earth. It was before this government and probably will be after this government.

In any event, people in my community are significantly affected by this policy. I think it's also important that when we contemplate legal advice and that sort of thing…. This land was not purchased by TimberWest or Island Timberlands. It was part of the E&N land grant a century ago.

Other parts of it were added on for land use planning tables to satisfy agreements and decisions that were made in the 1990s to get some more certainty on the land base. I don't believe that this government or any government ever contemplated restricting public access to these timberlands.

These are forest lands. It's not like we're going into someone's potato patch or picking apples off their tree without their permission. This was, for all intents and purposes, public land. So much so that the government stocked the lakes so the public could access them.

I'm wondering if the minister could give me some comfort that we would have the full weight of the government of British Columbia in pursuing the now owners of these forest lands to allow access so that recreation can occur, as it has in the past, and as it should in the future.

Hon. B. Penner: The member has got the rationale just a little bit upside down. The reason in the past that those lakes were stocked was because the public did have access to the lakes. It wasn't stocked so that the public would have access.

Those lakes that were accessible through private land were accessible previously. Therefore, the ministry and then the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. saw fit to stock those lakes, because the public had access to those lakes.

Keep in mind that the private forest landowners are probably getting legal advice from their lawyers that they are legally responsible and liable for acts committed upon their privately held land, if they're not taking reasonable measures to control access to it. I suspect that's what litigation lawyers or liability lawyers would be advising the private land owner.

It's much like if somebody comes to your home and gets injured on your property, there's a pretty good chance that you could be held liable in some way for the cost of the injuries or damages that result from that unfortunate incident.

I know that they're under pressure to deal with it. We're hoping we can work with private land owners and the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., as well as the B.C. Wildlife Federation, to see if we can't meet the concerns of everyone involved here.

It won't be easy. It's a complicated issue. I guess that's often the case once lawyers get involved. But we are operating under the rule of law here in British Columbia, and the law has evolved to what it is in terms of liability.

J. Horgan: I completely accept the minister's response, but it's the movable targets being set by the

private forest landowners that are troubling to the B.C. Wildlife Federation, for example, which has offered on numerous occasions to purchase fire insurance and liability insurance for their members so that they can access these lakes.

I believe every effort is being made by responsible users. I know the minister supports this. My intent here is to not put him on the spot unduly. I know he supports the thrust of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, as do I. And I know he wants to see more people accessing the splendour of the back country on Vancouver Island, as do I.

The challenge that we have is that the private forest landowners keep moving the bar. When individuals and organizations approach them with reasonable and practical solutions that were agreed upon in meetings and in consultations, the bar changes. It goes a little bit higher.

With this one question, perhaps I can move to a point where the minister would completely endorse my perspective. Is it the case that there are fewer conservation officers on Vancouver Island now than there were in 1995?

Hon. B. Penner: We don't have the 1995 data here, but I'll have the current data in a moment. Staff are just coming in.

I'm advised that there are — and this is our best guess — 21 positions allocated to Vancouver Island from the conservation officer service. I'm not sure if those include seasonal FTEs or not. We're just checking that.

It is my great pleasure at this time, hon. Chair, to introduce to you and to all members of the House and those watching via television and reading this later as they're going to bed, the newest member of our all-star cast of support staff here supporting me, the executive director of our compliance division in the Ministry of Environment, Brian Riddell.

I know that this scattergun approach is extremely difficult, not just for him but for staff who are trying to keep up with the rapid pace with which the member for Vancouver-Hastings and I are firing out questions on different subjects.

What I want to go back to is if there are 21 conservation officers, FTEs, dedicated to Vancouver Island, wouldn't there be a tremendous public benefit to allow private citizens onto these lands to enjoy the lands as recreationalists, as anglers, to ensure that forest practices are not, at least visually, out of step with regulation, to ensure that fire does not despoil parts of Vancouver Island?

Wouldn't it be in the public interest to allow the public onto these lands in the interests of preserving the wildlife and the flora?

Hon. B. Penner: I certainly support, I think, the member's intent, which is to allow people to get out and recreate on Vancouver Island. Of course, the difficulty is, as I mentioned earlier, these are private lands. Private land owners in British Columbia and most of the western world have certain rights that come with the ownership of land.

We are working, as I've mentioned, in a collaborative fashion with the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., as well as the B.C. Wildlife Federation and the Private Forest Landowners Association to see if we can't come to some kind of satisfactory resolution. I would prefer if people had some access, but I also understand the concerns around liability.

The member's point is well taken. I know that the B.C. Wildlife Federation has developed a number of proposals, and they've indicated a willingness to take out insurance and do things like that to help indemnify the private property owner.

Of course, the challenge is this. How do you restrict the access of people who may not be insured, people who may not be members of the B.C. Wildlife Federation and, unfortunately, people who may not be very responsible when it comes to the outdoors?

In a previous lifetime when I worked as a park ranger, for example, most of the people I encountered were great people to have in the outdoors. Unfortunately, they weren't all the people. There are some people who, for whatever reason…. I guess I won't make any more comments about that.

For some reason there are some people who just don't want to follow the social construct. Therefore, in a B.C. park they'll take an axe to a picnic table that cost $1,000 to put there. They'll set fire to a bathroom facility in a B.C. park or in a private forest or on Crown land, and they'll do other things. That's the minority of people, but that minority can certainly cause a lot of havoc for the majority of law-abiding and generally well-intentioned individuals.

It'll have to fall to somebody else who's more of a social scientist than I to explain something that I find absolutely perplexing. That is why there are certain ne'er-do-wells that can't seem to go out into the great outdoors without making a mess of it. I'm frustrated with that and probably just as frustrated as the member is when it comes to that. But it's those few bad actors that, I think, are resulting in reduced access for people here on Vancouver Island.

J. Horgan: I know, certainly since my election to represent the people of Malahat–Juan de Fuca, that this is one of the issues that just doesn't seem to go away. I have residents at the end of Renfrew Road in the Shawnigan Lake area who appealed and encouraged me to have TimberWest restrict access to these lands, and for good reason. It was the hooligan factor that the minister references.

But I'm concerned that the tyranny of the minority is preventing access for the majority. I know that's a social science question, and one that we could debate at length, but we don't have the time to do that here.

In terms of assisting the public, that majority, that responsible group that not only enjoys the back country but in fact is of net benefit to the public by being there, observing and making sure that the hooligan

Is the government contemplating assisting with, perhaps, bulk liability on forest lands, or finding some way for the Attorney General to work with the Ministry of Environment to protect large organizations like the B.C. Wildlife Federation to assist them in finding the insurance balance that the private owners appear to want, or finding some other way to mutually aid, if you will, the public in this back country?

Hon. B. Penner: I can't give a definitive answer about what kind of conclusions we'll come to. But as mentioned, we will be meeting with the B.C. Wildlife Federation, the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. and the Private Forest Landowners Association to see if we can't come up with some ideas. I'm prepared to think outside of the box, because we know that in addition to the acts of violence that I've described in parks, where we have physical assets that we've paid for and built with taxpayers' money, there are also the flora and fauna that get impacted.

We have people that go into the back country and rip out various things for their own commercial or financial interests. They steal wood. They cut down trees in parks, or they take it off Crown land without paying stumpage. They'll perhaps tear out protected species, things like the dogwood or red-listed plants — perhaps even things like the hairy manzanita, which is a native species here in British Columbia.

The negative impact of improper conduct in the back country comes in a variety of forms, and that's something that we'll be cognizant of. Hopefully, we can find some kind of resolution. But it's not going to be easy, I don't think.

J. Horgan: I certainly want to offer my assistance to the minister in any way in terms of dealing with TimberWest here on the islands as part of the private forest lands group. If there's anything that the minister feels I can do to assist in that discussion and negotiation, I want him to know that my door is always open.

I just want to qualify…. I did mention to the minister that I was hopeful I could speak directly with his senior management with respect to the Koksilah Road site. I want to confirm that that's got the minister's blessing.

Hon. B. Penner: We'll certainly get you that information. My staff are looking at that right now.

S. Simpson: Hon. Chair, I'd like to talk a little bit at this point and have some discussion around parks. The minister, I believe, referenced this number the other day. Could the minister tell us how many park rangers we have — FTEs — in British Columbia today?

Hon. B. Penner: Across the ministry there are about 190 people during the course of the year who are appointed as park rangers and carry out authorities under the Park Act with that designation.

S. Simpson: I just wanted to note that we have this group of young people up here watching us. Welcome to the Legislature. It's good that you're here. I'm not sure which school they are, but they're visiting with us, and that's great.

Hon. B. Penner: There were 63.8 FTEs allocated last year specifically for that function. There is an increase in this year's budget of five FTEs, and there is a rule of thumb….

Hon. B. Penner: If the Minister of Transportation could come to order. Minister of Transportation? Thank you.

We operate on a rule of thumb that there are approximately 2.3 park rangers per FTE, because a significant number of the positions are seasonal in nature during the peak season.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us how many park rangers are full-time year-round in parks, and then how many would fall under the category the minister just mentioned — seasonal or temporary?

Hon. B. Penner: About 60 people would be working year-round in the B.C. Parks system with park ranger status under the authority of the Park Act.

S. Simpson: Possibly the minister could explain that math to me, then. The minister told us just a moment ago that last year there were 63.8 FTEs who did this job. He said 190 people did this job for some period of the year last year, and there were 63.8 FTEs.

I don't know how that works. If 60 of those people are working year-round, I don't see how that math works. That means that the other 130 are shared between 3.8 FTEs? How does that work?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member knows, the parks business is quite seasonal. For the most part, it's busy in the summer. There are certain parks that have a winter aspect to them as well — Cypress, Seymour, Manning Park. Most of that is in the downhill ski area, but not entirely.

As I indicated, there are about 190 people that work within the ministry that are designated or appointed as park rangers, giving them legal status, including some enforcement capability under the law. That authority is pursuant to the Park Act. That number includes year-round staff who fall into the following categories: entry-level park rangers, people who then move up to become area supervisors, section heads and various levels moving up the hierarchy.

I don't mean to belittle the role or besmirch the entry-level position. That's an important position. People start as what's called the back country or a park ranger. Then you can become an area supervisor, a section head, etc. Taken together then, that accounts for those numbers.

In addition, of course there are the seasonal park rangers that tend to get hired mostly in the summer. I think there may be some exceptions in certain winter-oriented parks, but for the most part, the seasonal park ranger staff are part of our summer complement.

In addition, I don't want to overlook the contributions of the employees of the park facility operators. I've had a chance to meet with many of their staff, and I can tell you that they tend to be very enthusiastic and committed to their jobs as well. There are more than 700 employees of the park facility operators that are identified in their business plans.

S. Simpson: Going back to my question, I understand we have roughly 190 people who perform park ranger functions for some period of the year in British Columbia. Last year we had 63.8 FTEs — full-time-equivalents — based on what the minister just told us, who do this job. It will increase to 68.8 FTEs this year because of an addition of five FTEs. So I understand that.

I believe the minister said there are about 60 people who do this year-round. I'm trying to figure out where the other money comes from, because you have 130 people there, roughly, who are not year-round, who perform this function for some period of the year. Where does that money come from if 60 of those FTES are year-round, full-time positions? Otherwise, can the minister tell us how many people work 2,000-plus hours a year — you know, 52 weeks a year, given off for holidays — as park rangers in the province?

Hon. B. Penner: I think the confusion arises from the fact that I did not tell the member that there are about 50 additional FTEs that fall under the category that I was describing in my last answer, and that's around area supervisors and section heads, etc. That was not provided in my initial answer, and I apologize for that.

The member is correct. That's why he wasn't getting the math to work in terms of the total number of people in the course of a year that carry out duties and do so under appointment as park ranger status pursuant to the Park Act.

S. Simpson: I thank the minister for that and appreciate the clarification and the number.

So taking into account the other 50, that's an additional 50 FTEs. What we're talking about here, then, is…. If we put those together with the others, we are talking about something in the category of 118 FTEs this year who would perform some kind of function. Out of that total, there are about 60 who you would say were full-time park rangers of some sort, working full-time, year-round in the service. Would that be correct?

Hon. B. Penner: I think the numbers are adding up now. Yes, about 60 people that carry out that job year-round have park ranger status under the Park Act.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us how many hectares of class-A parkland there are in British Columbia?

Hon. B. Penner: As of December 2006 there were 606 provincial parks covering 10,146,518 hectares; 24 conservancies, covering 540,948 hectares; and then a number of recreation areas, ecological reserves and other designated protected areas. As of noon today, with the completion of Bill 24, we will soon have additional conservancies and three additional class-A parks, but that won't happen, I guess, until royal assent.

S. Simpson: What we have is something in excess of ten million hectares in 600-plus provincial parks. We have 60 full-time people to deal with those 600 parks and ten million hectares, and in the high season about three times that many dealing with that, as I understand — a little bit more than three times that many.

Maybe the minister could tell us a little bit about what the duties are of those park rangers in those parks, considering that they obviously — I guess with the exception of some of the most significant of the parks — can't be spending too much time in parks, because they need to be travelling around doing their duties in a range of places. Maybe the minister could tell us: what are their primary duties in those parks?

Hon. B. Penner: In short, a park ranger's job is never done. There are a variety of functions that a park ranger performs, including, specifically, public safety enforcement and compliance because of their authority pursuant to the Park Act. They have certain enforcement powers under provincial statutes, including things like what used to be known as the Litter Act or the Liquor Control Act; the Motor Vehicle Act; the Motor Vehicle (All Terrain) Act; of course, the Park Act; and I may be missing one or two others — the Forest and Range Practices Act.

In addition, they work on construction and some capital projects. If it was a very large or significant capital project, I expect that would likely be contracted for and we would have somebody who specializes in constructing things to handle that.

For minor capital projects, park rangers can be seen hard at work rebuilding trails or bridges; fixing campsites; painting buildings; servicing back-country campsites, including — and it's not always glamorous — cleaning up pit toilets; packing out garbage; keeping notes about the status of wildflowers; working with the B.C. Conservation Corps, which is that new program that we've launched with about 150 students and recent graduates every year; and working in something that I was kind of intrigued to learn about shortly after I became a minister, certain shared stewardship initiatives.

I'll give you an example. Every year the Sierra Club of the United States — not to be confused with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, but something called the Sierra Club in the United States — actually pays B.C.

Parks money to have people come from the United States to spend, I think, seven to ten days in the back country in Mount Robson Park to do work for B.C. Parks.

When I encountered these people in the back country at Mount Robson, I was somewhat surprised to learn they included an aerospace engineer from Boeing out of Chicago; a corporate finance lawyer from New York City; a doctor from Pennsylvania and, I think, another doctor from California; and a Starbucks baristo from eastern Washington, Spokane. These people pay a substantial amount of money to the Sierra Club, who in turn organize this annual outing, which is organized by the park rangers at Mount Robson, who make sure that they get meaningful projects to work on.

They are supervised to some extent by the B.C. park rangers — because there are a few of them — and they do excellent work. This is an example of shared stewardship that has been working pretty well. I don't know for how many years that program has been in effect, but they do seem to have a lot of interest when they market this through their website. In the United States they have no shortage of people lining up to pay money to come and work in B.C. parks. So that's just an interesting anecdote.

Overall, I would say that park rangers are a uniform presence and kind of a face for the public. But of course they are much more than a pretty face. They work pretty hard. In addition, there are the 700 or so employees of the various park facility operators around the province, who also work very hard to make sure that people have the best possible experience when they visit a B.C. park.

S. Simpson: I don't have the number in front of me right now. But just to confirm, I know the minister said that this year in the budget documents they cut this number out as a separate number. I believe the overall budget for parks was something just in excess of $30 million. Maybe the minister could confirm that number.

Hon. B. Penner: Yes, this year it is a separate line item, and it's $36,921,000 for fiscal 2007-2008.

S. Simpson: That budget of just under $37 million is all-encompassing to cover all of the costs for the 606 provincial parks with something just in excess of ten million hectares of land? Pretty much all the costs related to those parks fall into that almost $37 million?

Hon. B. Penner: Not quite. In answer to the member's question, there is the $36.921 million on the operating side, plus there is the revenue that is derived from parks through camping fees and things like that, which gets retained by the park facility operators to help them hire the 700 or so employees that they have and provide services.

In addition to that, there is approximately $14 million in the Parks capital budget this year, over and above the $14.85 million that we talked about this morning, for potential compensation issues around the additional new conservancies that are being created on the midcoast and the north coast.

L. Krog: On behalf of the member for Surrey–Panorama Ridge, I would ask the House to please welcome here today a group of students — 50 grade 4 students and 11 adults from W.E. Kinvig Elementary School. Accompanying them are Stacey Anderson, Krista Petersen and Jana Marynick. Would the House please make them welcome.

S. Simpson: I was reading through the service plan. When I get to page 46 of the service plan, it talks about the Parks for People strategy developed by the ministry in 2006 and identifies world-class, high-quality recreation tourism and stewardship opportunities — activities including increasing visitor attendance and satisfaction, investing in facility upgrades and working with partners such as the Society of Park Facility Operators and Nature B.C. to offer interpretation services. It talks about wanting to enhance that.

I then notice that it talks about…. The approximate number for '05-06 is 18.5 million recorded visits. When I look back at the baseline, it tells us that there were 22.6 million visits in 2002. That number dropped to about 19 million in 2003. It then dropped to 18.3 million in 2004, and it's now popped up a little bit to 18.5 million in '05-06.

Can the minister explain why he believes that we've seen a 20-percent reduction in park visits over the last few years?

Hon. B. Penner: There has been a decrease, and it's sometimes cyclical. We saw some significant decreases during the 1990s, as well — in some cases larger year-over-year changes than were experienced over the last four or five years.

There are a variety of factors at play. We know that tourism generally saw a decrease post-9/11. The British Columbia tourism sector was hit pretty hard. We know that the introduction of fees can cause an effect when it's something new for people to adjust to. Across North America we are all witnessing a demographic shift. Not many of us are getting younger. As I look across this chamber, I don't see anybody here that's getting any younger, and that's reflected across our society.

Hon. B. Penner: Sorry. The Minister of Forests and Range is, of course, looking much younger. But except for him and, of course, the remarkably youthful,

Hon. B. Penner: Of course, the ActNow Minister is working very hard to regain his youthful appeal, and I think he's having some success.

But this is a serious issue. It's affecting health care costs, as we know, as the aging population requires greater health care services and health care intervention, and that has a significant hit to our provincial budget and budgets everywhere.

Quite concerning to me is that is that even amongst the younger population themselves there is an increasing tendency — no offence to the assembled young faces in the House here — towards sedentary activities.

At the risk of personalizing this and facing the wrath of my nieces and nephews when I get home, I see it even amongst my family. All their friends engage in the MSN Messenger. They're playing video games on line — sometimes not even next to each other but across town. They can somehow, through the Internet, play video games against each other across town instead of getting outside and enjoying the outdoors.

There are a whole range of societal factors at play. We have identified that the introduction of some new park-use fees a number of years ago was a contributing factor. We have taken a number of measures to try and ameliorate that. Part of it is simply people getting used to something new. But to try and assist in that adjustment, a few weeks ago with the support of my cabinet colleagues, I was able to lower day-use fees from a maximum of $5 a day down to $3 for about 40 of the B.C. parks that have day-use fees in place.

So it's down to a maximum of $3 for a day; that's per vehicle. So if you can load up the family van with seven or eight people, or however many seatbelts you have in that vehicle, you all get to come to the park for that single cost of $3 for an entire day, or $1 an hour up to a maximum of $3 a day.

An even better value — and I would encourage all members of this House to do so, because I certainly have — is to go out and purchase an annual B.C. Parks parking pass. We reduced the cost of that from $50 for a year down to $25 for an entire year. I think that represents tremendous value.

That revenue stays within the B.C. Parks system to help defray costs, and it certainly does cost us money to operate day-use areas. I've already referred earlier to the cost of replacing picnic tables at a thousand dollars each. Bathroom facilities…. We're embarking on, as I mentioned, about $14 million in capital works this year replacing picnic facilities and bathroom facilities so that people can continue to have a quality experience.

Even so, the day-use fees will really only represent about $1 out of $4, in terms of what it actually costs to operate those day-use facilities. So taxpayers generally are still subsidizing or paying the vast majority of the cost of looking after the day-use areas. Nevertheless, the day-use fee does represent some significant revenue to help us defray the cost of providing top-class service for people who enjoy our parks in British Columbia.

S. Simpson: The reduction from 2002 up to '05-06 in terms of park visits. Does the minister have a number…? What was the impact of that on revenues, both to the ministry and also to the park operators? Did they see a reduction in revenues because of this 20-percent reduction in visitors?

Hon. B. Penner: I suspect that if there were fewer people using the parks, particularly using the campgrounds, then the PFOs would see a decrease in their revenue, especially if they were operating campgrounds.

S. Simpson: Do we know what those reductions were? Did it have an impact on the fees that come into the ministry?

Hon. B. Penner: I think in most instances it requires additional funding to top up the PFOs who operate campgrounds. I think there may be some limited situations where the campgrounds are self-supporting on a financial basis with the camping fees that are levied, but in the majority of cases the campground fee itself does not generate enough revenue to actually pay for the full cost of providing the service.

S. Simpson: Could the minister tell us: what's the current status of the lodges and resorts policy of the ministry in terms of how many contracts have been let for lodge and resort facilities and in which parks?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member knows, proposals were received for five parks. Three represent new opportunities in Mount Robson, Maxhamish Lake and Cape Scott parks, and two were for existing facilities at Elk Lakes and Mount Assiniboine. In that case it was bidding for the right to operate existing facilities in those two parks. It's my understanding — at least as of April 18, 2007, which is the latest information I have — that contracts have not been completed for any of those five parks.

S. Simpson: Maybe I didn't hear the minister. I thought that there were proposals for Cape Scott. Did you mention Cape Scott on that list?

Could the minister tell us — I understand it's in the negotiation process — what the expectation is about the completion of those contracts? And then when we might actually see facilities in place?

Hon. B. Penner: I guess the short answer is that it depends on which particular park or facility we're

looking at. They each have to follow the process, and for some it may take longer than for others. Some of the things that are necessary to complete are things like first nations consultations, and it's sometimes hard to predict with any certainty just how long that will take.

Public consultation and environmental impact assessments need to be done and then negotiations to secure a park use permit. To some extent that depends on the capacity of the proponent — what kind of resources or sophistication they bring to the process. So in some measure, how long it takes kind of turns on the capacity or ability of the proponent.

S. Simpson: Does the government have any intention of letting any further RFPs for other parks, either to bring back some of those parks where there was no interest generated or for additional parks — to let RFPs for resorts and lodges in the coming year or so?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not anticipating issuing any further requests for proposals for fixed-roof accommodation.

S. Simpson: Does the minister anticipate any expansion of sponsorship opportunities within our parks in the coming time?

Hon. B. Penner: The ministry thinks there may be some opportunities for some partnerships with volunteer, not-for-profit or corporate individuals to assist us in some of our objectives within the park system. But that's still something that's under consideration.

S. Simpson: What's the current situation with sponsorship in our parks? What sponsorship is going on presently in the parks, if any?

Hon. B. Penner: There are examples around the park system today where you can see evidence of some previous partnerships that have been struck — to the benefit of the park system, I think. For example, we talked extensively this morning about Mount Robson Provincial Park. If you go there, near the visitor centre you'll see a beautiful interpretive sign display that was actually constructed about 20 years ago using what was then state-of-the-art enamel tech signage, something I'm still fond of. I hope to see more of that in the future, because it holds its colour for decades.

Now, if somebody is wilfully trying to destroy it with a rock, a gun or a hammer, they can chip away at it and cause damage, but — this is an active conversation I'm having with staff in the ministry about what the best form of signage is — the enamel tech signs that you see at Mount Robson are large, colourful and vibrant, and they're still there as if they were brand-new. They were put in place in 1986 with a partnership with what was then known as B.C. Tel, today known as Telus.

If you look at that display, the only indication that Telus sponsored it is right at the very top of the display. Above the beautiful, colourful interpretive sign with photographs embedded in it and some script on top to give you some historical reference, it says: "Sponsored by Telus." Most people probably don't notice that, but that was a sponsorship or partnership with Telus.

There are some other signs that I've seen around the park system also with a logo attached from Telus, so there has been, obviously, some kind of a partnership arrangement in the past. I understand that in the Okanagan there is some signage provided courtesy of West Kootenay Power. Perhaps they've had some issue in the past that had them dealing with the park system, and B.C. Parks staff were able to extract some kind of benefit from them.

I'm also advised that the film industry frequently likes to make use of B.C. parks, and we can understand why. They provide a spectacular backdrop. They do have to pay a licence or permitting fee to do so, but I'm advised that on an informal basis, extra benefits sometimes result to the park in terms of upgrades to trails, a new bridge being installed or some other types of facilities left behind as a positive legacy of the filming work that was done in a particular park.

There may be some opportunity to bring a more formal structure around that kind of partnership arrangement so that we can make sure it's all very transparent what kinds of benefits are resulting for the park system as a result of these kinds of arrangements that take place from time to from time.

S. Simpson: Future possible plans for sponsorship within our parks. Maybe the minister could tell me…. This may be accurate or inaccurate, and I'd be happy to learn from the minister whether there is any accuracy to this. The suggestion was made to me by some people that earlier this year there was a meeting of ministry staff with, I believe, Jessica McDonald, the Deputy Minister to the Premier, and that a significant part of the discussion with those staff revolved around the notion of sponsorship in our parks and an expansion of park sponsorship.

Could the minister tell me whether that meeting in fact did occur, and was there that discussion around park sponsorship and an enhancement and increase in park sponsorship?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm advised that every two years or so the technical staff related to B.C. Parks do get together for a meeting. I'm told that for the most recent outing — the one that happened some time ago; I don't know when — Jessica McDonald, deputy minister responsible for the civil service, was invited to give a speech, and apparently she did. I don't have a copy of her remarks, but as I've said, we are working on a policy within B.C. Parks to make sure that we continue to offer state-of-the-art services for people — high-quality recreation and tourism opportunities.

That's one reason why we did embark last year with a new fixed-roof-accommodation policy. We're looking at ways we can get more people into enjoying our parks. That's why we've committed about $65 mil-

lion in new capital expenditures over the last three years to refurbish the park system, because of the aging infrastructure that exists within our park system. We want to keep that up to date.

We are looking at ways that we can accomplish our goal, and one of those may include more formal structures around partnerships such as the type that I've already mentioned, including the film industry and others that may be willing to assist us in the work we do with B.C. parks.

S. Simpson: Is Partnerships B.C. involved in any way in these discussions in support of the efforts of the ministry?

S. Simpson: In terms of fleshing out this policy around an expanded sponsorship program, what staff have been allocated or dedicated to helping to do that work?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not aware of anybody working full-time on sponsorships, but we do have one person dedicated to partnerships. That person is working, as I said, to formalize partnerships with first nations, volunteer groups, not-for-profit groups, as well as private sector business organizations, so that we can expand on some of the services that we provide to B.C. Parks and make sure that it remains world-leading.

S. Simpson: Around partnerships — and I appreciate that the terminology is slightly different. So we're talking about partnerships. Is there formal policy within the ministry around what that might look like and what the expectations are? Is there written policy around that issue of how to move forward with partnerships, or are there memos or other documentation to support that?

Hon. B. Penner: Again, not that I'm aware of. What's happened over the last number of decades…. I think there have been informal arrangements made at the local and regional levels. That's why today you see some signs where, if you look closely in the small print, it may say "Sponsored by Telus" — or West Kootenay Power or perhaps an individual film company that may have helped to upgrade a trail or a picnic table. It's kind of a one-off. What we're hoping to do is to bring some more structure to that so that it's more transparent about what's taking place.

S. Simpson: The minister is saying that there is an initiative to enhance and increase partnerships. I saw the minister was reading from a note there, and that's fair enough. There has been at least one staff person who has been assigned to do this work. The ministry does have a strategy to increase those partnerships, yet there's no documentation to support that initiative — is that what the minister is saying?

S. Simpson: Has the minister received any briefing notes, memos or reports from staff to support this expanded partnership initiative?

S. Simpson: I appreciate that the policy is in development. My question was: has the minister received any briefing notes, memos or reports that support that policy development? I understand that it's in process.

Hon. B. Penner: I can't, on my feet here, recall all of the information I may have received or even exactly the kind of information it is that I've received. I do know that I have asked my staff to take a look at some of the policies elsewhere and at other parks that may have been successful.

I know the World Wildlife Federation has some documentation and reports that they've written about ways to improve the park systems, generally, where they operate. I think that in their report they talk about the state of Victoria in Australia as one model, so I've asked for some information about that.

I also understand that different provinces and different jurisdictions in North America, south of the Canada-U.S. border, have a number of models that they utilize. So I've asked my staff to take a look at that and at whether there's some information that we can glean from the experience in other jurisdictions.

I think I may have misrepresented the name of the organization. I think it's the World Wildlife Fund. I might have said the World Wildlife Federation, thinking about a different group that involves itself with wrestling.

S. Simpson: What I'm going to do now is to move to a slightly different area. What I want to move to is some discussion that relates to some general questions around the potential impacts of TILMA on the environment in British Columbia and how that might affect us. I don't know whether the minister wants a moment to change personnel.

S. Simpson: I've had the opportunity to look at some documents that have been produced that relate specifically to TILMA and the environment and some of those impacts, including reviews by Sierra Legal on the question of TILMA and the environment. We know, of course, that there are a number of exemptions that are clear, including energy and other things that are exempted.

What I do want to do, though, is just touch on a couple of areas where there were some concerns raised about the potential impacts of TILMA in regard to

measures that the government may be looking at or policies that the government may have. We know that many of the exemptions relate to part 5.

One of the areas that there's some concern raised about, particularly by Sierra, is around potential notions to protect some of our more endangered ecosystems. They look at the Garry oak parkland. They look at grasslands, wetlands — some of those areas that are coming under increasing pressure from urban development, from agricultural practices and other practices.

What they see there — one of the suggestions they make there — is that measures to protect them, therefore, seem almost certain to breach the TILMA prohibitions on restricting or impairing investments in articles 3.1 and 5.3, and that would be in relation to the restriction, again, of investment.

Has the ministry looked at those issues around protection of some of those sensitive areas and whether limits may, in fact, be viewed to be limits on investment?

Hon. B. Penner: Contrary to what certain groups have purported, which clearly don't understand the agreement — including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives — there is nothing in TILMA that would restrict us in introducing additional measures or continuing to rely on the ones we currently have to protect Garry oak species or any other environmental issue in British Columbia, provided that it's non-discriminatory.

That is, if we tell a company from outside of B.C. that they can't cut down a Garry oak, then that also applies to a B.C. company. Certainly, I can't see why we would want to say there would be a difference in terms of how we treat that. If we think that we need to protect something, we're going to protect it.

S. Simpson: When we start looking at these, and we look at species — and it could be plant species; it could be animals — one of the things that we know when we look at the protection of species at risk and how those species will be protected is that the government has a number of tools available to it.

They could include prohibitions in relation to how you deal with that species. It could involve protection of specific habitat, particular pieces of land. It could involve stewardship programs, initiatives by private land owners, restoration of other habitat, etc.

One of the challenges I see here is that my understanding that the TILMA agreement requires the government to choose the least trade- or investment-restrictive approaches that are available to it. It doesn't say that it can't protect. It says that it has to choose those approaches which are least restrictive to trade or investment.

So might it be — there's this list of possibilities — that the government will lose some of those options for how to protect species or land because there's the potential for challenges under a panel to say: "You haven't chosen that method which is least restrictive." Is that a possibility?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member may know, the document — I think it's article 6 — says that "Parties may establish the level of protection necessary to achieve a legitimate objective." A legitimate objective is defined to include any of the following: protection of human, animal or plant life or health; or protection of the environment. It also includes conservation and prevention of waste of non-renewable or exhaustible resources.

My understanding is that the issue that the member raises about least-restrictive would apply in the following context. Take, for example, if a government wanted to make it a requirement that people on a construction site wore a hardhat. That would be fine as long as everybody operating in a similar context had to comply with that requirement, regardless of where their company may be based. But it would probably be unduly restrictive to say that the hardhat had to be manufactured in Red Deer, Alberta or Surrey, British Columbia.

S. Simpson: I would agree that there's a whole lot in this agreement, in TILMA, that we're going to have to see how it plays itself out over time, depending on what kinds of things are brought forward to panels, etc. But one of the concerns that I have with this is around the not-more-restrictive-than-necessary test which is throughout TILMA — that the restrictions cannot be more than is necessary. That's laid out, I believe, in article 6.

So an example here — and I'd be interested to know how the minister thinks this might work — is the ability of a commercial operator or enterprise to argue that a total ban on some activities in protected areas…. We've just talked about the conservancies and those areas and the need for management plans. Those management plans will presumably ban outright certain activities and will allow other activities to varying degrees. But will a commercial operator, in fact, be able to make the case that total bans aren't what's necessary to protect the environment, but rather, what's needed is for those activities to take place in a somewhat more sensitive manner and that you can accomplish the same objectives, whereas the ministry may be of a different view?

Does the minister see the potential, that what we're going to have is those kinds of challenges available where a commercial operator — let's say all-terrain vehicle operators or people who are in that business around tourism and that — is saying: "We can go into those areas, and we can do things that today you don't necessarily want us to be able to do, but as long as we do it in a sensitive way, we're going to meet the test of TILMA. For you to exclude us totally takes away our opportunity for investment"?

Hon. B. Penner: There's nothing in TILMA that prohibits or restricts British Columbia, or Alberta for that matter, from placing restrictions on what can take place on their land base provided that the same provisions apply in a non-discriminatory way for everyone.

I should note, parenthetically, that I understand the NDP government of Saskatchewan is now actively looking to get into something like the TILMA arrangement with Alberta.

S. Simpson: What we know is that much of what TILMA talks about is the rights of investment, and what it says is that those rights should be the same in British Columbia and Alberta. But it does emphasize the rights of investment, quite honestly, more than it represents the rights of our communities.

Another area. We talk about air pollution. Air pollution is a big issue, particularly air quality and air pollution in the lower mainland, in the valley and that. The issue gets raised again as to whether the part 5 exemptions for measures relating to the management and disposal of hazardous and waste materials — clearly there's an exemption there — will include reducing air pollution such as nitrogen oxides and other compounds.

Has the minister had any assessment done to determine whether those kinds of actions around air pollution can in fact be dealt with under the TILMA agreement? I think that one of my colleagues is going to speak to this more in a minute.

Maybe I'll ask this broader question about TILMA, because we've talked a little about some of the specifics. What work has the Ministry of Environment done to satisfy itself that TILMA in fact will not impede the ability of the Ministry of Environment to do its duties to protect British Columbia's environment?

Hon. B. Penner: I think we're getting pretty close to the point where I'm going to start suggesting these questions be pursued with the minister responsible for the TILMA agreement who, although he's seated next me in the House, is not actually part of these estimate debates.

I can say this. The government did obtain legal advice, and our opinion is that the TILMA agreement does not restrict us in the things that we want to do in terms of protecting the environment.

I've already mentioned the legitimate objective provision, which includes protection of human, animal or plant health, the protection of the environment, conservation and prevention of waste of non-renewable or exhaustible resources — a couple of examples of legitimate objectives which are specially provided for in the TILMA agreement.

M. Sather: The minister is obviously correct in that TILMA is not his primary responsibility. It's the Minister of Economic Development, and we will have the opportunity to ask the minister.

Notwithstanding that, the phrase that not only the Minister of Economic Development uses, but this minister is using — and other members of the government side use — is that our side of the House doesn't understand the agreement. Often it is said that we haven't read the agreement and that simply, if we did, we would agree with the things they're saying about it. Clearly, as we get into this further, it's simply not that simple, nor straightforward. There are profound differences of learned opinion, legal opinion, about the interpretation of this agreement.

It certainly has powerful provisions in it about investment. That's one of the things that it does have. So the minister did make some response to the last question about the involvement of the ministry in it, but the cornerstone, I guess, that the government comes from on TILMA is that it's all about non-discrimination.

One of the things that we're not sure of on this side of the House is how much homework initially, when this agreement came into effect, the government had actually done on it. We know that the government is paying a lot more attention to the agreement now, but there have been no changes to it yet.

The question, then, to the minister becomes: has he been fully briefed on this agreement beyond the belief or the understanding, whichever perspective you have, that the agreement is all about discrimination — notwithstanding its broad powers under the "no obstacles" clause?

It is very important to the subject of the environment. TILMA is very potentially, let's say, important to the field of the environment. I would like to know from the minister when he first was briefed on this, what discussions he's had, and have they really been adequate for him to understand the potential effect, at least, of this agreement on the environment?

Hon. B. Penner: The member suggests that somehow this wasn't given much consideration by government. In fact, we do consider this to be a significant achievement in terms of improving economic opportunities for British Columbians and Albertans.

Unlike the opposition, we don't think that economic prosperity has to be a zero-sum game, that somehow you can only have a better economy if you have a worse environment or, alternatively — or in addition — that you can only have a better economy here if somehow your neighbour is doing worse. We don't think that way.

I think that's a thought process that has been thoroughly discredited by all kinds of economic think tanks and academics over the years. But it does help illuminate, I think, some of the thinking of the members of the opposition — that somehow you can only do better yourself if someone else isn't doing as well. Economics doesn't work that way.

Work has gone into this document. The member mentioned in his preamble that changes haven't even been made to this document since it came into force. It's only been in force for 33 days. I think it came into force at the beginning of last month. It's still early days for the agreement being in force, so I'm not sure why the member is suggesting there should be changes made.

M. Sather: Well, if in fact the government did all due diligence and studied this agreement in a complete manner, then we submit that they did a bad job. When we get to the Minister of Economic Development's estimates, we certainly will elucidate the glaring inconsistencies, if not errors. Errors of omission, if not commission. There are certainly errors of omission. I'll have no problem discussing this in full with the minister later.

Just one last thing. The minister was discussing with the critic the issue of legitimate objectives and whether or not they stand up to the test of being not more restrictive to trade investment or labour mobility than necessary.

Has the minister been briefed on any of the history of other agreements — whether it's the agreement on internal trade or other agreements — on challenges around legitimate objectives and around parties having to prove that their measures are not more restrictive than necessary? In other words, is he aware of the history of complaints where parties have had to prove that their regulation was not more restrictive than necessary?

Hon. B. Penner: The member would probably be right to pursue his line of questioning with the minister responsible for the TILMA agreement, who I understand is quite eager to have the conversation.

Nevertheless, I'm also interested in this topic. Back in a previous lifetime I was, as an MLA in opposition, interested in the agreement on internal trade within Canada, something that has mostly seemed to be recognized by not following it. It has not been very successful. In fact, I remember the last NDP government doing just about everything it could to essentially thwart the intentions of that document, so much so that it was pretty difficult in many instances for trade to take place within our country because of provincial boundaries.

Notwithstanding the title of that agreement — called the agreement on internal trade — it really didn't seem to do much in practice to facilitate internal trade within Canada. I'm sorry to say that the NDP government of the day was first and foremost among the provincial governments looking for ways to weasel out of that agreement and not have it apply. So it really had no value.

It was an interesting piece of work. I mean, a lot of people put a lot of effort into it, but at the end of the day, it didn't do much to facilitate internal trade within a country called Canada. I think that we should be open to the suggestion of trading with people from a country called Canada.

I really am somewhat mystified at the member's paranoia around people from other parts of Canada. My heavens. In any event, the economic record from that time speaks for itself. We know we went from having the best economy in the country to the worst during that period.

Today we're back in front. If we're not number one, we're number two, which is sure better than being number ten, where we were in the past. I guess the members opposite will say that it had nothing to do with their economic policies in the '90s and that our situation today has nothing to do with the current government's economic policies, but I would disagree with that, hon. Member.

J. Horgan: I was listening to the comments of the minister, and I was curious as to what data he has to back up his statement that B.C. was number ten of anything at any time?

The Chair: Members, Members. Would all members of the House please make their comments through the Chair.

Hon. B. Penner: I'm not sure if the member with the mango shirt is familiar with Statistics Canada, but that is the organization that tracks economic activity in Canada. They reported that, sadly, during the 1990s — from 1996 onward — we went from having been, at the start of that decade, the leader in economic growth per capita in Canada to number ten.

I can understand that the member doesn't like the facts that come from Statistics Canada, but that, however, is a fairly reputable organization. In fact, around the world it has won awards for its methodology for collecting and reporting on publicly available data. If the member wants to quarrel with Statistics Canada, he's entirely welcome to do so. It will probably be about as fruitless as some of the NDP's economic policies in the 1990s.

In any event, we seem to have stumbled upon a fairly fundamental disagreement. We are a party and a government that sees opportunity. We have built into the agreement protections around the environment. It is very clearly spelled out. But we also want to pursue economic opportunity. We are not averse to working across provincial boundaries — oh, my goodness, working with people from other parts of Canada. But we're going to do it. We have the courage to actually sit down and work with other people from Canada to see what we can do to our mutual benefit.

M. Sather: Well, I think that the minister just clearly demonstrated what my suspicion was about it all along. He does not have a clue about TILMA. So he went into this long, rambling discussion about everything but TILMA.

The minister should know that parties that have tried to make a defence of legitimate objectives under the not-more-restrictive-than-necessary rule have been virtually unsuccessful.

M. Sather: It is very, very difficult to make that determination. The other minister will be very happy to be able to have that discussion with me when he gets his chance.

Hon. B. Penner: I notice that the member has made an allegation. I invite him to back it up and name one name.

S. Simpson: I find it interesting that the minister talked about Saskatchewan and the role they're playing. Let's talk about that for a minute. The difference here is this: what Saskatchewan has done is said that they will hold a series of public hearings on the controversial B.C.-Alberta trade agreement before deciding by June. They also said that…. The intergovernmental affairs minister understands process, understands democracy and understands the right of people in his province to actually have a say — unlike this minister and unlike this government that hid this document, hid this agreement and have buried it. There's never been a more covert operation. If this minister believed that….

S. Simpson: No. This is the most secretive government we've ever seen. When it's not phoning up talk shows, pretending to be somebody else, then it's doing this.

The Chair: Member. Member. Can we bring the direction of the debate back to the Minister of Environment?

S. Simpson: Well, certainly, we can, hon. Chair. It's the Minister of Environment who raised the question of Saskatchewan, not me.

The Intergovernmental Affairs Minister of Saskatchewan announced that he has requested the Legislature's Standing Committee on the Economy to conduct an inquiry on what effects joining the trade, investment and labour mobility agreement between B.C. and Alberta will have on Saskatchewan.

That's what the minister did — an open process, a public inquiry, public hearings, a legislative committee and fully engaging the people of Saskatchewan. In British Columbia this government doesn't even have the courage to bring the agreement to the Legislature where it should be debated. It's a shameful performance by a shameful minister and a shameful government.

You know, the reason they don't do it is that they have no courage. It's a lack of courage. They have a lack of courage.

I want to raise some questions here on a different topic. We're going to talk about mountain caribou for a little bit. We have about 40 minutes or so left to us. Could the minister tell the House his view as to whether he supports the work of the mountain caribou science team that reported out on the mountain caribou restoration?

Hon. B. Penner: As the member knows, my colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Lands has responsibility for the species-at-risk coordination office, which is leading in the area of the mountain caribou recovery plan. I understand that some recommendations have been received from what the member refers to, I think correctly, as the science team. I'm not aware of any decision having been made. That matter, I presume, is still under consideration.

Just to correct the record. The member went on at some length and got a little bit excited, claiming that the TILMA agreement had been signed in secret. I think that was the phrase he used — "signed in secret." Hmm.

Pretty poorly kept secret, don't you think, hon. Chair — to invite about six TV cameras, four photojournalists and about five or six other radio and newsprint reporters to an event to sign an agreement if you're trying to keep it secret?

I was there. Not only was I there on April 28, 2006, when we not only signed that agreement within the full glare of the TV cameras, the print cameras, the radio reporters and the print reporters, but I was also there when moments later the government of British Columbia not only issued a news release about the signing of that agreement and spelling out its key details but also issued a backgrounder and put that on the Internet for the entire world to see.

Then, because that wasn't quite enough, we made the entire agreement available via the Internet that very same day. If that's signing an agreement in secret, I'd like to know what the member's idea of signing it in public would be.

S. Simpson: We'll discuss that, then, since the minister raised it. Maybe doing it in public might have included talking to the people of British Columbia before the agreement was signed. Maybe it might have included public hearings. Maybe it might have included a legislative committee, much like Saskatchewan is doing, to go out and talk to the people of British Columbia, to hold some hearings on that. Maybe it would have included bringing the agreement into the Legislature.

But I know that all of those are things that this government wasn't prepared to do, because this government didn't want to have a full and public debate over the merits of TILMA in this place.

The minister said, and I understand this, that SaRCO comes under Ag and Lands. Could the minister tell us: what role does the Ministry of Environment have in the mountain caribou recovery program?

Hon. B. Penner: The member is correct that SaRCO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands have the lead on this file. The Ministry of Environment does not directly provide information to the science team itself. It's possible they may utilize their website, or perhaps they do contact our staff. But I'm not aware of any official role that the Ministry of Environment has in terms of providing information to the science team that's formulating recommendations.

S. Simpson: The ministry, of course, does have responsibility for the Wildlife Act, and species at risk also falls under that. I know that in the White Paper that's out, there's talk about new species-at-risk regulations there.

What role, not so much specifically about providing advice to the science team…? The science team, I know, did its work independently. Now there has been an ongoing review of the work of the science team. I think that's mostly wrapped up now, but it has been going on.

What role does the Ministry of Environment have in ensuring the future of the mountain caribou and in protecting and dealing with helping to support the restoration of the mountain caribou?

Hon. B. Penner: Once a plan is agreed to by government, it does then become the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment to implement that plan.

S. Simpson: So the plan is developed by SaRCO. The ministry doesn't have input into the science team's work, I believe the minister just said a little earlier. Presumably, SaRCO will establish a plan, and then the Ministry of Environment will implement or administer that plan. That's what I think I heard the minister say.

Then am I to understand that the Ministry of Environment, other than through…? I know it has people who are linked to SaRCO, but the Ministry of Environment itself just kind of takes its lead from SaRCO on these issues in terms of the plan?

Hon. B. Penner: We do work with SaRCO, but what I told the member is that we don't provide direct instruction or advice to the science team itself, which, as the member noted, is independent.

S. Simpson: What we know is that there is a debate going on — to some degree. There are differences of opinion. We have the number of herds — or the units, as they're called by the science team. Some of them are larger, but I think there are four or five that are quite small. There is some debate. The science team, I believe, had made a recommendation suggesting that those smaller units or herds be supplemented by moving animals from some of the larger herds to allow them to reach a size — I think it was 75-plus animals — so that they would have the possibility of surviving.

The other option…. I believe the minister, in the press conference that he held at the time he released the science team's report, made some suggestion that the alternative might be to move those small herds into the larger ones, essentially eliminating five herds and making some of the other ten or so larger.

Does the ministry have a view on whether it's a better thing to enhance all of the herds and keep them all viable — or to make the effort to do that, because it will be a challenge — or to fold the smaller herds into the larger ones?

Hon. B. Penner: I'm aware that the public consultation on the options has been completed, but I have not yet been briefed on the various options.

S. Simpson: Then maybe what we'll do, if the minister is not up to speed on these issues related to the caribou, is move to the Wildlife Act, to some of the discussion I know that goes on around species at risk and some of the discussions that are going on in the White Paper.

In the White Paper that's put out — I'm on page 42 — it says the proposed new species-at-risk regulation will focus on single species at risk in their residences. Could the minister explain what exactly that means in terms of the single species? Is the suggestion here…?

I know, and the minister will know as well, that there are those who suggest that you protect a habitat and that biodiversity suggests that there's a whole range of species that may be interrelated, and protecting one is important to the other. That's one approach.

The other approach is what I believe is the single-species approach. Is the ministry suggesting…? I know that this is just a discussion document that will be refined at some point when changes to the Wildlife Act come in, but is the ministry right now suggesting that the single-species approach, which is similar to what occurs today, will continue to be the approach taken?

Hon. B. Penner: The answer is no. We do, depending on the particular issue, look at a range of things. The member did mention the Garry oak, I think, as a specific example. There we have put together a recovery plan that considers a variety of things besides the single species.

S. Simpson: I note that again the government has chosen, at least based on the discussion paper at this point, to deal with species at risk as a regulatory issue as part of the Wildlife Act. The minister will know that there have been a number of different folks at different times who have called on the government to put in stand-alone legislation on species at risk.

Could the minister tell us what the rationale is for choosing a regulation over the stand-alone legislation that a number of people have called for?

Hon. B. Penner: We've canvassed this issue fairly extensively in previous debates, I think — last spring and perhaps also in the fall of 2005, if my memory's correct. Putting on my former legal hat for a moment, a legally valid regulation or order-in-council has the same legal force and effect as a statute passed here in the chamber. To a certain extent, I guess, it's a question about what's in a name.

S. Simpson: Maybe the minister can correct me on this, but one of the differences, I believe, is that if it's in legislation, it's a piece of legislation. It comes to this place, and we all get a chance to talk about it.

If it's a regulation, it can be dealt with by the government directly without necessarily having to bring changes or amendments to this place, into the House itself. It's dealt with there. It's not law.

It's supportive of the law, but it certainly is open to change by the government or the minister directly

without having to bring it to the Legislature. I would suggest that might be one of the big differences between a piece of legislation and a regulation. I'll be happy to hear the minister on that.

One of the other issues that has been raised with me is an issue of jurisdiction. We now have a situation where we essentially have the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands responsible for the land as it relates to species, we have the Ministry of Environment responsible for the species, and they work together.

The question I would have is: does the minister think that it may be more effective or efficient to have the whole issue of species at risk fall under a single ministry — whichever one; that's the prerogative of government, of course — rather than being somewhat divided between the two?

Hon. T. Christensen: Mr. Chair, it's unusual for me to stand and make an introduction at this point in the day, but it's not often that I actually get to stand up and make an introduction, so I will do so.

I'm very pleased, Mr. Chair and members of the House, to welcome a good friend who is here all the way from Denmark — just arrived on the Island this afternoon after getting in, I think, at one in the morning or something last night. Lars Diemer, his wife Tine, and their daughters Sophie and Emilia are here for a couple of weeks to visit this incredible province and tour around a bit. I would hope that the House will make them all feel incredibly welcome here.

Hon. B. Penner: Again, this question seems eerily familiar, as I think we canvassed this in the fall of 2005 as well as the spring of 2006 during estimates debate at that time.

There are three particular species that SaRCO, the species-at-risk coordination office, has the lead responsibility for in terms of developing recovery plans. Those species tend to require a large amount of land base to manoeuvre. They're broad-ranging species. They are, as the member knows, the mountain caribou, the marbled murrelet and the spotted owl. Those are three creatures that need a significant amount of land base.

The other species are the lead responsibility of the Ministry of Environment in terms of coordinating a recovery plan. This is something I think we dealt with a little bit in the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2006, but I will take my direction from the member as to whether or not he wants us to continue to explore this.

S. Simpson: We'll just try one more question here on this matter. I appreciate the minister enlightening us as to what the current situation is, but that really wasn't the question.

The question was…. We have two ministries that deal with this issue of species at risk. It's divided between them. They certainly collaborate around SaRCO; I understand that. But there is authority in both ministries to deal with these issues.

The question I had is: does the minister think it might not be more efficient to have a single ministry responsible for all species at risk and what relates to that? I would presume that since the Ministry of Environment has the Wildlife Act, that might be the place. But the government could have a different view.

Hon. B. Penner: The member would be familiar with the Wildlife Act. We are responsible for that piece of legislation. We are responsible for wildlife species generally in British Columbia.

While the species-at-risk coordination office, as I mentioned, has lead responsibility for developing recovery plans for three of the wide-ranging species that are in need of recovery plans, once those recovery plans are developed and approved, it will be the lead responsibility of the Ministry of Environment to actually work on the implementation of those recovery plans. That will be the case for all species — not just the ones outside of the responsibility for SaRCO in terms of developing recovery plans, but for those as well.

I didn't make this point earlier, so I'd like to make it now. It won't just be the job of the Ministry of Environment to implement those plans. We will be the lead ministry, but we will be working closely with other ministries in government, including the Ministry of Forests and Range — conceivably, other ministries as well.

S. Simpson: I'm going to just deal with one last topic here before we'll get done. It's just a couple of questions related to water issues. I'm sure the minister has had these discussions with a number of the groups interested, but one of the groups that is now really starting to step up and play a leading role as a stakeholder interest in water-related issues — certainly in more urban areas and some other areas — is the realtors. The realtors now are playing a pretty important role, and I know water is a very critical issue to them.

Could the minister tell us: as the population of the province grows, as urbanization continues to expand, what work is the ministry doing related to drinking water to ensure the continued integrity of our drinking water — and that the infrastructure provided for is updated, is as current as need be, to make sure our drinking water stays at a high quality?

Hon. B. Penner: I, too, had a chance to meet with some of the realtors from, I think, the B.C. realtors

association, which had a delegation here one or two weeks ago. I had a chance to speak to them at their luncheon, I believe. The topic I did address them about was water generally.

We canvassed some of this a little bit yesterday with the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows. I noted that in British Columbia we tend to have an expectation that if we turn on a tap, it should continue to flow for as long and as strong as we want. But I think we have to come up with some new thinking about that.

We saw last year in Tofino, for example, that that community, located on the west coast of British Columbia in the middle of a rain forest, ran out of water for their community, or if not out of water, it certainly had to be severely rationed. Water is something we typically take for granted in British Columbia, but I don't think we should anymore.

Since 2002 we have been implementing the drinking water action plan. The Ministry of Health does have statutory responsibility for the Drinking Water Protection Act, but the Ministry of Environment is responsible for source-water quality standards, monitoring, compliance and enforcement, and other resource ministries continue to be responsible for a variety of issues.

Consistent with our commitment to help implement the Drinking Water Protection Act, the Ministry of Environment has allocated specific, significant resources to this cause — including, I think, 12 FTEs for new source-water protection staff to assist with enhanced monitoring, to develop source-to-tap assessment tools and to provide other technical support to drinking water officers.

Drinking water is obviously a shared responsibility. Local communities and individuals or community groups that operate water conveyance systems also have responsibility. What we've done as a government is put in place a number of regulatory requirements to try and ensure greater protection for drinking water quality.

S. Simpson: Obviously, one of the areas around dealing with drinking water quality is reporting. I know one of the things…. We all can certainly reflect on the Walkerton situation in Ontario, which was probably the most tragic example in recent history of things gone awry around drinking water. We know that in Ontario, as a result of Walkerton, they have significantly increased the frequency of public reporting on water issues at a regional level.

What is the current status of water reporting in British Columbia at a regional level — on water quality issues? Does the ministry feel any need to increase that reporting?

Hon. B. Penner: I note that we seem to be getting joined by a few extra members of the Legislative Assembly, and that's great.

The Ministry of Environment is responsible for chairing a cross-ministry ADM committee on water, which has already identified the need to address a number of water information deficiencies. We are working to see what we can do to increase the reporting. We are working in a collaborative way with other ministries and accessing resources as required from those ministries, or our own, to help accomplish our objectives.

The member, I think, is also aware that in addition to the groundwater protection act, we've got the groundwater protection regulation, which is now moving into phase 2, and we're proceeding with that. That regulation requires additional requirements in permitting or licensing of people who are installing and operating groundwater drinking water systems.

From time to time I do hear complaints that the regulatory requirements are onerous. There's no question about it: we have imposed some additional requirements. But at the end of the day…. The member did allude to the situation which arose out of Ontario and the tragic deaths that occurred there. We don't want to see that happen here.

Balancing a variety of interests and with public safety being paramount, we do feel that these extra measures are required, and that's why we did implement the groundwater protection regulation and are moving forward with additional implementation. There are a number of phases over time as additional measures are being required, but we are implementing them in a staged fashion.

S. Simpson: What I hope is that we will see increased reporting under that regulation, because as the minister knows, one of the things about building confidence, clearly, is telling the people of British Columbia that we're on top of it. I'm sure the ministry wants to be on top of it, but people feel better when they hear that.

I just want a last question or two here in regard to a significant issue that we're looking at now. We know that the government has put $33 million into emergency flood protection measures, which pretty much has been expended. I know that they're seeking support from the federal government to add dollars to that.

My question, though, is in regard to longer-term prevention. Could the minister tell us what the expectations of the government are around a longer-term investment in flood prevention, dike maintenance matters, so that we're not dealing with what is a potential crisis situation now? It hopefully will be okay. But how are we going to deal with this longer-term, especially since we know we have increased uncertainties about these issues?

Hon. B. Penner: The member is correct. The province did allocate $33 million about four to six weeks ago, which represents the largest single expenditure to do mitigative urgent flood preventive works in British Columbia. The last time that we had snowpacks approaching today's levels — in fact, they were record levels back in 1999 — about $7.8 million was authorized. So we've approved $33 million.

I would like to say thank you to the federal government today for coming through and delivering on their commitment to match our contribution and to pay for half of the work that's been done. That's to be saluted.

The member is correct that every year in British Columbia there are issues around our rivers. I doubt if anybody can stand up in this chamber and say with certainty that there will never be another flood again anywhere in the province. Regardless of the amount of money that's spent, we have some pretty impressive rivers in British Columbia, and nature sometimes does take its course.

However, I do agree with the member that there are additional things that can be done to help mitigate the risk. I know that my colleague the Solicitor General has been talking to his counterpart the federal Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, about some kind of a joint federal-provincial — and perhaps municipal — flood mitigation strategy. Those discussions are still taking place, but ultimately, down the road, that may be the place that those discussions get to.

S. Simpson: I have one — hopefully, one — last question, and then we'll be done. The minister talked about a broader flood mitigation strategy involving all levels of government — that work is going on, on that. Might we reasonably expect that strategy to be put in place in time to make any progress necessary before we get to next year's season?

Hon. B. Penner: I can't provide the member with a specific date, but I know that the conversations between our Minister of Solicitor General and his federal counterpart, Minister Stockwell Day, are ongoing. I think they had some discussions today.

Vote 49: Environmental Appeal Board and Forest Appeals Commission, $2,077,000 — approved.

Hon. B. Penner: Hon. Chair, I move that the committee rise, report resolution of Ministry of Environment estimates and seek leave to sit again.

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

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

J. Horgan: I rise to reserve my right to raise a point of personal privilege.

Hon. B. Penner: Mr. Speaker, I wish all members of this assembly a very enjoyable weekend, and I move that the House do now adjourn.

B. Ralston: Rather than continue the discussion we were having just before the break, I want to ask one question about the Businesses Practices and Consumer Protection Act. I wanted to confirm that's a statute administered by the Minister of Finance.

Hon. C. Taylor: Indirectly, we are involved through disclosure through mortgage brokers.

B. Ralston: Again, perhaps the minister can help me with this. The Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority falls under the jurisdiction of what ministry?

B. Ralston: I'll return to the question that I had before the break about the minimum-wage discussion we were having. I referred to the B.C. Progress Board report, The Social Condition in British Columbia, and some

I'm wondering if the minister or her officials have had a chance to briefly review the questions that I posed prior to the break and whether she is, at this point, in a position to respond.

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, I am, and I will do all the ones I believe you've asked. If I've forgotten any, please remind me.

May I just clarify whether you will need any further Mr. Alan Clark, superintendent of the Financial Institutions Commission?

Hon. C. Taylor: I believe one of the questions was: what would be our response about minimum wage if Ontario in a couple of years put theirs up? I would just respond by saying that obviously that's hypothetical. I don't know what the plans of the Ontario government will be. At this point, as we have assessed it, we're comfortable with our position. That was number one.

On the issue of the federal programs, where under WITB…. And there is actually at least one other program as well. We've been working with the federal government on those issues. Thank you for giving us the time to read the recommendation. The recommendation does suggest that we work with the federal government on these issues. We support it in principle. We are waiting to see what the actual legislation looks like.

B. Ralston: If I could return first to Ontario…. It's not hypothetical in Ontario. It's legislation that's been passed and comes into force in a series of stages over the next 18 months to two years. I don't expect that changes the minister's position, but I'm wondering if it does.

B. Ralston: Given that the policy premise of earnings supplements is to make work pay, does the minister not accept that by increasing the minimum wage, one would be doing precisely that — making work pay more for the lowest-paid workers in society?

Hon. C. Taylor: We have to be very careful when we are thinking about how to keep our economy strong and growing, because we really do believe, as a government, that is where the power comes from to support people — with good jobs.

I mean, they tell me that the average job in mining now is $93,000 a year. There are major jobs throughout our resource industry. Our service industry is desperate for workers. We've had 300,000 new jobs created. We are hearing about companies that are offering incentives for people to come and work for them. We all know that we have a shortage of labour.

Our concentration is on the side of keeping the economy strong. The initiative which the Leader of the Opposition has presented suggests that the priority for the opposition would be to look at minimum wage and use that tool — increase the minimum wage to $10 — recognizing — obviously, the Leader of the Opposition must have heard from small business — that in some way this is going to be difficult for small business, and has made a suggestion.

As I mentioned this morning, the trade-offs just don't work for small business. You are saying: "We're going to increase your costs by between $200 million and $400 million, and on the other side, we will give you a little bit of a break of $72 million."

The small business community has been adamant that this would really be difficult for them, would affect the economy and might cause some of them to either reduce their labour force or perhaps have difficulty staying in business.

It's just a difference in policy. We believe that our emphasis must be on keeping the economy strong and creating jobs.

B. Ralston: Well, I suppose we differ in the sense that the consultation that I engaged in with the various representatives of small business in various sectors…. Yes, some were definitely opposed. Others recognized that the time has come to increase the minimum wage. Certainly in many cases market conditions had exceeded the minimum wage by a long way, so there wasn't quite the very strong and consistent opposition that the minister seems to be indicating.

I take it that the position of the Minister of Finance for British Columbia — the best place on earth — for minimum-wage workers is: "Suck it up. You're not getting an increase." Is that right?

Hon. C. Taylor: Small business, very broadly, is against this. There are news releases that have gone out from B.C. Chamber of Commerce with headlines saying: "Calls to Increase Minimum Wage Represents Huge Cost to Small Businesses." It goes on in detail talking about what that would look like and what the effects would look like.

This is broadly, by various organizations, regarded to be a measure that would create difficulties. What the government is saying is that our minimum wage, which for single employables is at the highest rate paid by any province in Canada, is at a level that we will be staying at.

B. Ralston: I'd like to move to a different topic. If I could begin some discussion of the recent departure of Mr. Logan from the employ of the Ministry of Finance. Mr. Logan was a ministerial assistant, and I gather that he has left to take employment at the Retail Council of Canada. The minister has decided that he is not to contact the minister or the ministerial staff, I believe, for a period of one year. I'm wondering what the basis was in arriving at that period of one year.

Hon. C. Taylor: I do think that every situation is different. If someone were leaving a minister's staff to

go into an area that didn't have anything to do with that ministry, you would be looking at different circumstances.

The particulars I was faced with were, sitting as Minister of Finance, with tax involved within our department…. The individual was leaving our services, our ministry, to go and work with the Retail Council. The Retail Council does have business with government and makes presentations on behalf of a lot of the strong small businesses around the province.

I felt that it would be important, because it was just such a direct relationship back to me, to have a full year that is clear of contact between my office and myself and the individual. I recognize that other ministries have other situations and other job opportunities for the young people who work for government, but I felt that this was appropriate, and in fact Mr. Logan agreed.

B. Ralston: I accept the rationale. The rationale seems prudent. Why one year? Why not 18 months? Why not two years? Why not six months? It's totally arbitrary. I think that in law there's an expression about depending on the length of the chancellor's foot. It seems to be totally arbitrary and a personal decision of the ministry. I'm wondering, though. Where is the logic and the consistency across government? And what is the signal that is sent to others about this apparently arbitrary setting of one year in this particular case?

Hon. C. Taylor: One year is the standard for deputy ministers. I would also say that this is not about cross-government policy. This is an initiative I took as Minister of Finance. One year does get us past another budget cycle, so I think that that is an important length of time.

B. Ralston: Well, in the case of Mr. Marasco, who worked for Partnerships B.C. as a senior vice-president, he became an employee of the Plenary Group, which is, according to what I've been advised, a potential developer proponent on projects in which Partnerships B.C. has an engagement or a current client relationship. He was only forbidden from participating in bids for some six months from the date of his departure.

Given that these are high-level — multi-hundreds of millions of dollars in value in terms of contracts that are being negotiated…. Yet Mr. Logan, a relatively junior employee in the ministry, whose….

Perhaps the most direct, immediate economic interest of his employer would be a reduction in the sales tax, or not, which many people have many views on. It's pretty straightforward as an economic issue, whereas Mr. Marasco would leave Partnerships B.C. with a wealth of knowledge about the firm, how it operates, what an acceptable bid is, how to shape a bid to win acceptance by Partnerships B.C. It seems to be a very peculiar double standard here.

Hon. C. Taylor: This was just canvassed in question period, but I will do it again. When Partnerships B.C. discovered that Mr. Marasco was leaving, the board decided that they would go to an outside independent adviser who had some experience in this kind of question and ask them to assess what would be a proper arrangement to make with Mr. Marasco to ensure that no inside knowledge would be of an advantage to him that would put other people at a disadvantage.

First of all, there is a confidentiality agreement. That has been signed. We all understand what that means. That means you do not, on the honour system and with the signed agreement, use information that you have gained when you were in the employ of, in this case, Partnerships B.C. But they also suggested that he take six months and, say, completely disengage from Partnerships B.C. and not even be in the Vancouver office of Plenary but in fact work out of the Toronto office.

To add to that and further that, which makes it…. It's a very complicated arrangement. It's not perhaps as simple as saying one year, but they were reaching for the same effect, which is that those projects that he was working on…. As you correctly identified, they are very large multi-million-dollar projects and tended to be in the health area.

The three projects that were ongoing while he was there have been identified, and whatever time they take to get to completion and to the point of choosing a proponent…. For that time Mr. Marasco is not to be involved at all, in any way, with those projects. His agreement may in fact go longer than a year, but it is project-specific. The projects he has insider information on he cannot participate in until the proponent has been properly chosen.

It is a complicated deal. It is one that people in the private sector have recognized and expressed the opinion that they are happy with that deal. I think that I could assure you that if it wasn't good enough, the competitors who are out there would have made it known to us.

B. Ralston: Did Mr. Logan enter into a confidentiality agreement upon his departure?

Hon. C. Taylor: I am not sure exactly what the arrangements are, as I believe the member opposite would know. It is not my office that directly hires the ministerial assistants.

B. Ralston: I had understood that this was an arrangement that this particular ministry had chosen to make, so I'm a little confused by that response. Is there some other agency or group within the government or the government caucus that makes those decisions, that made this arrangement, or not? I'm not clear.

Hon. C. Taylor: Mr. Logan came to public service in British Columbia before I was elected and became a minister. You're asking questions about what he signed when he first came. I know that there is a public service code of conduct, which includes confidentiality clauses, but I can not say either the date that he first joined government, except that it was before me, or what he may or may not have signed at that time.

B. Ralston: Perhaps this could be made clearer. Who did Mr. Logan negotiate the terms of his departure with? As I understand the minister to be saying, this wasn't simply an edict from either the ministry or some other agency in government. This was the product of an agreement, and Mr. Logan agreed to the terms that the minister has described. So who was negotiating on behalf of the government or the government caucus?

Hon. C. Taylor: The Premier's office, which in fact is responsible for the hiring, did send an official letter — I'm not sure if it was an e-mail — to him talking about the fact that the two weeks' notice would be waived and that he would leave immediately. What I discussed with Mr. Logan was on top of that, and it was a mutual agreement that for one year he would not have direct contact with the minister or the minister's office.

B. Ralston: Did Mr. Logan volunteer, or was he presented with a proposal by the minister, to which he apparently agreed?

B. Ralston: Was Mr. Logan offered any opportunity to consider that, get some legal advice on that or take it up with his prospective employer? Or was that simply explained to him as being the terms under which he was departing?

Hon. C. Taylor: I can't speak for Mr. Logan. I have no idea with whom he spoke other than that I do know he has spoken to the Retail Council. As I also mentioned in question period, it's my understanding that they are also in agreement and are sending a letter, which I will receive shortly, confirming that.

B. Ralston: I suppose my question is more direct than that and more precise than the answer really admits of. There is obviously an inequality of bargaining power between the Minister of Finance and a ministerial assistant who's about to leave, accepting an offer of employment.

I'm wondering, in fairness to him and in pursuit of this apparently singular policy or individual policy, what opportunity he had to negotiate or consider his positions before making what the minister says is an agreement with her.

Hon. C. Taylor: Now this is really interesting. The criticism we've been getting from the opposition is that we haven't been careful enough about conflict of interest. So I am trying to be extra careful about conflict of interest, and now, if I'm understanding the member opposite, he believes perhaps I have been too strict. I will stand by what I have asked of Mr. Logan and what he has agreed to.

When you are dealing with finance and tax issues and you have a direct relationship between an outside retail council, for example, and the Ministry of Finance, you just have to say that you are going to do whatever you can, not only to avoid a conflict of interest but to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. I have no doubt that Mr. Logan, being an honourable person, would never use any inside information anyway. But this is to reassure the taxpayers of B.C. that, in terms of finance and tax policy, we do have this one-year arrangement with Mr. Logan.

B. Ralston: I don't want the minister to misunderstand me. I'm not necessarily advocating on behalf of Mr. Logan. I'm interested in how this policy came about and how it was executed in this particular case. Have there been other ministerial assistants who left the office of the minister since she came to that office in 2005 and who have signed or been subject to a similar agreement, or not?

B. Ralston: My question wasn't clear. Is that no, there haven't been any other ministerial assistants who've left, or that there are others who've left, but they haven't engaged in or made that kind of agreement with the ministry?

Hon. C. Taylor: This is the first time I have requested this, and it is simply because the Retail Council, as the member opposite identified right at the beginning, has an advocacy role that they have played for many years. In fact, the member opposite identified their desire for a reduction of 1 percent in the PST.

Because of the very specific relationship that the Retail Council has with government policy and its wishes to change government policy, I felt that this warranted a specific letter and an understanding between Mr. Logan and myself that there would be one year without direct contact between Mr. Logan and the minister or the minister's office.

B. Ralston: How many other ministerial assistants have left the minister's employ since May 2005?

Hon. C. Taylor: Two. One is with…. I will not get the title right, I'm sure. She is with, I believe, caucus communications — I'm not sure if anyone knows — but still within a situation where she's dealing with communications. The second left and went to the Oil and Gas Commission, and I'm not sure what the position is there.

B. Ralston: The Oil and Gas Commission is headquartered in northeastern British Columbia, so is she working there, or is she employed by a firm that has regular contact with government in Victoria?

Hon. C. Taylor: It's a he, and he works with the Oil and Gas Commission, which is part of the government entity, of course, funded by the industry.

B. Ralston: Is there any ongoing discussion at the ministerial level about taking this particular case and making it a more general policy within broader government or at least ministries other than the one the minister heads up?

Hon. C. Taylor: I have no idea. I am just responsible for Finance, and because Finance includes taxes, I am trying to be very careful here. I am trying to design a situation where the public would have great comfort that not only is there no conflict, but there is no appearance of conflict.

B. Ralston: I want to change topics. The minister and I had some discussion in question period about the expenses of Partnerships B.C. CEO Mr. Blain. The minister's response at the time was that there was a practice of Partnerships B.C. not to pay for alcohol. Is that accurate?

B. Ralston: And by general practice, that means that it's not an absolute ban, that there are, then, occasions in which the policy is to approve the purchase of alcohol at social events. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, that is correct. There are certainly times when, just as with government, as we have identified, you have a large reception for people and there may be times that alcohol is offered — one hopes, B.C. wines. But it is the general practice that liquor is not covered.

B. Ralston: So by "practice," the minister means it's a practice but not an inflexible rule so that there are exceptions to that practice that occur from time to time.

Hon. C. Taylor: I am aware that the board — and, I assume, working with senior management at Partnerships B.C. — is doing a total review of all of their expenses. That includes the general policy of not covering liquor, to perhaps evaluate if there's a better way to define the circumstances when liquor is permitted. That report is not yet completed, but when it is, what their policy is will become part of the public record.

B. Ralston: Is that review being completed by someone in the Crown agencies secretariat within the confines of Vote 31, or is it being developed at the Partnerships B.C. level?

Hon. C. Taylor: The review is being done by the board of Partnerships B.C., the senior executive of Partnerships B.C., and they have also involved their external auditor.

B. Ralston: I take it, then, that there's no role for the Crown agencies secretariat in this particular investigation — or maybe not investigation but development of a policy.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise…? In the course of this review, will the corporate travel policy of Partnerships B.C. be reviewed?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, that's correct. Corporate travel will be part of the review.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what the expenditure for corporate travel was in the immediate fiscal year that just ended on March 31?

Hon. C. Taylor: This, of course, is still being prepared for the public accounts, which will be released at the beginning of the summer. At that point, all the information will be there.

B. Ralston: If the minister doesn't wish or care to answer that question, then what is the estimated budget for corporate travel for Partnerships B.C. for the coming year?

Hon. C. Taylor: It is in Partnerships B.C.'s detailed financial plan, and we will get that information for you.

B. Ralston: When Mr. Blain was first engaged as the CEO, he signed a contract of employment, which I've been provided a copy of. That agreement has now expired. He's obviously negotiated a new contract. There was some discussion of that in estimates last year around what his total compensation was.

Is the minister prepared to table the contract of employment between Partnerships B.C. and Mr. Blain?

Hon. C. Taylor: The CEO contracts are a matter of public record, so when it is available…. You may know more about the timing of this than I do. If it's available now, or when it is available, it will be made public.

B. Ralston: Has his contract and his total compensation changed since last year?

Hon. C. Taylor: Because of the change in work, in a sense, for Partnerships B.C. that has been announced — starting with the Premier's announcement at the UBCM that any projects of $20 million or more of provincial money will be assumed to be a P3, unless its proven that that's not a good model — the board is reviewing,

There is a recognition that in the past, part of the performance contract was to bring in business. Clearly, this is bringing in business without Mr. Blain being involved, so it's my understanding that that part of his contract is being redone. We are hoping that we have all the information in time for public accounts.

B. Ralston: His previous contract, I'm advised, expired on March 31, 2006. I appreciate that the minister doesn't have a copy of that contract here — the new one. But can she advise what the term of that contract is?

Hon. C. Taylor: The staff who are with me, and myself, have not been privy to that information or have not been part of the negotiations on that new contract.

B. Ralston: In addition to the standard terms of a contract and his pay, what was the arrangement on travel expenses in the contract? Are you able to say whether that's continued from the previous contract or not?

Hon. C. Taylor: Travel policy is a corporate policy. Again, in terms of referencing any new contract, I have not seen any new contract, so I can't be specific about what it will look like, except that there is a corporate policy. It may even be on the Web, and if it's not, we could certainly provide that policy to you.

B. Ralston: How many trips on taxpayers' expense did Mr. Blain take outside of British Columbia last year?

Hon. C. Taylor: If the member opposite is after specific details about how many trips the CEO of Partnerships B.C. took last year, we would appreciate a list of those. We could certainly go and find the information. But in terms of corporate policy, whenever possible — and it's often possible, apparently — when a conference invites Partnerships B.C. to attend or invites Mr. Blain to speak, in many cases they cover all of the expenses.

B. Ralston: My specific question was those trips where the taxpayers of British Columbia paid his way. Is the minister, then, agreeing to provide that information to me or not?

Hon. C. Taylor: These details about last year and where he may have travelled or not will be part of the public accounts. Partnerships B.C. is busy putting together all of their numbers and books in preparation for public accounts. It will be released at that time.

I would just add, as I said before, that the corporate travel policy is also under review. We may know by public accounts, in fact, if there will be any changes or what those changes will be.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what triggered a review of the travel policy?

Hon. C. Taylor: When we had the discussion earlier — I'm not sure exactly when it was — about whether or not alcohol was covered and we started to look at the general practice versus putting it in actual writing, I had a conversation with the board chair about this. He thought that it would be a good idea — and probably timely, since Partnerships B.C. is such a strong organization now, and it's certainly on its feet — to do a review of the policy and see if there's any place that could be more definitive. They are conducting that review. We haven't got a date on when it will be finished, but it would be my hope that it's finished in time for public accounts.

B. Ralston: Just so that we're clear what we're talking about, is there a policy that applies to what are called corporate expenses? Is that what we're talking about, then — against which travel would be charged, or is there a separate category within the budget? In the Partnerships B.C. budget the expenses are lumped together in a big mass, and it's very difficult to pull out any detail from those figures. Is there, firstly, a corporate expense account, and secondly, is there a separate travel expense account?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, there are accounts. Also, it's just been pointed out to me that in the annual report that was released last year, travel is broken out as a separate line, so it is possible to look at it and see what the numbers are.

B. Ralston: The expense referred to in the travel there is not broken out by a member of the executive team. I'm interested in the travel expenses of the CEO. Is the minister then agreeing to provide that?

Hon. C. Taylor: The question is: what year are you asking for this information for?

B. Ralston: What I'd like to ask it for is from 2002 to the present. Just so it's clear on the record, all corporate expenses and all travel expenses from 2002 to the present.

Hon. C. Taylor: The FIA requires that this information be available on the Web, which it is, and you would be able to, by individual — which is what I assume the member opposite is looking for — see the expenses.

B. Ralston: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. Just so I'm clear then, because I've looked for that and haven't been able to find it, can the minister then direct me to just where it will be in that itemized expenditure-by-expenditure form? Just where might I find that?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm not sure that I'll remember all the steps. You go to the website, then you go to the reports, then you go to the FIA report, and apparently it's appended to that.

B. Ralston: Perhaps if there's a break at some point this afternoon, then I'll be able to do that, and I may be able to form some questions based on that.

In addition to his present compensation, I'm wondering if the minister could advise what Mr. Blain's pension entitlement is.

B. Ralston: I gather that given his age and his service previously with the Ministry of Finance and also with the federal government, he would be eligible to retire sometime this year at the age of 60. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: I believe there are some privacy issues concerning people's retirement issues, so I would leave it at that. I'm sure if the member opposite wants to put in an FOI request, it would go through the proper filters to see if that's proper or not.

B. Ralston: My question would be then…. The minister may be accurate. I'm not sure, and I certainly don't want to offend any of those particular statutes. But if it is possible for the minister to provide that information, could she advise what Mr. Blain's yearly pension would be upon retirement?

Hon. C. Taylor: I would only commit to consulting with the Privacy Commissioner on these issues.

If I may add the response to another question that was asked, about Partnerships B.C.'s corporate travel budget for the year '07-08, it's $262,000.

B. Ralston: How is it anticipated that that will be spent? Is there some plan of meetings and conferences that the CEO will be attending? Are there consultations with proponents or firms that are active in the P3 industry?

Hon. C. Taylor: This travel budget, of course, is comprehensive. It's for all of the travel costs, including the travel that's required just to get to the projects that Partnerships B.C. is involved in. So it does cover all of those issues.

I would just say that we're going at the details, which is proper for looking at travel expenses and budgets, but in terms of travel it is quite interesting the extent to which the reputation of Partnerships B.C. has grown. It was started by the B.C. government as an attempt to look at P3s and see if we couldn't bring some expertise to the building of so many public facilities. At that time, Canada really didn't have any expertise in this. There were some examples in Europe.

I've now done three investment tours back to New York, Toronto and Montreal, speaking with international financiers and bankers, and it is quite interesting the change in attitude that I've seen just in that three-year period. When I first went, it really was just pushing and questioning on whether the economy actually had turned around.

This last visit was almost exclusively about Partnerships B.C., and it was all of these major investors asking when there would be more product coming onto the market, when there would be a chance to invest in B.C. These were some of Europe's biggest international financiers, as well as North America's. I had one international financier say they would rather do a P3 project in British Columbia than anywhere else in North America simply because Partnerships B.C. really has developed the expertise.

Yes, as you become sort of a major player, certainly in terms of how British Columbia is doing its infrastructure build, there are travel requirements just to do the projects around B.C. that we've asked Partnerships B.C. to do.

B. Ralston: The Premier announced at the Union of B.C. Municipalities on October 27 that for provincially funded projects of over $20 million, the base case is that they will be P3s. I just want to make sure that I have that correct — that the $20 million is not the total value of the project but is the provincial contribution only.

A project might be a $60 million project with an expected one-third, one-third, one-third — with the federal government, the municipal government and the province contributing $20 million equally. Is that a correct characterization of the policy that was announced?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, that's correct. If at least $20 million of provincial money is involved, then we are assuming that the default case is P3, unless analysis proves that it would be better to do a different model.

B. Ralston: I'm interested in the process by which one might move from what the minister calls the default case. In other words, it's a given that it's a P3 unless it's proven that it would be better done otherwise.

Who would be the person or the group that would assemble the evidence and conduct the analysis to make that decision? Would it be the municipal government? Would it be Partnerships B.C.? Or would there be the opportunity to engage — for the municipality to be obliged or be forced to, if they should so choose — their own consultants to give an opinion as to how best to structure the financing of the project?

Hon. C. Taylor: The capital standard, which is an important step forward on this initiative, says that an analysis must be done. It does not say that it must be done by Partnerships B.C. So a municipality or the health authority or whoever can hire any company that's expert in this to do an analysis of the project to see if in fact it should be a P3. That is brought forward to Partnerships B.C. They're just really…. Traffic cop is the wrong word, but it's a yes-no.

Yes, this analysis captures all of the issues around P3s, and we think it should be a P3. Or no. Anyway, they sit there just to analyze the work that is done by any company that the municipality or health authority might choose.

After that role, it is not obligatory that Partnerships B.C. be involved in the P3 at all. Once again, if government says, "Yes, you will be a P3," the municipality, the health authority, education — whoever — can choose whatever company they wish to put together the P3 deal.

B. Ralston: In a number of the Partnerships B.C. value-for-money reports the standard of 1 percent to 3 percent of the project cost is looked at as an optimum cost for assembling the costs of procurement. On a $60 million project that would be, by my calculation, from $600,000 to $1.8 million.

Is the minister saying that a municipality that chose to investigate other alternatives from the base case would be obliged to make an expenditure in that range in order to disprove, if I can put it that way, the base case?

Hon. C. Taylor: I think there is confusion here between the procurement costs and the business case costs. The numbers that the member opposite has cited would be for procurement. The business case costs, unless it was an exceptional project, would not be in those numbers.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for correcting me on that. Can she then advise, based on Partnerships B.C. experience — and I'm assuming that Partnerships B.C. does have some figures on costing this portion of a project — what the cost would be in a typical project to evaluate the business case? The service plan does set out some rules about the new capital standard, which I want to discuss shortly.

Hon. C. Taylor: Because these projects are all so different, we've been thinking of if there's a way we could give you a number that would make sense. Some projects are quite straightforward; some are very complicated. Even though it's a $60 million project, it might be something that's going to require a lot of risk transfer or unusual engineering.

We can't give you an example number, but business cases can start from $10,000 and go up, depending on the complexity. A lot of these costs are just due-diligence costs. They'd be costs that a municipality or a health authority would have to do anyway as they ascertain just what this project is going to look like, what the time schedule might be and what the size and scope would be. So a lot of this work would be done anyway.

B. Ralston: I suppose the question that municipalities would be asking…. If they haven't asked it already directly of the minister, perhaps I can imagine what they might say: what additional cost are we the municipalities being required to bear in such a project beyond the conventional costs, if we should choose to do something other than a P3, which is the base case?

In other words, we're being obliged to pay money, should we so choose, to disprove what the capital standard says — and I'm quoting from the service plan: "Where the province contributes more than $20 million to a project, a partnership approach will be considered the base case for procurement in a business case and becomes the preferred option unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise."

The onus is put on the municipality, in my example, to demonstrate a compelling reason. It's hard to imagine demonstrating a compelling reason simply by following business as usual in the usual process of municipal internal reports. I'm wondering what response the minister would have to, say: what are the additional costs likely to be, and why are we being asked to bear them when it's the province that has imposed this capital standard?

Hon. C. Taylor: I think that the talk we've had for a couple of hours on the problems of the convention centre is exactly the argument back to whether it's municipalities or health authorities or whoever, about why this capital standard is important. It is to protect taxpayers in the long run.

We have 23 projects now that are Partnerships B.C. projects. All are on time and on budget. The unfortunate story of the convention centre is one that's not a P3 project. Having learned, perhaps the hard way, that this is the way to best transfer risk and get them to stick not only to a budget but also to a schedule, we believe absolutely that the P3 model will be of benefit to these municipalities.

We have said to them that they would be paying for much of this work anyway. There are real experts in the field now, from all kinds of companies, who know how to do these P3 analyses. They can choose any company they wish that they feel comfortable with to do the analysis and come forward.

The Premier has said that if they would rather not and they don't want provincial money, then that's certainly their choice. But if they are asking the provincial government for more than $20 million, we feel the responsibility to the taxpayers of this province to make sure that those dollars are going to be protected.

That is why we brought in this capital standard. We have, by the way, also said to the smaller municipalities that if they put the dollars in up front and do the proper analysis, we believe they save a lot of dollars long term.

For some small municipalities it may be difficult to come up even with that small amount of extra, right at the beginning. So we've said to smaller municipalities that we have an infrastructure fund that is specifically for smaller communities, and they can access those funds just to do this business analysis case up front.

B. Ralston: If the P3 model is such a compelling idea, then why is it necessary for the government to impose it? If the logic is so obvious or compelling and the benefits are so clear, why not just leave it open to municipalities, and through the force of the persuasion of the minister and the Premier, simply persuade people that that's the way to go and have them do it voluntarily? It sounds like everyone might be happier.

What the Premier has done here by his speech is imposed that standard without a lot of consultation. It has raised huge concerns among a number of municipalities.

Hon. C. Taylor: I think there are two answers to that question. One is that I think for all of us, human nature is that you are most comfortable with what you know. There are many municipalities who wouldn't have had any experience with P3s and, if we hadn't put this requirement in, may not even have looked at that particular business case.

The other issue is that once again, if you're asking the province for more than $20 million, we have the right to say that we believe that this particular model is the way to build infrastructure in the province.

We have also left it open, though. If the analysis shows that in a particular case — perhaps because it's so simple or straightforward — that's not necessary, then that's fine. But we have to start by assuming that the P3 model is the one that the province would wish to invest in if we're putting in more than $20 million of taxpayer dollars.

B. Ralston: What in the minister's view would then constitute a compelling reason for not using a P3? That's the language that's set out in the service plans. Is there a cost factor that is being thought of here that hasn't been announced yet? What would be a compelling reason?

Hon. C. Taylor: We've got an example, actually, where we had assumed that the Pitt River bridge would end up being a P3. When the analysis was done, it was a very straightforward, simple project. It just wasn't necessary, so we did not do it as a P3.

There are other examples. For instance, if there's no opportunity for long-term operating to be part of the P3 deal, then that also might be a time that the P3 model doesn't work. We have evidence where Partnerships B.C. has looked at a project and said: "No, actually, in this one it's better to do it in a different way."

B. Ralston: I'm attempting to draw, then, some principles from what the minister has said. I gather that one principle would be the apparent simplicity of the project. Is that what's being said here?

Hon. C. Taylor: That's correct, and because of that, is there any risk to actually be transferred?

B. Ralston: Aside from the example that was given of the Pitt River bridge, can the minister give other examples where a compelling case has been made to procure publicly rather than through a P3?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm aware of the Charles Jago northern sports facility as another example.

B. Ralston: I understand that in the case of that particular project, Partnerships B.C. engaged in, I believe it was, a six-month study with three staff full-time on making that evaluation. Can the minister confirm that?

Hon. C. Taylor: In that particular example it went further than just the business analysis. It actually got into the stage of procurement. The early indications were that it would be possible to build a P3 model that transferred risk and had operating benefits.

When we went to market, there just were not bidders, whether it was the quality or the number. It just didn't turn out to be a good P3 model at that point, so it was decided to do it as a design-build.

B. Ralston: Maybe for those who are not familiar with the project, can the minister briefly describe what the project was in the beginning and what the business analysis consisted of?

Hon. C. Taylor: The Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre is actually a $29 million facility. It brings together athletes, coaches and communities. Its point is to foster a distinctive culture of excellence by integrating sport and education. The centre will be located at the University of Northern British Columbia, providing citizens of the north the opportunity to pursue sports and education in their home region.

It is designed to be a Nordic centre of excellence and to provide elite training opportunities in northern B.C. for winter and summer sports. It will also be a lasting legacy. I think it would be clear why the community has been so strong in wanting this. It's going to be a very important project.

The design-build partnership agreement…. The private partner is Northern Sport Centre Consortium. They are going to design and build it, and it is a guaranteed maximum price of $29 million.

What we've seen with a lot of these P3s is that you get hybrid models as well. You get some that are a complete, full package — P3 risk transfer, long-term operating contract — and then you get some that are simply design-build and others that get into a situation like this one.

That's one of the flexibilities that has come out of the knowledge that Partnerships B.C. has gained over the last few years. It's that every project is different, and you have to be open-minded in terms of the model and where the benefits are.

UNBC and the city of Prince George have established the partnership that is going to provide for the ongoing operations and the maintenance of the centre. So rather than it being with the private company for a long-term contract, the operating will in fact be UNBC and the city of Prince George.

Then the process of business analysis that led to this decision to procure it conventionally, through what I would describe as a fixed-price contract…. What amount of staff time — and if we can cost that in

dollars — did that take? I believe there were three people working over a period of four or five months to put together that analysis that led to the decision.

I'm thinking of this as possible guidance for…. This appears to be — with its own obvious innovations — a fairly conventional municipal recreational structure that other municipalities might be interested in, or something of that type. If the requirement is to demonstrate a compelling reason otherwise, I'm wondering what the cost was to get to that decision-making point to procure it conventionally.

Hon. C. Taylor: We would have to confirm with the project director there. It's our understanding that in that particular case, KPMG was the private firm that did the business case in the first place. Partnerships B.C. was more involved in the procurement, which of course is a lengthier, more difficult process.

B. Ralston: Other than this particular example, can the minister offer any other examples, beyond the two she has given, of business case analysis resulting in a conventional procurement?

Hon. C. Taylor: There are a few other examples, but they are not examples that have made it to market. In the interest of client confidentiality, we certainly are not going to speak about those.

Going back to a previous discussion, the member opposite was asking about employee travel and business expenses and what the policy is. I have our financial policy manual and would be happy to share that. There are a couple of pages on these issues, including travel authorization, which the member opposite was asking for.

B. Ralston: If I could return, then, to the Pitt River bridge. The decision to procure that conventionally — was that influenced by a decision not to impose a toll on the users of the bridge?

Hon. C. Taylor: The Pitt River bridge, as I cited earlier, was an example where, after analysis, the design-build option looked like a better option because it was a fairly straightforward design. There wasn't really much in the way of risks to transfer, and it wasn't believed that there was any long-term operations benefit that could be put together in a P3 package for just that bridge.

B. Ralston: Well, I guess that really doesn't answer my question. A decision was made by the Ministry of Transportation, presumably, that the bridge wasn't going to be tolled. So I'm wondering what the absence of a revenue stream has to do with the decision not to proceed as a P3.

Hon. C. Taylor: The revenue stream was not a factor. It was the simplicity of the design of the bridge. I will remind everyone that the Sea to Sky is not a tolled highway, and it's one of our most successful P3s.

B. Ralston: I want to turn to some specific examples shortly. Partnerships B.C. provides advice largely to ministry clients on the advisability of P3 projects and the structuring and procurement of deals. It also writes what are called value-for-money reports, which are ex post facto evaluations of a project when it's completed.

What's the fee structure for Partnerships B.C., in terms of how it gets paid for the initial stage advisability of P3 projects?

Hon. C. Taylor: It's an hourly fee based on expertise. It is the model that reflects who and how many hours it takes to actually put a project together.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is the financial model. It is looking at the business case for a P3 project. If a health authority comes forward with, for example, the Abbotsford hospital, Partnerships B.C. would be able to look at what risks could be transferred, what long-term operating costs are involved and what the deal would look like. Partnerships B.C. has now come to really know the international financial market, so they know where there will be financial partners and what they are looking for.

Partnerships B.C. is able to make a report, which they present to whomever, whether it's a health authority or not, that suggests: "This is what the P3 deal could look like. We believe that this is doable in the market. We believe that this is the risk that would be transferred. We think this is where the operating stream would be."

B. Ralston: In the example the minister cites on health care facilities, the Ministry of Health would come to Partnerships B.C. to seek that advice, and the ministry would pay on an hourly basis for advice on all those aspects of the project — with the suitability of the project, the preparation of the business case, structuring the deal and managing the procurement process as examples of what would be involved?

Hon. C. Taylor: Those are examples of what could be involved. The ministry could also choose an outside private firm to do the analysis.

B. Ralston: Under what circumstances would the Ministry of Health, for example, select an outside firm? Is it a case of the Ministry of Health following policies set by the ministry — tendering the work, putting it on

B.C. Bid, asking for a response and selecting a successful bidder that way? Is that how it works? I understood the relationship of Partnerships B.C. to the government was somewhat different.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is up to each individual minister, if we're talking about a minister, to decide whether or not they would like to use an outside firm or whether they would like to use Partnerships B.C. It's the same for health authorities and municipalities. It's their choice, and each of those entities would have their own process for going to seek that outside firm.

B. Ralston: In the case of the Ministry of Health, can the minister point to an example where the Ministry of Health has engaged a firm other than Partnerships B.C. on a major health facility?

Hon. C. Taylor: I can respond in terms of how Partnerships B.C. is involved or when we're involved. I would have no knowledge of when an outside body engages a private firm.

B. Ralston: I suppose the natural inclination is to be a bit territorial, but an "outside agency," referring to another ministry, would strike most people as being inside government and therefore a part of the same family. Are there examples — the representative from Partnerships B.C. can advise — where Partnerships B.C. was unsuccessful in bidding for work from another ministry — say, the Ministry of Health, in the recent past?

Hon. C. Taylor: We're searching for projects that we know about, and we only really know about projects that we end up being involved in, so I really can't talk about any other municipalities or what the health authorities do or what other ministers choose to do before they get to the point that we would actually see the project. But one that comes to mind is the Charles and Isabelle Diamond extension to Vancouver General. Apparently, the initial business case was done by KPMG.

B. Ralston: I have a question about the capital regional district sewage treatment plan. What is the proposed or expected role of Partnerships B.C. in that proposal?

Hon. C. Taylor: That particular project, which has been in the public domain a bit, ends up involving various ministers. The Minister of Environment plays a role as the regulator, the Minister of Community Services is the lead minister on that, and Partnerships B.C. has been asked to play a role as an adviser to the Minister of Community Services.

B. Ralston: Can I take it from that that Partnerships B.C. has been engaged by the minister to provide advice on the business case, the typical process of preprocurement evaluation? Is that a fair description of Partnerships B.C.'s role at this stage?

B. Ralston: Was that the result of Partnerships B.C. winning a competitive bid with other providers — the only one that's been mentioned is KPMG — in obtaining this work, or did the Minister of Community Services simply approach Partnerships B.C. directly?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, Partnerships B.C. was approached directly. We must remember why Partnerships B.C. was set up as a Crown entity, and that was to give support to all of government — all of our ministers, all of our departments — to help us do infrastructure better than we've done it in the past.

Partnerships B.C. is inside government. It is an expertise that we have built up over the last few years to the point that we are now winning awards across Canada and recognition internationally. We have some of the best anywhere in the world right in-house. So yes, the ministers are quite free to approach directly to Partnerships B.C. and ask them to do this work. We've been very careful to say, though, that they are not forced to use Partnerships B.C. if they don't choose to.

B. Ralston: Will the capital regional district be required to help pay the Partnerships B.C. cost for this stage of evaluating the business case? Is there a cost-sharing on that?

If I could return, then, to our previous discussion about the role of municipalities. This is a regional district that is being obliged, I would think, given the new capital standard, to consider the base case of a P3. In this particular case, then, am I to take it that the regional district is not being asked to, or has chosen not to, conduct its own study to provide, if they so choose, a compelling reason not to proceed by a P3 procurement process?

Hon. C. Taylor: Hon. Chair, I would refer the member opposite to the minister who is responsible, the Minister of Community Services. She would better be able to identify exactly where they are in the process and what her expectations are in working with the region.

B. Ralston: Is the minister able to provide at this point, from the Partnerships B.C. representative, the cost of preparing the business case of this project? I understand that initial estimates, and I would agree that they are very preliminary, appear to be in the neighbourhood of $1.4 billion. I'm wondering what the cost will be to prepare the business case to contemplate the procurement mechanism for this project.

Hon. C. Taylor: It's simply too early. The regional district, as I understand, hasn't even decided yet on the technology or what exactly is going to be involved.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what Partnerships B.C.'s role is, if anything, in the Esperanza Society, as it's sometimes called, or maybe known to others as St. Paul's Hospital, and the proposed new health facility near Station Street and Main Street in downtown Vancouver?

Hon. C. Taylor: My understanding is that Vancouver Coastal has been working with Partnerships B.C. on this, but this is not a project that has approval. So I would say it's a very early stage, and because I'm not the Minister of Health, I don't know where that would sit in his ten-year capital plan or 20-year capital plan. I just don't know what the priorities are on this project.

B. Ralston: Will the minister confirm that the then comptroller general, not the present…? Certainly that falls within the ambit of Vote 31. The office of the comptroller general was involved in discussions as to how to structure this particular arrangement so that it would be completely off the books of the province? In other words, the debt would be held by a private society without a guarantee from the province?

Hon. C. Taylor: The decision on whether or not to do a P3 is not about being on-book or off-book. In fact, they're all on-book. It's about risk transfer. Personally, I'm not aware of any conversations the previous comptroller general might have had on the issue that you raise.

B. Ralston: I'm advised that the office of the comptroller general offered a written opinion on whether the Vancouver Esperanza Society, the proposed owners of the project, should not be consolidated by the province. The reference is — and this may be of some help to the deputy minister — to section PS 1300 of the Public Sector Accounting Board rules. That would be where the entity is controlled by the government or not and whether it falls within the government reporting entity.

I'm advised that the office of the comptroller general was giving advice on how to structure the deal in a way that would keep the project, if it were to proceed, off-book — that is, outside the government reporting entity. Can the minister confirm that that was the advice that the comptroller general was offering?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'll repeat that I am not aware of these conversations or this judgment. If you have it, we would appreciate receiving it, and then perhaps we would be able to comment on it.

B. Ralston: Perhaps I can have that discussion with the minister at a later time.

Is the minister prepared to make some inquiries as to whether that is a role that the comptroller general — the office that is directly under her direction, covered by Vote 31 — is regularly engaged in? Was this an extraordinary event? Or is that part of his duties or the duties of the office? I think I'd appreciate some clarity on that issue.

Hon. C. Taylor: It's definitely one of the duties of the comptroller general. In fact, we do get asked all the time. I was asked by the member opposite if specifically I had knowledge of this, and I don't.

But I will tell you that I think every university I've ever spoken to asks that question. I think that there are many universities who have looked at it from an accounting point of view, and they just want to reconfirm whether their infrastructure will be on-book or not. We get asked about it all the time, but in terms of this specific, I'm not aware of this specific.

B. Ralston: I wanted to ask some questions about the Abbotsford hospital. I understand that the contract was initially awarded to Access Health Abbotsford in December 2004. That's a subsidiary of Partnerships B.C., as I understand it.

The initial owner of the project was ABN AMRO Dutch investment bank. In December 2005 Macquarie Bank Ltd. purchased an 81-percent stake in the project and the academic ambulatory care centre at Vancouver General for $450 million. Apparently, the Dutch bank retains the other 19-percent stake.

Can the minister tell me how foreign ownership of a public hospital project and the buying and selling from one multinational bank to another is consistent with the objectives that she's set out, and consistent with the best interests of British Columbia?

Hon. C. Taylor: These P3s are about building and operating, and that's where the foreign investment comes in. They continue to be in public ownership.

B. Ralston: My advice is that the owners of the project…. It is not public ownership. It's been sold to and is now owned by Macquarie Bank Ltd. They purchased an 81-percent stake in the project, along with the previously mentioned Diamond ambulatory care centre at VGH.

Hon. C. Taylor: Again, the ownership changes were in the financing and the financiers. The hospital remains in public ownership — the Fraser Health Authority and provincial government.

B. Ralston: Given that the contract for maintenance and operation of the hospital is, I believe, a 35-year contract, that revenue stream is the subject of private financing. As I understand it, and perhaps the minister can confirm this, that's the ownership that is being referred to here. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: It is the financial consortium where there have been changes in some of the financial players, but they are the people who are building and operating. They are not the owners of the hospital. The

hospital is public ownership — the Fraser Health Authority and provincial government.

B. Ralston: So the long-term contract to operate the hospital is owned privately. I understand that it was initially sold to Macquarie, and as of January 2007 it was sold again. Can the minister confirm that?

Hon. C. Taylor: It is correct that there has been some change in the financial institutions that are involved. When these P3 contracts are put together, it's assumed that over this period of time these are long-term contracts. There will be changes, and we are allowed to do due diligence at any point of change.

B. Ralston: Obviously, the risk in acquiring the contract shifts as one nears the completion of the construction stage. I understand that the purchaser in January 2007 was what's called a PFI company, a private finance initiative company — John Laing, which is a British company. They bought the controlling interest in the Abbotsford hospital and the Gordon and Leslie Diamond centre. Can the minister confirm if that's correct?

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise if she's aware of what the reputation of John Laing Co. is in operating hospitals in the United Kingdom?

Hon. C. Taylor: From our experience, this is a respected international company.

B. Ralston: I'm told that it's been the subject of an inquiry by the equivalent of the Auditor General's office in the United Kingdom, and it's very poorly regarded. Royal Norfolk and Norwich Hospital is regarded as one of the worst PFI hospitals in the United Kingdom. I'll leave it with the minister to investigate.

In the refinancing from Macquarie to Laing, is the public interest engaged in recapturing any portion of the profit that results from that sale or not?

B. Ralston: Can the minister then explain? The hospital isn't even open yet. The contract has changed hands now several times — presumably at a profit, although that may not be the case. If it were at a profit, it seems that the public interest is not protected.

Certainly, there was an issue that arose in England with PFI hospitals, because at the point that the construction risk is removed and the refinancing takes place, huge — often windfall — profits were reaped by the purchasers on the refinancing. There was a mechanism developed to recapture some of that windfall.

Is the minister saying that in British Columbia, despite the much-vaunted sophistication of Partnerships B.C., that possibility wasn't contemplated?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm glad we're talking about Abbotsford, because it's such a successful project. It's one that, in the value-for-money report, has saved 39 million taxpayer dollars, signed off by the Auditor General. It's a project that's on time; it's on budget. It is going to be just a tremendous benefit to the community. It's one of the model projects for the communities as we go forward.

B. Ralston: I have to disagree with the minister about the $39 million. I was present at the meeting of the public accounts, and I asked the questions of the representative of the Auditor General's office. What they were prepared to say was that at the conclusion of the contract, one expected, hypothetically, that there might be savings of $39 million, so it's far from the statement. I'm sure the minister's staff can check the transcript of that, if she so chooses. But I remember it distinctly.

I guess my question is, though: what mechanisms are contemplated in the future, following the British experience, to guard against the reaping of windfall profits by foreign financiers who are refinancing a project and reaping profits before the structure is even open? It would seem that the British experience would suggest to the minister and Partnerships B.C. that a mechanism ought to be set in place to at least recapture a portion of that windfall profit.

Hon. C. Taylor: Our P3 negotiations and deals that we have signed are designed to transfer risk and to guarantee good service, and we do that by putting performance requirements in the operating contract to save taxpayer dollars to get projects built on time, on budget. That's how our contracts are designed, and that in fact is what they've been doing — the 23 projects that we've got that are so successful. We will continue to look for opportunities to do more infrastructure in this way.

B. Ralston: Aside from structuring the initial agreement, is there any money going back to Abbotsford health and cancer centre as a result of a refinancing within the definition in the refinancing agreement? How much is going to Access Health, the private owner of this project?

Hon. C. Taylor: I wonder if you could repeat the question. We've got puzzled looks.

B. Ralston: Is the minister aware of what the profits from the sale to Macquarie are, and then following that, what the profits are, if any, on the sale to John Laing?

B. Ralston: I guess this is a bit of a question for me. How are the interests of the taxpayers of British Columbia being protected when private companies are reaping profits from the sale of this particular contract when the hospital isn't even open yet?

Why wasn't there any thought given to contemplating that likely renegotiation, given that this is a 35-year agreement and that it would be reasonably within the contemplation of the drawers of the contract in this very expensive procurement process, advised by — as the minister would have it — many experts in the field and relying on the now — so the claim is — well-developed expertise of Partnerships B.C.?

Hon. C. Taylor: I would challenge the member opposite to show that he knows for sure there are profits and how much these profits are or that they are large profits. These are private transactions. We have no knowledge. I'd be interested if in fact he has knowledge of this.

As I'm listening, it may be that the member is mixing up the financial consortium, as they change partners, versus refinancing. If you do get to a situation somewhere in that 35-year period where you refinance, then at that point the province does share 50 percent.

B. Ralston: I take it from what the minister has said that neither of these transactions were refinancing, then?

J. Horgan: I just wanted to participate in the discussion today with the Minister of Finance, particularly around her responsibility for the public affairs bureau. I was wondering if we could start with a series of questions around reporting relationships within that organization.

Firstly, is the deputy is still in place? And if so, did she receive a performance bonus last year?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, I'm very happy to say that my deputy minister for public affairs is still with us. In fact, she's very close beside me right now — Linda Morris. If I could take this time to introduce both Linda and also Denise Champion, who is the director of operations and human resources for public affairs.

In answer to the second question: yes, she did receive a performance bonus last year.

J. Horgan: Could the minister outline what performance measurements were used to determine if that bonus was received?

Hon. C. Taylor: The bonuses are based first of all on the service plan deliverables, and it is a series of measures that are set up by the Deputy Minister to the Premier.

J. Horgan: Did any other public affairs bureau staff receive bonuses last year?

J. Horgan: I captured the deputy responding to that question, so I thank her for that.

Could the minister advise me what role Andy Orr plays with the public affairs bureau, and who he reports to?

Hon. C. Taylor: His title is executive director, and he reports to the deputy minister.

J. Horgan: Could the minister advise if in the course of his duties Mr. Orr reports to anyone else in a casual way? I'm thinking particularly of the chief of staff to the Premier, or any other senior representatives in government. Or is his relationship strictly with the deputy of the public affairs bureau?

Hon. C. Taylor: No, he just reports to the deputy minister of public affairs, but of course, he has meetings across government.

Hon. C. Taylor: The member opposite has suggested a break for my deputy. It's really this person standing up and sitting down, who is not in great shape, who needs a break.

In answer to your question, the executive director in fact oversees all of the communications directors, so they all report to him. On a regular basis he is interfacing with all of them.

J. Horgan: Does he have an issue management function that he performs on behalf of the public affairs bureau, and if so, is that across government?

Hon. C. Taylor: Since all of the communications directors are involved in issues management across government and he is overseeing their work and interfacing with them, yes, he does get involved with issues management across government.

J. Horgan: I know that the Premier's office last year staffed-up with new issue managers. I'm wondering if in the course of Mr. Orr's duties he oversees any of those staff, or is that the responsibility of someone else?

J. Horgan: My understanding of the function of issue management is to respond effectively to issues of public policy and public interest as they arise. A centralized function is quite often the preferred means in a large organization. Would that be the format that the public affairs bureau uses, or are there some other mechanisms that I am not aware of?

Hon. C. Taylor: I think we're a hybrid model. The member opposite and I have had this discussion before. What we try to do is: the communications directors, who do sit with the ministries…. Their first line of

work is the responsibility to the ministry and to help with issues management and communication strategy. But we do coordinate, through Andy Orr and the deputy ministers centrally, to ensure that — so many of our initiatives are cross-ministry — we all understand what the issues are and what the roles are to play.

I guess I can't speak too well for the time before me, but I really believe that it is important to have a lot of the communications really sitting within ministries and to have people who will be working very directly with their ministry. But I also recognize that you have to have the central version overall. I would not be a fan of just the central. I think it's really important to get your communications people into ministries and understanding those specific issues and doing their best.

J. Horgan: I don't disagree with the minister on that, if I understand it. If she could assist me, when we have staff…. Certainly, in my area as the critic for Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, where there are two ministers that I deal with as critic…. I asked them both during the course of their estimates what the relationship was between the public affairs bureau, the communication staff that are notionally assigned to them and the senior managers within that ministry.

I would fully appreciate that — if I could use the example of Energy, Mines — if there were an issue that required communications or issue-management attention within that ministry, resources, potentially across government, would be put to that in the interest of establishing good public policy and clarifying issues of concern, if that was the case.

But I wasn't clear where they sat, who they reported to on a regular basis, if they are all housed at 617 Government Street…. Are there some in 617 Government Street and some at ministry head office? Maybe if we can just focus on the one ministry. For my clarity and certainly for ease of answer, we could start with that. Let's say the Ministry of Energy. How would they apportion their seven FTEs, geographically?

Hon. C. Taylor: Hon. Chair, am I allowed to say anything about your helmet? Perhaps not, because then you'll say something about my helmet that I was wearing.

Hon. C. Taylor: Or yours. This is in celebration of safe motorcycling, which we're all honouring this month.

There are seven FTEs, as have been identified, and all of them are located with the ministry.

J. Horgan: So at 617 Government Street, how many resources are corporately put to managing issues or dealing with communications matters at the Ministry of Energy? If all seven are in one location, director on down, how do you manage that from a human resource perspective? Is supervision deferred to staff at the ministry, or does it go from the director making numerous taxi rides, which I know is a challenge. I hope those taxis are hybrids, as we're on that topic.

I know from my time in government that there are a lot of taxi chits going around as people come to this building, particularly at this time of the year, when you're doing estimates. How do you manage the reporting relationships if all seven, in this instance, are in one location, and the deputy minister and the resources that she has at her disposal to supervise are somewhere else?

Hon. C. Taylor: It would be difficult to make a general statement about all ministries. So looking at Energy…. They are all in that location, and so the director on that location would be running that communications team. The directors all come in on Wednesdays, so there is a meeting of all the communications directors on Wednesdays.

From time to time, Andy Orr, who is directly interfacing with all the communications directors, will go there, and sometimes the deputy minister goes there. But most work these days, I think, even if you're down the hall from someone, is done by phone and e-mail and fax.

J. Horgan: It was more from a supervisory perspective. I appreciate that you don't have to be on site to do the work these days, or certainly not into the future. But if you have a model where you're a central agency and then your resources are dispersed, I'm wondering what exactly is the benefit of that? Particularly, again, with Energy and Mines, where you have HR staff that cover a number of ministries. You have IT support that covers a number of ministries: Economic Development, Energy, and Income Assistance, I think. I don't know what the clusters are.

There are already efficiencies being found in that regard. What's the efficiency of having a central agency for communications that has a decentralized human resource base?

Hon. C. Taylor: It's interesting because the member opposite and myself… We've both got some communications background. From my point of view, I really think that it's important that within each ministry you do have people who get to know that ministry, those issues.

Some of these ministries are quite technical, and Energy would be a good example. I think that, rather than try to do sort of mini-mergers of a few ministries together, it's better to have the communications expertise that really gets to know particular ministries.

It is also important to have a coordinating role, and the coordinating role doesn't have to be every minute of every day. There are a number of our issues now that are cross-ministry — first nations would be an example, where almost every ministry in one way or another has something that touches on that; Asia-Pacific, a little bit; and some of the other issues. The coordination is really to ensure that we all are aware of

what is going on in various ministries, so we can all be doing our best to communicate with the community.

If it gets to be a big campaign, for instance, or if it's…. We have a big campaign now that we're trying to do — not big in dollars, but big in terms of importance — on workplace, trying to get people to move to B.C. We're trying to encourage people to move here. Those kinds of initiatives end up involving communications people from different ministries. That, again, is a role that public affairs plays in coordinating this.

I would say the environmental issues are just a perfect example. I don't think I've seen something come to cabinet that has anything to do with the environment and that isn't also involving Finance, probably Energy, and a number of other ministries.

Whenever we do this, we have to have a mechanism that allows the coordination of those topics, but having the core of expertise in each ministry, I think, allows us to have better expertise in government.

J. Horgan: Well, I know…. I'm certain, in fact, that — if, in an unguarded moment, the minister had an opportunity to discuss the recent past and the distant past with those members of her ministry who have been here for multiple administrations — it's the same old, same old. There's always a coming together of issues and ministries on just about every issue. This isn't a brand-new thing, and I know the minister's not suggesting that.

The challenge, I think, for administrators is: how do you find the best way at that particular slice of history to do the job? This government has selected this option, and my line of questioning is not to get to how you're doing it, but why you are doing it. Again, in my day and in the day before my day, there were cross-ministry teams. There were central agencies. There were all of these things, and there will be in the future. I'm confident of that.

But where are the savings of having what appears to be an omnipotent public affairs bureau in the flow chart and then a traditional pattern of having a director, communications officers and media monitors by silo in ministry? The only benefit I can see is that the director doesn't get too close to the minister, which is from a central-control perspective, a command-and-control perspective, a good thing — because you can move the director to another location if there becomes too much tension or too much comfort in that relationship.

My question is: where is the administrative saving of having an HR person overseeing PAB and then having HR people within the ministries, if you decentralize the human resources anyway?

Hon. C. Taylor: In terms of savings, PAB was 323 FTEs, and it's now 216, so it is a leaner organization. I enjoy this discussion, actually, because there are different models that you could use. I just believe that it's better not to have central doing everything. One of the senses I had when I first came in was that there was some angst, some concern about a central public affairs bureau that really made decisions that were too far removed from ministries and ministers.

I just prefer this model. I think it's better. I think you get better expertise. I think you have better communications where you've got the cores in the ministry and then you do the coordinating factor on issues that are either cross-government or of a certain size of issue. I just think that that model works better.

J. Horgan: Well, I agree with the minister. I'm going to catch it when I go back to my caucus, when they read the Blues and they hear that the minister's enjoying the discussion with me. We had this discussion in the past, and we both kind of had that sense when we were done, and I got heck for it then. I'm going to have to be a little bit more aggressive for the next couple of minutes, as my colleagues are my witnesses, so that I can get through the next couple of weeks.

I want to talk about the decline in FTEs because I look at the OICs as they come through. I know that other people read Dickens, but I really enjoy looking at who's being hired and why. A week doesn't go by that there aren't a handful of public affairs bureau appointees. So that speaks to either retention challenge or some other factor.

Perhaps the minister could explain to me why it is that when the OICs come out — and I race to them — I find that public affairs is retaining or deleting staff.

Hon. C. Taylor: OICs are an interesting mechanism. It is far more transparent, and so people who wish to spend evenings looking at the OICs, perhaps instead of the Canucks…. You know, there are a lot that go through, but the requirement of OICs — the other side of transparency and accountability — is that every single change that gets made…. If someone moves from my ministry to another ministry in communications, that has to be recorded as an OIC.

It seems more turbulent than it is, in terms of the core staff, and it might interest the member opposite to know that 40 percent, I believe, of the staff of public affairs was with public affairs before 2001. I think that there's a steadiness there that wouldn't be apparent if you just looked at the OIC numbers going by.

J. Horgan: Well, that's helpful. So then it's not a retention challenge. It's just a classification issue. You're moving from Energy to the Solicitor General, but your compensation package remains the same. Your status within the organization remains the same. Is that why there are so many transfers?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, that's correct. You might get a promotion, or you know you might get a title change. Any changes require a new OIC.

J. Horgan: I'd like to talk a bit about the media-monitoring component within the public affairs bureau. Could the minister tell me…. We were talking about time frames. Could she advise me what the change has been since 2004 or 2005? Pick a number from the previous parliament, the 37th parliament,

and this — whatever date you've got available. Has there been a significant growth or decline in media-monitoring activity in terms of FTEs?

Hon. C. Taylor: We think that the numbers are about the same, but we're going to find out the actual numbers to be certain for you.

J. Horgan: Could the minister advise if the functions have changed? I know technology is accelerating our ability to capture news outlets and condense those into nuggets, which cabinet certainly accesses and other people in this place access. Has that led to a proliferation in staff, or has that led to a reduction in staff? If you can answer that question….

Hon. C. Taylor: The number turns out to be exactly the same. What you have is the same number of people, but because of technology you certainly get more output and different kinds of output.

J. Horgan: Has the minister mentioned the come to B.C. campaign? Whenever I see Jimmy Pattison looking so fit and trim, I'm envious, but I'm assuming that he did that out of the goodness of his heart. I'm wondering if you could advise the committee of the cost of that campaign and what outlets you're using, and if you could give us a sense of when it's going to end.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is radio/print, but the heart of it is the Internet. Everyone who participated did it out of the goodness of their heart, trying to encourage people to come to British Columbia. As with all of our advertising, the full accounting is available at public accounts.

J. Horgan: Well, if I would have been invited, I would have done it for free as well. So if there are any other campaigns forthcoming and the minister wants to avail herself of me and my mango-coloured shirt, I'm happy to do that.

The last question I want to ask is a sensitive one, and it involves our critic. The minister will know that some weeks ago there was a campaign by government to, in my estimation, smear his character for the approach that he was taking — the time he was taking on debates. Documents were prepared and distributed around this place. I'm wondering if the minister had any knowledge of that. If so, was any of that activity undertaken by public affairs bureau staff?

J. Horgan: I know the minister and I had a brief discussion across the floor that day about changing the culture and how we all wanted to see that sort of activity cease. I'm wondering if she could shed any light on who was accountable, if anyone was accountable, for that activity.

Hon. C. Taylor: I just simply do not…. I don't even know even to this day exactly what it was about, so I don't know who was involved. I just don't know.

J. Horgan: I'll complete my remarks and look forward to public affairs bureau next year. I would urge the minister, if she wouldn't mind, to make it her business. I'd be delighted to talk to her off line about that at some other time. Thank you very much.

B. Ralston: Before I return to my topic that I was following previous to the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca intervening, I wanted to ask one question about the Ministry of Finance Visa purchases. I'm looking at an entry of January 23, 2006 — Sukhi Lalli, a pharmacist, for $5,000. And on the same day another entry, the same Sukhi Lalli, pharmacist, for another $5,000. I understand that that pharmacy is a local pharmacy here in Victoria, as far as I've been able to determine.

Can the minister advise what was being purchased in those two purchases, which were taking place on the Ministry of Finance credit card?

Hon. C. Taylor: Just so that we can be on the same page as the member opposite, what was the date?

B. Ralston: The date was January 23, 2006. It's on page 122 of what is described as 142 pages of the printout.

Hon. C. Taylor: We will look for that and be able to give you that information. But while staff are looking for that, if there's something further you wish to ask me.

B. Ralston: Yes. If I could return, again, to Partnerships B.C. and the evaluation process of projects. Would it be fair to say that Partnerships B.C., in many given projects, promotes and assists in developing projects as part of its obligation; and, secondly, is then asked to carry out ex post facto evaluations?

Hon. C. Taylor: The process — and I assume we're talking about the new capital standard that will be applied for any project that requires more than $20 million of provincial money — is that the initiating body, whether it is an outside municipality or whether it is a ministry, will have the option of whom they wish to use to do a business case analysis on P3s.

The second step is that Partnerships B.C. will look at this material and make an assessment, yes or no, and whether or not we believe it would be a good design-build or P3. That having been said, once that work is done — that's a very small, little piece, just that analysis of the material that comes forward — once again, either the municipality or the ministry or whoever is involved has the choice of what company they wish to have put this P3 together.

What we're trying to do, as government, is say that we have enough experience now that we know these P3 models work. We've built up expertise within government. We have great experts here, but we don't want to have anyone feel that Partnerships B.C. is being forced on them. So that's why all of these voluntary points at which other private companies can be used….

I should say that some of these deals are so big and complicated that in fact it's not Partnerships B.C. acting alone. They very often are working in partnership with some of the outside firms as well. So it is a model that really evolves case by case, depending on the complexity, usually.

B. Ralston: So where, in the past, Partnerships B.C. would have been involved at the front end, if I can put it that way, in evaluating and choosing the project and making a decision to proceed in that manner and then doing the value-for-money report after the fact, given that that certainly might give rise to an obvious perception of a conflict of interest…. Is the minister saying that that won't happen again in the future?

Hon. C. Taylor: There's every possibility that some organization, some institution may decide to use Partnerships B.C. right through the piece. Of course, the value-for-money report is done by Partnerships B.C., but it is signed off by the Auditor General, so that is the point at which the assumptions that are contained in the report get signed off by the Auditor General of British Columbia.

From our point of view, it gives taxpayers an assurance that even though these are complicated deals to understand, at the end of the day, they've been put together in a way that not only transfers risk, that not only — at least in all of our experience — delivers projects on time and on budget, but also has an extra value for taxpayers.

B. Ralston: When the minister speaks of the involvement of the Auditor General, I'm assuming she's referring to the Auditor General being involved in a review rather than an audit. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: That is correct. This is not an audit. It's a value-for-money report that the Auditor General has signed off on the assumptions that are contained within.

B. Ralston: I believe this was canvassed last year in estimates, but just so that it's clear, a review is one where the assumptions are put forward and are not independently investigated by the Auditor General. It's simply, as the name would suggest, a review of the assumptions that are given rather than an independent investigation. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: That is correct, and I'll read straight from the Auditor General's letter that is put in the front. This is the value-for-money report on Abbotsford, since we've been talking about Abbotsford, and he describes exactly what he means:

B. Ralston: I want to speak now about the proposed new health facility in Surrey, what's described as the Surrey out-patient hospital. There was some public discussion as a result of the release of some documents internal to the Fraser Health Authority saying that the officials there were opposed to proceeding with the procurement as a P3. Yet the recent release from the Ministry of Health, on March 21, 2007, says that: "Today a request for qualifications was posted on B.C. Bid by Partnerships B.C. on behalf of Fraser Health."

I'm wondering if the minister can explain how that process was arrived at, given initial opposition by the senior leadership of the Fraser Health Authority to proceeding in this way.

Hon. C. Taylor: I do not have the material that the member opposite is referring to, but I believe — my understanding, and again this is Minister of Health — it was before the policy change this fall.

B. Ralston: Certainly, it would qualify as being over the $20 million. It's estimated at $151 million. What I'm advised is that top Fraser Health officials looked at the project last June and concluded that P3s are not the first choice of the committee, and noted with P3s there is a lesser ability to control design, longer lead times and additional risk. They also concluded that a P3 strategy tends to be slower.

That was the opinion of the senior leadership at Fraser Health. I'm wondering how it came about that, notwithstanding the position of the senior leadership at Fraser Health, it's now proceeding as a P3 procurement.

Hon. C. Taylor: As the member opposite has identified, the initial comments were from June, I believe. In that fall the Premier announced at the UBCM that our policy was changing in terms of infrastructure, and that from now on projects will be assumed to be P3 unless a case is made, and it goes through the new capital standard process, for not having it be a P3.

B. Ralston: Can the minister then advise who decided that a compelling case to proceed as a non-P3

Hon. C. Taylor: This is the Minister of Health's portfolio. I just honestly don't know the answer to that question. There is apparently a belief that there is additional information that came to light after that time, but I cannot say because I'm just not the minister on that.

If I may respond to your earlier question, I have the information about the…. I guess it was credit card use. It's described as a pharmacy purchase on January 23, 2006. It is, in fact, kitchen cabinetry for the kitchen at Government House. The kitchen cabinet company was called Renaissance, but they put their Visa charges through their other company, which is called Sukhi Lalli Pharmacist.

So those charges were for Government House, which also come through the Ministry of Finance's budget, and it was for kitchen cabinets.

B. Ralston: I suppose one would wonder why kitchen cabinets would be passed through the accounts of a pharmacy and what the Revenue Canada implications are of that. Has there been any investigation or any inquiry as to why it was done in that manner?

Hon. C. Taylor: Our department obviously saw this as something unusual, as has the member opposite, and looked into it and found out that it was for a legitimate purchase of kitchen cabinets for Government House. In terms of how someone runs their business, I suppose that's for others to look at, but from our point of view, it was for a legitimate purchase for Government House.

B. Ralston: Just so we're clear, it was two separate identical purchases of $5,000 on the same day. Is that right?

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that. If I could return, then, to Fraser Health.

What the news release dated March 21, 2007 says is that Partnerships B.C. is involved on behalf of Fraser Health. Can the minister advise, from the representative of Partnerships B.C., when Partnerships B.C. became involved?

Hon. C. Taylor: Again, it's difficult for me to talk about something that really is with the Minister of Health, so I would encourage the member opposite to get the specifics from that minister.

The involvement of Partnerships B.C. was not with the initial business case. We do not know here at this table exactly who did that first business case analysis. Partnerships B.C. has been involved for quite a long time on the procurement side and giving advice, but not involved in doing that initial business case that was referred to.

B. Ralston: I am advised that the then chair of the Fraser Health Authority, Keith Purchase, was directed to meet with Deputy Health Minister Penny Ballem and Deputy Finance Minister Tamara Vrooman to convey to the authority's top officials the view, or to respond to the view, that P3s are not the first choice of the committee. I'm suggesting that the Deputy Minister of Finance was part of a decision to dissuade the Fraser Healthy Authority from holding that view. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: No, that's not correct. The Deputy Minister of Finance never met with them.

B. Ralston: So that we're clear, is the minister saying that on no occasion in any meetings did the Deputy Minister of Finance meet with the chair of the Fraser Health Authority and convey the view that the P3 model was the way to proceed?

Hon. C. Taylor: I am advised by the Deputy Minister of Finance that she had met this individual when she was working in the Health Ministry. But as Deputy Minister of Finance, and she's been here for some time, she has not met with the chair of the Fraser Health Authority.

B. Ralston: I suppose the question is: how did this view get changed? The facilities management committee of Fraser Health met. It's a minuted meeting. They had a series of concerns about that P3 model, and they seem to be fairly strong with a number of reasons given for holding that view. Yet that view changed.

Can the minister advise how it came about that Partnerships B.C. — under her control and part of Vote 31 and Vote 32, which are before the committee — became involved, and it resulted in Partnerships B.C. acting for Fraser Health and posting the bid as a P3 on B.C. Bid?

Hon. C. Taylor: Again I would have to refer to the Minister of Health any conversations that the Health Ministry may have had with Fraser Health. I just don't know what they might be.

I am informed that new information came along after that June report. I don't know what that is, and I don't know where that came from.

I do know that as of the fall, the Premier of British Columbia made a very public statement that from the fall forward any project taking more than $20 million of provincial taxpayer dollars would be considered to be a P3. That's a very public declaration that's no surprise to anyone. That's on the record.

As to the private conversations that may have happened with Fraser Health or with the Ministry of Health, I just have to refer it to that minister.

B. Ralston: Certainly, the public speech of the Premier is very clear. What opportunity was there for Fraser Health Authority, given those views, to demonstrate the compelling case to proceed in another way? Or was that simply overruled?

Hon. C. Taylor: I really don't have anything to add to the answer before. It's the Ministry of Health that is most directly involved, of course, with the health authorities. I don't know what conversations they had after that June meeting. I don't know what new information came along, but I would encourage the member opposite to ask the minister those questions.

B. Ralston: Well, to assist me in that process, since I won't have an opportunity of the happy prospect of returning here after we conclude and the Ministry of Health estimates begin, perhaps I could just be clear where I'm going before we conclude here.

When did Partnerships B.C. first become involved in the Surrey outpatient hospital and involved with the Fraser Health Authority in beginning the case to evaluate as a P3?

Hon. C. Taylor: I have some specific dates that I've just received that say…. As I said before, Partnerships B.C. has been involved in different ways. They did not do the business case that is referred to, I think, in the minutes. I've just been told that in fact that was just an internal look. It wasn't what one would normally assume would be the full P3 analysis — the comments that were made. I'm sure that the Minister of Health can tell you more specifically.

Partnerships B.C. has been involved off and on with the Fraser Health Authority. The first time was October 2005, then again in April 2006 and then February 2007. I am told that at these various points more details were forthcoming from the health authority in terms of what this project might look like.

I think we all know — and the member opposite more than any of us, probably — the complexity of the discussion there: what it would look like, what the location would be, what the needs were and what the phasing would be. So at each point that Partnerships B.C. was asked to take another look, it was with more detail in terms of what the requirements would be.

B. Ralston: I thank the minister for that information. So after April 2006…. Then the intervening event is the Premier's speech, and there is no contact with Partnerships B.C. in any formal way until February 2007. Is that a fair summary?

Hon. C. Taylor: Those were the points of engagement, but the engagement went for months in various cases — in fact, I understand, worked quite a bit this past fall with Fraser Health as well.

B. Ralston: Can the minister give a sense of the anticipated fees that Partnerships B.C. will be charging to Fraser Health in order to conduct the standard business case and the workup of the file?

Hon. C. Taylor: We don't have that information, because this is an ongoing project. There will be a point at which the decision is made and goes forward and these numbers are released, but at this point we don't have that information.

B. Ralston: I want to go back, if I might, to the discussion we had earlier about the Abbotsford hospital. I've had a chance to review some of the notes I have. As I understand it, there is a mechanism in the agreement that upon a refinancing, there would be a recapture of 50 percent of the proceeds if there were a profit on the refinancing. That would accrue to one of the public partners in the project. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes. It's as I said a while ago. If it's a refinancing issue, then we do have an agreement to share 50 percent.

B. Ralston: But the two transactions that I'd referred to earlier were sales, and therefore there would be no recapture, obviously. The contract doesn't provide for that. Is that correct?

B. Ralston: I want to shift topics, if I might, to expenditure on federal transfers for child care funding. I wonder if the minister could advise. Earlier today in Public Accounts we were given some charts about the growing contribution of federal transfer funds to the provincial budget. I believe it was at something over 19 percent of the 2006-2007 budget.

Can the minister advise what the federal transfers were that were specifically targeted under the bilateral agreement on early learning and child care? What was the dollar value of that last year?

B. Ralston: I'm assuming that there was a program. Would the minister confirm, at the least, that there's a bilateral agreement on early learning and child care? It is an agreement between the provincial government and the federal government following, I believe, a federal-provincial conference.

B. Ralston: Can the minister advise what the status is of that bilateral agreement between the federal government and the province?

Hon. C. Taylor: I assume the member opposite is talking about the second early learning agreement. The federal government decided to end that agreement and put the dollars into child support.

B. Ralston: I appreciate that the staff is maybe searching for this number. I'm advised by the document I have that the program, the federal transfer in the last fiscal year, was $104 million. I wonder if that is accurate.

Hon. C. Taylor: Since we're here to discuss the estimates going forward for the Finance Ministry, we don't have all of this information about last year's budget. I wonder if the member opposite could tell us what document he's referring to and what page.

B. Ralston: I'm referring to something provided by the early learning and child care research unit at UBC; it's called the human early learning partnership. I can provide that document to the minister shortly. I guess what I'm interested in confirming is: what is the level of ongoing federal support through bilateral agreements for child care, particularly looking forward to the current year?

Doubtlessly, that would be evaluated by the Treasury Board within the confines of Vote 31. I'm looking at how that calculation might be made in order to better understand what the federal contribution to child care in the province is.

Hon. C. Taylor: On page 43 of this budget, we show that last year, for the early learning and child care agreement, it was $147 million. So that's page 43. What happens with that agreement is clear on that chart as well. We have zero this year, zero the next year and zero in '09-10.

B. Ralston: Are there any other federal transfers either in early learning or child care other than the one that's been referred to? I'm advised that there is a separate program with over $100 million in confirmed federal transfers.

Hon. C. Taylor: We have heard similar announcements from the federal government that there may be dollars coming for spaces, but our policy in building the budget is to not put down in our tables or in our numbers anything until it's confirmed. So while there may be money coming to us for child care spaces, what we show in our budget for this year is zero.

B. Ralston: Then can the minister advise of what Treasury Board's involvement might be in the ongoing negotiations as part of the federal-provincial financial relationship in terms of negotiating more money that's specifically directed or intended by the federal government for child care within the province?

Hon. C. Taylor: Treasury Board doesn't have a role in this. In terms of intergovernmental relationships, it is the responsibility of the Minister of State for Childcare, Linda Reid, who is involved in those discussions.

B. Ralston: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding it, but as part of the budget process, federal transfers are recorded as income to the province in putting the budget together. So I'm wondering: in the three-year fiscal plan, what is the anticipated potential revenue, even if it's under negotiation or uncertain at this point? What is the best view at this point as to what that dollar amount might be?

Hon. C. Taylor: Since it is the Minister of State for Childcare who would be involved in any of those discussions, we don't know. We deal with certainty, and so in our budget we have put zero.

B. Ralston: Yes, but I understand the minister also deals with contingency and prospective sources of revenue. What's the best view at this stage as to what the likely outcome of those negotiations…? I understand there is a slight shift in the federal position, and there may be funds forthcoming.

Hon. C. Taylor: I simply don't know. I'm not involved in those negotiations. It is the Minister of State for Childcare. The issues that I engage the federal government on tend to be concerning tax.

B. Ralston: I wanted to raise the issue of tax policy. One of the major initiatives of the government at the present time, judging from the throne speech, is climate change. I'm wondering what steps the ministry has taken in reviewing its tax policy to begin to accommodate some of those concerns. Obviously, those are big concerns, and I'm wondering what the ministry's role will be, if any.

Hon. C. Taylor: This is a very important issue for government this year. I think everyone knows that the Premier laid out a plan in the throne speech. It will take many years, but we do hope within the next year to significantly have made some moves that will move us towards the targets — the ambitious targets, I might say — that we have set.

There is currently a cabinet committee on climate change. Finance does sit as part of that committee. We are, first of all — every ministry — looking to our own footprint. We are looking to the things we do — the space we use, the energy we use, the cars we use — to see where we can improve our own patterns of behaviour.

The second thing every minister is being asked is to look at the levers that each minister has, to see where the possibilities are of either incenting positive behaviour or discouraging behaviour that is polluting, for instance. We are in that process right now. The Premier is chairing a group…. I don't believe that he has yet put that together, but it will be a group of experts who will give guidance and will consult with our ministries and provide, first of all, earlier targets.

We've set the 2020 target, but to get there and to be practical, you have to have a target for 2012 and 2016 that will ensure that you are going to meet your ultimate goal. Those interim targets have not yet been set, but that's one of the first big pieces of work that must be done. Government is consulting broadly with environmentalist groups, with industry, with academics — trying to get the broadest sense of what the possibilities are out there for us to take action.

In terms of tax — because I would say that tax is one of the areas that we've already used in this regard — I think most people know that we have exempted

hybrid cars, that we have done exemptions for wind power. We are looking at ways that we could encourage behaviour that really does start to move us toward our climate goals.

I have put out on the Web, but also sent to stakeholders who tend to come to budget presentations, a letter describing what Finance is doing and asking for any initiatives or ideas they would like to ask us to look at. Every year we get a lot of ideas that come in — some from the community, some from special interest groups — that we go through and do a new evaluation for the next budget of what we'll do.

Specifically, this year we are broadly asking for people to talk about ideas that might be out there and ways that we might use our tax system. It is very intense work on the part of every minister. This work will take us, certainly, through the fall. We are determined to be able, by the time we're actually putting the budget together, to have really the bones of the plan in place and to have actions that we will identify by next year.

B. Ralston: Is there a specific group that would be leading this project within the ministry? Just so that we're clear where the responsibility resides.

Hon. C. Taylor: Within the Ministry of Finance we have at least ten people there, maybe more, who are actively looking at their individual divisions of the Finance department to look at ways in which we can do the two things that I identified earlier. First, how can we improve our own behaviour and our own footprint? Second, what are the possibilities, as we go out into the community, to encourage others to participate in climate action?

B. Ralston: Looking at the ministry's role, and the minister has talked a little bit about the objectives, what would the minister see as the first objective, given the range of tools that the Finance Ministry uniquely has at its disposal?

Hon. C. Taylor: Because I also sit on the Climate Action Committee, I'm hearing ideas from other ministries as well. But we're all looking at issues — for instance, on any cars that we lease, to make sure that they are hybrid.

We're looking at our buildings to make sure that the lights turn off at night. We are looking at all the things that an individual in their home would look at as well.

In terms of the tax side, I have already stated — in fact, I think I stated it at the budget lockup — that this year we extended the tax incentives on hybrid cars. A reporter asked me the question: "Well, what about other low-emission cars, and would you consider looking at those as well?" I committed at that point to do that, and we will do that as well.

We're trying to look at models from around the world to see where there are some good ideas that we can use. I think all of us, especially the ones who have been involved in the climate action committee, are really doing a lot of very fast learning — it's a very steep learning curve — to see where the low-hanging fruit is, as they call it. What are the things you can do really immediately? What are the things you need legislative changes for? What are the ones you need tax changes for? What's your time line as you go through the next year?

It's quite an exciting time for government, and I think all of us are engaged in the process in a way that might surprise people who are not in on those long meetings.

B. Ralston: Given what the minister has said about priorities and the ten people that are involved in it, have there been discussions with Mr. Tamminen, who is the adviser to Mr. Schwarzenegger and who, I understand, has been engaged by the Premier to advise him on these issues? He has some fairly strong views about the oil and gas industry in a recent book.

I'm wondering: has the minister met with him or taken into account his views about the role and nature of the oil and gas industry in the contemporary economy?

Hon. C. Taylor: We are all looking at our own ministries primarily. I do not know this particular gentleman. I have not had any contact with Governor Schwarzenegger or his people. I believe he is coming up shortly to participate in a big conference that is going to happen in Vancouver on some of these issues, but I do not personally know this gentleman.

B. Ralston: Obviously without giving away anything, is there a sense that the minister might be making some announcements in this vein to coincide with that particular meeting?

Hon. C. Taylor: Speaking only for Finance, I don't have any imminent announcements.

B. Ralston: Over the years there has been a surtax threshold that was imposed upon luxury cars, and the threshold at which that luxury tax applies has been steadily increased. Generally, that tends to apply, in the view of some — I don't necessarily share this view — to more fuel-inefficient vehicles. Certainly, they're not hybrids.

I'm wondering — and I understand that this is something that's been lobbied for very hard by the New Car Dealers Association: is there active consideration underway to reconsider or change the threshold at which that surtax applies? The direction has been for it to go up, and I'm wondering whether there is a re-evaluation of that.

Hon. C. Taylor: This issue has certainly been in the public domain since the early '90s when it was first introduced. I believe that the member opposite has heard the views of people from the north, as well, because I believe he sits on the Finance Committee of the Legislature. Since I have been Finance Minister, I certainly have heard the views, and I know that the Chair who is with us today, in fact, chairs that committee.

The reports that have come forward have talked about the penalty that this luxury tax is on the working vehicles of the north and rural areas. I have heard from rural areas. We have heard from construction companies. We have heard from people who, in buying a pickup truck to do their work or, frankly, to get around in the north in many cases, all of a sudden have to pay what's called a luxury tax, and they think it's a misnomer to call it a luxury tax when it's their working vehicle.

So in the second budget that I did, I believe it was, we introduced a somewhat higher threshold on the luxury tax. The recommendation did come out of the all-party Finance Committee. It was one of the voices that we heard quite strongly on this issue.

B. Ralston: But in addition to fairly or unfairly capturing people who drive pickup trucks in the rural areas, it also gives some kind of a tax break — given the threshold has gone up — to those who would buy more fuel-inefficient vehicles in the lower mainland in the area where one of the biggest gains in GHG reduction has to take place, which is in transportation.

Even the preliminary targets that have been set forth by the Premier, in some of his discussions, and the Minister of Environment envisage a 33-percent reduction allocated to the transportation sector.

I'm wondering what thought or work is being done to reconcile that tax, among others, with a long-term goal of a 33-percent reduction in GHG emissions from the transportation sector by 2020.

Hon. C. Taylor: Our tax policies are not just about climate change. If we look at the track record over the past few years, you can see policy initiatives in a number of areas. One of the important areas is, of course, to stimulate the economy. That's why we've done things like lower our income tax, lower corporate tax, increase the threshold for small business.

Another part is to look at the province of B.C. and listen to the issues that are not just lower mainland issues. I make no apologies for either listening to the committee, on which I believe the member opposite sat…. It was a bi-party committee. The recommendation that we increase that threshold: I listened to that. We listened to other voices who came and said the same thing.

It is a matter of fairness. I don't think it's fair that a worker in the north, because that person lives in the north and has to have a pickup truck, gets a luxury tax. The member opposite might disagree, and that's fine, but that was my position. I think that a tax policy has to be looking at all aspects of the economy.

B. Ralston: Compared to the incentive, if I can put it that way, or the write-off for, I think, approximately 4,700 hybrid cars…. That has cost the treasury about $1.5 million, and an estimate that I've been provided with on the luxury tax increase in the threshold is $45 million in lost tax revenue.

I appreciate the point the minister is making, but is she saying that the Premier is unwilling to make any hard choices? He's advocating, according to the throne speech, very ambitious targets, but in order to achieve them, things have to change.

I take it from what the minister is saying that this is one area of tax policy that's not going to change. Is that fair to say?

J. Horgan: I rise to reserve my right to raise a point of personal privilege.

The Chair: Clarification. My information is that you have to do that in the big House.

J. Horgan: It's a result of debate in this chamber. If I'm to do it in the other chamber, I'm happy to do that. I felt it would be something that should happen here. But if the Clerk's advising otherwise, I can go do that right now.

B. Ralston: I understand the arguments that are being made. I toured with the Finance Committee. I understand the rationale that's being advanced by the minister and insofar as the northern rural communities are concerned, I tend to agree with it.

On the other hand, the Premier has advanced an environmental policy and has said that certain targets will be achieved in the short and medium term. So I'm wondering, given that the minister said that there are ten people working on this consideration of all the ramifications: is tax policy on the table in terms of part of this discussion?

Hon. C. Taylor: As I mentioned before, yes, we are looking at all of these tax initiatives. In fact we have put it on the Web and also sent out letters inviting ideas that we might consider. Every single year we do look at all of the tax suggestions that come forward, and we make an evaluation as to what to do in the next budget. I know that the member opposite recognizes that we wouldn't be talking about specifics of tax policy until budget day.

B. Ralston: Sometimes it's referred to as tax-shifting, in terms of a broad policy which would be at the policy and, I suppose, general level to begin with. I'm wondering what direction the ministry is going in thinking about the challenges that result or arise when changes to traditional behaviour is contemplated and desired. I guess I'm interested in the minister's thoughts on how that might come about if tax policy isn't going to be looked at thoroughly.

Hon. C. Taylor: I've just said — and this is the third time — that it is going to be looked at thoroughly.

B. Ralston: One of the areas that sometimes arises — and certainly Mr. Tamminen, who is the former adviser to Mr. Schwarzenegger and now the adviser to the Premier, has talked about in fairly scathing terms — is what are described by some as incentives and by others as subsidies. I know the minister involved prefers the term incentives, to the oil and gas industry. Is that discussion taking place at the interministerial level or not?

Hon. C. Taylor: We are looking at all of our ministries, and we're looking at all of our policies. This will be the subject of hard work over the next year.

B. Ralston: Beyond what the minister has said thus far, when might the public expect something giving a sense of the nature of the discussion? Sometimes there are policy papers, White Papers or policy documents that might emanate from the ministry in order to look at certain areas, in order to encourage a public discussion. Is that the direction that the minister is considering heading in or not?

Hon. C. Taylor: The cabinet committee is chaired by the Premier, and of course the outside committee that he will set up also will be chaired by the Premier. I'm not sure exactly what his plan is at this point, but he has asked all of our ministries to actively look at ways that we can start, first of all within our own situation, to do the best that we can and then to look at possibilities that we could look at more intensively over the next year.

B. Ralston: I understand that the minister is going to be on the committee that is chaired by the Premier. Is that the case?

Hon. C. Taylor: There are two committees. I am on the cabinet committee looking at these issues.

B. Ralston: Will the minister be the public conduit, or will it emanate from the Premier insofar as initiating a public discussion, particularly in the area that I'm concerned about — tax policy.

Hon. C. Taylor: The Premier is obviously the lead, but each minister…. Therefore, as Minister of Finance we've been asked to look at our own areas, to look at possibilities. That is why I have already publicly put out a letter asking our various business communities and various people who come to budget lockup, plus the general public, for any suggestions they would like us to look at.

B. Ralston: Is there anything else that the minister wants to say in terms of providing a direction or an indication of where she is heading on this issue?

Hon. C. Taylor: Tax policy is very sensitive, obviously — as we all know. Therefore, what we can do in the public domain is invite ideas. We, within the tax division of the ministry, will make analyses and assessments of them — how they worked, what ones don't, what are good ideas, what are not. In the public domain that assessment does not get done. But in the public domain the request for ideas that…. I'm getting letters every day from people with suggestions that we will look at.

B. Ralston: One of the areas of tax policy that members have been recently lobbied on is the property purchase tax. In the current budget it is projected to bring in about $950 million a year, if I'm not mistaken, or perhaps closer to a billion.

There have been some proposals by real estate professionals about how that tax and its impact might be modified. Is the minister prepared to consider that? And is there any consideration of incorporating any consideration of the green values — if I can put it that way — into the nature of the dwelling house or residence and its emission, in terms of rebating tax based on passing certain environmental efficiency thresholds. Is there any consideration of initiatives like that?

Hon. C. Taylor: We are looking at all of these ideas, and we are being comprehensive about this. The property transfer tax is interesting. We get a lot of pressure every year from groups who would like us just to completely get rid of the transfer tax, and as has been identified, that's about $950 million in revenue.

Our income tax cut, which we felt was the more important one to do, cost about $500 million. If you got rid of the transfer tax altogether, you would be costing revenues twice as much as the income tax cut did.

These are judgments that we make each year as we look at the tax system and try to decide exactly what it is that we wish to do or can afford to do. We also said that on personal income tax, for instance, where we manage to have us be able say that we have the lowest income tax for an individual earning up to $108,000 in British Columbia of any province in Canada….

That's a major accomplishment, but the competition board didn't think it went far enough. Their recommendation was that we cut income tax so that we could say that up to $150,000. We couldn't afford it in one step. We will continue to look at that — as we will the transfer tax and all of our tax incentives.

B. Ralston: There is frequently a lobby — as the minister is well aware, and we alluded to it earlier — from, typically, the retail sector on the impact of the provincial sales tax. What is the thought about the future of the provincial sales tax? Is that a high priority in terms of reduction, or is the minister focused on the income tax side as the object of future consideration at least?

I appreciate that it can't be very specific at this stage, but is there a consideration or an openness to considering a cut.

Hon. C. Taylor: We do look at all these taxes every year. I've done three budgets now, and three times we've done an analysis of the PST. There are many economists who don't think that's the place you should cut taxes if you're going to be cutting taxes at all. If that comes forward as a possibility or from the Finance Committee of the Legislature, we will look at it again next year.

B. Ralston: There are two approaches generally to reductions or, I suppose, management of the provincial sales tax. One is to reduce the rate generally or, alternately, to carve out exemptions.

There appears to be two kinds of pressures on legislators: one, to reduce the tax overall and, two, to carve out exemptions. Does the minister have any views on which is more effective? Is the minister, in the context of the broader review of tax policy that we spoke of earlier in relation to the throne speech this year, looking at creating new exemptions to incent certain behaviours or purchases?

Hon. C. Taylor: We look at all of our taxes every year as we go towards the budget. Certainly I think that we have indicated by our past behaviour that we have brought in some tax incentives for behaviour that in fact would promote climate action. That is part of the suite of ideas that we're asking people to send in and let us have a look at.

We are a government that has run both times — me once — on the policy of trying to keep our taxation, personal and corporate, competitive. For sure we will look at those again.

I have already said that we'd look at PST and transfer tax. We look at all of these taxes every year. A big part of the work that we're doing right now is to invite the business community, industry, environmentalists, the community at large — if they have ideas that we might think about or analyze, to send them in to us, and we will do that work.

B. Ralston: There is one area that it looks like I neglected to deal with in the alternate service delivery contracts. I see I still have some time remaining, so I'm wondering if I might shift gears slightly and ask some questions about that.

One of the alternate service delivery contracts that I don't believe was referenced earlier was the contract between B.C. Hydro and Accenture. I'm wondering what the role of the Treasury Board in evaluating that contract might be.

Hon. C. Taylor: The commercial Crowns, of course, have independent boards, and they are commercial operations. We report their results in summary in the budget.

B. Ralston: The Crown agencies secretariat. What is the role of that secretariat in monitoring this type of contract?

Hon. C. Taylor: The role of the Crown agencies secretariat is to set policies and oversee governance, but not to monitor contracts.

B. Ralston: Is there a specific policy that's initiated by the secretariat to encourage alternate service delivery contracts within Crown corporations?

Hon. C. Taylor: There is no plan for us to monitor contracts that are let and overseen by commercial Crowns.

B. Ralston: To perhaps rephrase the question and put it a different way: is there within the Crown agencies secretariat a policy that has developed? Is that the level at which a policy might be developed for all Crowns to consider that kind of service delivery?

Hon. C. Taylor: Certainly from time to time government could give directives to commercial Crowns, but at this point there is no policy directive on ASD that I'm aware of. But I'm not the minister who is responsible for ASD, so I would put that caveat on that response.

B. Ralston: This morning in Public Accounts there was some discussion about the reporting of alternate service delivery agreements on the summary financial statements of the province. There were some recommendations made as to how those might be improved.

Can the minister commit here to adopting the recommendations of the Auditor General to improve the reporting of those agreements on an ongoing basis?

Hon. C. Taylor: I understand that the discussion at Public Accounts was talking about contracts that are already out there. I think that the comments at the time were that it is not possible with current contracts to change some of the directions. We would certainly listen to what the Auditor General has to say. I have not seen his report, but we always take his recommendations seriously. We look at them and make a valuation on them.

B. Ralston: Can I glean from that response that the minister is prepared to review those recommendations from the deputy minister and act on them if she sees them as being appropriate within the near term, shortly?

Hon. C. Taylor: As always, when the Auditor General makes recommendations, we do review them. When we are in agreement or we believe it's possible or we can see what is being suggested and we believe that it's a good thing to do, then we certainly would implement them. But I can't blindly say that everything the Auditor General might recommend would be something that we would immediately adopt. The first step is to review.

B. Ralston: In another report talking about best practices and financial reporting this morning in Public Accounts, the Auditor General talks about how the cost of assets in a P3 arrangement are to be valued. He says: "Determining the cost of the asset would be relatively simple if the agreements to construct them actually broke down the costs between the asset and the maintenance costs. However, few agreements do this.

Hon. C. Taylor: I think that we all realize that P3s are fairly new in the life of accounting, and we are seeing changes year to year in terms of the interpretations or the recommendations. We certainly, again, will listen to the recommendations of the Auditor General, and there may be ways that you can separate out the capital more clearly. We will look at that.

The point of a P3 is the way that it ties together capital and operating, and a good example is the Sea to Sky Highway. The ministry had an idea of what the highway would look like and what the cost would be. Then as it turned out, when it went to P3, the proponent decided, in fact, to put more capital in up front, because it saved operating costs over the term of the contract.

Those are the kinds of arrangements that come about when you start to think about life-cycle assessments. I think more and more you're seeing projects — I know that just in housing…. People who are looking at housing are starting to think about what the life cycle costs. It might be more up front to do a certain kind of energy system, but it might save dollars and protect the environment over the long term if you did something else.

I would say to you that this is an evolving art, as we look at how the accounting practices will happen with P3s.

B. Ralston: The Auditor General goes on to say: "If the province were constructing the asset itself, determining fair value would not be a problem. The value would be the cost of the material and the labour paid to construct the asset." The next sentence is the more significant one. "Separate agreements for the construction of the asset and the maintenance of the asset would also make finding fair value relatively straightforward."

In attempting to meet a demand for public transparency about the true value of the asset and the real value of the maintenance cost, would the minister be prepared to agree with that statement as a general proposition? I have a further question, but I'll wait for the answer on that one.

Hon. C. Taylor: Again, I will say that we're happy to look at any recommendations the Auditor General might make, but it is worth noting that no one disagrees on the total cost. For instance, with the Sea to Sky Highway it's $1.9 billion. It's always been $1.9 billion. It continues to be $1.9 billion. There have been changes in the accounting and how much they count as capital and how much they count as operating. Even we had to change our assessment — I believe it was in one of the quarterlies — because we had been told by the department that this was the way it was going to be costed, and then we were told to change it to another number. That's all internal accounting and where you put the costs. The total cost has remained the same.

I do think there will be changes in accounting. I think that there will be advice that we get from the Auditor General, and we will certainly review his recommendations. Whether you do it as two contracts or one, we'll look at what he is suggesting.

B. Ralston: I think what the intention of the Auditor General is here is to suggest that in order to make a fair comparison between a public sector procurement and a P3, in order to compare like to like, the capital part and the maintenance part have to be separated out. That's because in a conventional procurement maintenance might be performed by the public sector or some agency of the Crown. So in order to have a fair comparison, those two things have to be separated out.

Does the minister not accept that as a general proposition? One, it would enhance transparency. Two, it would enable a fair comparison between a public sector procurement and a P3 procurement.

Hon. C. Taylor: We do recognize that we've got some differences, and we've been trying to work through them. I would say that we're working closely with the Auditor General and with Partnerships B.C. to try and find the place where we can agree that we get the maximum transparency and we can also do contracts that we think are proper P3 contracts.

It's not as simple as saying: "Let's just separate capital and operating." Sometimes when you bundle the contract, it's on the operating side that you may be saving — or on the capital side. Or someone comes in who is perhaps very interested in doing the capital piece or the operating piece and therefore will make concessions in terms of costs on one or the other.

It really is the package that's the most important. But we're aware that the Auditor General does want to talk about that. We are talking about it, and we're trying to find a place where we all agree that we're doing the best that we can with this.

B. Ralston: Some of the things the Auditor General goes on to recommend, which might be considered, are possible ways to calculate the fair value of the constructed asset. These would be: engaging an independent appraiser to value the asset; comparing the asset with similarly constructed assets, recast in today's dollars; or using the financial model submitted by the winning contractor during the bidding process for the job.

Is the minister prepared to agree that those might be fair ways of meeting the challenge of defining a fair value of a constructed asset on the ongoing cost of maintenance?

Hon. C. Taylor: We are continuing to work with the Auditor General and Partnerships B.C. to look at all of these ideas.

B. Ralston: What would be the avenue for this report being received and discussed by Partnerships B.C.? Is there a direction proposed by the minister?

Hon. C. Taylor: The report, of course, is a public document, and Partnerships B.C., the Ministry of Finance and the Auditor General are already working on these issues. This is not new. We know that we have to work through this because we all want to be as transparent as possible and to do P3 models the best that we can do. We're already working on it, and staff are having meetings on this.

Vote 44: contingencies (all ministries) and new programs, $498,800,000 — approved.

Hon. C. Taylor: I move that the committee rise, report resolution and completion of Ministry of Finance estimates and ask leave to sit again.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.