Hansard — Thursday, May 10, 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		7833

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		7834
	Private Post-Secondary Accountability and Student Protection Act, 2007 (Bill M217)
	R. Fleming

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		7834
	Great Salmon Send-Off at Stoney Creek
	H. Bloy
	Tzu Chi
	B. Ralston
	New health care services in Surrey
	D. Hayer
	Protection of drinking water supply
	S. Simpson
	Flood preparedness
	R. Hawes
	Benefits of exercise
	D. Cubberley

Oral Questions		7836
	Farmworker vehicle inspections
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. K. Falcon
	D. Chudnovsky
	R. Chouhan
	Farmworker vehicle licensing
	R. Chouhan
	Hon. K. Falcon
	Employment practices at Nanaimo Seniors Village
	A. Dix
	Hon. G. Abbott
	B.C. Rail bidding process
	R. Fleming
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Disclosure of documents on sale of B.C. Rail
	J. Kwan
	Hon. W. Oppal
	KPMG access to e-mails
	B. Ralston
	Hon. C. Taylor
	Gas prices in B.C.
	J. Horgan
	Hon. R. Thorpe
	M. Farnworth
	Homeowner grants for low-income seniors
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. C. Taylor

Tabling Documents		7841
	Forest Appeals Commission, report, 2006
	Hon. R. Coleman

Committee of Supply		7841
	Estimates: Ministry of Health (continued)
	Hon. G. Abbott
	C. Wyse
	C. Trevena
	A. Dix
	J. Brar
	D. Routley
	S. Simpson
	R. Fleming

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		7868
	Estimates: Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts (continued)
	S. Fraser
	Hon. S. Hagen
	G. Gentner
	N. Macdonald
	H. Bains

Hon. S. Bond: Today I am very pleased to welcome to the Legislature two classes from Mount Benson Elementary School in Nanaimo, and I certainly hope that my colleagues on both sides of the House will understand why I'm introducing them today.

There are 41 grades 4 and 5 students, and they left Nanaimo very early this morning on a bus. They came and saw the Titanic, and that was an excellent opportunity for them. They're now here in the Legislature learning more about how government operates.

Today the students are accompanied by their principal Gary Dodd, teacher Karen Murchie and educational assistant Cheryl O'Donnell, and we have fabulous parent chaperones who come along to make sure that everything goes well. We have Lisa Burns, Jackie Stark Mackay and Cathy Lutner. I think Deb Cochrane may have had to leave.

Finally, their teacher is Mrs. Melissa Robertson. I am particularly thrilled to have her in the gallery, because her maiden name happens to be Bond. I'm delighted to welcome my daughter and her classes to the Legislature.

D. Chudnovsky: I wonder if the House could help me welcome two very good, dear and — not old — mature friends of mine who are here in the gallery with us, people who have fought for social justice for all of their lives. Please welcome Harold and Seemah Berson.

Hon. T. Christensen: As many members will know, on Monday the province proclaimed Child and Youth Mental Health Day here in the province. This is also Mental Health Week both in British Columbia and across Canada.

Today we're joined by a special group of people, a dedicated group of professionals who specialize in helping B.C. children and youth who are dealing with mental health issues. Joining us today are Jane Mauchan, a skilled mental health clinician based in North Vancouver, and Jason Farquharson, who I'm told is not only an aboriginal support worker assisting children and families throughout the Peace region of our province but has also recently earned a place on the Karate B.C. team and a trip to the nationals, which are going to be held in Vancouver.

A new employee also joins us, Joseph Greene. Joe is a child and youth mental health team leader in the Vancouver Island region, and we have stolen Joe from Alberta. He joined us just a couple of months ago and says that he was drawn to this field in British Columbia specifically because of the work being done with aboriginal communities and the B.C. child and youth mental health plan, so it's good to have him here.

As well, we have Francine Douglas, an aboriginal outreach worker or, as Francine says, a liaison worker who works with members of the aboriginal community throughout the Fraser region. Barry Fulton joins us from the interior, where he is a highly experienced regional manager of child and youth mental health. Yvonne Reid joins us from Terrace, where she's doing great work as the regional child and youth mental health manager for the north.

Last but certainly not least, the ministry's senior mental health consultant, Gayle Read, joins us from here in Victoria. Gayle has worked tirelessly on the coordination and implementation of the child and youth mental health plan, which is now going into its fifth year of implementation.

I know that all members of the House respect and are very happy with the work that is being done by these professionals across the province and the assistance that they're providing to children and families dealing with mental health issues. I would ask that all of us please make them very, very welcome.

D. Routley: On behalf of the member for Nanaimo, I would like to add to the Minister of Education's welcome to the 45 students, teachers and parents of Mount Benson Elementary. The member for Nanaimo would like us all to help make them welcome.

J. Nuraney: It's once again my pride and a privilege to introduce to the House 30 grade 5 students from my favourite school, Maywood Community School in Burnaby. They are accompanied today by Miss Bradley, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. McCartney and Miss Naklicki. May the House please join me in welcoming these very bright students.

A. Dix: I want to introduce to the House Mr. Dalip Sandhu, who's the president of the Fraserview Rotary Club. Mr. Sandhu is here with friends and family from Vancouver, from the United States and from India. I'd ask everyone here to bid them welcome.

I have one more introduction to make — a dear friend from Burnaby, British Columbia, vice-president of the Hospital Employees Union. He works as a care aide and is a fighter for social justice in his own right — Mr. Boni Barcia.

R. Cantelon: Visiting us today in the precinct is my constituency assistant Karen Grey, her daughter Emily and her son Sam, and also her mother and father Jan Creighton and Doc Creighton, who, Mr. Speaker, are from your constituency. Let's all make them feel very welcome.

G. Gentner: It's a great deal of pleasure to introduce to the House today members of my CUPE Local 454 and dear friends of mine, president Darryl Robison, Lori Whitlum, Lisa Randazzo, Samuel Holmes, Todd Selig and James Hubert. Could the House please give them a warm welcome.

Hon. L. Reid: I have the very great pleasure today of welcoming to this place children from the Richmond

Jewish Day School in my riding. They're accompanied by their teacher Ms. Sachar, and I would ask the House to please make them very welcome.

D. Routley: I would like to welcome two members of CUPE Local 606 to the precinct. Ayn Cargill from Duncan is an associate of mine who I worked with in the school district, and Marlene Crozier, the president at Local 606, is retiring this year. She's been a mentor to many people in the school system and myself in particular. I've benefited greatly from her experience, and I want to thank her for her years of dedicated service to public education in British Columbia. Can the House help me thank her for that.

Hon. J. van Dongen: Visiting the Legislature today are 23 fourth-year political science students from Western Washington University. With them is their professor, Dr. Butch Kamena, who teaches a Canadian government class at the university.

Western Washington U is located in Bellingham and is considered one of the best regional public universities in the northwest. They just recently completed Canada Week, where they gave the students a chance to learn all about Canada and their Canadian friends. I ask the House to please make all of the students and their professor very welcome.

R. Fleming: In the gallery with us I would like to introduce a friend of mine and a special guest here today, Ms. Sandra Giesbrecht, who is a tireless advocate for public health care in our community and works in that sector. Will the House please join me in making her feel welcome.

R. Fleming presented a bill intituled Private Post-Secondary Accountability and Student Protection Act, 2007.

R. Fleming: It's my honour to present the Private Post-Secondary Accountability and Student Protection Act today. This bill will provide for greater protection for students who attend or plan to attend private career training colleges in British Columbia. The bill amends the Private Career Training Institutions Act to strengthen the authority's governing body, making it more responsive to the needs of students and providing balanced and strengthened oversight of the industry.

It mandates the PCTIA to investigate when students have complaints about private career-training institutions, and it restores financial protection for students who receive career training from institutions that falsely represent themselves and their services.

This bill also makes amendments to the Degree Authorization Act. It requires the Degree Quality Assessment Board to review each application for degree-granting status by a private college and to make a recommendation to the minister. Under this bill, the minister cannot grant such status before receiving this recommendation from the board.

The bill also mandates the board to review all cases where institutions wish to use the word "university" in referring to their educational programs. Our province has received growing international scrutiny from countries such as India, China and South Korea for putting at risk the financial protections of international students who pay to live and study here.

It is time to provide protection — real protection — for students enrolled in private post-secondary education in British Columbia. It is time to restore public confidence in B.C.'s private college system. We cannot allow incidents like Kingston College to leave students penniless and with no recourse in our province.

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

Bill M217, Private Post-Secondary Accountability and Student Protection Act, 2007, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

H. Bloy: Hon. Speaker, I rise today in the House to tell you about the Great Salmon Send-Off taking place this Saturday at Stoney Creek community school in Burnaby, in my riding of Burquitlam. The Great Salmon Send-Off has been a tremendous success since 1990. Now thousands of participants come to see the displays, enjoy refreshments and experience the thrill of releasing thousands of salmon back into a natural stream.

This is a great educational event for children, who learn about the journey a salmon takes. After release the fish lives in Stoney Creek for a short while before swimming down the Fraser River and eventually thousands of miles into the Pacific Ocean, where they'll grow to adulthood and return to Stoney Creek to spawn.

Streams in urban areas are susceptible to human impacts, such as destruction of streamside vegetation and water pollution from such items as household cleaners and fertilizers.

I would like to thank some individuals for making this event happen every year: Jennifer Atchison; Christine Leston; Principal Joanne Shutek; Jocelyn Sing,

the community school coordinator; and many other organizations and groups, including BCIT, Burnaby Mountain Secondary School, Burnaby Now, the Burnaby school board, urban salmon habitat, the city of Burnaby, Sapperton Fish and Game Club, and Terasen Gas.

This event will help keep Stoney Creek the most productive salmon-bearing tributary of the Brunette River. This Saturday I would like to invite you and all of Burnaby and the lower mainland to join the Minister of Environment and myself at the Great Salmon Send-Off at Stoney Creek.

B. Ralston: I rise today to recognize the Harmony Festival scheduled for Sunday, May 13, at Swangard Stadium, Central Park, in the city of Burnaby, hosted by Tzu Chi Foundation Canada.

Harmony Festival is a three-part festival celebrating Buddha's birthday, Mother's Day and Tzu Chi Day. Five lower mainland mayors will simultaneously proclaim the day Tzu Chi Day.

The recognition and celebration of Buddha's birthday will be the first such large-scale birthday ceremony in Canada. A simple but solemn flower presentation will take place outdoors at the stadium.

Tzu Chi celebrates Mother's Day, as do all of us, as an important occasion for us to express our profound gratitude for the unconditional love of our mothers. Tzu Chi Day celebrates the commitments of its members to achieve harmony in the heart, harmony with communities and harmony with the Earth by serving our communities with gratitude, respect and love.

Tzu Chi in the Chinese language means compassion and relief, and implies an action orientation. Tzu Chi was founded in Hualien, Taiwan, in 1966 by Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun.

There are at present ten million Tzu Chi members around the world. Tzu Chi focuses its work on international disaster relief and has included donations of food, clothing and other aid, assisting more than three million victims. Tzu Chi has also helped in post-disaster relief by building 102 schools in six countries.

Here in Canada, under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Gary Ho of Tzu Chi Canada, the organization has grown, with over 9,000 members across the country. The organization's objectives focus on charity, medicine, education, humanitarian relief, bone marrow donation, environmental protection and community volunteer services. Tzu Chi volunteers are active in the lower mainland communities of British Columbia.

Everyone is invited to participate in the Harmony Festival this Sunday in Burnaby.

D. Hayer: Health care in Surrey will soon be dramatically improved as the new 148,000-square-foot out-patient hospital in Green Timbers takes another step closer to reality.

Construction on this great new facility is to begin soon, with its first patient admitted in 2010. This is a direct result of a $151 million investment by our government into health care in Surrey.

This state-of-the-art out-patient hospital will drastically reduce congestion at Surrey Memorial Hospital. That hospital now handles 134,000 out-patient visits and performs close to 95,000 out-patient diagnostic procedures each year. Those numbers are expected to grow by almost 60 percent by 2020, so construction of this new out-patient hospital is both timely and significant in the delivery of health care in Surrey.

Some of the other good news on the health care front in the Surrey community includes a new $4.8 million minor treatment centre at Surrey Memorial Hospital to relieve ER congestion, the opening up of 20 sub-acute beds to care for patients prepared to return home or move into residential care, ten new hospice beds, 18 additional acute care geriatric beds, a planned state-of-the-art emergency centre and urgent care facility, tripling of Surrey Memorial Hospital's emergency floor area, a new perinatal care facility at Surrey Memorial Hospital, the completion of 67 new acute care and critical care beds by the end of 2007, 12 new renal units added to Surrey Memorial's services by 2009 and 250 new residential care beds by the end of 2008.

These investments in health care options are incredible, and they are the direct result of our government's efforts since 2001 to improve the quality of life and care in Surrey.

S. Simpson: I'm happy today to rise to acknowledge Drinking Water Week, a time when we recognize one of the most critical and essential resources that we have. Without water to drink and air to breathe, whatever else we may possess is pretty much moot.

In British Columbia we have a relative abundance of clean, quality drinking water when compared to many places in the world. However, it would be a grave error for us to become complacent about our situation or smug about the future of water in our province.

Scientists are telling us today that one of the negative impacts of climate change we can expect is the availability and quality of our water. These warnings come from scientists in our own province and from around the world. The international Panel on Climate Change states in their report: "Warming in western mountains is projected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding and reduced summer flows, exacerbating competition for overallocated water resources."

One of the concerns that we need to pay particular attention to is the state of our glacier system. We are seeing our glaciers across the province at their lowest points in thousands of years. The potential for droughts is growing, and the risk of toxicity is greater than ever before.

As University of Victoria chair of geography Prof. Dan Smith said recently in the media: "At some point in time, we are going to reach a critical threshold where there isn't enough water in our rivers. It may not happen for a long time, but it will happen."

Those of us who live in Greater Vancouver have had a longstanding smugness that when we turn on the tap, the water will flow. That was shattered during last year's storms when over a quarter million people faced a boil-water advisory. While this situation may not be that uncommon for many in our province, for Vancouverites it was a wake-up call.

These impacts are not one-off events. The science tells us that the effects of climate change will make this a more common occurrence. We face a growing challenge as legislators to ensure necessary regulations and resources are in place to protect the future of water in our province as a public resource.

As the stewards of British Columbia's water, we need to put that responsibility at the forefront of our agenda and priorities.

R. Hawes: With the looming threat of flooding throughout regions of the province, governments, companies and individual British Columbians have stepped up to meet the challenges that might come. They've moved quickly to identify and complete 87 projects costing $33 million that could be done immediately to mitigate flood risk.

Yet with the snowpack levels at near-record highs, people are concerned about what to do in the event the worst happens. They're aware that transportation links could be cut, power and water supply disrupted and that evacuation could be necessary.

Just think of the logistical challenges. Where would people be housed? How would they be fed? What about animals? Where would they go? How would dairy cows be milked, and where?

All of the possible scenarios are being covered by an army of dedicated volunteers in every community. Very few people will ever truly know how many hours of meticulous planning have gone into ensuring that every conceivable contingency has been covered. Behind the scenes, emergency preparedness teams made up of local government staff, police, fire and emergency social service personnel, service club volunteers, church groups and thousands of concerned citizens are working tirelessly to ensure that people, pets and livestock are safe in the event of flood.

They will be deployed at the first sign that flooding is imminent. It's their efforts that will ensure our safety, and they are unsung heroes. Please join me in saluting these outstanding people, for they truly represent the spirit of British Columbia.

D. Cubberley: This morning I woke up depressingly early to the incessant chirping of birds. But instead of firing up the computer as I often do, I crossed another threshold, stepped outside and went for a walk with no other purpose than to get myself moving — a step in the right direction as this is Move for Health Day, and because much of this session I haven't moved anything except paper and my mouth.

After my walk, I felt a residual buzz from the energy expended, which reminded me how easy it is to transport ourselves to a better frame of mind. As it happens, the reason for this sense of well-being is that exercise sends a flood of endorphins to the brain. Endorphins are opium-like substances that impart a sort of natural high, if you will, to anyone willing to put one foot in front of another. That's why exercise is mildly addictive and why we should let ourselves get hooked. It's fun, it's legal, and the authorities will never visit your home.

Seriously, Mr. Speaker, beyond the endorphin rush lie other benefits. If we move regularly and raise our heart rate for a sustained period, we get fit, which not only imparts a high but actually proofs us against disease.

Fitness has prevalence over all causes of mortality. Exercise regularly, and the likelihood of getting any of the most common diseases decreases. Even modest investments in movement — say, 30 to 60 minutes a day of brisk walking five days a week — will put us on the road to better health. Stay with it, and on average we're going to add six to nine years to our life span.

It's said that the human body was made for movement and that it's the only machine that wears out through lack of use. We have largely engineered use out of our daily lives. It's high time we took the machine out of storage, and Move for Health Day is a great reminder. [Applause.]

C. Puchmayr: Yesterday a roadside vehicle inspection team pulled over a van carrying farmworkers. The van didn't have enough seatbelts, the floor was rusted, and the seats were welded to the sheet metal. This van was owned by the same contractor as the van that had the horrific accident on Highway 1 in March.

I'd like to ask the Minister of Transportation if he can explain how this vehicle passed inspection.

Hon. K. Falcon: I have to tell the member that I can't actually explain that at this point, because I haven't got the information. I will tell the member that we are in the midst of auditing the inspection facility that undertook that inspection. We've suspended their

ability to issue decals until such time as we complete the audit, to ensure that if there is anything untoward going on, it doesn't continue. When I have that information, I would be happy to share it with the member opposite.

C. Puchmayr: The opposition has now learned that this government has moved school bus inspectors and moved them on to the highways to do farm vehicle inspections. These are duties that are normally done by school bus inspectors who are no longer inspecting school buses that move our children.

Can the Minister of Transportation explain how putting children at risk is any kind of way to deal with this crisis?

Hon. K. Falcon: I think that question highlights just perfectly how it's so important to have the facts before you make those kinds of outrageous allegations. The fact of the matter is that we have about 2,500 licensed school buses in the province. Over the past year we've inspected almost 1,800 of those buses, and those inspections continue.

The member should know this. The way inspections work is that you actually focus on compliance. When you have a sector like the school buses, which actually has a very high rate of compliance, you don't focus your attention on the people that are doing a real good job. You focus on the bad operators. That's exactly what we're doing with the people transporting farmworkers.

D. Chudnovsky: What was it that Macbeth said? Filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing. Is this government not capable of doing inspections on school buses and farm vehicles at the same time?

Hon. K. Falcon: Apparently, that member didn't listen to my last answer. We have inspected almost 1,800 school buses over the last year. We continue to regularly inspect, but they have a very good compliance rate. We are focusing attention…. That's how the commercial vehicle inspectors operate. The member should know this, learn a thing or two. They actually focus their attention on sectors that are problematic. That's the best use of resources and the men and women that we have doing these inspections, and we'll continue to operate in that manner.

D. Chudnovsky: Once again this minister figures that if he just raises his voice, he can get away with not answering the questions.

The question is clear that yesterday inspectors were taken off the task of school bus inspection and put on farmworker vehicle inspection. The question is absolutely clear. Is the government not capable of doing both, and how often are inspectors taken off school bus inspection and put on farmworker inspection?

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm going to try to explain again to the member how the commercial vehicle inspection process works. What happens is we have continual investigations, as we do with school buses. As I say, of the 2,500 licensed school buses in the province of British Columbia, over the past year we've inspected almost 1,800. That's a pretty aggressive and successful rate of inspections.

The fact of the matter is that they actually have a very good compliance record. The whole point of vehicle inspections is that you want to have the inspectors focusing their attention on areas and sectors that have compliance problems. That's why we're focusing attention on the transportation of farmworkers. There are compliance problems. It's not an either/or, Mr. Speaker, and the member needs to know that before making those kind of crazy questions.

R. Chouhan: Let's talk about farmworkers. The vehicle carrying farmworkers that was pulled over yesterday for a roadside spot check had the floor rusting through and seats welded to sheet metal, and many of the seatbelts were not functioning. This very van was inspected only two weeks ago and apparently passed with flying colours. Meanwhile, who knows how many other vans transporting farmworkers are unsafe, even though they passed inspection.

How can people have faith that the vehicles carrying farmworkers are safe if vans with the floor rusting through are passing inspections? Can the minister tell us how many of these vans were inspected in the last two months?

Hon. K. Falcon: The member is right to be outraged at the fact that a vehicle in that kind of condition was transporting workers. I share the outrage, quite frankly. That's why we're doing the inspections — to catch bad operators like this and make sure we yank their vehicles off the highway.

I do want the member to know this, and I want the member to pay attention to this, because I think it's actually pretty important. That particular operator — we suspended that operator's ability to operate any commercial vehicles in British Columbia until such time as they improve their record.

In addition to that, we have suspended the designated inspection facility which approved that particular vehicle until such time as we complete the audit and find out what actually happened there. Then I'll have more information, and I'll release that publicly once we gather that information.

R. Chouhan: That suspension only happened after this incident. One of the 29 recommendations made by farmworkers on March 15 was to launch an immediate

review of the vehicles inspection system, but the minister has so far ignored that recommendation.

Given what we learned yesterday, will the minister review the licensing of all vehicles used to transport farmworkers?

Hon. K. Falcon: The short answer is that we will do anything or whatever it takes to ensure that people who transport farmworkers are going to do so in a safe manner. That's exactly what we're going to do.

The fact of the matter, as the member knows, is that these particular vehicles are captured under the National Safety Code. They are required to be inspected semi-annually. A problem was identified in that sector, and we've now focused commercial vehicle inspectors on that sector. We will continue to focus attention on that sector until such time as we see the compliance level get to the level that gives British Columbians and farmworkers confidence that they're being transported safely.

A. Dix: My question is to the Minister of Health. Yesterday 168 workers at Nanaimo Seniors Village were laid off, were fired, with no notice. This same group of workers, since this government passed Bill 29, has been fired and hired, fired and hired, and yesterday fired again, causing disruption in the lives of seniors and hardship to those hard-working workers.

Will the minister finally acknowledge the chaos his government has caused in this sector by Bill 29?

Hon. G. Abbott: The facility the member references is a privately owned and privately operated facility. He should know that if there are labour relations issues related to this matter, the Labour Relations Board is the appropriate forum in which to raise those labour relations issues. I'm sure that the aggrieved members involved are taking all of the opportunities they have to air these matters at the Labour Relations Board.

Our concern as the Ministry of Health is to ensure that all of those who are resident there, whether supported by government or not, receive the care they need.

A. Dix: Well, the minister rigs the game and then talks about playing by the rules. Hired and fired five times — a group of workers at the same facility. It is outrageous. The owners of that facility — $11,000 to the B.C. Liberal Party. No one who works at that facility could possibly imagine making that kind of political contribution or currying that much favour with this government.

My question to the minister is this. These layoffs are a direct result of his government's policies. Will he stand up today and intervene to protect these workers' jobs?

Hon. G. Abbott: This facility is a privately owned and privately operated facility. It is not owned by the Vancouver Island Health Authority. It is not operated by the Vancouver Island Health Authority. Its employees are not employees of the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

The member wants to conduct labour relations in this chamber. The member knows full well that the Labour Relations Board is the appropriate venue…

Hon. G. Abbott: …for labour relations issues to be raised and adjudicated. It is not a matter for this assembly to conclude whether the workers have a legitimate grievance or not. It is to the Labour Relations Board, and I expect fully that the members involved will avail themselves of that opportunity to air those grievances with the Labour Relations Board.

R. Fleming: In 2003 Minister of Transportation Judith Reid conducted a fairness evaluation to take away heat from the privatization deal at B.C. Rail. The ministry's press release, shortly after, concluded: "All proponents had access to the same information at the same time, ensuring no proponent gained an unfair advantage."

We know that this is not true. Some bidders acquired information on their competitors. Police found confidential bid documents at the office of Pilothouse lobbyists; other bid documents were found in the homes of senior B.C. Liberal political aides.

Do the government and its Attorney General still stand by this report's conclusion?

Hon. W. Oppal: I don't know how many times I have to say this. These are all matters that are arising out of the Supreme Court trial.

Hon. W. Oppal: These are matters that are arising out of a Supreme Court trial that's….

Hon. W. Oppal: These are matters that arise out of the Supreme Court trial. These allegations may or may not be accurate. It will be totally irresponsible for me or for any other member of this House to comment on those allegations.

R. Fleming: Well, it's same old, same old. The 2003 report says the sale of B.C. Rail was fine, but the fairness adviser had no idea at the time that bid documents were housed in lobbyists' offices or being passed about.

Will the Attorney General admit the fairness report is now worthless, and will he take seriously information that B.C. Rail bidding was tainted and hopelessly compromised? Will he finally do right by the public interest by ordering a full public inquiry?

Hon. W. Oppal: I would have thought the member would know that we don't hold inquiries while there are trials going on.

Let's assume for a minute that we hold an inquiry. Fundamental rule number one: who will testify at the inquiry? The same witnesses who are testifying at trial? It is such a ridiculous question. The answer is obvious. We don't hold inquiries while there are trials going on relating to the same issues.

J. Kwan: "We need answers, and we need them right away." Those were the words of Judge Bennett, who is presiding over the Basi-Virk hearings. Madam Justice Bennett is referring to all documents, including notes, regarding the involvement of the then Solicitor General in this investigation.

Will the Attorney General fully cooperate and commit to releasing those documents to the courts today?

Hon. W. Oppal: I have news for the hon. member. The Attorney General doesn't have the documents. You see, in this case….

Hon. W. Oppal: What has happened here is that there is a special prosecutor appointed. If a special prosecutor is appointed — listen carefully — the Attorney General doesn't get involved. That's pretty fundamental.

The Attorney General doesn't get involved, so as to remove any suggestion of any political interference. In this case there's a special prosecutor. His name is Bill Berardino, QC. He's got conduct of the trial for the prosecution. If the judge has ordered Mr. Berardino to produce documents, I expect he will produce them. I don't have the documents.

J. Kwan: In court today, the Crown advised the judge that they would request the government to provide all documents, including notes, regarding the involvement of the then Solicitor General in this investigation.

The Premier personally pledged that the government would fully cooperate in this investigation. Will the Attorney General comply with the Crown's request and release all the documents regarding the then Attorney General's involvement in this investigation?

Hon. W. Oppal: I repeat: the Crown, who has conduct of the trial, is a special prosecutor. I assume that he'll cooperate.

Last night I had dinner with a couple of friends of mine — a judge and a couple of defence lawyers. They said….

Hon. W. Oppal: They said: "Doesn't anybody on that other side understand the system?" They've got a couple of….

Hon. W. Oppal: We do not politically interfere with the conduct of the trial.

B. Ralston: On April 19 the Minister of Finance advised the Legislature, when speaking of the investigation into the leaked Brian Kieran e-mail conducted by KPMG: "This firm has been asked to look at all of the broad implications of this e-mail."

My question to the minister is this. Does KPMG have access to the entire e-mail exchange in order that the broad implications the minister speaks of can be thoroughly considered?

Hon. C. Taylor: The situation being referred to, of course, was handled by the Premier and the Deputy Minister to the Premier. The instructions given to KPMG were to look at all the implications of the e-mail.

B. Ralston: Will the minister confirm, then, that KPMG has access not only to that e-mail thread but to

all similar ones which discuss the same topic that are in the control of Pilothouse?

Hon. C. Taylor: Once again, the review was initiated by the Deputy Minister to the Premier. It is being done by an independent company — KPMG. They've been asked to look at all of the implications of the e-mail. When that report comes back, all of that information will be available to everyone.

J. Horgan: Two weeks ago I wrote the Attorney General — the minister responsible for the B.C. Utilities Commission — asking if he would follow Washington State's lead and do an investigation into gas prices in British Columbia.

Since that time, prices in Toronto have flattened out at $1.04 a litre, prices in the lower mainland at $1.27 a litre. My question: in light of the Premier of Ontario's suggestion today that they will launch a review in Ontario, will the Attorney General do the right thing, stand up for consumers in this province and launch a review into gas prices in British Columbia?

Hon. R. Thorpe: Members on both sides of the House are very concerned about rising fuel prices in British Columbia, but only the NDP believe that regulation and red tape are the answers for consumers. It was NDP red tape that strangled small business and business in British Columbia in the '90s. Those in the world….

Hon. R. Thorpe: All of us in this House know that gasoline prices are the result of world crude costs, refinery capacity, gasoline supplies and local competition. There is absolutely no evidence that regulating prices is going to lower prices for consumers.

J. Horgan: Well, the minister's recitation of the Canadian petroleum producers' briefing note is outstanding. But he forgot to include gas distribution problems in Nigeria and unrest in the Middle East. He can add those to his litany of rationales.

J. Horgan: …has responsibility for the B.C. Utilities Commission. Will he go to the chair of the Utilities Commission and direct him to investigate price gouging in British Columbia, and will he do it today?

Hon. R. Thorpe: You know, back in 1996 there actually was a report prepared…

Hon. R. Thorpe: …called the British Columbia Inquiry into Gasoline Prices. What was the conclusion of the government of that time? "We opt for market forces."

But then in 1999 there was another report done, and that was a report on gasoline prices in British Columbia. What did it conclude, Mr. Speaker? It concluded that they opted for market forces with pricing.

Now, who were the senior aides to Premiers at that time? Yes, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway and the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin. What has changed today?

M. Farnworth: What's changed is the price. What's changed is the gouging of consumers. That's what's changed since the '90s, hon. Speaker. That's what's changed.

M. Farnworth: What's also changed is that even their Liberal cousins in Ontario recognize there's a problem and want to know why consumers are being gouged and paying higher prices.

This government hides behind "it's before the courts" on too many issues. Well, they don't hide behind the court of public opinion on this one. When will this government do the right thing, do what the public of this province wants and hold an inquiry into why the public is being gouged on gas prices?

Hon. R. Thorpe: Just in case the member over there gets carried away, I do have some nitroglycerin here for him. He's getting himself wound up over there.

We all know that it's a global industry. But you know, refinery capacity is very, very important. What happened in British Columbia in the '90s? Four refineries closed in British Columbia.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Now I think I hear the NDP arguing and supporting refinery capacity increases in British Columbia. I think now I hear the NDP calling for more oil and gas exploration in British Columbia.

Why doesn't the NDP stand up there and tell British Columbians what they think of more exploration in British Columbia for oil and gas? Are you for it, or are you against it?

M. Karagianis: I thought I heard the minister evoke my name, so I thought I better get up and ask a question.

Back in February the Minister of Finance agreed to extend the homeowner grant program to low-income homeowners whose residence appraised in at more than $950,000 and that that would be effective in this tax year. Well, as the….

As the property tax deadline ticks closer and closer, after repeated calls to the homeowner grant office, I've discovered that they have still not determined what kind of criteria they are going to use to determine who qualifies for these. In fact, the criteria will not be established for who qualifies for a low income until June 15, less than two weeks before property taxes are due.

My question is to the Minister of Finance: how can she allow this process to drag on, leaving citizens — most of them low-income seniors — anxious and uncertain about what they are going to pay in the way of property taxes? And they won't know until mere days before those property taxes are due.

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes. In fact, it was a very important part of this budget. We were looking at ways that we could help low-income seniors with their housing costs. As I recall, the opposition did not support that. However, we do. And what we said was that the supplement would be available to low-income seniors.

We are working through the process of how we will do that. We have to ensure that it matches. The model, frankly, that we're looking at is…. Those who qualify for the MSP premium support is probably the same model that we can use.

The first year through this will take some time. We are sending information around and preparing documents that will be available not just on the Web but to every person that we feel might be in this situation, to make sure that they know how….

In this first year they will have to go through the process of showing where they qualify, and we will get the money to them. The supplement will be available to low-income seniors this year.

Hon. R. Coleman: I have the honour to present the 2006 report of the Forest Appeals Commission.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call Committee of Supply. For the information of members, in this chamber we will continue with the estimates of the Ministry of Health and in Committee A the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts.

Hon. G. Abbott: I should complete the answer which I had launched just prior to lunch but had not completed, in respect of Ridge Meadows Hospital and the work that is being undertaken there. The member asked about cost escalation, and previous to the break I had discussed the substantial increase that had occurred in construction costs since 2002 in the province.

In terms of the increased cost, a portion of the increased cost for the facility is related to an increase in project scope. The Ridge Meadows Hospital emergency and ambulatory care project has expanded from 33,000 square feet to 45,000 square feet, and as one might expect, that has produced a substantial increase in cost.

As well, the municipal requirements and engineering analysis for electrical and mechanical systems and so on have added cost to the project. But those, particularly the project scope increase and the escalation that all projects in the province have faced in respect to construction costs, account for the increase in the cost of this Fraser Health facility.

I'm sure the member will be, like us, just as concerned about escalation of construction costs. That's something that every project faces. I suspect the member — he can advise me if he has a different view —

would be very pleased about the increased scope of the project, because it does make for a stronger and better Ridge Meadows Hospital emergency and ambulatory care centre.

With that, I should also note that the opposition Health critic asked earlier in these estimates what was involved in own-source revenues. The principal components of own-source revenue would be investment income, co-payment and room differential, non-resident fees, general fees and licences. Those are the principal areas in which own-source revenues are obtained by health authorities.

C. Wyse: I appreciate the answer that the minister was giving me this morning when, unfortunately, I had to leave before he was able to complete it all. I will pick up with his response. For the minister: I have some questions around the Kamloops dispatch regional centre, so that he is advised.

I'm aware that the Ministry of Health has a report called the Fitch report that they received in 2005, in which the examination is being made among the three dispatch centres here in British Columbia. We are aware that Kamloops dispatch centre, which services three-quarters of the province with a quarter of its population, did suffer an incident on April 27 that compromised its ability to provide services to the area.

Now, the information that I have is that the ambulance service and Ministry of Health have once more decided to ignore the problems and consequences of not having a backup dispatch system. From what I understand, the Kamloops dispatch centre is to be moved back to its former location without any significant improvements in equipment or infrastructure.

The Fitch report clearly points out difficulties with the equipment in the Kamloops dispatch station. Again, the information I have been provided with is that this technology is so antiquated in the Kamloops dispatch centre that an employee had to search their basement to find replacement parts for the primary radio system. If the employee had not found the required part, the entire dispatch radio system would have been rendered inoperative.

My question to the minister is: why will the Minister of Health not take advantage of the anticipated move and immediately secure modern, reliable and up-to-date equipment?

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question. When the unfortunate events occurred at the B.C. Ambulance Kamloops dispatch centre and we had a serious sewage backup into the building, the building was appropriately evacuated and moved on a temporary basis into the provincial emergency program building adjacent to the dispatch centre in Kamloops.

We have now moved the dispatch centre into a longer-term but nevertheless temporary facility which is part of the B.C. Ambulance Service building in Kamloops. We did that so that we could undertake improvements to the permanent dispatch centre at a time when there are not personnel in the building. Once those improvements are completed, there will be an orderly transfer back to the permanent dispatch centre, just as there was an orderly move from the PEP centre over to the temporary accommodations which currently house the dispatch centre.

The member made a number of, I think, incorrect and inappropriate claims about the technology being antiquated, about insufficient investment and that sort of thing, as I recall the member's words. I don't know on what basis he would form that conclusion. The staff of the B.C. Ambulance Service certainly don't see this as an antiquated or ineffective system.

Despite the very difficult events around the moving out of the dispatch centre in response to the environmental emergency that occurred, there was not, to our knowledge, a single dropped call, a single inconvenience or a compromising of patient care. I think all of the staff did a remarkable job in managing an extraordinarily difficult situation. To me that speaks to both the technology being capable of doing the job and, even more powerfully, also to the contingency plans which B.C. Ambulance Service had in place to deal with emergency situations just like that.

I'd like the member to clarify this for me, Madam Chair, because I keep getting this impression from the comments he makes on radio news programs and that sort of thing. I want him to correct me if I'm wrong here. I get the sense from him that he wants the B.C. Ambulance Service to create a second full dispatch centre with technology and everything in another building, precisely duplicating what is in our original building. But he wants us to duplicate that in another location so if something happens to the first building, we simply get up and move over to the second one.

If that's what the member is saying around having a full backup, then I want to hear it. I also want to hear from him, at the same time, what he thinks it would cost to do that.

C. Wyse: Once more back to you, with all due respect. Maybe in two years I may be sitting over there and be in a position to answer the questions. My understanding is that this is my turn to get the information.

With all due respect, I want to return to the question that I do not have an answer to yet, and that deals with information contained also in the Fitch report that deals with the backup systems for the dispatch stations. It is a report that had been tabled in November 2005. It points out that there are serious questions about the equipment, particularly with Kamloops dispatch station. I gave a story here that I've been given with regards to the replacement.

The question once more that I have back to the minister: will his ministry, along with the B.C. Ambulance Service, be taking an opportunity at this time, as they relocate back into the situation in the Kamloops dispatch station, to upgrade the dispatch centre, including the radio system and other related matters? A very simple question.

Hon. G. Abbott: I've already said we are upgrading the dispatch station. We're doing that as a part of the work that is being undertaken while we are in temporary quarters for BCAS in Kamloops. Further work — the report the member references — is being undertaken on both the technology side and the human resource side of that report. It's moving ahead appropriately.

I continue to get the eerie feeling that the scenario outlined is actually the one the member believes: that we should create a duplicate dispatch centre in Kamloops that will sit empty but await some moment in the future when it might be required. Again, if I'm wrong, I want the member to disabuse me of that.

C. Wyse: The Fitch report provides a series of possible options for addressing the total call-out for the three dispatch stations that exist, which cover all of British Columbia. I am simply asking of the minister what his ministry's plans are for dealing with the identified difficulties that exist in the dispatch for all of British Columbia.

Once more: will the minister fund whatever emergency backup system is determined in the Fitch report by his ministry for Vancouver, Kamloops and Victoria?

Hon. G. Abbott: The member again asks the question, "What are you doing with the report? What are you doing about technology," and so on. Again, entirely appropriately, the B.C. Ambulance Service is following through on the report that was prepared in relation to both human resources and technology.

I'll just note here that the major strategy is in progress. It's called the NetCAD project, with a projected go-live date of January 2008 and a targeted budget of $2.1 million for '07-08. There are additional key technologies required to support effective dispatch decision-making. These include items such as global positioning systems, automatic vehicle locating and wireless mobile data terminals for the ambulances in high-volume urban centres.

An external consultant was retained to measure workload and related staffing levels in each dispatch centre. Upon receiving that report, BCAS management implemented an accelerated hiring and training cycle in an effort to recover from the historical effects of attrition and begin moving towards an industry standard staffing model. Net increases have occurred in the Kamloops and Victoria centres that partially addressed their needs.

We are moving forward with the changes, which I gather that the member was asking for, but it's unfortunate that he does appear to continue to have the notion that we should duplicate a facility which doesn't need to be duplicated. It would be rather like us saying: "There's a possibility that the power will go out in Vancouver General Hospital. Hence we should have, sitting empty in some other corner of Vancouver, another hospital just like Vancouver General Hospital ready to go."

I mean, that's just not the way it works, and I wish sometimes the members opposite — notwithstanding the fact that they have some delusions about forming government in two years — would give the professionals in these organizations some credit for having some idea of what they were doing. To advance the notion that somehow we have to duplicate these fundamental resources seems to me to be a preposterous one and quite an inappropriate use of public funds.

A. Dix: I would like to introduce in the gallery today several representatives of CUPE Local 873: John Strohmaier, president; Bronwyn Barter, vice-president; David Deines, vice-president; and William "B.J." Chute, director of public education. I ask everyone in the House to wish them a hearty welcome.

C. Trevena: I've got a couple of questions about ambulance coverage. When I was last asking the minister questions, he wondered if I had any solutions. I might have some solutions here.

The ambulance coverage in the north Island, where it's been volunteer ambulance coverage…. They're going down to having no full-time ambulance staff in the north Island — I'm talking north of Campbell River — from this summer onwards. I would like to know from the minister what he would suggest can be done to make sure that there is adequate coverage for the whole communities of the north Island this summer.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member can follow up on questions. I'm not sure exactly what she means when she says that we don't have full-time paramedics in the north end of the Island.

Both Port Hardy and Port McNeill are designated as rural ambulance stations. As a consequence, they have paramedics on staff 24-7. They are on call at $10 per hour except at those times when they are on call, at which they go to the other rate. There's full 24-7 coverage in both of those stations.

We're not aware of any times at which the coverage is not full and, in short, when it's been out of service. We're not aware of any circumstances like that. The member can explain what she means by that. We just don't understand what she means by that.

Further, the member should know that in fact in the case of Port Hardy, we have had over a 19-percent improvement in response time from '04-05 to '05-06 and for Port McNeill, an almost 18-percent improvement in response time from '04-05 to '05-06.

The member may want to explain what exactly she's talking about, because it sounds to me like the service is very good.

C. Trevena: I would be very happy to explain what I mean to the minister. What I mean is that the

ambulance service in the north Island, in the various locations — be it Alert Bay, Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Port Alice or Zeballos — is running on volunteers. They're running on people who are not doing this as a full-time job.

That is the situation. The one full-time paid staff who is still operating out of Port Hardy has submitted a resignation, which leaves the whole of the north Island relying on volunteers who are juggling what they're doing for the ambulance service, to which they are committed, with other parts of life. Whether they are working as loggers or in the aquaculture industry or wherever else, it's a matter of trying to make sure that their other life balances with the ambulance service.

The minister may be able to quote statistics on good response times, and that's very heartening for the people of the north Island. But there have been many times when one ambulance station is covering for another, where McNeill is covering for Hardy or Hardy is covering for Zeballos, or Alert Bay is trying to deal because there's nobody on Sointula.

So it's trying to make sure that we do actually have coverage across the north Island. This is where I would hope that the minister can possibly give some creative solutions for the people of the north Island, so that they know there will be continued good coverage for them.

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll look forward to hearing the creative solution that the member apparently has but I don't think has offered up yet. I'll look forward to that in her response.

Just perhaps a bit of background for the member, so that she understands how these matters are constructed. The member says that the B.C. Ambulance Service is staffed by volunteers at the north end of the Island. That would be news, I think, to all of the paramedics up on the north end of the Island. They are not volunteers.

I think that the member is perhaps confusing volunteers with the period pre-2001 when in fact many of the paramedics did work on a volunteer basis not only on the north Island but right across the province. Many volunteer paramedics were not compensated for their time.

What we have now, for the member's edification, is an agreement whereby we have 24-7 coverage. Stations — such as Port McNeill and Port Hardy — that have a certain call volume over the course of the year are deemed rural stations. As a consequence, paramedics are on call at the station at $10 per hour. They are not volunteers. They are at the station on call on 12-hour shifts, at $10 an hour, awaiting those occasions when they are called into action, at which point there is a different full-time rate that kicks in.

The member, also, is probably not understanding the remote rate, which is $2 per hour. That has been in place since 2001. Members may say: "Well, that's not very much — $2 an hour." But it's $2 an hour to be on standby in community; they don't need to be in the station. They can be on standby while they are at their regular employment. While they're doing other things, they can be on standby at $2 an hour.

I know the member may want to disparage that; I'm sure she will. The fact of the matter is that $2 an hour compares really, really well to the zero dollars and zero cents an hour that was offered up during the ten years that the NDP was in power.

I'll look forward to hearing the member's comments and am still looking forward to hearing her creative and constructive solution to these matters.

C. Trevena: I think it's an issue of semantics. I describe the paramedics who are working very hard on behalf of our communities as volunteers, because they do have other jobs. The minister acknowledged that by saying that when they're not at the station, not on duty and are wearing their pagers, that they are maybe doing their regular employment.

I was also asking the minister for creative solutions, and clearly, he has none. Maybe he's too tired after six years in government and looking for an out.

I'd like to perhaps suggest to the minister that one of the issues that he can be looking at — and this is a very serious suggestion — is working with B.C. Ambulance Service to ensure that every effort is made to retain those people who are recruited. People want to join the Ambulance Service. They want to become paramedics. They really are enthusiastic about learning the skills, participating in their communities and making sure that people are looked after and are safe. I can't underestimate what people give up to do this. Unfortunately, for many people, particularly in remote communities, that is made much more difficult under the present structure whereby people who want to become paramedics have to pay high fees for their own training.

The call-out costs and other moneys that they receive when they are then working is not enough to recompense the fees. On top of this, there is the added hardship that many of the training courses are run at great distances away from their homes. So they have to stay away, and they have to commit to these courses for many weekends in sequence. People are having to, first, pay for their training courses knowing that they'll never recoup the cost by the pay they are getting as paramedics in the community. Secondly, they are then having to pay the extra costs of living away from home while they're doing their courses.

My creative solution that I would like the minister to consider is that the costs of the courses are either reduced or provided for free and that they are most certainly provided close to the paramedics' homes. I'd like to ask the minister to see whether he has any solutions on how we can work on this issue of recruitment and retention of paramedics.

Hon. G. Abbott: The issue of training, particularly training for those who are in rural and remote areas, is a very important one. The member may not have been a part of the discussion this morning that I had with the member for Cariboo South. We had a considerable

discussion about some of the regional initiatives which B.C. Ambulance Service has in Queen Charlotte Islands, in northern B.C. and elsewhere — Nakusp, another example, and the West Kootenays — to try to build some recruitment and retention capacity in areas of the province that have historically been challenging areas to find and retain paramedics.

Again, as we discussed this morning, this is not a new issue. This was an issue five years ago; it was an issue ten years ago; it was an issue 20 years ago. In fact, we have very much strengthened the opportunity to improve in this area with the implementation of rural and remote standby pay.

I know that the members may disagree with it, but I think what's happened since 2001 in that regard has been a big step forward. We see it in response times. We see it in stronger staffing in most stations. All of that's very good. We also recognize, though, that we continue to have challenges in respect of training. We'll continue to have challenges, because in a buoyant economy there are going to be a lot of competitors for labour, and we need to recognize that we need to support in different ways the opportunity for young or other paramedics to get their training. We recognize particularly the challenges of rural and remote areas in securing that training.

Among the initiatives we're aiming to undertake is to bring the training closer to the paramedic recruits. We're doing that in different corners of the province, trying to build that training capacity closer to home, because it is an important part of this.

We have also been working with CUPE around a bursary funding program of $3 million, which we will be utilizing to try to improve the number of young recruits, particularly young paramedic recruits, that we can support through a bursary fund and help them get through the training. I think this is generous, but it's also appropriate, because we do need to recruit young paramedics into the system and, hopefully, equip ourselves for the continuing growth in demand for these services.

Hon. L. Reid: I have the absolute pleasure of welcoming to the gallery today students from the Jewish Day School, in my riding. Mr. Sachar is their teacher, and they are joined by a group of very dedicated parents. We in this place appreciate the parents who give their time and effort to bring students to Victoria. This is your parliament. Thank you very much for coming.

C. Trevena: Just one last question. In light of what the minister has said and the efforts by B.C. Ambulance Service to ensure that paramedics are recruited and trained closer to home, I would like to have the assurance that when B.C. Ambulance Service is doing its training and its bursary allocation, but particularly its training, the minister will work with B.C. Ambulance to make sure it is happening in the north Island, not south of Campbell River as has been the case in the past.

Hon. G. Abbott: We'll take the member's constructive suggestion under advisement.

A. Dix: The minister clarified that the 43 additional ambulances he talked about in the media this morning were a combination of ambulance and support cars. Would he agree to provide for the opposition details of where those incremental ambulances are deployed in British Columbia, community by community, so that we can see where those ambulances are? Would that be a reasonable suggestion or request?

Hon. G. Abbott: The actual total number is 46, and I do have that detail here with me now. I can read this into the record if the member would like.

Victoria, Campbell River, Victoria, Victoria, Parksville, Victoria, Victoria, Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver, Sechelt, Surrey, UBC, Squamish, Chilliwack, Lions Bay, Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver, Whistler, Burnaby, Burnaby, Burnaby, Burnaby, three more Vancouvers, Salmon Arm, Kamloops, Revelstoke, Williams Lake, Kamloops, Cranbrook, Trail, Cranbrook, Prince George, Kamloops, Kamloops, Prince George, Prince George, Terrace, Fort St. John, northern B.C., northern B.C.

I want to ask the minister and his staff about their plans, in this fiscal year that we're debating, for the B.C. Ambulance Service.

In October the new executive officer, Mr. Doney, met with representatives of Ambulance Paramedics. He suggested the potential for layoffs, at least according to the Ambulance Paramedics, the potential transfer of some ambulance services to B.C. NurseLine, and the offloading of some ambulance services to the health authorities.

Can the minister enlighten the House as to what the plans are, what the vision is for cuts or — I won't frame it in such a political way — changes to the ambulance service of this type to deal with what everyone acknowledges is a significant increase in call-outs and call volume that the whole service is dealing with?

Did Mr. Doney in fact, in that meeting, suggest that thousands or tens of thousands of calls could be transferred to B.C. NurseLine? How would he imagine that could possibly happen, say, taking one example of someone picking up the phone and calling and seeking assistance…? How would a dispatch worker make the decision, when someone calls and asks for an ambulance, to have a discussion with them as to the role of B.C. NurseLine? How would all that happen, especially

Hon. G. Abbott: First of all, I want to begin by thanking the opposition Health critic for acknowledging that there have been no cuts here. I think it's entirely appropriate, as he framed it, that these are changes, not cuts, and I thank him for acknowledging that there have been no cuts.

That certainly is manifestly the case, given, as we talked about earlier today, the very, very substantial increase we had seen over time — from $176 million for the B.C. Ambulance Service to $283 million, I believe the figure was, for '07-08. So he's absolutely right. There have not been cuts, there have been changes, and I do appreciate him so frankly and boldly acknowledging that fact. I thank him for that.

In terms of the vision here, I think the member got some sense this morning, as we discussed the Emergency Health Services Commission bill, of what we're attempting to do in terms of the consolidation of those services. By having the services of B.C. Bedline, B.C. NurseLine and dispatch all drawn together, in fact, we can ensure that patients receive the appropriate kind of service that they need.

For example, we would reckon with calls to 911 that involve patients with very low acuity, very low care needs, that they are calling in those 10 percent or 11 percent of cases with issues that are really far more appropriately dealt with by advice from a registered nurse at B.C. NurseLine than they would be by having an ambulance dispatched to meet their needs.

The opposition Health critic is being remarkably pragmatic here today, so I'm even going to test his pragmatism a little bit more here. I'm sure he would want, just as I want and as B.C. Ambulance Service wants, to ensure that we devote all of the available resources of B.C. Ambulance Service and the hundreds of paramedics that serve the B.C. Ambulance Service, that we focus our energies on the patients that need that level of care.

If we can take 10 percent or 11 percent of that stream that would be better served in their care needs by a registered nurse at B.C. NurseLine, it frees up resources to ensure that those who need those resources get them most appropriately.

A. Dix: Well, let's explore this proposal — because of course it was suggested that there would be tens of thousands of calls moved off the manned B.C. Ambulance Service to the NurseLine.

The minister may want to explain how this happens, how this debate will happen between someone calling 911…. Hon. Minister, this debate will happen among someone making that call, the dispatcher and the various services. It seems to me that one of the things about the Ambulance Service is that you need it when you need it, and that the ambulance paramedics provide an extraordinary service to British Columbians.

Now I want to just put this in context, because the minister says: "We're not talking about cuts." Well, I'll list off the cuts, just so he knows. Full-time paramedics cut in 17 communities — Sooke, Port McNeill, Qualicum, Chemainus, Castlegar, Grand Forks, Invermere, Fernie, Ashcroft, Chase, Revelstoke, Winfield, Oliver, Osoyoos, Princeton, Merritt and Armstrong. Those are cuts. We could talk about other cuts.

The minister this morning, when I raised the issues raised by ambulance paramedics themselves, was dismissive. He implied that the only reason that ambulance paramedics are raising issues in this province is because of their collective bargaining. So the ambulance paramedics are subjected to the same dismissive attitude as every other group of workers in the health care system.

In fact, here's what Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. say. Here's what they say to the minister. And this isn't collective bargaining. I think that when the ambulance paramedics go out on a call, they're the ones dealing with injured people. When they're late for a call, they're the people that deal with the situation. Here's what their representatives, and they, say.

They say that British Columbia is going in the wrong direction. They say that the response-time target is getting worse. They say that ambulance paramedics are being asked to respond to more emergency calls with fewer resources. That's what they say, hon. Minister.

I think it's fair to say — and you know, the minister does this some of the time — that if I had to choose between the experience of ambulance paramedics themselves and the experience of the hon. Minister of Health, I would choose the ambulance paramedics every time, hon. Chair. When they talk about cuts, when they talk about having to do more with less, I think we should take what they say seriously because they're the ones who have to deal with people in need.

I want to ask the minister about these various proposals and, for example, in terms of the transfer work done by ambulance paramedics, whether there are plans at this time to privatize any of the work currently done by ambulance paramedics.

Hon. G. Abbott: The member said many things there, and I'll try to respond to a few of them. He mentioned, for example, tens of thousands of calls that would be diverted off to B.C. NurseLine. You know, when you look at 10 percent or 11 percent of 300,000 calls, that's certainly like 30,000 calls. Is the member saying that he would rather, where someone needs some advice on chronic disease management, that they should utilize an ambulance and go to the emergency room rather than benefiting from the knowledge and experience of a registered nurse at B.C. NurseLine?

I would think that the hon. member would be saying, "Yeah, absolutely," because he goes on then, in the submission he made in the last round, to say: "You need an ambulance when you need it."

Well, exactly. So would we want to have an ambulance preoccupied with a low-acuity call? Again, we

would reckon that to be around 10 or 11 percent of the stream. Would the member want an ambulance to be tied up in a low-acuity call where it's not needed to be tied up when someone who has had a cardiac arrest or a serious head trauma in an automobile accident really needs that ambulance? What B.C. Ambulance Service is intending to do is as commonsensical as that.

There is absolutely nothing nefarious about this. There is absolutely nothing in this that threatens any paramedic in this province. I can tell you definitively — as someone who has learned more than I probably care to about health delivery over the last couple of years — over the next ten, 20 and 30 years there's going to be more work than we can imagine in the health care delivery system, including on the paramedic side. No one need feel threatened by this change.

In fact, everyone should salute this change. It is totally appropriate. Any shift in transitioning here will only be done with careful, clinical, medical oversight and scrutiny. This is exactly what should be done.

Further — and I can't tell you, Madam Chair, how disappointed I am by this…. After I saluted the member for his pragmatism in recognizing that a 62-percent increase in a budget could not possibly be construed as a cut, he turns around and then says: "Oh, but then there are all kinds of cuts."

I suppose only a New Democrat could identify a 62-percent budget increase from $176 million to $283 million as a cut. Only a New Democrat….

Hon. G. Abbott: Yes. The Transportation Minister…. I agree with him completely. Only a New Democrat could identify that as a cut, and I think — and I know that the Minister of Transportation agrees with me on this — only a member of the New Democratic Party would say that a positive, beneficial, constructive change was a bad thing. Because it was change, and of course, reflexively, they seem to oppose any kind of change in any system whether it's beneficial or otherwise.

The fact of the matter is we are moving ahead with very appropriate changes, including — and we'll address the latter point of the Health critic here — by looking at a new partnership with health authorities around the transfer of patients between facilities within health authorities. This is an important issue, and I know that the member will ask more questions about it. We'll look forward to hearing those and talking more about it.

Historically, we have seen a lot of transfers by B.C. Ambulance between health facilities. The one exception to those transfers has been on Vancouver Island, where for some years, I think — and the staff can correct me on this — there have been some private transfers of patients between health facilities. In the balance of the province all of those transfers have been undertaken by the B.C. Ambulance Service.

It may well be that they continue to be undertaken by B.C. Ambulance Service, but what we are saying to the health authorities is: "We're going to work in partnership with you. We're going to dedicate the budget for transfers. We're going to turn it over to you, and we're going to get you to manage the flow of the interfacility transfers of patients in your health authorities."

We believe that this is an excellent step forward, both in terms of managing costs and in terms of better patient care. I think it's consistent with both.

A. Dix: It's like when the minister imposes P3s on the Fraser Health Authority and on the Interior Health Authority, talks about consultation and so on.

The reality is, from what the minister just said, that the fears of ambulance paramedics are well-founded — that, in fact, they will be the target just like other workers have consistently been the target of this government's efforts to privatize. They have every reason to fear that. That's what the minister has just confirmed. Unfortunately, it's one of those things.

The minister, though, never responded to what I said. I've met with many ambulance paramedics — not just people who are activists and active in the union, but just ambulance paramedics — who tell me, whether they're in rural and remote, whether they're in urban areas, that their jobs are more and more difficult, and more and more, there are greater and greater challenges.

They have more and more calls they have to deal with and more difficult circumstances than ever before. The minister consistently says: "Well, that's just collective bargaining." They're just collective bargaining. Their heartfelt concerns, their proposals, their suggestions are not worthy because he thinks that they're trying to get, I guess, more money or something. That's the suggestion — that their rejection of the suggestions that have been made to them in many of these areas by the B.C. Ambulance Service is just about collective bargaining.

Doesn't he agree with me that ambulance paramedics know a little bit about their work, know a little bit about the circumstances they work in? He must know, and he must have heard from ambulance paramedics in British Columbia at some point, about their concerns about their present situation. Is he only going to dismiss those concerns today?

Hon. G. Abbott: The member is dead wrong, as is frequently the case. He is attributing statements to me that I have never made. Those assertions he made are absolutely false. I have a world of respect for paramedics in this province. They do a great job. They work tirelessly and constructively to provide a public service in this province. I am delighted on every occasion that I have the opportunity to meet with paramedics and their leadership. I certainly, on every occasion, look forward to doing that.

The member, I'm afraid, is spouting a whole lot of nonsense in that area. He's the one that wants to raise collective bargaining issues in here, not me. I'm happy at any point to hear submissions from anyone on how

to improve the Ambulance Service, but collective bargaining discussions would not be undertaken in this chamber.

A. Dix: I'm delighted about that. I have just a couple of more detailed questions to the minister. I'm glad that the minister, who said this morning when I raised those concerns that it was about collective bargaining, says this afternoon that he has great respect for ambulance paramedics and their representatives. That's good news.

Hopefully, they will be full partners. I ask the minister: will they be full partners going forward in any change he proposes to make in the B.C. Ambulance Service?

Hon. G. Abbott: The member would have to tell me what he means by full partners, hon. Chair.

A. Dix: That means fully consulted on any changes before they're announced and finalized publicly.

Hon. G. Abbott: Absolutely they'll be consulted. We have a provincial joint labour-management committee that deals with just such issues.

A. Dix: There, we talked about collective bargaining, but it's part of the budget of the Ministry of Health, of the B.C. Ambulance Service. How is that labour management committee functioning?

Hon. G. Abbott: I understand that the relationships have been strained at points, but everyone, I'm sure, hopes to be working more constructively in the future.

A. Dix: Perhaps the ministry could be more specific about those strains. Have those strains involved staff budgeted by the Ministry of Health and paid for out of his budget, say, going to the labour board?

Hon. G. Abbott: Yes, I understand that part of the issue of ensuring that the collective bargaining agreement was being respected involved a visit to the Labour Relations Board.

A. Dix: We're making extraordinary progress here. I just had a couple other technical questions for the minister. I'd like to ask how he thinks, because response times are a key question….

Having a standard way of measuring response times is extremely useful, I think, to everyone involved. It allows us to compare between periods and to compare how the government is doing in terms of response times in urban areas — apparently worse than the 1990s.

Let me ask the minister this. Shouldn't the time from the 911 call to the time the paramedic arrives at the patient's side…? Shouldn't that be the measure of response time?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm not sure what the member is exactly looking at here. The response time is from when the call is received from dispatch to the time that the crew arrives on scene.

A. Dix: I guess the question is whether a more accurate reading of response time would include the time it takes for the call to come in and be processed and sent and dispatched. That's the question in terms of measuring response time. How do you address extra time at the front end and extra time at the back end? Are we measuring response time?

I'm looking for information. Mr. Platteel has worked here in the service for a very long time. In terms of the measurement of response time, is our measurement consistent with other jurisdictions?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, I'm sure the member is leading to some point here, but there are different ways this is measured in different parts of the world. I understand that Great Britain has a different way of looking at it. I'm sure some provinces have different ways of looking at it.

The way we look at it in British Columbia is from the time the call is received to the time the crew gets on scene. But what we are going to increasingly focus on in terms of response time is response time to those most urgent cases — i.e., cardiac arrest and that sort of thing, where minutes and seconds can make a tremendous amount of difference.

Again, we talked about this, this morning. The average response time for urgent calls on the lower mainland is generally pretty stable at just under nine minutes. We get to those urgent calls 90 percent of the time in less than those nine minutes. So that's where we need to refocus attention — on the most urgent calls.

A. Dix: The minister just said they get to 90 percent of the calls in less than nine minutes. How is that possible, given what he said about the statistic?

A. Dix: The reality is that it's less than 70 percent, which is, I guess, not as good.

I just want to say to the minister with respect to NurseLine that I think it's frequently the case that people blame emergency room problems on the people that come to emergency rooms. The suggestion that when people call 911 — when they're looking for a nurse or might be able to get help with NurseLine — they are misinformed, or that people dial 911 frivolously, seems to me to be inconsistent with the facts.

I say this with the greatest of respect. I support NurseLine. I think it's a great idea. But the question is…. Surely people who want to call NurseLine can find a way to call NurseLine, and the people who call 911 shouldn't have to debate — shouldn't have to debate about whether they get an ambulance.

My question is how, when you talk about transferring 30,000 calls away from B.C. Ambulance Service,

away from ambulance paramedics to NurseLine, that process will work, because surely the process at the intake point will increase delays as people try and make those judgments based on a discussion they have. If we're talking about urgent need, if we're talking about a desire to get there in nine minutes….

I'm just asking the minister how that will work, because we're not talking about people who call NurseLine. We want people who need NurseLine to call NurseLine. But when people call for an ambulance, how is that process going to work? How are you going to save 30,000 calls? That's the question. I think it's a reasonable question, and it's a proposal that has come forward.

I'm just asking the minister, because Mr. Doney has suggested that that's a thing the service may want to do, and I think that's worthy of interest. I just want to understand how they see that happening.

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm glad the member feels it's worthy of interest. I think it makes all the sense in the world that if we have 10 percent or 11 percent of the calls that are of low acuity — and based on appropriate clinical and medical advice, clearly are low acuity — where the patient would benefit first and foremost from having an opportunity to discuss with a registered nurse at NurseLine the condition they have versus calling out an ambulance, clearly that makes all the sense in the world, and I'm glad the member thinks it's at least worthy for discussion.

Let's be clear about this point. When we're talking about response time, we're talking about urban response times in this case. The average response time for urgent calls in the lower mainland was eight minutes and 54 seconds in 2005-2006. It was eight minutes, 35 seconds in 2004-2005. It was eight minutes, 53 seconds in 2003-2004.

Do we want to improve on that? We spent an hour this morning talking about it, and I said 15 times in 15 different ways: "Of course we do." We are going to look at different ways of improving that response time.

Again, sometimes I get the sense from this member and his colleagues that you can improve response times, and you can improve service, but never actually make any changes at all to those services. To me, this partnership with NurseLine makes all the sense in the world. I've told the member previously that that will be undertaken in a methodical and careful way with the best clinical and medical advice on how to proceed with it, and that is what we're going to do.

If the member is going to just reflexively oppose every change, then I suppose that's fair enough. That's his right to do so. But I think we have a responsibility as a government to ensure that we maximize patient service and we maximize the value of those now 283 million taxpayer dollars that we are devoting to this service.

A. Dix: I know that the minister's view of consultation is talking to his senior staff. We're asking questions here. It's reasonable to ask questions. I just asked the minister what they have in mind.

I have an issue, and I call 911 — I would like the minister, because this proposal has been made — and I say: "I need an ambulance to help someone here at the scene. I have come upon a scene, and we need an ambulance." How does that process…? How does that debate happen? How does that debate between myself and the dispatcher not, in fact, delay the situation? How do you impart that information?

It's especially true, because…. I don't know about the minister. I haven't called 911 that many times in my life, and I suspect that most members of the House and most people in British Columbia haven't either. So how does that happen? That's the question that I'm asking.

I understand that we want people to call NurseLine. It's fantastic. We want people who need NurseLine to call NurseLine. I'm talking about those thousands and hundreds of thousands of calls that are coming in to the B.C. Ambulance Service through various dispatchers. That's all. I'm asking how he sees that process going.

Hon. G. Abbott: We manage those through a set of highly trained, highly skilled dispatchers who ask the appropriate questions according to a protocol which is described as the advanced medical priority system. They would deal with each case on its own circumstance and arrive at appropriate conclusions about what would prompt dispatch or what might prompt other responses.

A. Dix: I'd just like to ask the minister how many paramedic vacancies there currently are in British Columbia of more than six months.

Hon. G. Abbott: Just to close the loop on the previous point, it should be noted that B.C. NurseLine may in some instances, where they feel the acuity of the patient is appropriate, also move the call to dispatch for the B.C. Ambulance Service, so it's going to work both ways through the Emergency Health Services Commission. I think it speaks to the strength of having that partnership involved.

The member asked how many vacancies we have. I think 24 in rural stations at this point.

A. Dix: At this point I just say that I think one of the challenges, really one of the reasons — I'll just conclude with this to the minister — it's so important that ambulance paramedics and dispatchers be involved in this process is that inevitably, if there's an institutional pressure to transfer calls, that is going to put pressure on individual decisions made by individual dispatchers.

When the pressure comes and when the targets are set, that can have a real impact on them, both on their quality of work, their ability to do their jobs and the real pressure of these jobs. I think everybody would acknowledge that these jobs at times have real and profound pressures.

I think what it underlines is the need for the B.C. Ambulance Service to build and rebuild a strong and better relationship with ambulance paramedics and

With that, my friend from Surrey–Panorama Ridge has a few questions on the next topic for the minister, and I'll give the floor to him, unless the minister would like to respond.

Hon. G. Abbott: No, I'd just thank the member for his comments. As we have done so many times during these estimates, I agree strongly with his last statement. We look forward to B.C. Ambulance Service and CUPE Local 873, representing the paramedics, building a better relationship. That is certainly what I'd like to see, and I'm glad the member shares that view.

J. Brar: Let's change the topic and maybe a brief, refreshing visit to the city of Surrey….

The Fraser Health Authority submitted a report called Building for the Future: Surrey Health Services Capacity Initiative. That report was made available to the minister in October '05. The report made a number of recommendations, short-term and long-term.

One of the actions recommended on page 17 of that report, which is very important…. I would like to quote from the report. It says:

We are in the middle of '07, so I would like to ask the minister to provide some update as to where we are in terms of that action at this point in time.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question. Just so the member is clear, in terms of the acute care capacity initiative, that was received in draft form from the Fraser Health Authority in late January of 2007. We have been conducting a ministerial review of the draft acute care capacity initiative report since the receipt of it in late January, and that review is proceeding.

In terms of the content of the ACCI, I think that Fraser Health — its leadership, its planners and its board — have all done an exceptional job in terms of the work around the acute care capacity initiative. What they set out to do was to look at the pressures on the acute care side that would be present in Fraser Health Authority between the present time and 2020 — now some 13 years out from today. I think they did a very good job.

Of course, the acute care capacity is just one part of the equation in terms of health care, and that's rightly recognized, I think, by Fraser Health. The residential care capacity is a very important thing, and I'm really, really proud that Fraser Health Authority has added some incremental 1,000 residential care and assisted-living beds in the past two or three years. That's a huge achievement, a huge step forward in terms of meeting what would otherwise be another pressure on acute care.

I'm very proud, as well, of the hundreds of community mental health beds that have been added in the Fraser Health Authority. It's another area where they have done remarkably well.

The other piece that really needs to be developed in the years ahead as we prepare to meet that very powerful growth in population that we're seeing in Fraser Health and the aging demographic that Fraser Health shares with pretty much all other areas of the province towards an older population and also the burden of chronic disease which emerges as strongly in Fraser Health, if perhaps more strongly, than in other health authorities….

Those challenges are quite rightly identified as reasons why we can expect an incremental growth between now and 2020 in acute care. So that's very good work, I think, that's been done by Fraser Health. It is work that is being reviewed by the ministry now.

I'd also say — and hopefully, the member has an opportunity to pay attention to me…. I'd also want to advise the member that in terms of acute care capacity, there are three major projects that have been undertaken in Fraser Health in recent years that do have a bearing on the acute care capacity for the Fraser.

The first project is the Abbotsford hospital and cancer care centre. That is a $355-million project — a huge project. Anyone driving down Highway 1 recently would see just how huge a project that is. There will be incremental acute care beds coming with that new facility, as well, of course, as cancer care for the east end of the Fraser Valley that hasn't existed before. It's a remarkable project, on time and on budget. I'm very proud of the work that's being done there as well.

I should note that Abbotsford was a project that our government proceeded with very early in its term after a decade of the previous NDP government promising yet never delivering on that Abbotsford hospital and cancer care centre. I'm proud that our government grabbed that project, and we've got it well underway, and we look forward to it being completed on time and on budget.

Another promise we fulfilled, which again was the object of some neglect by the former government in the 1990s, was the expansion and remediation of Surrey Memorial Hospital. What we will be seeing with the investment of approximately $200 million in Surrey Memorial Hospital will be the creation of a huge out-patient hospital adjacent to Surrey Memorial Hospital. We will be seeing the tripling of the emergency room at Surrey Memorial Hospital, again long overdue and much warranted, particularly given the neglect that occurred during the 1990s. But part of that project, and it ties in, I think, nicely with the residential care piece that I described earlier…. We will be seeing some additional acute care capacity freed up at Surrey Memorial Hospital as part of that project as well.

Just a third note in terms of the immediate future, we will also see added acute care capacity at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock as well. So all of those things…. I see the member smiling and nodding his head. I clearly have made his day here today. I can't believe how many members of the opposition I have made happy. I'm starting to feel kind of spooked by this. I keep advising them of all the good news that is happening here in Fraser Health Authority.

I think that some of my colleagues are getting a bit jealous. It seems that I'm bringing smiles to the faces of far too many opposition members in this House, and I suppose we can't blame them. They've watched their own government for a decade let a lot of these facilities fall into neglect. Thank goodness that we have turned it around in British Columbia with these new health facilities.

There will be incremental capacity from those three projects. That's not going to be the end of it, obviously.

Surrey, I think, is the fastest-growing city in Canada. The member may correct me if I'm wrong. It's certainly one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada. Fraser Health is the fastest-growing of all of our health authorities. We know we're going to have to build on that three-quarters of a billion dollars that we — our government — have invested to date in Fraser Health. And we look forward to more projects in the future that will strengthen even further our capacity in acute care, residential care, assisted living, community mental health and primary care.

J. Brar: I hope one day we will have some rules about the time of the estimates debate as well.

I want to say that this minister can only see in the past but not in the future. I got a big lecture here but not the answer to the question. I asked a very specific question about his own report, which he approved.

I would like to ask once again, very simply…. The report of his own government came out — and I have a copy of the report — on October 31, 2005, not '07. This is about a year-and-a-half-old report. The question is — on page 17 of this report, the recommendation I mentioned before: how many new acute beds and critical care beds have been added as of today?

Hon. G. Abbott: Neither I nor my staff is familiar with the government document to which he refers. If the member could be more specific about what B.C. government document he's referring to, I'd be grateful.

J. Brar: This is a report I have from the Fraser Health Authority. This report was made available to this minister on October 31, 2005. Subsequently the minister went to Surrey to announce this report and also indicated, basically, acceptance of all the recommendations of this report.

I would like to repeat once again, if the minister can provide me with the answer…. On page 17 of this report it says that most of the renovation of Surrey Memorial Hospital can begin immediately and will result in the addition of approximately 62 acute beds and five critical care beds by the end of '07. We are in the middle of '07. I am asking the minister: what is the progress made as of today?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, we're hypothesizing here that the report the member is referring to is an annual planning report that health authorities, including Fraser Health, provide to the government. I don't know whether that's correct or not. We don't have the document in front of us that, apparently, the member does.

Every health authority has ongoing planning every year. Obviously, they try to make the best, most rational use of the resources that are allocated to them — those billions of dollars every year that go to the health authorities for both operations and capital. They attempt to make the best use of them.

I've talked about Abbotsford. I think we anticipate that there'll be 60 or 70 or thereabouts incremental beds from Abbotsford when it opens in '08, comparable to 72, and 66 at Surrey Memorial. There will be some incremental additions at Peace Arch.

Of course, planning is not something that we do one day and then stop doing the next day. Planning is something that is evolutionary. It is ongoing. We are constantly looking at the challenges presented. We're constantly looking at demographic changes. We're constantly looking at population changes and trying to appropriately adjust to meet those changes.

If the member is saying that the government hasn't made any investments in Fraser Health, he's dead wrong. I'll give him a list as long as my arm of projects that have been undertaken in Fraser Health, if that's his wish. We've made fabulous investments, totalling up to about three-quarters of a billion dollars, in Fraser Health.

I'm not sure what point exactly the member is trying to get at. Presumably, he is trying to take some abstract quantity out of the air and say: "Holy cow. Got ya." But it ain't working.

You can't dismiss the projects like Surrey Memorial Hospital. You can't dismiss projects like Abbottsford. You can't dismiss the 1,000 residential care and assisted-living units that have been added in Fraser Health. You can't discount the three-quarters of a billion dollars in capital investment that's been made in Fraser Health. That would be absurd, and I hope that's not what the member is attempting to do here.

Certainly, I can pull out from my file here a very long list of excellent projects across Fraser Health that we're remarkably proud of. The member can try to clarify what it is he's looking for.

J. Brar: It's very surprising for me that the minister doesn't recognize the report which he received himself. Let me remind the minister that during the middle of the last election the Premier went to Surrey to make an announcement, which was fast-tracking the solution for Surrey health care. During the middle of the

election the Premier asked the Fraser Health Authority to put together a report. That report I have a copy of here. That report was submitted to the Minister of Health for British Columbia on October 31, 2005. Subsequent to that, the minister went to Surrey and said to people that he accepted the report.

I also have a copy of the press release the minister issued that day to the people of Surrey, saying that this report makes good recommendations. One of the recommendations in this report was, which I mentioned, building 62 new acute care beds.

This is my third question. The minister has not the responded to my question, basically. I would take it that the minister actually has added no beds at this point in time, as far as the recommendation of this report is concerned.

I would move on to the next question. On page 17 again — if the minister needs a copy of page 17, I will hand over a copy to the minister; if you can pass it on — the recommendation was made, and I would like to quote again: "The construction of the new ambulatory care facility would start in '07, with the projected completion date in '09."

Subsequent to this report the minister went to Surrey on December 5, 2005, and made the announcement that the minister actually accepted the recommendation and was going to act on that. Subsequent to that, the Premier of the province went to Surrey again, in May '06, to make a second big announcement that they are going to continue working on the ambulatory care facility and that the Premier will finish the project, as recommended in this report, in '09.

Subsequent to that, the Minister of Health presented a report in this House on March 20, 2007. According to that report, the completion of the construction of the ambulatory care facility has been moved from '09 to 2010.

I would like to ask the minister: what are the reasons, what is the rationale to postpone — delay — the construction of the ambulatory care facility from '09 to 2010?

Hon. G. Abbott: Madam Chair, you will recall with great clarity, I'm sure, that we canvassed this subject at some length yesterday with the member for Surrey-Newton. We canvassed this subject fully. I explained to the member at that time all of the issues around this and asked him why it was — when at long last, after a decade's neglect by the former government — that they were saying: "Thanks for the new Porsche in my carport, but I really don't appreciate the fact that it was a day late."

It's exactly that kind of logic that is propelling these, I think, quite remarkable questions — the possibility that it could be early 2010 versus late 2009, that somehow they should now begin to disparage the $200 million investment that we're making in the province. That's absurd. The only delay that we know about was the ten-year delay between 1991 and 2001. The member can follow up on that more if he wishes.

But I want to note this, and this goes to the member's earlier question. On December 5, 2005, government endorsed the recommendations contained in Fraser Health Authority's Surrey Health Services Capacity Initiative final report. Key recommendations of the report were to establish a new out-patient hospital to provide out-patient care; to establish a new primary care clinic; to build a new state-of-the-art emergency — i.e., tripling the emergency facility; to establish a new perinatal care facility; to establish new residential care facilities; and to renovate reclaimed space at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

That is what the Fraser Health Authority's Surrey health services capacity initiative was all about, and we have done or are doing all of those things. It is remarkable what we have done in Fraser Health, and there is so much to be proud of.

I mentioned the Abbotsford project, but in Burnaby there's $2 million on Burnaby Hospital emergency triage and waiting room renovations; in Chilliwack, $3½ million on hospice beds and on the hospital itself; close to $6 million in Coquitlam on Cottonwood Lodge; over $6 million on Delta Hospital redevelopment; over $6 million, almost $6½ million, on Fraser Canyon Hospital; Fraser Hope Lodge redevelopment; Langley, the acute tower upgrade, $1½ million; Maple Ridge, the Ridge Meadows Hospital emergency department, ambulatory care extension, close to $20 million — $19.41 million there; and on and on.

I do thank the member for asking his important question and reminding me that we have fulfilled our commitments, in stark contrast to that government that was here in British Columbia between 1991 and 2001.

J. Brar: Once again I got a big lecture on the history but not the future. Again, why has the construction of the ambulatory facility been delayed for one year? We did not get any answer from the minister.

I would challenge the minister to tell the people of Surrey: why have you delayed the construction of the ambulatory care facility which you promised? Subsequently the Premier of the province went to Surrey to promise that, and the Fraser Health Authority promised the people of Surrey. That hasn't been done.

I would like to say this to the Minister of Health as well. This government has been in power…. This is the second term, and as to the promise this government made to the people of Surrey at the beginning of the first term — that they would provide the best health care when and where you needed it — nothing was done in Surrey.

In the second term, this government promised a new hospital. The promise is that they're not going to build anything until after the next election. That is what you have done; that's what your government has done.

Let me remind you also as to what the NDP has done. The minister has said in newspapers in the past that the NDP has done nothing. Let me tell you, Minister, if you know the history…. You need to know the history completely, not selective history as you described it to the newspaper.

During the NDP time, the new south wing was built, and that wing is 30,000 square metres. It's three

levels including parking. In that wing it has hospital housing for new children, an extended family birthing unit, an extended special care nursery, ten new upgrading rooms, two surgical in-patient units, 42 beds and a new intensive care unit.

The list goes on. I can read all that. Your government has not given us even one 2-by-4 as of today. That is the record of your government. I don't know why you stand up and keep saying that you have done more than that. I would like to ask you another question.

J. Brar: Sorry. To the minister: the minister did not give me the answer to my previous two questions as to whether 62 beds, as per the recommendation in this report, have been built or not. There is no answer, so I will take it that no action has been taken on that one.

I have asked the minister why he delayed on the ambulatory care facility for one year. I did not get the answer, so I will take it that the minister does not want to respond to the people of Surrey.

My next question. On page 19 of the report, there were three options given to the minister when it came to choosing a location for the new ambulatory care facility. Option 1 was an ambulatory care facility on the Surrey Memorial Hospital site. Option 2 was a facility adjacent to Surrey Memorial. Option 3 was a facility away from Surrey Memorial Hospital. Can the minister explain why the minister chose option 1?

Hon. G. Abbott: First off, the member is absolutely wrong. He suggested that there was a one-year delay in this project. He is wrong; that is false.

At this point there may be a delay of perhaps three or four months from late 2009, possibly to early 2010. The fact of the matter is that the three or four months may well get made up in the construction. The member, as is typical of folks on that side, is fearmongering in a reckless way about this, suggesting that somehow the project is diminished because it may be three months later.

Hon. G. Abbott: He is saying yes. You are opposed to the project? If you're opposed to the project, you should get up and say it. If you want this project to be terminated because you think that three months' delay is totally inappropriate, then you should let the people of Surrey know so that you can be held to account for that, if you wish to do that.

The delay is a very modest one. It is not in any way a one-year delay, and the member should know that. Further, the 62 beds that are mentioned in the planning initiative report…. We expect those 62 are going to be in place by the end of 2007.

Further, in terms of the location of the site, a lot of thought went into the planning and determination of where the out-patient hospital would be located. The out-patient hospital, as I think the member knows — others may not — is going to be located on a 5.8-acre site on the corner of 140th Street and the Fraser Highway.

Construction is expected to begin in '08. We've been talking about when it's likely to be concluded. The Fraser Health Authority chose the Green Timbers location because it's only about three-quarters of a kilometre from Surrey Memorial Hospital. It offers easy access for patients by road and public transportation, while also allowing for future opportunities for growth.

The site is cost-effective, because we're going to have above-ground parking available there. It makes a ton of sense to go there. To add underground parking at the existing Surrey Memorial site would have been prohibitively expensive. I shouldn't assume this, but I would hope that the member might agree that we are far better off putting resources into patient care facilities than we are putting them into underground parking.

J. Brar: I have one more simple question, and I hope for a simple answer for that.

When will the request-for-qualifications process begin to short-list the best proponent for the ambulatory care facility?

J. Brar: My question is: when will the request-for-qualifications process begin to short-list the best proponent for building the ambulatory care facility?

Hon. G. Abbott: The RFQ process was launched some weeks ago, and it has reached the shortlist stage as of today.

A. Dix: It's good to see the minister animated this afternoon. I had a couple of questions on another issue. It's good to see him animated when he is answering questions from someone other than myself. It's very exciting and very heartening to all of us.

The minister will know that I'm actually asking a few questions on behalf of my colleague from Burnaby-Edmonds, the critic for mental health service. He had a couple of specific follow-up questions. Perhaps, if it's okay with the minister, I'll just put a couple of them together, and if the staff is there, that's fine. Or he can perhaps get back directly to the member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

The first is…. The minister mentioned that Wendy Hill is the ADM responsible for mental health. The member notes that she is also the ADM for the health authorities division, a rather large portfolio. How can the minister assure British Columbians that the provincial government is committed to providing sufficient support for people with mental health issues? The thrust of the member's questions is whether in fact there needs to be a more focused voice in the bureaucracy.

The member is also interested in the work of Ann Marr of the Ministry of Health. What things is she responsible for?

Thirdly, the member also asked — and this is a more difficult question than the first two: can the minister describe the format of "discharge plans from prisons, detox centres and hospitals?"

He would like you to explain Pharmacare G, a plan you referenced yesterday. The minister could probably do that in writing.

Finally, it's about the question of Riverview. It's an issue of concern, and it has been, I know, a question of concern for the Premier and others — and for all of us. The question is: are there in fact 300 clients remaining at Riverview for life? Are they able to be integrated into community programs? What are the circumstances? What are the circumstances that lead clients to be left at Riverview and which clients?

So those are a set of questions, some of which the minister may want to respond to here — the more policy-oriented ones — and some, if he would respond directly to the member for Burnaby-Edmonds perhaps by correspondence — or the staff can.

Hon. G. Abbott: Could I ask the member to repeat the second of the four questions.

A. Dix: The second question was related to the responsibilities of Ann Marr in the ministry, asking the policy areas that Ms. Marr would be working on.

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll leave the one issue about the details around discharge planning and plan G to correspondence. I think we can probably more effectively provide that there.

In terms of Wendy Hill, Wendy has been with us for a couple of years now. She came from Alberta and has probably a quarter of a century or more of experience in senior health planning issues in Alberta, has a remarkable range of experience, including a master's degree in nursing and clinical and other leadership.

She is a remarkably capable and remarkably energetic individual. There is some suspicion that she is propelled by goji juice, but I don't think that's ever been confirmed within the ministry structure itself. Goji juice is apparently a miracle drink that can produce great results.

Wendy does a remarkable job for us. But of course we don't expect any individual to deliver on whole areas of health care policy. Wendy is part of the leadership team and a broader team that, both in the ministry and in the health authorities, is aiming at achieving the very best results for those afflicted by mental health and addictions issues.

Ann Marr is a key part of that team. Ann is actually here today with us, and she is the executive director of mental health and addictions programs for the ministry and for the province. Ann brings some 20 years of policy and planning work to the table for us. She is a very important part of the team and, with Wendy, certainly helps to provide us with exceptional leadership in the areas of mental health planning and mental health services. I thank them both for the exceptional work that they do.

In terms of the final question around Riverview, this is actually an extremely important question from my perspective and, I think, from the province's perspective. Riverview was, I guess, for many decades the only tertiary centre in the province where one could access mental health services.

Of course there are aspects of the history of Riverview that we can be proud of, and I'm sure there are aspects that we can't be proud of. But the general vision around Riverview in the past decade has been to see community facilities developed on a regional basis so that, to the extent that we could, we would see a shifting of people, a repatriation of patients back to the homelike settings that have been created in the regions.

I think yesterday we talked about approximately 300 having moved to regional facilities. I talked about those, so I won't repeat that. However, the member asked the important question: "Well, what about the future of Riverview?" Riverview is a large parcel, about 240 acres. There are some new facilities on it, Connolly Lodge and Cottonwood Lodge, which are, in their own right, quite remarkable new facilities.

There is potential at Riverview to undertake some new facility development in terms of mental health and addictions issues, and quite possibly other initiatives as well on that large site. But there is a lot of planning and consideration that will need to go into that. We look forward to working on that. But certainly, Connolly Lodge, Cottonwood Lodge and some of the other facilities there are there for the long term.

Riverview redevelopment is something that will take on an increasing importance in the decade ahead. Part of the reason why I think it will is that the areas where the devolution has been least successful have been those urban areas where we have encountered significant resistance to the addition of community mental health facilities.

I suspect the member may share my view on this. It is sometimes very difficult to get rezonings and planning changes made in municipalities because of the often inherent resistance to those facilities. So I think we see that, particularly in Vancouver Coastal, and to a little less extent in Fraser — but also to a considerable degree in Fraser. We need to be thinking of whether, in some respects, we can look at Riverview as perhaps a kind of regional home for the broader lower mainland area.

A. Dix: One of the changes this year in estimates is the…. Alas, I know the minister — while I'm sure he's very pleased with his current deputy minister — misses the person who has been beside him in previous estimates rounds. I wanted to ask him for his comments, because I've never heard them fully.

I want to follow that with a serious proposal about the issue of chronic disease. I know we've talked to the member from West Vancouver, who is Chair of the Health Committee.

The Deputy Minister of Health in a speech in Toronto said a whole bunch of things. She said some things about question period. I won't go into those today. We all as politicians take responsibility for them, I'm sure. But she said: "Forty percent of the patients in British Columbia with diabetes are getting good care. That's atrocious. Who would ever get a bonus and a raise in their salary when they have got a 40-percent alignment with the best practice rate? Where does this happen other than in health care and with my profession?"

I wanted to know, because these are serious questions. We're entering into a period, I think it's fair to say to the minister…. The minister will know that diabetes is something — I'll lay it on the table — that is a concern with me. I have type 1 diabetes. In a sense, my group of people with diabetes aren't the growth problem. We have our own issues. It's people with type 2 diabetes.

The comments of Dr. Ballem were very serious, and I am wondering how the minister responds to them. Rather than getting into a back and forth about what she said and what that implies about the government, isn't it perhaps reasonable for us as legislators to say that that's a challenge we should address, that the Select Standing Committee on Health should address?

We shouldn't have a partisan debate about chronic disease here, but we should sit down together with the Select Standing Committee on Health to get a mandate from the minister to address some of those issues.

It's not just diabetes, but that's an important question. You see it in Fraser Health. I think you can just imagine, given the high rate of type 2 diabetes in the Indo-Canadian community…. You see the situation that's coming in Surrey. The minister talked about a silver tsunami. This is another kind of tsunami in aboriginal communities and other communities which have relatively high rates of type 2 diabetes, and which are also growing communities in our province.

I want to ask the minister, firstly, to comment just on what Dr. Ballem has said and, secondly, to respond to that suggestion — because he is a member of the executive council, and they get to put forward the motions — whether that subject area of dealing with chronic disease — trying to address the growth of it and actually address chronic disease — is a place where we could go together in this House.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his question. It is an extremely important question, and I think in many respects, the fundamental question facing the health care system for the next 20 or 30 years.

To begin, I welcome Dr. Ballem's comments. I think Dr. Ballem introduced a very important subject. She brought new interest and focus and debate to the subject of chronic disease management, and I think that is a constructive thing to do. I certainly welcome a range of submissions around chronic disease.

There are a few things that I have formed conclusions on over the two years now that I have been Health Minister for the province. One of them is just a passionate belief in the importance of building stronger primary care capacity in this province. I have just totally got religion on primary care. There are reasons for that, and I'll briefly enumerate those.

It is, I believe, going to be extremely challenging over the next one, two, three and perhaps four decades to manage a couple of very compelling waves that are coming at us. One is the demographic wave, which we talked about a little bit before, but second is the chronic disease wave, which we really haven't quite talked about as much.

I'm glad the member raised it, because I think this is a great opportunity to talk about it. Maybe we can talk about some constructive ideas about how to improve on chronic disease management in this province. Because I do believe that having better chronic disease management — I think better primary care is the key to that — is going to be the key to maintaining a sustainable health care system through those next two or three decades.

Chronic disease is not entirely delinked of course from the aging demographic. We see a number of chronic diseases that are age-related. Not necessarily type 2 diabetes, I think we would agree, but there are a whole lot of other issues, whether it's chronic congestive heart failure issues or emphysema or — fill in the blank. There are 16 other chronic diseases which are significant challenges to the acute care system on a frequent basis.

I appreciate the member raising type 2 diabetes, because I think that is probably the principal chronic disease that holds the greatest challenge for the system. Dr. Perry Kendall reckons that over the next decade or two, we are likely to see a doubling of the number of people afflicted with type 2 diabetes in this province.

I think Dr. Kendall's anticipation of that is probably on the mark, given some of the recent reports we're hearing from Ontario and elsewhere, which suggest that in fact the spiralling of type 2 diabetes is being seen not only in British Columbia but in probably every jurisdiction in Canada and probably even more acutely in many jurisdictions in the United States.

Type 2 diabetes is frightening in its own right, but it is also frightening from a personal and a medical perspective because type 2 diabetes drives a whole bunch of other surgical and other procedures which are going to be enormously draining on the health care system as well — things like retinal surgeries. I think something like 62 percent of retinal surgeries in the province are prompted by type 2 diabetes.

A majority of lower-limb amputations are driven by type 2 diabetes. Dialysis, of course, is in large measure driven by type 2 diabetes. But there are a whole raft of consequences that come with the growing incidence of type 2 diabetes.

The member is absolutely right in identifying some multicultural communities as being particularly vul-

nerable to type 2 diabetes — the first nations, aboriginal population, and their marked vulnerability to type 2 diabetes.

All of that I think — and I'm trying to frame this as briefly as I can — points to what is going to be a most significant challenge to the health care delivery system in British Columbia over the next two or three decades. We're not going to be alone in that, but we have to face it here in British Columbia.

If we don't undertake to achieve better chronic disease management in the province, I am terribly apprehensive that the chronic disease and geriatric issues will swamp the acute care system. I actually have no doubt that those two waves would swamp the acute care system, unless we take steps to build stronger primary care capacity. That's what we need to do.

Primary care is all about identifying the population and candidate population that may be affected by those chronic diseases, then providing them with best practices and rigorously following up to ensure that those best practices are put in place, that they are observed and that people, in some cases, can hopefully prevent the onset of those chronic diseases and in other cases, effectively manage those chronic diseases.

I guess, optimistically, in some cases with programs like ActNow B.C. and other pieces of the prevention agenda, we can prevent particularly young kids from seeing the higher incidence of type 2 diabetes that we have in our contemporary society.

There are a lot of pieces to this, but I think Dr. Ballem's comments really highlighted those. I think in fairness, I would not use the 40 percent figure any longer. I think we've actually made significant progress over the last couple of years in respect of best practices counselling by physicians on type 2 diabetes.

I think the 40 percent figure may be reflective of a couple of years ago. My guess would be that it is a higher figure now. Some of the reasons why I think it is a higher figure goes back to the excellent work that Penny did as a deputy minister for this government over the years that we enjoyed her service as the deputy minister.

Among the things that have really helped here, in the last B.C. Medical Association agreement that we concluded there was an allocation of — and these are new dollars — $140 million for chronic disease management over the next four years that are linked to the provisions of the BCMA agreement. There is an allocation of approximately $30 million for one-time payments of up to $10,000 per doctor to family physicians who provide chronic disease management care.

The reason why I think it's so important to have this provision in place…. One of the reasons why the 40 percent figure was probably accurate but really far lower than it should have been is that, over time, we have created, in B.C. Medical Association agreements, more incentives on the economic side — incentives that really drove medicine as an economic endeavour as opposed to medicine as a human service endeavour.

What we're trying to do here is to incent, through the agreement, family physicians to take the time to sit down with Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones and say: "You may have a vulnerability here to type 2 diabetes. You need to think about losing some body weight. You need to think about getting more exercise. You need to think about taking some steps yourself to try to prevent that."

Those are the kind of incentives that are in the BCMA agreement. BCMA is very much committed to doing that proactive work with government. I think we have improved on the 40 percent, and I think we will continue to improve on the 40 percent. Frankly, I don't want to rest on this particular issue until we're near 100 percent or at 100 percent on this file. Better primary care is the only way to do that.

A. Dix: The minister just…. I think there was a bit of a tsunami there, but I also made a specific suggestion. I'll ask the minister to comment on it in a second. I'm not actually convinced — and I say this not in of critical way — that the 40 percent number is low. It's part of the challenge that the minister talked about, Dr. Kendall talked about and others talked about. I think it might be high. We're in a period of significant increase in undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.

That isn't necessarily an argument to be critical of the agreement or anything else that's been put in place. That's just an argument to say how large the problem is. In some ways that 40 percent doesn't even capture the extent of the problem in 2007, because the problem is sort of shifting away from us in terms of its size.

The only problem I have in debating the issue of diabetes and talking about complications is that I find it slightly depressing. All those circumstances of course are significantly worse for people with type 1 diabetes.

This is an issue that all of us, no matter who is on what side of the House, over ten or 15 years are going to deal with. The Chair of the Health Committee is here, the member for West Vancouver–Capilano. This is an issue, just as the issues we dealt with last year, where the Health Committee could make real progress on the issue of primary care directed at type 2 diabetes in particular.

This is an issue that we can bring forward and can make progress on collectively. There are lots of processes going on. But when you look at the range of issues that the select standing committee of this House could take on, I can't think of one that would be better than this in terms of the contribution we might be able to make to the system.

I'll just tell the minister one anecdote we talked about in certain ethnic communities. I went and opened a diabetes event, which was tremendous, in Surrey. There were thousands of people there. At that event in Surrey, there were probably four or five Indo-Canadians. So we have work to do. Work is taking place at the Canadian Diabetes Association. Others are doing that work in that community.

There is tremendous work to be done. I do some of this as part of my advocacy work, as well, in talking to people and talking to young people with type 1

diabetes. I want to encourage the minister and ask him to respond — whether he doesn't think that might be an issue that the select standing committee of this House could take on and really give some serious thought to.

We have a very thoughtful Chair of the select standing committee. I think he could take it on. Those of us who feel passion for the issues of primary care and of addressing the growing number of people facing chronic disease…. It might be something we could do together.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for his comments. I won't debate whether the 40 percent figure may underrepresent or overrepresent the actual population. We could probably argue about it all day long and not be definitive.

The more important piece is what I think we agree on here, which is that whether the figure is high or low, we build through public education and through physician education, an awareness, a powerful understanding and appreciation of the issues of chronic disease; that we have fewer undiagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes or other chronic diseases, and even further than that; that we raise the public awareness and physician awareness around the candidate population that may be subject, five or ten years from now, to getting type 2 diabetes — should they have that vulnerability and not take steps to adjust their diet or adjust their exercise regime or adjust their lifestyle to deal with that.

I think we're agreeing on the point that it's key that we use that combination of prevention and primary care to get the goal of getting more people aware of just what a threat this could pose to so many people's health. Hopefully, that's useful.

In terms of what will be undertaken by this Select Standing Committee on Health, I certainly accept the member's suggestion as a constructive suggestion. I don't personally dictate in any way what the select standing committee does, but I will communicate to the exceptionally capable Chairman of that select standing committee the member's views on it and discuss those constructive suggestions with him.

A. Dix: Just to say that we've had those discussions, and the minister will know as an experienced parliamentarian that those decisions to charge select standing committees with specific subjects are introduced by a member of the executive council. In fact, the member from Abbotsford, the Government House Leader, usually introduces those and makes decisions, and members of the committee go to the executive council.

Would it be the case that members of the opposition could write the referrals or that the member from West Vancouver could write the referral himself? Would it be the case? I think that the Minister of Health's assistance in that regard would be extremely helpful.

I want to ask the minister a number of questions about an issue that I hear about when I'm going around the province talking to nurses and other health professionals. It's the issue of safety in the workplace. The minister — and I recommend it to him…. There's an article that I read recently in the nurses newspaper about an attack on a nurse in Chilliwack that was particularly severe.

At the time, there was one guard. They're employed by a private security company under contract to the Fraser Health Authority. The Fraser Health Authority of course had contracted out that work and fired its in-house guards. There's all that discussion. I think what nurses are concerned about and what they would like to return to is 24-7, in-house, fully and professionally trained security officers who can be available to assist immediately.

The minister will know — and certainly the statistics are fairly startling — how serious these issues can be. I think the statistics I read are that 3,233 B.C. health care workers were violently assaulted over the past five years, leading to 163,000 days off.

So I wanted the minister — I have a series of questions about this — to talk about this issue of security. There are two sides of the issue of a nurse shortage. One is obviously recruitment, but one is retention. This element, this sense of safety in the workplace, is certainly critical to retention.

I would like to ask the minister if he agrees with me that it would be better to return to a system of 24-7 in-house guards. If he doesn't agree with that, does he think that security is adequate in our public hospitals to ensure that health professionals such as nurses are safe?

Hon. G. Abbott: I am joined now on my immediate left by Paula Bond, who is the assistant deputy minister responsible for the nursing executive in the province. She advises that there is, as part of our provincial violence strategy, the nursing policy management committee with responsibility for a provincial violence strategy arising out of the 2006 policy discussions — that's the discussions around the formulation of a collective agreement.

The nursing policy management committee recognizes that violence affects all health care workers and is confident that the health authorities, HEABC, health care unions and the OHSAH can work together to overcome challenges in this area.

The nursing policy management committee was pleased to approve on February 22, 2007, consensus recommendations, which are attached, that were provided to it by HEABC — Health Employers Association of B.C. — B.C. Nurses Union, the Hospital Employees Union, B.C. Government Employees Union and others.

There is a list of at least nine recommendations in respect of that. I can go through them in detail for the member. But I understand from Paula and others who've been involved in the process that it has been a remarkably useful process and that a lot of the issues raised by the member obviously were canvassed. All of

the stakeholders here worked together in a very effective way to develop these consensus proposals and bring them forward.

A. Dix: I just want to ask the minister about…. All the health authorities are facing financial challenges, and I guess I'd like to ask the minister whether he thinks the resources presently in place with respect to security in hospitals are adequate and whether the ministry is planning to add resources to those existing in the health authorities to deal with that, keeping in mind that the two largest health authorities in the province are currently struggling with large deficits.

I think what the B.C. Nurses Union and others are saying — and the minister may disagree with this — is that the outsourcing of security has been unsuccessful. That has been their experience, and it has in fact led to a decline in the level of protection. They'd like to see a return to a more comprehensive in-house security program.

On top of that, they think that's a good investment — that having full-time staff moving back from where the government has gone in this direction would be a good investment in terms of retaining staff and recruiting people to work in our public hospitals.

Hon. G. Abbott: I want to try to be both thoughtful and thorough in respect of my response. The question is an important one and one that certainly has been the object of much attention by the committee that I discussed earlier and, of course, by the ministry and health authorities themselves, who are concerned on an ongoing basis with the safety and security of their employees.

To begin, I'm not sure that there is a body of evidence, beyond perhaps anecdotal, about any shift in the number and nature of criminal acts that may occur in hospital settings. If we come across that evidence or we can find that evidence, I'm certainly glad to share that with the member. We're not at this point aware of that.

What is clear, though, I'm advised from staff here, is that violent actions, criminal or otherwise, can occur in any place in a health facility — and any place outside of a health facility, for that matter. It's not just something that would occur in an emergency department, although I think that probably instances of violence are more common there, as some mental health and addictions clients are often first intercepted at that point. Nevertheless, there are unfortunate events of this nature that can occur at any place in a hospital, and one can't place security guards in every corner of the hospital, whether they're union, non-union or otherwise.

When we are thinking about the operation of hospitals, we're trying to think about them in holistic terms. We're trying to think about how the ER is designed in such a way that we can stream the mental health and/or addiction clients or patients into an area where their needs can be addressed most effectively. We need to design the emergency rooms, the acute care areas, the diagnostic areas in a way that security and safety for all of the people that work there and all of the patients who are attending there is maximized.

We do have an initiative in the ministry around patient safety that's led by Dr. Tom Dorran. Dr. Dorran is an emergency room physician from Nanaimo who has been seconded to the ministry to help us work in the area of patient safety primarily. Dr. Dorran also continues to do some shifts, I'm happy to say, to keep his hand in there at the Nanaimo emergency department as well. He brings that experience to the work that we're doing on patient safety.

There are a number of initiatives that are going to be undertaken pursuant to the work that the committee has been doing on the initiative I discussed earlier that involved the nursing policy management committee. Among the initiatives that are being undertaken and that funds have been committed to — the member did ask me about additional financial resources in this area — there is a $3.6 million initiative over four years for a responsive shift-scheduling initiative. There is $2 million over the next four years for provincial nursing workload initiatives. There's $8 million for nursing research, $1 million for violence prevention in the workplace and $19.6 million — again over four years — for the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in B.C.

There's a fair bit of work that is being undertaken at the ministry level and at the health authority level to try to enhance both patient safety and employee safety. Those are really fundamental aspects of what we need to do in terms of delivering services. It's a challenging area, but I think the work that's being done by Paula and Tom and many others in the ministry and in the health authorities is bearing some fruit.

A. Dix: I just wanted to talk about what Amy Bready faced. She was assaulted at Chilliwack hospital. There was no guard available to stop the assault. Although a security office is located directly across from the triage station, it was empty. Hospital staff say it usually is. In fact, the facility's lone guard was busy dealing with another situation at a distant part of the hospital while the out-of-control patient was assaulting Bready.

The guard was employed by a private security company under contract to the Fraser Health Authority, which had fired its in-house guards and privatized its security services several years before. It goes on to say that it was Bready's ER colleagues who came to her rescue, but they weren't allowed to directly call in security to quell the still-out-of-control patient. Instead, hospital procedures forced them to telephone the private company's central security office in Vancouver, which then contacted the facility's lone guard.

Doesn't the minister agree with me that this should never happen, that this does not make sense, that it is a powerful argument not to have this kind of contracting out? It's a powerful argument when you have people, both on the cleaning side and on the security side, having to call way off site and not be able to directly call

people who are on site. Doesn't the minister agree with me that that simply doesn't make sense?

Hon. G. Abbott: The situation which the member references was indeed a tragic and unfortunate situation which involved the attack by what would appear to be a mentally ill patient on a nurse. This is a sad and unfortunate situation — no question about it. It is the kind of thing that has helped to lead us to the committee of nurses that are looking at these issues, the broader work that's being done around patient and employee safety in the workplace. I think that all of that is so.

I want to be very careful, though, in trying to form conclusions here in my comments about exactly what occurred and why, because this particular case is the object of a grievance which has been filed by the B.C. Nurses Union, alleging that the Fraser Health Authority failed to protect nurses.

I know that that grievance that has been filed — I presume with the Labour Relations Board — seeks a remedy. I think that the Fraser Health Authority, I'm sure, has a different view with respect to how and why the response should be determined. Given that the grievance process has not been completed, I think that in fairness we should leave the quasi-judicial resolution of this to the appropriate body, so I won't speculate on what I think the outcome might be or should be.

A. Dix: Surely, on the issue of whether nurses or other health care workers should be calling off site and not having direct access to the staff in the hospital that are there to protect them, the minister agrees with me that it doesn't make any sense.

Hon. G. Abbott: I thank the member for bringing the issue to my attention, but again, I don't want to begin to try to analyze the details of an incident which has prompted a grievance when the details of that presumably will all be germane to the adjudication of that grievance by the Labour Relations Board. I think that is what appropriately needs to be said at this time — that we need to let the appropriate processes take their course.

I'm sure that we will learn a great many things from the adjudication of that. I suspect there may be recommendations that are produced as a result of that adjudication, and when it is completed, we'll look forward to receiving it and learning from it.

A. Dix: Of course, I note to the minister — we're a little bit running out of time and so I won't dwell on this — that this is not just the case at the Chilliwack hospital; it's the case at many hospitals in British Columbia.

It's a serious issue, and I just think that while the government's passion for contracting-out these services and the reduced wages that go with them has been demonstrated over time, I think that this is a case study in why that doesn't work very well.

The minister will enjoy this, because it's something new. We're just going to go through a few issues here at the end. We've got a couple more MLAs who need to ask questions. I think I've got about three more days of questions, and we have an hour and 15 minutes left, so we'll see how we do.

I want to ask about the health innovation fund — how decisions will be made with that fund, when decisions will be made, who will be making the decisions. I'll even allow him to do a commercial about how people can apply and send their suggestions.

Hon. G. Abbott: The health innovation fund, as the member knows, is a $100 million fund. The fund will be focused, by consensus agreement, on the area of primary care — which I'm sure will delight the member. The function and management of emergency rooms is a second important area. The third area is performance management — how we improve efficiency, effectiveness, and so on of our hospitals and other facilities.

Those are the three areas where we will tend to focus the efforts and interest of the fund. The health authority chairs will be preparing recommendations for government in respect of what they believe to be the best proposals for the use of that $100 million fund, and those proposals will be recommended to government, in the form of the Minister of Finance in conjunction with the Minister of Health, for sign-off on those projects.

A. Dix: So the process will be recommendations from the health authorities back to the Minister of Health. Presumably there will be a role for doctors and nurses and others to be involved. Will there be any form of peer-reviewing assessment of these proposals, or how does the minister see that going? Often funds are set up by government.

This is obviously a very important fund and an opportunity for people in the area. Perhaps the minister can describe that process so that we're not seeing, say, some form of doling out for reasons other than health care reasons.

Hon. G. Abbott: My sense is that there's been tremendous input from doctors and nurses and so on with respect to these proposals. I had the opportunity to look at the proposals, and I think that they're quite exceptional and clearly reflects the passion of the doctors and nurses and so on within a system that in many respects put them forward, at least to those that then framed them up as proposals for government.

In the distribution, as well, I should note that $15 million of the $100 million will go directly to the health authorities on a population needs–based formula basis, so $15 million of that $100 million will be directly in their hands. In those cases we will do generally smaller projects. The larger projects will be the large balance of that fund.

I had a chat, when I was up in Kelowna recently, with some emergency doctors who are really passionate about some new ideas they have for better emergency room management. That would be an example of a group that has been very much involved in gener-

ating a proposal. I think that's probably been the case all around the province.

This health innovation fund, I hope, will be a way for us to really see not just some incremental improvements in the system but, in those areas, really substantive improvements in our management of those important parts of the health care system.

A. Dix: On another note, I wanted to talk just briefly about areas of health human resources outside of doctors and nurses, which are high-profile areas.

The minister will know that Vancouver Coastal Health has made some estimates about their needs in 2015 in terms of a whole range of professionals — health sciences professionals, care aides, and so on. I have a couple of questions about it.

First of all, on the question of physiotherapists. There will be a shortage. There's an issue around the school of physiotherapy at UBC. I want to ask the minister if he has intervened in any way. Clearly, the issue of accreditation there is a serious issue when one considers the demand for that important area of health care.

I wanted to ask the minister about that, because it seems to me it's pretty serious. This is the wrong time to be sending the wrong message — that B.C. doesn't give priority to physiotherapy, and UBC doesn't. I want to ask the minister what he knows about that.

Hon. G. Abbott: As the member I think knows, the issue around universities and particular professional programs at universities sees the responsibility for that rest with the Minister of Advanced Education. In terms of the issues around physiotherapy at UBC, it's the only institution, I think, that provides it in the province today. Those matters rest with my colleague the Minister of Advanced Education.

However, we certainly are an interested party with respect to some of the discussions around physiotherapy. Obviously, we are concerned that we have an appropriate number of physiotherapists and, of course, other allied medical professionals to serve our system. We are working with the Ministry of Advanced Education to ensure that that is the case.

A. Dix: One of the things that struck me when looking at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority data is the really extraordinary shortage that is being anticipated in care aides. I wanted to ask the minister how the government viewed that and whether they agreed with the assessment of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority that, essentially, we'll have only one of every four care aides we need.

The minister will know — it's not a secret — that many care aides in British Columbia actually got pay cuts in the last few years. Notwithstanding any collective agreement that's been signed in the last couple of years, they're going to see that their actual dollar income, for most care aides in British Columbia, has actually declined.

I wanted to ask the minister if he agrees and how he views the care aide question because this shortfall in Vancouver Coastal — if one were to accept those numbers, and even if one were to say they're less than that — spread across other health authorities would seem to indicate to me that there is a dramatic shortage coming in terms of care aides. That's one group in health care whose financial position has gone backwards in recent years.

Hon. G. Abbott: I certainly think that residential care aides and home care aides are going to be a very important part of health care delivery. They are today. They will continue to grow in importance as part of our health care delivery system over the next ten, 20 or 30 years as we see, year over year, a larger seniors portion of our population peaking out at 2030 or something like that. The demand for care aides is strong today, no question, and it is going to continue to grow in strength in the years ahead.

The government has taken steps to try to ensure that we build that capacity. The member raised the issue of compensation for residential care aides. I should note that in the recent collective agreement, the B.C. community subsector residential care aide rates moved, for 2006-07, from $17.33 to $18.95 per hour and in the facilities subsector for residential care aides to $20.54 per hour.

That $20.54 per hour is the highest rate of any province in Canada. I think that one should not despair in terms of the wage being offered in this area. Nevertheless, we need to be attracting more young British Columbians or middle-aged British Columbians into this area of health care delivery.

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Advanced Education are working on strategies to increase both utilization and capacity in this area of home support workers. In August 2006, 97 percent of the education spaces for this program were full.

We've added additional programs in Victoria and Kitimat, and we have added additional programs in three locations in the Okanagan. The $10 million that was referenced earlier in estimates debate is being targeted for the expansion of education seats and is being administered by the B.C. health education fund.

As mentioned, some additional funds are also being used for curriculum revision to ensure that we are building the set of skills that will be on the mark in terms of meeting the current and future demand for residential and home care aides.

A. Dix: I do think, without wanting to provoke a long debate with the minister, that slashing salaries by 15 percent by legislative diktat wasn't really a way to encourage people into the profession. The long-term impact of the government's decision to target that sector of health care workers will have an impact on the quality of care we all get in the future.

I want to ask him about the third area here of diagnostic care. The same report from Vancouver

Coastal Health — and I don't know if the minister accepts these numbers or not — talks about a shortfall of 85 percent in terms of medical technologists, 72 percent in terms of diagnostic stenographers, 18 percent in terms of radiation technologists — in that whole sector, a 58 percent shortfall.

The minister will forgive me if he thinks this might be a subject for the Minister of Advanced Education. In fact, I think it's probably a subject for both his ministry and the Ministry of Advanced Education. Does he think that we're doing enough in that area — enough work with, in that case, the Health Sciences Association — to ensure that we meet what seems to be an immediate crisis in terms of health science workers in some of these specialty areas of health care? We're not talking about doctors or nurses here.

Many health authorities don't bother posting jobs anymore. This is the reality of the labour market. I think what's going to be required in terms of the diagnostic area — in terms of the health sciences area and covered by the Health Sciences Association — is some sort of extraordinary effort.

We've had this debate about doctors and nurses and how long in front you have to get, and all of these sorts of issues. Some of those same issues ring true for these employees as well. I just wanted to ask the minister — I think it's a lower-profile but equally important area of health care; it's lower profile than nurses, but not low profile in general — whether he thinks that we need to take new and maybe extraordinary steps to address what appear to be really dramatic shortfalls in some of these professions.

Hon. G. Abbott: Hon. Chair, I should introduce…. Also joining us now is Valerie St. John, who is the assistant deputy minister for human resources in the Ministry of Health. She very capably leads us in this particular area.

The report that the member references, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority report, looks at anticipated human resource needs for VCHA out to 2015. I'm delighted that they're doing this kind of work and trying to anticipate where and when we will need incremental lifts in terms of the people who work for us and deliver health care services for us. It is my preference, and I'm sure it's everybody's preference, that our health care professionals are our own educated young people in British Columbia.

That having been said, sometimes we meet shortfalls by national and international recruitment for positions. We do that through a variety of programs like Health Match B.C., the provincial nominee program and so on, where we can bring in skills from outside, but I think that always the preference is to see our own young people educated. That means they need to be aware of these opportunities and need to be persuaded that these are attractive, challenging, exciting professions in health care that they should want to be a part of.

It's been said before in these estimates, but perhaps we're saying it again. As the post-war baby-boomers like me make our ways through to the final departure from this vale of tears — in my case, I hope, out about 2050 or thereabouts — there are going to be spectacular opportunities for the smaller group of young people who are following us to help take care of us in our advancing years. There is going to be absolutely no limit on the demand for young British Columbians in the health care professions for decades ahead, so we need to build these human resource capacities to do that. I want to reference a few ways that we are.

The health human resource strategy council has a ten-year health human resource plan. It's finalizing its fiscal 2007-2008 plan. Numerous initiatives are underway, and many more will be announced as development progresses. As examples, we just talked about the $10 million for residential care and home support training and recruitment — a very critical piece of this. I think we really need to appreciate both the quality of and the need for home support and residential care professionals.

The expansion of the UBC medical school to the Okanagan is of course in line with the new University of B.C. Okanagan campus. The leadership development succession program with the Health Care Leaders Association of B.C. is so that we have CEOs in training for the future. Changing service delivery models to deal with the shortage of some health professions is an area that we're looking at — injecting new professions to deal with shortages and service delivery models, and numerous nursing initiatives.

As we know — and I've mentioned it probably more times than the member would like in this House — we have currently about 2,000 nurse vacancies in the province, and we have a very ambitious strategy underway, involving, I think, $147 million in investment for trying to educate more nurses, to bring more retired nurses back into the workforce, to recruit more nurses nationally and internationally and to retain those nurses. There is a great range of programs that I think have been very useful in building our nursing force in the province. There's more work that needs to be done, but I think these initiatives are beginning to pay off.

A. Dix: Just specifically, though, on the diagnostic area, I think the minister would agree that that's an important area. The report by Vancouver Coastal Health Authority suggested that in fact the shortfall was significantly higher there than it was even for nursing. I want to know: is the minister planning any new initiatives — we saw a new initiative announced for nursing this week — to deal with that sector of health care? Given, really, these extraordinary things…. The minister knows that diagnosis and proper diagnosis are key to what the minister would call successful health outcomes. I think that most of us would just call it getting better.

I want to ask the minister if he has anything specifically in mind, and in particular, working with either the Health Sciences Association or with professional organizations, to deal with the specific shortfalls that I asked him about.

Hon. G. Abbott: Specialists in diagnostic technology certainly are a very important human resource

area for us — no question about that. There are a growing number of MRI machines and CAT scans and X-rays and the PACS system. There are all kinds of wonderful and innovative ways that we can learn more quickly what ails us, but we need medical professionals to operate those machines.

We are working with the Ministry of Advanced Education. I know the Ministry of Advanced Education is working with UBC and Simon Fraser and the B.C. Institute of Technology and other educational institutions that train these various levels of diagnostic specialists.

There's lots of work being done. I can't offer the member anything sort of specific at the moment around that, but there are many initiatives underway that hopefully will identify what the need is and then bridge to that need.

A. Dix: At this point I'll just say that I think that the kind of announcement we saw on Monday — new resources to deal, I think, with the long-term demand in that area — would be an excellent idea. I would suggest that the minister in this area…. Whether or not he accepts the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's analysis or not, I think it's a good idea and one that we have to get on with right now.

Speaking of getting on right now, we've got three members who are going to ask a series of questions on different issues, and then the minister and I can finish on the conversation on health care and have a little discussion of that.

D. Routley: I have four areas I'd like to canvass very quickly. Two of them I've already discussed with the minister in meetings, so he'll be familiar with those.

The first one would be a mental health outreach worker for the Ladysmith area. There have been several petitions made to VIHA and to the minister to provide mental health outreach services in Ladysmith, which have been reduced and are badly needed in that community. I wonder if the minister could give promise to Ladysmith that those services will be established.

Hon. G. Abbott: I think this is one of the questions that we didn't discuss at our meetings. We will try to get some information on this while we speak, and if it does not present itself as available by that point in time, we'll get back to the member. Perhaps we could move on with other questions, and then we'll try to get him that information as quickly as possible.

D. Routley: One of the subjects we did discuss at two previous meetings was home care support levels in the Cowichan-Ladysmith region, particularly in the Ladysmith area where numerous people are having to endure great hardship in their lives attempting to care for their loved ones.

Home care hours are arbitrarily set and have little flexibility when it comes to individual circumstances. Some of the circumstances I've described to the minister.

He is familiar with the Kenmuir family — very serious health difficulties. Mrs. Kenmuir, Mr. Kenmuir's wife, due to a very unusual blood condition, had to suffer the amputation of her hands and her feet. This all occurred with diagnosis and procedure within a 48-hour period, so it was a great shock and trauma to their family.

They've had to cope with many difficulties. The file for the Kenmuirs was lost in transit from Vancouver to Royal Jubilee in Victoria. As a result, no pain medication could be administered for many, many hours. Mrs. Kenmuir has suffered very much, and Mr. Kenmuir now has failing health and is having to provide many, many hours of care to his wife.

I wonder if the minister could give Mr. Kenmuir some hope for respite care through the home care services.

Hon. G. Abbott: The information I have is that the patient is currently receiving four hours of respite care twice a week. Those four hours twice a week are intended to provide some assistance to her spouse — who is her primary caregiver, as the member notes. The respite care was increased two weeks ago from four hours once a week to now four hours twice a week in consultation with their case manager.

D. Routley: Thank you for that, Minister. This problem is not atypical. There are many, many circumstances like this. Mary Fox is another case that the minister knows about and that was brought to the House here.

As a result of the demands of caring for very demanding circumstances when it comes to the health of family members, there are many people in my riding who are suffering great financial loss or loss of health to the caregiver.

What can the minister offer to those people who struggle with those circumstances? Will there be an increase in home care services allotted for the region?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'm not attempting in any way to step aside from the question. It's a reasonable question. But I do want to note to the member that we spent some fairly considerable hours earlier in our estimates — not the member and I, but other members and I — talking about the issue of home care.

If he wants to reference generally the kind of allocations that are being made around home care and how the budget for home care has grown and the number of hours per client has grown and all of that, I would refer him to the earlier estimates of this ministry earlier this week.

In terms of how those home care dollars are distributed, though, what the health authorities attempt to do is to have rigorous assessments of the clients and what their needs are and then try to match up the home care hours appropriately.

I know that in the case the member cites, the clients felt that they needed more. Vancouver Island Health Authority felt that they had provided an appropriate level of support and that it was top-end at 120 hours.

There may be differences of view with respect to this, but one of the things that the health authorities need to look at in terms of the distribution of their resources is at what point the investment in home care becomes more appropriately an investment in residential care.

These are difficult issues, and one can't form conclusions about that for an individual case. Every individual case is going to be different, and we always have to look at people as people and try to deal with their situations on an individual basis. I don't want to say things that are inappropriate for individual cases, because each one is going to vary.

The general approach is that the health authorities try to match need with resources. As a consequence of that, every year the demand grows — no question — and will continue to grow, and the resources devoted to it will continue to grow. How that is allocated…. Again, there may be no perfect formula, but I think health authorities do their very best to try to match up need with resources.

D. Routley: Earlier this year there were many, many hip and knee replacement surgeries cancelled on Vancouver Island, throughout the region. The responses from VIHA to some of the people who had their surgeries cancelled note that for the fiscal year last year, VIHA had funding to perform 2,100 total joint replacements.

Many constituents of mine were told they would have to wait many years or travel to Vancouver to have their surgeries done at UBC. There was some opportunity for some of these people, but many of them, of course, were elderly and obviously had some significant mobility challenges. Those who did travel to UBC reported very difficult circumstances, especially in follow-up after surgery.

I wonder what plans the minister has to address the allocations for hip and knee replacement surgeries on Vancouver Island, which obviously are inadequate in face of need. Will there be a greater investment in hip and knee surgeries for the Vancouver Island region?

Hon. G. Abbott: I'll go to the joint replacement issue in a moment, but I now have an answer for the member's first question, which was around mental health outreach for Ladysmith.

I'll just note that Vancouver Island Health Authority recognizes the need of Ladysmith residents for mental health and addictions services and is committed to improving primary health care in the community. A needs analysis has recommended a small team of mental health and addictions staff be established in Ladysmith, and that recommendation has been put forward within VIHA for consideration.

The staff member who was reassigned from our Duncan office gave notice that she wished to return to her permanent position, and VIHA has so far been unable to find a staff member to fill the temporary position. Efforts are being made to find a replacement mental health and addictions services worker for Ladysmith. In the meantime, residents can receive services through the Duncan Mental Health Centre, as they did prior to the temporary reassignment to their community. So that's the first issue.

On the second issue, around hip and knee replacement surgeries, I want to note first of all that the government has put record resources into hip and knee replacements in this province. Hip and knee replacements have been, over the years, an area of chronic long wait-lists.

We tackled that issue with vigour over the last two or three years, and we are making very substantial progress in terms of the wait times in VIHA and everywhere in British Columbia for joint-replacement surgeries. In British Columbia last year there was a record number of joint-replacement surgeries undertaken; for the first time in provincial history, over 10,000 joint replacements were completed successfully in British Columbia.

Part of that was the Centre for Surgical Innovation at UBC, which I think did something in excess of 1,200 hip and knee replacement surgeries. It is a centre that is advancing our understanding of minimally invasive surgical techniques, advancing our understanding of appropriate prosthetic devices — all of that. It has been a remarkably useful institution, and it's still in its infancy. I'm sure the potential has not been fully realized yet.

The same holds true for Vancouver Island as for the province generally. We had a record number of joint replacements within Vancouver Island Health Authority in the last year. We continuously build, year over year, the number of surgeries. Last year, for the first time, over 2,500 surgeries in fiscal '06-07 on Vancouver Island. That is an 80-percent increase in hip and knee replacements over just the last four years.

If you look at the number of surgeries going back to 2000-2001: 672. This grows to 726 as we get out to 2002-2003. In '03-04, 804; 954 in '04-05; 1,014 in '05-06, and now an even more substantial increase in '06-07 — in fact, a huge increase — in joint replacement.

We are making progress on wait times on Vancouver Island and everywhere else in the province, and we're making progress on joint replacement, notwithstanding the fact that the demand curve keeps climbing — not as quickly as we're putting resources in, but keeps climbing as well, reflecting the aging demographic.

D. Routley: I have one more question, but in response to that, the people of Ladysmith embraced the notion of primary health care when it was described to them. Part of what was described to them was enhanced mental health outreach and other mental health services, and they feel as though that and other services promised haven't materialized, while the downgrading of the hospital has taken place.

If the minister could take some time to consider that over the next few months, the people of Ladysmith would appreciate it. It's disappointing to hear that we have empty beds, and surgeons in our hospitals who aren't occupied doing these hip and knee replacements and who want to do them, yet our citizens have to

move. Disappointing, played against phrases like "Where you need it, when you need it…." So I know that the minister is striving to address those needs, but still, it's a very difficult pill to swallow for those who are waiting.

The last question I have is related to funding of Cowichan District Hospital, and I have spoken to the minister about ER staffing levels, which are either one-half or one-third of the comparative levels of Victoria and Nanaimo. The staff assure me that the acuity levels are comparable. They assure me that the number of visits in Cowichan are higher than both of those emergency rooms.

Yet we often arrive at circumstances where there's one nurse responsible for ten or 12 beds. That circumstance has been described to the minister, and he's promised that he'll look into it. When I speak to the staff and the administrators of Cowichan District Hospital, they talk about some very disturbing things. The doctor who services the maternity ward tells me that a premature baby has a much lower chance of survival in our hospital because of lack of services and lack of support.

They tell me that they're constantly at 90-percent plus occupancy and studies tell them that when a hospital is at 90-percent plus occupancy, there's as much as a 45-percent increase in MRSA, the nasty bugs that are so difficult to rid a hospital of. They also tell me that in comparison to other hospitals in the VIHA region, we are 40-percent underfunded per capita. The Cowichan District Hospital faces a lot of pressure in a growing region. It has always been seen as sandwiched between two larger centres, Victoria and Nanaimo. But in fact, our load on the hospital has grown significantly.

I wonder if the minister can promise to people served by Cowichan District Hospital that funding will be increased to address that inequity?

Hon. G. Abbott: I want to comment on a few of the issues that the member has raised in respect of Cowichan District Hospital. It should be noted, I think, because the ministry and VIHA have devoted considerable attention to emergency services at Cowichan District Hospital and have made some changes, appropriately, to deal with that….

With respect to the emergency department specifically, staffing has been increased, including a unit clerk an additional four hours a day, seven days a week. A triage registered nurse has been added, an additional four hours per day, seven days a week, and an emergency department registered nurse, an increase of one RN 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All of that has been added.

There have been other initiatives, several initiatives in fact, to enhance patient flow at Cowichan District Hospital. Among them is an intensive care unit registered nurse. Staffing has been increased by one RN 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to support the provision of critical care service at CDH and expedite patient transfers from emergency to intensive care. A community liaison registered nurse has been added at Cowichan District Hospital as well. The position has been added eight hours a day, seven days a week, to facilitate discharge from emergency and in-patient units to home with community supports.

The member raises the issue of infections and infection control. I'm not sure why Cowichan District Hospital would be different than others. I think Vancouver Island Health Authority has really been the leader in the province in terms of infection control. They have done some remarkable work in terms of reducing infections.

I know some staff recently visited the hospital and found that, in fact, the awareness of the infection issue and all of the proactive steps that staff and patients can take to manage infections are in place at Cowichan District Hospital. I'm sure continuous improvement is their motto there as well, but let's give credit where credit is due. Vancouver Island Health Authority has been an exceptional leader on infection control in this province.

I guess as a final point, the member mentions premature babies and their needs. Infants sometimes do require perinatal intensive care. They may require a level two or level three intensive care. Those level two and level three facilities are generally concentrated in larger centres. You can't have that intensive level of care at every facility. It just is not possible.

For premature babies or those facing significant health challenges, we have 191 level two and level three infant intensive care beds in the province. I know none of those are in Cowichan District Hospital, but it is part of the tertiary services system we have in the province that four of those beds are available in Victoria.

S. Simpson: I've just got a couple of questions that relate to the redevelopment of St. Paul's. Could the minister tell us whether there is a time line and what it is for a decision on the redevelopment of St. Paul's?

S. Simpson: If that's pending, I'm assuming — but the minister can certainly correct me — that Partnerships B.C. is playing a role in the assessment of the redevelopment of St. Paul's. Are they playing a role in that reassessment?

Hon. G. Abbott: Partnerships B.C. is part of the working group that is looking at the issue.

S. Simpson: I'm wondering if the minister could tell us if documentation is available or could be made available around the options that are being considered for the redevelopment of St. Paul's.

Hon. G. Abbott: The working group is not at the stage of options at this point.

S. Simpson: I wonder if the minister could tell us — I believe it's the project planning and implementa-

tion team that is leading up and doing some of the work related to this — whether the records of the minutes and the records of their meetings are available information.

Hon. G. Abbott: We can't definitively answer that question at this point. The records may be shared on a proactive or a freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy basis. We simply don't know the answer to that question.

S. Simpson: Possibly if the minister could have somebody get a definitive answer at some point and just be able to let me know whether that information will or won't be available depending on decisions that are made there, that would be helpful.

Just one other question in relation to this. The minister will know that there are a significant number of people who are concerned about how this redevelopment may occur, where it will occur, whether it's on the current site or on a new site. There's a whole range, obviously, of public interest around this.

Part of the concern is that the options and the documentation that will go into the decisions — that the information and documentation be available and public before the government makes a final decision so that those interests in the community can comment on that information in order, obviously, to influence the government's decision. The problem, I'm being told by a number of those groups, is that they're having challenges getting at information that will help them to make informed comment.

Will the minister commit that the documents and the information related to the public-private partnership, if that proceeds to the inclusion of private clinics or other related information, will be made public before the government makes a final decision so that people can actually be engaged in an informed discussion about this project?

Hon. G. Abbott: The issue of the redevelopment of St. Paul's is at an early stage. There will be, I'm sure, a tremendous amount of public consultation with respect to this matter before any options are prepared or conclusions are reached, or anything like that.

I'm not going to try to hypothesize exactly what form those will take. That is a matter that is primarily in the hands of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Providence Health Care. At this point in time, I'm sure they are looking at how they will construct those processes and how they will form conclusions on those processes, but we are some considerable distance before the province will be in a position to consider any recommendations from that group.

S. Simpson: I guess the comment I'd make is…. I know that in response to a number of freedom-of-information requests, the Providence Health Care group has declined to provide information with the rationale around the early stage of the redevelopment and also suggesting that they hadn't received approval from the government to allow them to release some of the data that might be available. I'm sure that has to do with the early process.

The last question that I would have, then…. The minister has said that there is not a time line for a final decision on this, and I realize the minister can't be exact about this. But does he have a sense? Are we talking six months or a year? Just some broad sense of what kind of time we are looking at before this matter is before the government for a decision.

Hon. G. Abbott: I think the most I can say with respect to this…. As consultation processes have really been limited to this point and the full consultation processes have not yet been launched, I certainly can't imagine a scenario where we would be considering anything around a recommendation on this before a year from now. I'm inclined to think it would be considerably more than a year.

R. Fleming: I want to ask the minister about something that we exchanged some correspondence on in January. That is around HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C funding, particularly on the south Island in the Vancouver Island Health Authority. As the minister knows, VIHA is planning on the south Island to reduce funding for these organizations by $450,000 in the next fiscal year.

I know that he may have played a role in directing the health authority to not do it in this fiscal year. Contingent upon accepting that they not receive massive cuts, all those service organizations dealing with this population in this fiscal year, they are being pressured to sign on to documents accepting the permanent cut of $450,000 in the next fiscal year. I think my community and the agencies that have served them so well simply cannot be blackmailed like that to sign on to something that is going to damage the capacity to serve this population in this area.

The minister will know that for approximately ten years this entire region has only had funding of $1.5 million. I want to ask him if he has stayed on top of this file since we last were able to correspond.

Can he tell this committee whether the situation has changed, whether the security of organizations like AIDS Vancouver Island to be able to provide services and avoid cuts of $450,000 on the south Island…? Whether he has information that he can share that is perhaps more current?

Hon. G. Abbott: First of all, in fairness to the Vancouver Island Health Authority, the authority kept AIDS Vancouver Island whole for the current year, and I know their discussions are continuing. Also, in fairness to the Vancouver Island Health Authority, what they are attempting to do is ensure that the support for HIV/AIDS programs is distributed fairly across the Vancouver Island expanse.

I know the premise here is that the challenges of HIV/AIDS don't end at the Malahat. There are challenges in other corners of Vancouver Island as

What I have encouraged the Vancouver Island Health Authority to do is work with the proponents here, and I strongly encourage the proponents to work with the Vancouver Island Health Authority. I think all of these people are reasonable people who desire reasonable outcomes. No one should think that Vancouver Island Health Authority has a whole lot of extra money spilling out of their jeans. They need to make the best use of those dollars.

I'm sure they will be taking great care in terms of their deliberations with AIDS Vancouver Island, and I hope that the parties can come to a respectful and mutual agreement on this matter.

R. Fleming: What's interesting in the discussions that are occurring here is that VIHA has unfortunately been incredibly dishonest with these service organizations that have a long history of serving communities up and down the Island. They originally constructed a rationale for these cuts or this reallocation, if you will, suggesting that the south Island had a much lower infection rate than the central or north Island. In fact, when it was pointed out that the infection rate here is two and three times the rate that it is on other parts of the Island, the rationale for reallocating and maintaining the cuts was maintained.

You know, it seems that the issue here is that they're determined to cut funding, to keep it at a low level of $1.5 million and to reallocate it. I wonder if the minister could comment on how that occurrence here on the Island squares with his ministry's goals on this population to reduce HIV infections by 50 percent and increase the proportion of HIV-positive individuals who are linked to appropriate care, treatment and support service by 25 percent.

How are we to do that here on the south Island when we face a $450,000 funding cut on a budget that is very insignificant and very small to begin with?

Hon. G. Abbott: I think, first of all, the member is being unfair in his comments. He's relatively new to this place, but I need to counsel him that using terms like "dishonest" is really not a good reflection in terms of how one would characterize the work of excellent organizations like the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

I know reckless rhetoric is occasionally a product of this assembly, but in this particular venue, I think members should try to consider that the Vancouver Island Health Authority is composed of professionals who work tirelessly to deliver the very best on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people they serve.

To characterize their actions as dishonest is inappropriate, and I hope the member can move beyond that kind of rhetoric and actually demonstrate a respectful relationship to the Vancouver Island Health Authority, who I think work very tirelessly to do their best to deliver programs here.

In fairness to the Vancouver Island Health Authority, there has been no cut. There was a thought of a cut. There was a suggestion that there might be, but in fairness, VIHA has put in place a one-year transition plan that keeps AIDS Vancouver Island whole. The discussions about next year continue, yes, but the decisions have not been reached. It would be unfair to suggest that they have or that in some way VIHA is being dishonest in the way they are dealing with these organizations. I think that's unfair and unfortunate.

I do have some information in respect to south Vancouver Island AIDS-related deaths. It is an issue for south Vancouver Island, central Vancouver Island and north Vancouver Island. I think the emerging figures, while they're relatively small…. Whether it's south, central or north, it is an issue in all the areas, and I don't think the member should disparage the Vancouver Island Health Authority for being concerned about the growing incidence of HIV and AIDS deaths on central and north Vancouver Island.

It is the realm of the numbers. When you combine central and north Vancouver Island, the number of AIDS-related deaths is comparable — about nine in both cases. So let's be fair here. Let's be professional here. Let's give Vancouver Island Health Authority some credit for knowing what they're doing on this file.

R. Fleming: The minister stood in this place during estimates in November 2005 when we had that first updated budget. He made an announcement that HIV/AIDS organizations in B.C. were going to receive an additional $60 million over three years. The reality on the ground in my community and others is that they're facing cuts like the ones I've outlined — $450,000, which, I'll be fair, has been spared this year but is on schedule for next year, to update the minister, because that's exactly where the situation is as it sits currently.

I mean, $60 million over three years provincewide would mean about $2 million or $3 million more on the Island. That would be great. That would enable us to get over this ten-year funding freeze that I think has really pressured our ability to meet your ministry's goals of reducing infection rates and tying people who are living with these illnesses to appropriate care.

Where has that money gone? Maybe the minister could tell us where that $60 million over three years went, because it hasn't translated to any services on the ground. The situation is quite the opposite. Communities like mine on the south Island are facing cutbacks to existing services that have served our communities so well for many years.

Hon. G. Abbott: I am joined to my immediate left by Andy Hazlewood, who is the assistant deputy minister responsible for population health and wellness. We are somewhat puzzled by the member's reference to $60 million. He can perhaps forward to me where he gets that figure.

Three years ago, which I presume would be 2005, there was a commitment to a $30 million lift to public health in the province. Those funds have flowed to the health authorities, and the health authorities have

made their investments in those areas of public health that they felt were most critical to ensuring population health and wellness. I'm sure in some cases it went to HIV/AIDS. In other cases, I'm sure it went to additional things as well. I think that's the best answer that I can provide to the member now.

A. Dix: In the old days — the minister may recall this — the government was much more generous in terms of time for estimates with the opposition. An estimates debate like the Ministry of Health would last for days, even weeks. Here, we're much more disciplined in this House on the opposition side, much more precise in our criticism, so naturally the debate takes less time.

I know from some personal experience that the estimates debate requires a lot of work by a lot of different staff people in the Ministry of Health, some who appear here and some who are sitting in rooms behind the minister. I want to express my appreciation to his staff and to the minister.

I just want to say at the end that one of the issues we've canvassed many times in question period and other things, the minister and I, is the issue of emergency rooms and the change in our health care system and the transformation that's taken place.

It used to be…. There was a time in health care in British Columbia when hallway medicine would only happen occasionally. Now, clearly, hallway medicine has become standard practice in the ministry. One can think of code gridlock in the community of Prince George.

I think of the emergency room physician who talked about a day in February in Kelowna where there were 35 admitted patients waiting in the ER — that doesn't count the patients who were actually being treated in the ER. These were 35 patients already admitted and others waiting. The fact that every day they…. In fact, the situation became so bad in Kelowna, I say to members, that the government's principal response was to no longer call the phenomenon "code purple."

They just changed the name, but it didn't change the fact that in Kelowna and Prince George, Royal Columbian, Surrey Memorial and Royal Jubilee and communities across British Columbia, health care workers are performing remarkable feats under the most difficult of conditions.

I think this is, sadly, the principal innovation of the government and the impact of a government that cut 1,300 acute care beds in the province — 11 percent of those beds in the Fraser health region, the fastest-growing region in British Columbia. I could go on, and we could have — and will be having, I'm sure — a long discussion around the emergency room issue.

I just want to finish by asking the minister a single question about the conversation on health care. The minister will know that the government launched the conversation last September. The minister was there; I was there; some other people were there.

The key thing that happened that day, the key announcement, was that the majority of spending on the conversation on health care would be on advertising. The government would advertise its message in health care — that public health care, as we have known it, is not sustainable and that health care costs would reach 71 percent of spending.

That's notwithstanding the fact that the budget tabled by the Minister of Health in this Legislature for the next three years shows nothing of the sort. His own information contradicts that view, but they say they wanted to scare people. They delivered this message about sustainability.

What did the Deputy Minister of Health, who was here at this time last year for the debates, say about that? She said the suggestion that that would happen was "without substance" on the Early Edition. She said it was without substance that the government spent $6 million of taxpayers' money to convince us that we can't afford public health care anymore.

I'm telling you, one of the interesting and compelling things, talking to people in our own conversations around the province…. My colleague from Cowichan-Ladysmith and I had a meeting in a community in his riding. People do not buy the government line. They know what we know — that the idea of public health care today, an idea that brings together administrative efficiency and social justice…. That idea remains strong.

The people of British Columbia support that idea. They are not convinced by a government that wants to convince them that they can no longer afford equal access to health care services, and they've delivered a message to this government through this conversation on health care that they don't accept the Premier's agenda of privatization.

All of this leads me, by way of preamble, to my specific questions to the Minister of Health. I'm sure the first question is very simple. On what date…?

A. Dix: You know, it's a chain of questions, really, from one fruit, I say to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard.

The simple question is: the report of the conversation on health care — when can we expect it, on what date? On what date does the government plan to respond to the report on the conversation on health care?

I understand that it will be a collection of the views and the processes presented to the government. That's the intent of the report. The report will not be, as in the Romanow report or others, making recommendations.

Can the minister tell me on what date we will be receiving the report coming out of the conversation on health care? On what date will the Minister of Health and the Premier of British Columbia be offering their response to that report?

Sadly, hon. Speaker, this is a one-way conversation. The Premier never stays at the meeting to answer questions. Unfortunately, he doesn't. What people really want to know is: when decisions are being made, will their voice be heard?

There are those very simple questions, and then we'll let this $12.8 billion go through. To the minister: on what date will we expect the report, and on what date will the Premier be responding on behalf of the government to that report?

Hon. G. Abbott: For a simple question, it took considerable time to draw it out. The member's right. It was late September that the Conversation on Health was launched. We promised a year. At some point in the late fall, I would think, is the probable time at which a report would be generated with respect to what was heard at the Conversation on Health. Late fall would be as prescriptive as I would want to get on that matter.

It has been a wonderful process. We have welcomed, consistently, a range of perspectives…

Hon. G. Abbott: …across the province. Thousands and thousands of people have participated in this, and it has been wonderful to hear the range of ideas.

I know time is limited here, and I'll keep it brief. The member mentioned the overcapacity protocol that is in many emergency rooms today. That actually is an innovation that was developed by Dr. Grant Innes and his team and the staff at St. Paul's Hospital. Now it's used in many hospitals. It is one of many innovations that are helping us to improve the management and flow-through of emergency rooms in this province.

We look forward to learning more through the health innovation fund and the continuing work of the 120,000 doctors and nurses, allied professionals and front-line health care workers across the province who each and every day get up to deliver the best of care to British Columbians.

I also want to thank the hundreds of hard-working people at the Ministry of Health who have been working not only on these estimates tirelessly, preparing binders that would give soft-tissue injuries to most….

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that the committee rise, report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

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

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

S. Fraser: Last year the critic and I, as critic for Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, visited some archaeological sites that were actual burial sites for the Tseycum First Nation. I just received correspondence that came from the Tseycum, addressed to you.

It's fairly recent, May 8, so I don't know if the minister has received it yet. But I know there has been some correspondence on archaeological sites, and there's been some development in the traditional territory by the municipal government, which has been working cooperatively, I understand, with the Tseycum.

The problem is that the desecration of these sites is still happening, and the resources to deal with these issues are not there at the local government level. They're not there, certainly, at the Tseycum First Nation level.

I'll just cut to the chase. The Tseycum First Nation is looking for the government to assist in managing first nations archaeological sites in a respectful manner. They are also asking this government to allocate funding to assist the North Saanich municipality for the extended work that was completed to handle these archaeological sites, and there are extensive burial sites.

Hon. S. Hagen: Being more senior, of course heritage and archaeology are real interests of mine. I can say to you, not specifically with regard to this case, because we'll address that…. I haven't seen the letter, but the ministry will, as they do always, work together with the municipality and the first nations to see how we can resolve this.

We are working together with MAAR in looking at the heritage act, because first nations and non–first

I think I actually answered this question yesterday. We are hoping to bring something forward, not next spring but the spring of '09, to seek resolution on some of these issues.

G. Gentner: Thank you, Minister and staff, for providing the answers you did. We'll just start where we left off relative to B.C. Place and, hopefully, we can end the discussion soon.

What I have heard here were three options for the future of B.C. Place. Basically, there are three options. However, in my interpretation — and I'd appreciate some comment from the minister — there are two options.

One is status quo and improve it. The other is to redevelop the site, of which there are two possibilities: move the sports facility — which I believe is partly owned and controlled by the public, namely the province — or turn it into a completely new private sporting venture somewhere else. Can the minister comment if that is generally what we're looking at?

Hon. S. Hagen: Well, what I can confirm is what PavCo is looking at, and that is the three options that I listed off previously today.

One is to renew-develop a comprehensive plan for the facility and surrounding lands to both maximize revenues for the site while continuing to own and maintain a first-class facility to service the needs of businesses and consumers. Two is to replace or sell the site for redevelopment and replace the facility with a structure that can accommodate the displaced sporting and other events through a P3 process or other mechanism. Three is to remove or sell the facility for redevelopment and allow market forces to take care of events displaced.

G. Gentner: The ministry, or should we say PavCo, is looking at the potential of selling the site. Has the minister or the corporation determined what the actual value of the site is today?

Hon. S. Hagen: It's too early for that. We're in the process now of looking at the options. Those sorts of discussions will, I'm sure, be entertained in the future.

G. Gentner: A nod yes or no may suffice. Therefore, there have been no appraisals done by PavCo and the ministry?

Hon. S. Hagen: There have been no official appraisals done of B.C. Place or the site.

G. Gentner: So that's no official appraisals; have there been any unofficial appraisals done?

G. Gentner: Other than B.C. Assessment, has PavCo engaged in any unofficial appraisal of the properties in question?

Hon. S. Hagen: There have been no official appraisals of B.C. Place. I don't know how much more specific I can be.

G. Gentner: We'll move on, but the minister did mention or give some intriguing notion that these are official, but we know there could be unofficial. My question, therefore, would be: has the corporation engaged in any correspondence with a real estate firm that has been hired to identify market opportunities for the properties?

Hon. S. Hagen: There have been no discussions or correspondence with realtors with regard to B.C. Place.

G. Gentner: One of the options is redevelopment of the site. Have there been any discussions with the city of Vancouver from the corporation?

Hon. S. Hagen: The discussions that are ongoing with the city of Vancouver have to do with their overall development plan, not specifically with regard to B.C. Place.

G. Gentner: The displacement of these sporting aspects of B.C. Place has been discussed. Has the corporation conducted any inquiry as to possible location analysis of where to displace the sporting events?

Hon. S. Hagen: It's premature to answer that question. Those discussions have not taken place.

G. Gentner: The minister did state in the press that Surrey had a potential to eventually house a future stadium sizeable to what B.C. Place is today. Could the minister tell the House how he came to such a conclusion?

Hon. S. Hagen: First of all, it wasn't a conclusion; it was speculation as to what areas of the lower mainland you could put a stadium like this in. There have been no studies done at this point. There is going to be lots of work done with regard to B.C. Place, but it's too early to speculate on those things.

G. Gentner: Well, the minister says too early to speculate, yet he just said that he speculated — sheer speculation. Again, what information did the minister have relative to the pronouncement through speculation that it could be relocated to a place like Surrey?

Hon. S. Hagen: I had no information. The reporter asked me where a stadium of this size could be located in the lower mainland. I was thinking of SkyTrain and other things, but it was purely speculation.

G. Gentner: It was purely a whim then, I suppose. I guess it was just something that came out of thin air.

Nevertheless, we do know the minister has divulged that there are three options for the future. One is displace sporting events through a P3 process. Has there been any discussion with Partnerships B.C. for a future stadium in the province under the guidance of PavCo?

Hon. S. Hagen: There are no ongoing discussions with Partnerships B.C. with regard to B.C. Place.

G. Gentner: Have there been any discussions or correspondence with Partnerships B.C. relative to it?

Hon. S. Hagen: I understand that a discussion took place about a year ago with Partnerships B.C. and PavCo.

G. Gentner: The discussion with Partnerships B.C. had to do with the removal of B.C. Place and finding a partner to build a new stadium, or was it to partner at the present site?

Hon. S. Hagen: I wasn't party to those discussions. I would encourage the member to wait until we actually get a report from PavCo, and we don't have to continue to speculate with either questions or answers.

Hon. S. Hagen: That report will be ready as soon as the chair of the board has finished the work that he's doing.

G. Gentner: The report is being conduct by the new chair of the board. What outside assistance does he have outside of PavCo? Is there any consultation being made?

Hon. S. Hagen: The chair of the board of PavCo will obtain any assistance that he needs, if he thinks he needs some. If he doesn't think he needs any, then he won't.

G. Gentner: What is the budget of this said study or report by the board chair?

Hon. S. Hagen: This is being handled internally in the existing budget. There is no separate budget set aside for it.

G. Gentner: What is the reporting structure between the chair of the board and the rest of the board members relative to this study?

Hon. S. Hagen: There is no study. He's having discussions with regard to the future of PavCo, of B.C. Place Stadium. He will share that with the board, and then he'll share it with me.

G. Gentner: Can the minister tell us what expertise the board chair has? Is it relative to the development of condominium-commercial? What expertise does he have relative to rehabilitating current stadium sites?

Hon. S. Hagen: This gives me an opportunity to read David Podmore's bio into the record. David Podmore has more than 33 years in the real estate development industry and is president and CEO of Concert Properties Ltd. He is vice-chair of the British Columbia Institute of Technology Foundation; the immediate past president of the Urban Development Institute of Canada, Pacific Region; a past member of the B.C. Progress Board; immediate past chair of the B.C.'s Children's Hospital Foundation; and was a director of the Canadian Tourism Commission for eight years. He is the first recipient of the Award of Excellence established by the Real Estate Institute of B.C. and received the 2003 Community Service Award for Volunteer Vancouver.

G. Gentner: Going back to the first option, which was suggested by the minister, that they look at a comprehensive plan for the facility…. I would assume that has to do with the sports facility. What consultation with a firm that has an expertise in rehabilitating present sports stadiums will Mr. Podmore be having, if any?

G. Gentner: Therefore, the minister stated that to his limited knowledge, we do not know if the board chair will actually consult experts relative to option 1, which concerns me greatly. Now, the minister mentioned that the corporation has not seen any blueprints but did admit that they have seen some sketches about the enhancement of the facility. Could the minister tell us what "enhancement" meant or means?

Hon. S. Hagen: Several years ago, I think it was, there was a discussion amongst the board and staff about what else could go on that property, if anything. These were just artists' sketches that didn't go into any detail at all.

G. Gentner: Were these sketches commissioned by PavCo or B.C. Place? Or were they commissioned or delivered by or created by a private corporation?

Hon. S. Hagen: An outside firm was commissioned by PavCo to produce those drawings.

G. Gentner: So PavCo has had a history of commissioning or looking at potential sketches. That outside firm — was it an architectural firm, or was it a firm that's involved in development?

G. Gentner: I just want to reiterate this: how many events have been booked for this year at B.C. Place?

Hon. S. Hagen: These are the event highlights during the year ended March 31, 2006. There were 75 events — 215 event days. Some of the highlights were the 2005 Grey Cup, that's in 2005; B.C. Lions regular season football, Western Division playoff; Vancouver International Auto Show; B.C. Home and Garden Show; Vancouver International Boat Show; Vancouver Sun Run; Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show; Vancouver Gift Show; World Supercross GP; and Monster Jam Motor Spectacular.

G. Gentner: Reputations is a public relations firm. Is this firm no longer under contract with B.C. Place or PavCo?

Hon. S. Hagen: We don't have that answer. I'm happy to get it for you. There were some numbers being guessed, but I'd rather give you the accurate number.

Moving to the Vancouver Convention Centre expansion project. Since the minister took over, when was the minister first briefed on the project, and who was involved in the meeting?

Hon. S. Hagen: The first briefing meeting that I had with regard to the trade and convention centre expansion project was in early September. I was appointed minister in August. At that meeting were Ken Dobell and Russ Anthony. I had a political staff member there. I can't remember who that was, but I did have a political staff member there.

N. Macdonald: Can the minister give me the dates for the subsequent meetings that you've had? Is that something that you can provide for me? I realize that's something you might have to go back and get — but just off your daybook, the meetings and when they took place on this topic.

Hon. S. Hagen: I was kind of hoping you would ask that question, because I know that the NDP FOIs my calendar pretty well daily. So it's laid out in the calendar.

I can tell you this. Since I became the minister in August, I have spent more time, more energy and more focus on this file than on any other files that I deal with.

N. Macdonald: Let's turn to the decision to reorganize the board so that I can come to understand that. Basically, I guess, the assumption would be that it was your decision to reorganize the board, but if you could give us the genesis of that idea.

Hon. S. Hagen: Yes, it was my decision. It progressed over a period of time because I could see that once the building started coming out of the water and the ground, it was time to start focusing on the marketing aspect of the facility. That's, after all, why we're building it. I knew we needed a few changes on the board so that we could accomplish the rest of the construction and also focus on the marketing part of it. This took place, I guess, in February of this year.

N. Macdonald: The Auditor General was doing the report. One of the questions that has been asked of you previously is: why would the minister not wait for the Auditor General's report that dealt with the governance and that structure? Why would the minister not wait for that?

Hon. S. Hagen: I think that's not a bad question to ask. I'm really pleased right now that I did make that decision then, because at that time we thought we were going to get an auditor's report at the end of March or end of April — something like that.

It's obviously going past that, so we did do the right thing in looking at the two boards so that we could have the two boards involved. As you know, PavCo does the marketing for the trade and convention centre. They have that expertise. It was important to join that expertise up with the construction aspect of the project.

N. Macdonald: I know Mr. Podmore brings a tremendous reputation. With each of the members, you talk about a different skill set. Maybe we could just go through the members that you have added to VCCEP and then the members that you chose to keep from the original VCCEP board and the members that you decided to not keep. Maybe just quickly go through and give a rationale for the skill set that you were looking for there.

So the names, starting with Mr. Podmore. I guess we'll first go through the new members, and I apologize if I mispronounce: Mr. Brindle, Ms. Daughney, Mr. Horning, Mr. Jarvis and Ms. Kresivo. So maybe just, as I say, an idea of the skill set that the minister felt they brought to the board.

Hon. S. Hagen: I'll start with two people who resigned from the board when this all transpired. One was Bruce Okabe, my deputy minister. The other was Dr. Andrew Wilkinson, who was the former deputy minister of this ministry.

I'll just go through the list of who is on the new board, where they came from and why they're there. Doris Bradstreet Daughney, who was on the PavCo board and remains on the PavCo board, is now on the VCCEP board. She of course brings the experience of PavCo with regard to marketing. I can read into the record her background, which might….

The rationale is what I've said. She was on the board of PavCo, and we wanted to combine the two boards. So we have ended up with two boards that will be combined, but it will take some legislation to do that.

Derek Brindle is new to the board. He was brought on to the board…. He is a practising lawyer in Vancouver, and his expertise is law in the construction industry. He has an outstanding reputation. He writes and lectures extensively on legal issues of interest to industry and the legal profession.

Ken Dobell, who was on the VCCEP board, remains on the VCCEP board. He is no longer chair, because we brought in Mr. Podmore to be chair.

John Horning is the vice-president of finance and corporate development for Interfor — International Forest Products. He was on the PavCo board and brings that expertise and public service to the new board.

Dan Jarvis is the executive vice-president and CFO — chief financial officer — of Intrawest. He brings that experience to the new board from PavCo.

Paul Taylor was on the VCCEP board and stays on that board. He brings along, as you know, a strong reputation of public service. He's the head of ICBC.

Miriam Kresivo is a corporate lawyer with Chevron Canada, and she now brings that experience that she offered to PavCo to the new VCCEP board.

Terry Lyons has over 31 years of experience as a senior person in the mining industry, real estate, merchant banking, corporate restructuring activities — a long list of companies that he has run and public service that he has given.

David Podmore, as I've gone through, is the new chair of the board. Grant Ritchie recently retired from his position as senior vice-president and leader of the transportation engineering group of UMA Engineering, and he brings that experience to this board.

N. Macdonald: You have a combination of people that have sat on two boards, and then the new chair was maybe just…. Is this somebody that simply has a reputation that is well known, and then the minister approached that person based upon the reputation?

Was there more of a process that included looking at a number of people, or is this somebody that the minister identified? More than me assuming that the minister led this process — just an assurance that the minister led this process and was the one who initiated it.

Hon. S. Hagen: My request to Mr. Podmore to come on board and chair this board came as a result of a conversation I had with cabinet colleagues. There was an agreement that he would be the right person to appoint to this position.

N. Macdonald: The next part. I would ask the minister to walk me through the process and just explain how exactly in a…. You've talked about the need, eventually, to use legislation.

I'd be interested to know, first: why didn't you move to legislation right away? That will be the first question. I'll ask you to answer that, and then you can walk me through the process in terms of how this is all worked out.

Hon. S. Hagen: This was a very complex issue to deal with because we have two legal entities. What we wanted to do was look at how we could best operate with those two, and maybe the end result will be that we combine them into one. But in order to keep operating and to improve operations as we went along, we appointed the same people to two boards, and those are ministerial appointments. So that's how those are made.

As I mentioned previously, Mr. Podmore is going to be bringing back recommendations to the boards and to me as the minister as to the best way to proceed. There are many, many implications and things that have to be thought of before the….

If the boards are going to be merged, there are a whole bunch of things we have to think of. We have to think of the legal ramifications. We have to think of the financial ramifications. We have to think of labour relations ramifications and things like tax ramifications.

The objective was to bring together a group of people who had the expertise in construction and also in marketing a facility like this. It actually has been a very successful transition, but the transition may or may not be finished. VCEC is coming from a position of great strength, having managed and marketed a very successful facility for the last 20 years, as you know.

In 2002 the trade and convention centre won the World's Best Congress Centre award. In 2006 the International Congress and Convention Association ranked Vancouver as the number one North American facility in the international association meetings market. The company has a strong global market presence and enjoys a diversified marketing base. As I've said before, we now have 52 conventions lined up; 29 of those are because of the new facility.

N. Macdonald: To understand where we are with this, the minister has indicated the appointments were made by order-in-council, as I understand. Maybe you could explain that process, because one of the things I looked for was for the order-in-council. I couldn't find it. So if you have them, if I missed them, then you can explain where they are. If it's a different process, please explain it to me.

Hon. S. Hagen: As I just mentioned, actually, these are ministerial appointments. These are appointments that I make as the minister.

N. Macdonald: The minister has said that there were two things he was looking for in the board, both marketing and construction. Previously he'd said marketing. In the House, I think he had said construction. I assume that the people you have added bring that level of expertise. Mr. Podmore, I would assume, is more to do with construction as a developer. So you worked on it like that.

You are able, for both of the boards, to use ministerial appointments through the legislation. That allows you to restructure the boards, but you cannot keep it that way permanently. I guess the point that I need clarification on is: why at some point do you need to change the legislation? Why is this not a permanent fix, if it's something that you were able to do on a temporary basis? Help me understand that, please.

Hon. S. Hagen: What we did here was accomplish something without having to change either of the two companies. That's why we set up two boards that are identical. They both report to me, and we may leave them that way. You know, if it's too much of a hassle to create a new company, then we'll leave them. But I won't be making that decision until I get the recommendations of the new chair of the board.

N. Macdonald: So when the membership changes, does it require motions from the existing boards? Or is it something that the minister has the prerogative to just change within the powers that he has? Is there any process that the boards have to go through, or is it something that the minister simply decides himself and informs the chairs of the various boards?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm holding in my hand a document which is a resolution. This is from the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project Ltd. — from the company. It's a company resolution, consenting in writing, as of April 5, 2007:

N. Macdonald: Just two things. First, in terms of the minister's diary and the minister's schedule — that's something we don't have within NDP research. I understand that it's been FOI'd. I mean, that's a possibility, but that information would be useful.

So if that's something that the minister could share with us, if you could send along with other documents that we've asked for…. If you could send the schedule of meetings that you've had on VCCEP, that would be something of interest to us. If you don't answer, then I'll assume that you're confirming that. If you insist it go through the FOI process, maybe you could let me know on that one.

With Mr. Dobell, could you give a sense of what his role is now? I'm assuming that Mr. Podmore has taken the lead role, and it's no longer Mr. Dobell. You had said he's there for historical reference on the project, so maybe if you could clarify that. If my assumption on that is incorrect, then please correct it.

Hon. S. Hagen: One of the things that I had to consider in appointing new people to the board was to make sure that we had continuity. So Mr. Dobell has stayed on the board to provide that continuity. As you know, he has long service to the public. He's been involved in a lot of large projects in the city of Vancouver. So he remains on the board as a member of the board but not as chair.

N. Macdonald: Then just the question about the dates for meetings on VCCEP — if the minister would provide us with those dates.

N. Macdonald: To help, as well, understand the possibilities around legislation, if you could identify the pieces of legislation that would need to be changed if you decide to use legislation to make this board structure permanent. Is it simply two pieces of legislation? And if you could identify them, that would be helpful.

Hon. S. Hagen: That's future policy, and I'm not going to speculate on that because we haven't made a decision on what we're going to do. If it comes forward, I'm sure you'll be aware that it does come forward, but we may not even have to do legislation.

H. Bains: As we know, this new facility will be used as a media centre during the Olympics, so I

would like to get some questions answered around that issue. The first question is: has that agreement been made with VANOC?

Hon. S. Hagen: PavCo has a lease with VANOC for the space, and then VANOC will do whatever is necessary to make provisions for the media during the 2010 Olympics.

H. Bains: Is a copy of the lease agreement available? Can that be made public?

Hon. S. Hagen: I forgot to answer your question on the calendar. I was just notified that apparently there is an FOI request that was made in April. So you'll be getting those shortly, I'm sure.

The contract — sorry. Yeah, the contract will be released to you with the standard FOI regulations.

H. Bains: As we talked about earlier, the expectation was for the publicly owned facility to be allowed by VANOC to be free of charge. Was that the expectation for the new trade and convention centre?

Hon. S. Hagen: There is a rental amount in the contract between PavCo and VANOC.

H. Bains: I guess the minister had stated earlier that there are 27 future confirmations.

How does this contract compare to those bookings as far as the rental agreement is concerned?

Hon. S. Hagen: I want to make sure that the record is straight here. There are 52 conventions booked in the new, joint trade and convention centre, and 29 of those are coming because of the new centre — just so you understand that.

With regard to the rental rates charged, each convention is individually negotiated depending on the services that they want. The contract with VANOC on the media centre was negotiated under those terms.

H. Bains: Comparing apples to apples — I think that's what my question would be. The space that is being leased to VANOC under this agreement. How does that compare to other agreements that require a similar space and similar conditions?

Hon. S. Hagen: The answer is yes. You could call them market rates, I guess. But that would be comparing apples to apples.

H. Bains: The expectation of having publicly supported facilities donate those facilities free of charge didn't apply here. How is that different than B.C. Place?

Hon. S. Hagen: Originally the agreement was going to be that the facility was going to be a privately managed facility, and then it was decided by VANOC that this would be a better facility to hold it in. So the dollars transferred with that agreement.

However, they will only use the facilities and the other attributes that they need. There's no sort of package deal here. As I say, every conference and convention is negotiated individually depending on what the needs are.

H. Bains: To confirm: VANOC received a market price. They did not get any break from PavCo on this.

H. Bains: I want to draw your attention to the service plan — that is, '07-08 and '09-10. At the end here, the chart shows that in '09-10 the revenue is considered to be $15.4 million and expenses are $15.4 million — exactly the same. Can you explain that, please?

Hon. S. Hagen: I just want to clarify. Which page of the service plan did you say?

Hon. S. Hagen: The two numbers in question, the $15.428 million in revenue and expenses…. This is VCCEP revenue; it's not PavCo revenue. So this has got nothing to do with what we're talking about. This would be other revenue from outside sources for VCCEP, and then it's offset. This is actually just an accounting function. It's offset under expenses by amortization.

H. Bains: Drawing your attention to another part, it says here clearly that the corporation maintains an effective working relationship with the minister through monthly project reporting and regular in-person meetings of the chair and the senior staff. The minister's deputy minister is appointed as a member of the corporation's board of directors.

The minister was appointed, as the minister said earlier, in August of last year, so he would have had monthly meetings since that time. The minister has said that he spends more time on this file than on any other responsibility that he has. Obviously, he will be spending a lot more time even than what is actually listed here.

In this report it showed the new, updated cost of the project as $623 million, which is higher than the $615 million which was the earlier forecast. Then there's an explanation of why that $8.1 million is extra.

The additional $8.1 million is required to meet the escalated cost of the contract that must be committed to by the end of February 2007 to meet the project schedule.

Hon. S. Hagen: This document that you're referring to was tabled with the budget the same day as the budget. Is that what your question was?

H. Bains: By the time this document was completed, there would have been at least six meetings with the minister, based on monthly meetings, and I'm sure there were more meetings.

At what meeting were you advised for the first time that the budget of $623 million was not the budget any longer?

Hon. S. Hagen: Round and about this date was when I notified the Minister of Finance that the 623 number wasn't going to be the number. That's why the Minister of Finance incorporated into the budget the range of $800 million — because we didn't have a number. We still don't have a final number, but we will have that final number very shortly.

H. Bains: So that I understand, this document was completed February 12. Around this time, as the minister has said, you were advised for the first time that $623 million was not going to be the budget for this project.

At no other time before that date were you advised during any of your meetings — the regular meetings, monthly meetings or your other meetings with anyone from the board, Mr. Dobell or anybody else from the board — that there was a problem with the $623 million? Never?

Hon. S. Hagen: Over the months, probably starting in December or January, I knew there was going to be a challenge with the number, but we didn't know what the new number was going to be.

With the budget coming out in February, I knew that I had to notify the Finance Minister that there was going to be a challenge with this number, which I did. Because we didn't have the firm number, the negotiated firm price, the Finance Minister put in the range of $800 million in the budget.

H. Bains: Very interesting answer. The minister said that for the first time, he was advised on or about February 12 that the $623 million wasn't going to be the budget. Now we are getting the different answers — that in prior meetings, someone advised the minister that the $623 million budget wasn't going to be the budget. It's going to be different; didn't know the numbers. You didn't know the numbers on February 12 either.

My question is: since the minister took over the office and then took responsibility for this file, when was the first time the minister was advised that the $623 million budget was not the budget, that it was going to be higher?

Hon. S. Hagen: As the member knows, this is a very complex project. I've seen the spreadsheets and the number of items that the management is trying to deal with in getting a handle on the costs.

The fact of the matter is that a number in the range of $800 million is in the budget — was in the budget documents. The team has been working on getting the fixed-price number completed. When we get that number, then we will know exactly what the number is. Up until that time, we won't know what the number is. But it was our responsibility to make sure that the public was aware that the number was in the range of $800 million, and that's what we've done.

H. Bains: I think the question was quite different than what answer is coming. That seems to be the theme of this afternoon and this morning.

I will just repeat what the question and answer was when was the first time the minister was made aware that the $623 million budget wasn't the budget and that it was going to be higher. The minister's answer was on or around when this document was put together, which was February 12.

I asked the second time if that means that at no time prior to February 12 or about has anyone ever brought to the minister's attention that the $623 million budget will not be the budget. The minister hasn't answered the question. Therefore, I'll take the answer to be that the right answer is: on or about February 12.

My next question would be this. Under this document the minister meets with the officials at least once a month, and the deputy minister is on the board. So the minister is getting regular information on what is going on, on that side — as far as this project is concerned. It means that between August and February no one advised the minister about this budget not being $623 million — that it is going to be higher. That would be the answer.

If that answer is not correct, then will the minister please let us know: what is the right answer?

As members may know, the Legislative Assembly is hosting two visiting Clerks from the parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago this week. From time to time our guests will be observing chamber and committee proceedings from the table. Please join with me in welcoming Mrs. Shaarda Maharaj to the committee this afternoon.

Hon. S. Hagen: The issue here is that aside from the 623 number, we hadn't had a number. We still don't

have that number, but we knew, because we wanted to be transparent, that we wanted to have a number in the budget. That's why the number in the budget says "in the range of $800 million." I'm still waiting for the end number, and I expect to get that number very shortly.

H. Bains: Welcome to our visitor, Ms. Maharaj. Welcome to Canada, welcome to this House, and thank you for being here.

The minister says that the $623 million was not the budget. Now we're hearing it from the minister for the first time. But this document clearly, clearly showed how much money the province is expected to put in. It's $280.6 million; and from the government of Canada, $223.5 million; Tourism Vancouver, $90 million; VCCEP general revenues, $30 million; for the total of $623 million.

It also goes on to mention that the original budget of $615 million is not the budget. The new budget is $623 million. Who was not telling the truth in this document, if that's the case?

Hon. S. Hagen: The fact of the matter is that the Finance Minister put into the budget the number in the range of $800 million. I am waiting for the final number. When we get that final number, it will be reported out to the public.

H. Bains: I'm talking about this document. I'm not talking about the budget document. I know what's in the budget document, but this document clearly, clearly shows in plain numbers that the budget has increased from the previous budget, which was $615 million, to $623 million. Then it went on to explain why and where that $8.1 million increase is coming from.

They came up in the final analysis that the budget is $623 million. That's on or about February 12 of this year, over six months after the minister was responsible for this file. For a minister to say that these numbers that the ministry or the ministers responsible put together…. They put together numbers. They were not the right numbers?

Hon. S. Hagen: Welcome. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go down to Trinidad and Tobago sometime.

Through you, Mr. Chair: the number in the budget document is in the range of $800 million. I am waiting for the final number. When I get the final number, we will know what the final number is, and so will you.

The Chair: Member. If I may, we'll show exemplary behaviour and go through the Chair for our guests' appreciation.

H. Bains: Of course. I'm sure from time to time when we don't follow the rules, the Chair will correct us, and I appreciate that.

The same document showed…. Actually, let me back up. The minister had said previously that one of the reasons for the budget to escalate to the level it is at was the pile driving, which happened to be much more difficult than was previously anticipated.

Can the minister explain? In this budget and this document it showed that the pile driving was completed in May of 2006. Therefore, when this budget was put together — $623 million — they considered the additional cost of pile driving.

Can the minister explain today the escalation of cost since February? What is the main reason?

Hon. S. Hagen: I have consistently said that it's because of a 25-percent increase in steel prices from '03, a 54-percent increase in rebar prices and a 39-percent increase in concrete prices. If the member were to go and have a look at the site, he would see that pretty well everything that's there is concrete, steel and rebar. That's the reason.

Plus, the labour market we're in today, as the member knows, is one of the tightest labour markets we've ever had, because of the booming economy. During the '90s we lost so many people that left the province because they couldn't find work here because of the government policies. Now those people are coming back. We now have hundreds and hundreds of people on that site from seven provinces who are excited to come back to B.C. with their families.

Having said that, though, labour costs are escalating. It's a supply-and-demand market, and right now the demand is high. Therefore companies are having to pay more for labour, which is a good thing for the people in the construction industry.

The other thing is…. I have talked about the 1,500 piles, I think there are, that had to be driven there into the sand. I have also referred to the fact that the NDP wasted over $70 million on their convention project, and they didn't drive one pile into the sand. But I won't dwell on that.

However, if a pile is driven in crooked, it all of a sudden drives what they call "extras" in the construction industry. You can't just put a standard cap on; you have to hand-build the cap.

It's not just a case of the cost of pile driving. It's the cost of what happens if a pile goes in crooked. Why do they go in crooked? I don't know; I've never driven piles. Anyways, I'm glad I didn't go there.

There are a number of reasons for the escalating of costs. I think the important thing to remember is that at the end of the day, when that facility opens, we're going to have an economic engine in the province. If you imagine 10,000 or 12,000 journalists located in that place, looking out over Vancouver harbour, looking at the Lions, the mountains, the snow, beautiful sunny days with snow on the mountains. What an advertisement that's going to be for British Columbia.

People all over the world, from all of the countries represented at the Olympics, are going to see what a beautiful spot B.C. is. They're going to want to come and travel around B.C….

We've acknowledged that we're not happy about the cost increases. I have acknowledged that. But we're going to end up with a real good product that the people of British Columbia will be proud of.

H. Bains: Minister, I accept the answer as it is given about the cost increase, as you mentioned, of the steel and the other commodities and materials that are being used, and the difficulty in pile driving. Can the minister tell us: when did you actually find out those cost increases were at that level?

Hon. S. Hagen: We still don't know what the end cost is. We will know the end cost when I get the numbers from Mr. Podmore.

H. Bains: The minister has said that the cost of steel has gone up — I forget what percentage was given — and some of the other price increases were given. Can the minister tell us when he was advised that those cost increases he just mentioned earlier were at that level?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I've said before, we still don't know what the end number is. We will know that when Mr. Podmore delivers that contractual information to me.

H. Bains: So the answer that the minister gave just a few questions earlier — the cost increase for the steel — was wrong?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said, since 2003 we've seen a 25-percent increase in steel, a 54-percent increase in rebar and a 39-percent increase in concrete. Plus, I spoke earlier about the labour costs. We're in a tight labour market — the tightest labour market the province has ever seen — which is good for the workers, but it's a cost driver.

H. Bains: A 25-percent increase in steel, 54-percent increase in rebar and 39-percent in concrete. When was the minister advised of these cost increases? At what meeting between August and February was the minister advised of these cost increases?

Hon. S. Hagen: These are increases that certainly have happened. I understand that they didn't really impact the project until 2006, but they certainly have impacted the project. We know that we're waiting for a final number. I am waiting for that final number. I wish I had the final number today so I could tell you, but I don't have it. When I get that final number, I will obviously be reporting that to the Finance Minister, to cabinet and to the public.

H. Bains: Thank you for the answer. The answer, I gather, is that these cost increases, which we just mentioned in our earlier answer, did not impact the project until 2006. Therefore, the price increases prior to 2006 — between 2003, when the original budget was put together, and 2006…. If that's the answer, can you explain why were there cost increases prior to 2006, then?

Hon. S. Hagen: Well, let's talk about some of the challenges on this project. The project….

Hon. S. Hagen: The project scope is huge: 3.7 acres of structural glass; 6,300 tonnes of rebar; 26,000 cubic metres of concrete for the foundation alone; 20,000 tonnes of structural steel; 1,500 piles driven, the largest pile-driving contract in North America; 6,000 stabilization columns; piles range from 49 feet to 197 feet in length; 10,000 tonnes of steel for piles.

Now let's talk about some of the challenges with this project. Design development resulted in significant extra costs for steel work. Mechanical, electrical, concrete — all significantly above estimates. Those estimates were reviewed and confirmed by independent consultants and the managing contractor.

Continuing foundation challenges arising from soil conditions. The construction of a new fishery habitat escalated significantly as a result of design changes for constructability. Increased salary costs for retention. Increased insurance. Corporate guarantee costs. Fees as a result of cost increases.

Then let's talk about some of the benefits of this. Let's talk about it from an environmental point of view. The expanded convention centre will be the greenest facility in North America. The expanded convention centre has a living roof — six acres, the size of 15 hockey rinks. My colleague could figure out how many football fields that translates into. The ecosystem features more than 700,000 B.C. plants and grasses on the roof of that building.

There are more benefits. The marine habitat has been restored underneath the building, in amongst the pilings, and there is already evidence of marine life returning to the site. The Vancouver Aquarium is so excited about this that they're already taking tours of people around the circumference of that building to have a look at how the habitat is coming back.

On-site water management and seawater cooling system. It's going to be an energy-efficient building. Rainwater irrigation for the living roof, and the use of natural light and natural ventilation.

Besides that, as I mentioned before, 52 events have been confirmed, starting when the building opens, and 29 of these would not have been able to come without the new facility. We're talking about $850 million of economic activity generated just by these 52 events. In addition, we have 167 events ranging out as far as 2015, which are in various stages of the booking process,

The project is going to be extremely successful. It's going to be a project that British Columbians throughout the province will be anxious to come and look at, will be anxious to walk around and will be proud of.

H. Bains: Let's try that one more time. The minister mentioned some numbers here: 25-percent increase in the price of steel, 54 percent in the price of rebar and 39-percent increase in concrete. When was the first time the minister was made aware of these increases, and by whom?

Hon. S. Hagen: Certainly, as the member knows, I asked the team at the trade and convention centre to come up with a new number, which we're still waiting for. I felt an obligation and indeed I had an obligation to report to the Minister of Finance, prior to the budget coming out, that the number that had been approved in the budget was not going to be sufficient. That's why the note was added to the budget, which was tabled in February. Because we didn't know the number, what was put in the budget was in the range of $800 million. I expect to get the new number very shortly, but I don't have it.

H. Bains: I don't think that was the question. I didn't ask what the new numbers are. I think that will be a question we will be asking every day, but that wasn't my question.

My question is that the minister took responsibility for this ministry in August. There must have been meetings in August, September, October, November, December, January and February. So there are seven meetings that the minister had, and the minister's deputy minister was on the board. Sometime during those meetings, somebody must have advised the minister that the price of these commodities and other commodities or other material that are being used for the convention centre has gone higher, and these are the numbers. At what meeting was the minister made aware that the material cost had gone to these levels through these percentages? When was the minister made aware of that?

Hon. S. Hagen: It was evident to me coming up to the time for the budget that the amount that had been approved, the $623 million, was not sufficient. We didn't know what the number was, but we did lay out to the public that it would be in the range of $800 million. I'm still waiting to get that number. When I get that number, I'll certainly be reporting it to the Finance Minister and to cabinet and to the public.

G. Gentner: The minister has said that the cost of steel has increased by 25 percent, and I believe rebar by 54 percent between 2003 and 2006. Between 2003 and 2004 it's my understanding that steel increased in price by 8 percent. My question to the minister, therefore, is — we're looking at 1,500 piles, I believe; I have the correction — how is it that according to the business plan, the expansion project was to secure the supply of all steel pipe by June 2004, thereby evading this increased, inflated price?

Hon. S. Hagen: I am told by staff that they actually did try to purchase as much in advance as they could, but a lot of the steel contract is supply and install. This is ongoing. If you go down to the site now, you'll see the steel contractor is very actively supplying and installing.

G. Gentner: The minister has now admitted that, according to the business plan, the project management team did not comply with the business plan and did not purchase material early on. Now we have an incredible inflation. Is that not correct?

Hon. S. Hagen: What I said, I think, was that they actually did purchase as much as they could ahead of time. As I've said before, this is a very, very complex project — hugely complex. It's probably the most complex project ever built in the history of the province, notwithstanding the fact it was built over land and also over water. It's pretty easy for the opposition to pick holes in this. As I've said many, many times, I'm not happy about the cost increases, the cost pressures that came for a number of reasons.

At the end of the day we will have a facility that British Columbians will be proud of, a facility that will be used every day, seven days a week. It will be attracting visitors here, tourists from all over the world. Particularly with regard to 2010 when we have those 10,000 or 12,000 journalists here, we'll be beaming out the message "Come to British Columbia" all over the world.

G. Gentner: It's clear with the answer that the inflated costs are not all because of increased labour. It's because of the incompetence of the team that did not go out and follow by precision the business plan, which suggested that materials should have been purchased by June of 2004.

My question again: in 2004 — I just want to remind ourselves — who was chairman of the board at that time?

Hon. S. Hagen: The answer to the question is that Ken Dobell was the chair of the board at the time when the person asked. But this isn't about Ken Dobell. This is about a project that's going to be incredibly successful. You know, 7,000 person-years of employment on this project.

As I said, if you go down to the site…. Even if you don't want to go down to the site, you stand at the Harbour Air terminal and look over at the site and see, I think, seven cranes on the site. There are hundreds and hundreds of workers on that site from seven provinces. People have come back to British Columbia after having to leave the province in the '90s — in that dark, dismal decade of the '90s.

Let's just talk about the success of this project to date — 52 conventions booked through 2011, $850 million in economic activity just in the first 52 conventions. These will be going on for years and years and decades and decades of successful conventions, of tourists coming to B.C., coming to see the province. They may come to a convention. That may be what draws them to British Columbia. But the next time they come, then they will want to visit Prince George. They will want to visit Prince Rupert. They'll want to visit Fort St. John, West Vancouver, North Vancouver and the North Shore.

They will want to visit all kinds of places, just like what happened after Expo. You know, the NDP were against Expo in 1986.

Hon. S. Hagen: They were. The NDP were against Expo. I remember Mike Harcourt saying: "What happens if we throw a party and nobody comes?" Well, 22 million people came.

We've talked about the benefits — the 7,000 person-years of employment, hundreds of people on the site, moving forward to the marketing phase, which of course is vitally important. A good job has been done so far.

We're in the fourth year — again, they haven't asked this question, hon. Chair; they should ask this question — of a global marketing campaign in anticipation of the expansion and are now targeting specific markets.

They are also creating strong alliances such as Conventions B.C. to make sure that all of British Columbia benefits. That not only enhances VCCEP's position but spreads the benefits throughout British Columbia.

Other global alliances include a campaign with Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Glasgow and Australia. They are working with partners in the industry such as Tourism Vancouver, the Canadian Tourism Commission, local and global event companies and, of course, exploring new markets like China and the corporate markets as well.

As I said before, are we happy about these increased costs? Absolutely not. Do we know the new number? No, we don't. But we will know it very soon, and when I get that number, I will be reporting it to the Finance Minister, my cabinet colleagues and to the public.

G. Gentner: The piles were driven some time ago, and the numbers are hard numbers. The minister knows those numbers.

Can the minister tell the House what the cost overruns are, based on the fact that the project did not buy material on time, and tell us what the differential was?

Hon. S. Hagen: Everything that could have been purchased, as far as materials, was purchased. Obviously, VCCEP hasn't done a study on what it would have cost if they hadn't purchased it. I think the management team has done everything that it could to try and control costs, but we're in a rising market, also with a rising labour cost.

G. Gentner: The expansion project team has no idea, without even any oversight, to know what the cost overrun is relative to the tardiness of purchasing material. Is that not correct?

Hon. S. Hagen: As I said, we don't have the final number yet. We're waiting for the final number. When we get that final number, then I will be reporting out to my colleagues and, also, to the public.

G. Gentner: It's a relief that we're going to know someday, I suppose, what the cost of this incompetence will be.

I want to talk briefly about the site itself and the so-called connection, the connector between the old Canada Place convention centre and the new. Can the minister provide us with the numbers, the costs, of this project?

Hon. S. Hagen: The budget for that connector — which is paid for by the government of Canada, by the way — is $20 million.

G. Gentner: I want to be absolutely clear. I heard that last time. Are there any incurred costs to the province relative to this connector?

Hon. S. Hagen: The connector is 100-percent paid for by the government of Canada.

G. Gentner: The new project needs a heating and cooling system and steam services. Would this be provided by the convention centre or from Canada Place?

G. Gentner: Hopefully, the minister can steer me through this. I'm going to quote the business plan. A proposal was submitted by Canada Place Corp. to the expansion project to provide heating, cooling and steam services from Canada Place. This proposal is based on constructing a plant consisting of chillers, heat exchangers, seawater pumps, etc., in the southwest corner of the south Canada Place parkade on P2 level. That was a no-go?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm told by staff that that was a no-go because it was cheaper and better to build our own in the new facility.

G. Gentner: These two projects are merged at the hip, so to speak, because of the concourse, etc. Can the minister outline what costs through this eventual merger have been possibly moved from the new construction over to the duties of Canada Place?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm not sure that I understood the question, but the member should be aware that Canada Place is owned and operated by the federal government, not by PavCo.

G. Gentner: Let me rephrase that. Let's call it the old convention centre — PavCo.

Hon. S. Hagen: PavCo has a long-term lease with Canada Place, so they're tenants within Canada Place.

G. Gentner: The maintenance and operation of the original convention centre budget — will that be merged with that of the expansion project?

Hon. S. Hagen: The operational costs of both the existing convention centre and the new convention centre will be born by PavCo.

G. Gentner: So the operational plan of the new convention centre does not show costs. It's being offloaded onto the old convention centre relative to operations and maintenance.

Hon. S. Hagen: The consolidated operating costs of the two facilities are included in PavCo's service plan, 2007 to 2010.

G. Gentner: Can the minister give us an indication what the percentage of increase is in the budget for improvements at the old convention centre from 2006 to 2010?

Hon. S. Hagen: It is a two-pronged answer. There's an annual maintenance amount in PavCo's budget for the existing trade and convention centre. In addition, there's a budget number of $20 million for retrofit of the existing trade and convention centre.

G. Gentner: I asked the question for obvious reasons. We know the government is going to merge…. They've created two mirror boards, and they're going to merge them together. The question will always be: what's offsetting what budget, how and when? When the other budget becomes well over…. It's already exceeding close to $800 million. If you merge them together, how will you offset? How can you possibly move or hide those over-budget expenses?

The question I have now is looking at the governance framework. I have something here, and I know we're not necessarily supposed to show a model or a template. When the expansion project needs the money, of course, they go to the Treasury Board, and what I have here is a flow chart that shows that the board of directors goes directly to Treasury Board. Is that not correct?

Hon. S. Hagen: I want to correct two statements of the hon. member for Delta North. Firstly, the statement or summary before he asked the last question was incorrect. We have not decided that we're going to merge the two boards. That will depend on what Mr. Podmore's recommendations are. Secondly, the two Crown corporations that we're talking about here operate the same as any Crown corporation, in that they'll make a request, a recommendation, which comes through to the minister. The minister then goes to Treasury Board with either that recommendation or a different recommendation.

G. Gentner: I wish I could show a prop, but I'm not allowed to do that — maybe a copy will suffice. The flow chart that I have is a confusing, convoluted flow chart where yes, there is an arrow which goes from the board to the minister. Then there is this dotted arrow that finds its way directly from the board to the Treasury Board. I suppose that's what has caused some problems.

Could you just explain to us what those dots mean? I don't know if it means the chairman of the board can go running for money or if that is just a flow chart of trying to find some information.

Hon. S. Hagen: When the member was talking about a chart that was confusing, I thought he might have been drawing it himself, but the chart that he's looking at is from back in 2005. It's outdated; it's no longer in use.

G. Gentner: Therefore, was this the method that was used before — in 2005?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm told by staff that it has never been used, and the minister has always had to sign off.

G. Gentner: I was really worried. I thought maybe there was a back door that the chairman of the board could go around and find some money and continue this overrun, but I'm sure now that that didn't happen. It is the minister that is directly responsible for the overruns of close to $400 million-plus, and not necessarily the chairman of the board. That's a relief.

Very quickly, I want to know how many events…. We've heard of all the events the convention centre expansion will be hosting after 2010, and there's a five-year venue that's put in place. Can the minister tell us: what are the anticipated venues at the old convention centre for the years 2010 and 2011?

Hon. S. Hagen: Well, there is a glimmer of hope here. I hear the hon. member for Delta North starting to ask about the success of the convention centre. Let me just capture what we're going to be dealing with both up to and after the opening of the new, expanded trade and convention centre.

First of all, this allows Vancouver to remain competitive in a convention market by retaining all events which are expanded beyond current capacity and securing new meeting, convention and event business. The expansion of the convention centre will accommodate up to 10,000 delegates. The 2006 non–resident delegate days are approximately 140,000. That is forecasted to grow with the expansion by 2012 to over 400,000 non–resident delegate days. So you go from where we are now — 140,000 — to over 400,000.

The annual economic impact arising from this non–resident delegate spending is currently at about $200

million. With the new expanded trade and convention centre project, it will grow to $650 million — over three times as much — by 2012. This will generate economic benefits through jobs and tax revenues from out-of-province visitors that will provide governments with the opportunity to enhance provincial and federal tax revenues.

It also complements the role of Canada Place as an internationally recognized symbol welcoming visitors to Canada and as a signature feature of the Vancouver waterfront. It maintains and enhances features that have given Vancouver its competitive edge in the marketplace.

I can tell you, Mr. Chair, from the conferences that I've been to since becoming this minister, this is a very competitive game we're in, attracting tourists from countries around the world. When you go to the international travel marts, you see over 90 countries displaying their wares and advertising, attracting tourists to come to their country. British Columbia is well situated and will be better situated with this new expanded trade and convention centre.

On top of that — and this would be of prime importance — we meet a high level of environmental and sustainability standards for convention centres. I can tell you that when I was in Germany earlier this spring, they know about that. They know about the living roof. They know about the actions that this government is taking to make sure that we have sustainable environmental benefits. So I'm really pleased to hear the member for Delta North starting to recognize the benefits of this expanded trade and convention centre project.

G. Gentner: People also know internationally of the incompetence relative to the collapse of B.C. Place and the bad reputation it delivered throughout the whole tourist world.

The minister did not answer my question. I asked about the current old convention centre. He retorted with all the blessings of the new convention centre, but I wanted to know how many — and I'll repeat it again: how many — are booked at the old convention centre for 2010 and 2011.

Hon. S. Hagen: Actually, I'm happy to read it out again, but what I read out was not just the new, expanded trade and convention centre, because many of the conventions will be located on both sides — in the existing and the new.

Is there a huge benefit to having the new, expanded centre? Of course there is. Could we have stayed with the old centre? Yes, we could, but we wouldn't be able to attract the size and type of conventions — and I talked about some of those this morning — that we are able to attract with the expanded centre.

G. Gentner: Simply a number will do. How many conventions are booked in today's convention centre for the year 2007?

Hon. S. Hagen: We don't have that information with us, but I'll be happy to provide it at a later date.

G. Gentner: Well, instead of speculating for 2007, staff understands and knows how many were booked last year. I'm sure it's in the service plan. In 2006 how many conventions were booked at the existing structure?

Hon. S. Hagen: It's important to remember and to understand that the new expanded facility will not be marketed as an old and a new facility. It will be marked as an integrated facility.

Having said that, in the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre for the year ended March 31, '06, they hosted 307 events, such as Cisco Systems, the Pacific Dental Conference for 2006, the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the Society of Breast Imaging, the Aga Khan visit in 2005, the World Conference on Melanoma, the Truck Loggers Association Convention, the Family Medicine Forum for 2005, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Progressive Group Alliance Business Summit and the complete B.C. Beauty Show.

G. Gentner: Well, if we have 307 events…. That seems to be the ballpark norm. The minister has submitted it's all going to be an integrated facility now — after 2010, if I have that correct. Therefore, you add the 307 events and the 52 events. That means we're going to have 357, thereabouts, conventions after 2010?

Hon. S. Hagen: My advice to the Leader of the Opposition is: don't ever make this guy Finance Minister.

No, that's not correct. The 52 that we're talking about are the 52 that have been booked to date. We're also negotiating with 167 others. The facility will be used as an integrated facility. It's being marketed as an integrated facility. The negotiations with upcoming conventions will continue and continue successfully.

G. Gentner: Well, if we're going to have an integrated facility, we're going to have an integrated board. Is that not correct?

Hon. S. Hagen: The member from Delta North is talking about two different things. He's talking about boards, and he's talking about operations. The operations will be integrated; the boards may or may not be.

G. Gentner: Will the new convention centre be completed in its entirety immediately after the Olympics to facilitate more than just a media centre but conventions themselves?

Hon. S. Hagen: Yes, the space that's being used by the media will be converted back after the Olympics and will be used for conventions. It is presently being booked for conventions, actually.

Hon. S. Hagen: The Olympics are just one event. They're like a giant convention. You know, conventions come and go, and the Olympics will come and go. And what a great time this is going to be. I mean, can you imagine being in British Columbia for probably the greatest event that's ever taken place in this province? It'll even be greater than Expo.

You know, I said earlier this morning that if we could come out of here with anything today, what would be the most meaningful to me would be to have the NDP finally stand up and say: "Do you know what? We really support the Olympics. We're going to be great promoters of the Olympics. We're going to invite our friends from across Canada to come to the Olympic Games."

The Olympics are going to be great. They're one event. They'll be followed by hundreds of conventions as the new convention centre and the expansion opens. It will be marketed as an integral convention centre, and it will be a product that British Columbians can be proud of.

G. Gentner: What are the added costs after the Olympics to get the convention centre ready for other conventions?

Hon. S. Hagen: Those costs are borne by VANOC, and they have to return the building to the condition they found it in.

N. Macdonald: How much has Pace Group — Norman Stowe, Kathi Springer — been paid by VCCEP? Either for Pace Group on its own or Norman Stowe, Kathi Springer and Pace Group combined — how much in total, please?

Hon. S. Hagen: We don't have that number, but I do know that the NDP paid the Pace Group well over $2 million towards the end of their term, which is far more than this government has paid the Pace Group.

N. Macdonald: Well, I want the information. Whether the company was used or not by the NDP or the Liberals is beside the point. I think the connections that the Pace Group, Norman Stowe and others have with the minister and with Virginia Greene…. They're close relationships, as well as the donations that the group has made to the Liberal Party — $58,000. These are things that…. I think most people in the public would then expect questions to be asked.

The question is…. You have a staff there. How much, in total — for the Pace Group, Norman Stowe, Kathi Springer — has been paid by VCCEP? Are those contracts open-ended? And can we be provided with copies of the contract with Pace Group, Norman Stowe and Kathi Springer?

Hon. S. Hagen: The contract that the Pace Group was successful in obtaining was advertised publicly on B.C. Bid. It was publicly tendered. The contract was for community consultation work and for public hearings to keep the public informed on the project.

N. Macdonald: Just so that I understand. I'd asked about all contracts related to Pace Group, Norman Stowe and Kathi Springer. The minister has responded saying that the contract was publicly tendered.

Is he saying that all of the contracts related to Pace Group, Norman Stowe and Kathi Springer that have been in place in the past, that are in place now and proceeding into the future have been publicly tendered? As well, what is the total payout for those contracts? The other part of the question was: may I have copies of any contracts that you have with those individuals or with Pace Group.

Hon. S. Hagen: We'll be happy to get the amount for you. The staff don't have the amount, but they did point out that the majority of the amounts paid were for third party — for printing costs and other costs.

N. Macdonald: A couple of questions here. Maybe I'll just break them down piece by piece.

What you're telling me with the contracts is that you'll provide them if I go through the FOI procedure. So I have to go through that to get the contracts.

You are telling me that you don't have the amount, but you're going to provide that for me with the other documents that you intend to provide, and perhaps you'll give me an idea of what is a reasonable date to expect those. Could you give me some sense of whether I'm looking at tomorrow morning or next week or a period longer than that?

The other question I didn't hear an answer to was…. You had mentioned that a contract had been put on the government website and that it was publicly tendered. As a follow-up to that, I had asked: are you telling me that every contract with the Pace Group, every contract with Norman Stowe and with Kathi Springer — were they all publicly tendered, or is it just some of them? Every single one of the contracts we're talking about with these individuals in this group — were they all publicly tendered?

Hon. S. Hagen: This is VCCEP that has the contract with the Pace Group. It was VCCEP that publicly tendered it on B.C. Bid and everything. I am told that they have one contract with the Pace Group — not with the individuals that you mentioned — and it was publicly tendered on B.C. Bid.

N. Macdonald: Okay. Well, the minister has been clear, then. There has been no direct award of contracts

to any of the individuals. It's just been with the Pace Group, and all of them have been public bid. Okay.

Could we get a copy of the list of work done and the amounts paid for the contract, or can the minister explain how the contract is arranged, if it is not to do with pieces of work?

Hon. S. Hagen: Yes, I'm happy to give the member the scope of the contract because it was in the advertisements. You can actually get that off B.C. Bid if you want, but I'm happy to release the scope of the contract to you.

I want to read something else into the record. This is an e-mail from Norman Stowe, who is the senior partner of the Pace Group, to Guy Gentner, MLA.

I would like also to read into the record sums of money that were paid by the NDP government in the '90s: in the year '96-97, $41,173; in the fiscal year '97-98, $144,833; fiscal year '98-99, $130,035; fiscal year '99-2000, $576,565; and in the last fiscal year that the NDP were in government, $1,461,435.

I don't mind having a discussion about contracts, but — you know what? — I think the member opposite stands taller than bringing into question one particular contractor who has obviously done work for both governments. They're good at what they do.

I've already said I will provide the amounts paid. I've already said I will provide the scope of work. The contracts are FOI-able. They were publicly tendered. They won this in an open process.

N. Macdonald: The question I had was very straightforward in terms of the contract. I made no comments at all, and you have referred to another member who is not here. But I made no comments at all about the quality of the work or anything else.

The minister mentioned in his opening comments that the member had worked for previous governments. That's true. I don't dispute that. But I think what the public would expect is that with contracts that go to individuals that worked on the campaign of Virginia Greene…. And you can correct me if that's incorrect. Virginia Greene served as the deputy minister on the board of VCCEP. The contractor Norman Stowe — again, you can correct me if I'm wrong — I believe, worked on the minister's campaign.

This is a company that has donated a significant amount of money to the B.C. Liberal Party. I think there is a certain obligation within opposition to question that. The question was simply to get information. So it's the minister who has brought this in. It's nothing to do with me. I would expect the answers to an opportunity to have the contracts. That's something the minister could provide to me. Instead, he has chosen to put me through the FOI route. Fine. That's how it always works. I get it. We will get it eventually.

The questions are legitimate about a significant amount of money. Now how significant the amount of money is depends on the information that the minister has given me. He says that he doesn't have that information. Well, there will be an opportunity to get it for me, and maybe we will continue with this till Monday, and by that time the minister will have that information. I think that's reasonable. So maybe we can wait until Monday and have that information, and then we can further the discussion. I suspect it's a significant amount of money.

I also asked for a list of the work done. I think that's a reasonable request to make of any contractor. Quite frankly, it's public money. Quite frankly, it's a project that has gone $400 million over budget. I think you are getting pretty close to a record in terms of public projects and misspent money.

So that's where we'll go with that. In terms of contracts, let's look at Front Runner Productions. Can the minister tell me, with Front Runner Productions, or with Fred Cawsey, the amount of money that has been given in contracts there?

Hon. S. Hagen: We actually are making some progress here because we have amounts for you. I apologize for that because I was told initially that they couldn't provide the numbers, but we have the numbers.

On the last question you asked, which was Front Runner — this is a filming company. It's used for recordkeeping, for showing progress. They take pictures or filming of the construction, which is then used for marketing. The project and that contract value or amount is $100,000. The Pace contract, which is over a four-year period from May of '03 to the present time, was a total of $287,000 over four years.

N. Macdonald: My colleague is back. He'll have to read later what was put in….

So I take it from that that the minister does not contest the fact that with Pace Group and with Norman Stowe and Kathi Springer, there is an obligation on the part of opposition to test the contracts and to line up the amount of money being paid and the work. I think that will be quite straightforward, and I would expect that the minister would be very, very interested in making sure that I had all of the information so that I could fulfill my obligations.

I think the minister has recognized that when an individual works on the minister's campaign, when an individual works on another B.C. Liberal candidate who was defeated but subsequently became a deputy minister and was a member of VCCEP's board…. The company has donated — the figure I have is $58,000 — to the B.C. Liberals. There's an obligation to check that. When the information comes back, then I think the public is well served with the confidence that that will give them in the political system. So that's part of the reason for the question.

I have the total, and my understanding is that I need to go through the FOI process to get the actual contracts. That's something we will do. Then I also have an understanding that the minister will give a list of the work that has been done so that I have a full understanding of the work and can give confidence to people that this has been looked at carefully by the opposition and that there needs to be no further concerns.

I also thank you for the information on Front Runner Productions. I'll give the minister an opportunity to respond, and after that I have other questions. We'll move on to different questions.

Hon. S. Hagen: Obviously, the opposition has a right to ask whatever questions they want. I don't quarrel with that. It's the insinuation. There are a couple of insinuations here. One is that because members of the Pace Group came up and worked on my campaign, they were awarded a contract. That's totally untrue. The contract was awarded two years before the campaign.

Also, as you know, a campaign is 28 days. Members of the Pace Group came up and knocked on doors with me for three hours. I just want to put this into context. They didn't spend 28 days in the Comox Valley helping me win, although I wish they had.

That's what bothers me. You have a full right to ask whatever you want to ask. I read, maybe wrongly, an association that isn't there.

N. Macdonald: Let's move then to just a very quick question on the glass. One of the aspects of the building that is particularly interesting is the glass. I know it's being tested, so just a question on the testing. I understand it's gone to Florida. Perhaps that's completed.

A question on how the test has gone. Is that going to mean that the project proceeds on time, or are there any issues with that?

Hon. S. Hagen: The testing of the glazing was 100 percent successful, so it'll be proceeding very quickly. That's an interesting contract. I'm glad you raised it, because it's being done by two companies — one from Kamloops and one from Vancouver. The reason I think that's neat is that it shows that the benefits not only flow to lower mainland companies, but they indeed flow to companies around the province.

N. Macdonald: Just jumping around a little bit. There is a figure of $90 million from Tourism Vancouver. My understanding is that the province has initially put up that figure, and Tourism Vancouver is paying it down. Could you explain the process for Tourism Vancouver paying off that $90 million as their contribution?

Hon. S. Hagen: Yes, you're right. The government has paid that $90 million. Tourism Vancouver will be paying the government back, through the Minister of Finance, the $90 million over 30 years.

N. Macdonald: Okay. So if I understood correctly — over 30 years. Could you explain the mechanism for Tourism Vancouver to pay it back? What mechanism is being used?

Hon. S. Hagen: Tourism Vancouver gets the money to pay back through a portion of the hotel tax that's collected.

N. Macdonald: Is this an additional hotel tax, or is this the hotel tax that existed previously?

Hon. S. Hagen: This is the existing hotel tax. I think it's been in existence since about 1988.

N. Macdonald: Could the minister explain, then, what…. Previous to being used to pay back over 30 years the $90 million, where did the hotel tax go? Was it used as a budget for Tourism Vancouver to promote Vancouver as a destination? Did it go into provincial general revenues and was then distributed? If you could quite specifically explain how that tax was used before being put to this.

N. Macdonald: We were in the midst of a question. I'll restate it. It's just around the minister helping me understand the hotel tax and how it was used previous to its current use.

Hon. S. Hagen: Here's how this is going to work. The additional trade and convention centre will increase hotel room bookings in Vancouver, so this will increase the hotel tax revenue. The $90 million from Tourism Vancouver will come out of the growth in the hotel tax.

N. Macdonald: Okay, I understand that part. The other part that I need to understand is before it was used for that, what was it used for? Did the hotel tax go into provincial revenue and then distributed to Tourism Vancouver to use for a certain function? I just need to understand exactly how it all worked. If the minister could do that, that would be great.

Hon. S. Hagen: The 2-percent hotel tax flows to Tourism Vancouver for their operations — for marketing and everything else. What we're talking about here…. The $90 million is the additional hotel room tax revenues that will be generated because of the new trade and convention centre expansion, which will rent more hotel rooms in the Vancouver area.

N. Macdonald: Just so that I understand then. The 2-percent hotel tax would previously flow into the provincial government and then be transferred across in a grant to Tourism Vancouver, or does it go directly to Tourism Vancouver? If the minister could just explain the mechanism.

Hon. S. Hagen: I probably should defer this question to the Minister of Small Business and Revenue, but I don't want to do that. Here is how the tax works. This is the extra 2-percent tax that's been in there since 1988. The province collects the tax through the existing hotel room tax collection system, which is run by the Ministry of Small Business and Revenue. The tax that is collected is then remitted back to Tourism Vancouver for their operations. Okay?

Hon. S. Hagen: It doesn't come through our ministry, so I can't actually answer that question. But that's the flow of the money. They will continue to receive that 2 percent, but because of the growth in the 2 percent, that's what they're going to use to remit the $90 million.

N. Macdonald: Okay. I think I'm starting to understand. Currently, of course, there'd be no growth based upon the convention centre. Therefore, if I understand what you're saying, nothing would have been paid. Right now they're not paying back any of the $90 million. That's what I don't understand, because it looks like part of the $90 million has been paid back already.

I obviously don't understand it fully. If it's based upon growth, if it's more than just an assumption that there's going to be growth…. Obviously there's no growth now based on the convention centre, because it's not built, so that's not what it is. The minister just needs to take a bit of time and explain exactly how that works.

Hon. S. Hagen: There have been three payments made by Tourism Vancouver to the government. They've been able to do that because there has been a growth in the 2-percent hotel tax. That growth has come about, I think, because of whatever — growth in the economy, hotel rooms have gone up a bit, so that increases the tax. They haven't been large payments; they've just been payments to show good faith. The real growth is going to take place with the advent of the new expanded trade and convention centre.

N. Macdonald: So the 2-percent tax, as I understand it, since the 1980s has been used to pay for the cost of running Tourism Vancouver.

The question that I have then is: with the growth in the economy and with any growth there are going to be additional costs for Tourism Vancouver. Whether it flows from a particular tax, it still comes through the provincial government and then, I assume, it is granted to Tourism Vancouver to work. Therefore, it's essentially provincial money.

N. Macdonald: Okay, flowing through from a particular source. What you've done is you've changed how you source it.

Have you changed how much money Tourism Vancouver is receiving? Is the government going to find itself where it needs to put additional moneys into Tourism Vancouver? Has anything about what the provincial government pays to Tourism Vancouver changed? Or does it stay the same, and they just need to get by within the costs of inflation that would naturally be there?

Hon. S. Hagen: The model that was developed started with an $8 million amount of money going to

Tourism Vancouver, based on the 2-percent hotel tax. In the model there was a 2-percent cost-of-living increase built into it each year, so they don't get penalized. They get their $8 million, plus they get 2-percent growth each year.

They have agreed to take the extra amount, or the amount that the hotel tax grows by, and pay back to the government the $90 million.

N. Macdonald: So there have been small payments. These payments have been intended to simply show good faith and that the government anticipates, with the opening of the convention centre, that that is where they'll be able to use the formula that the minister has sort of set out. Some of it obviously will be for reasons other than the convention centre. We have the growth now, so the assumption is that the majority of the growth would relate to the convention centre. The $90 million, therefore, is put forward.

What is the rate of interest that the province is charging to Tourism Vancouver?

Hon. S. Hagen: We're getting into a pretty complicated field here because it's not a loan; therefore, there isn't an interest rate. But there is a discount rate applied of 6.1 percent.

I'll tell you what. I will be happy to have a briefing provided to you, to go through this agreement that we have with Tourism Vancouver.

N. Macdonald: Part of what has been quite interesting for me with this project — of course, just taking it on fairly recently, as the minister has — is just to go back and read the original documents and the original rationalization and how it was seen to work. Certainly there was talk about participation from businesses, which were seen to be ones that would benefit from the project in a significant way.

To see this as the end result…. It seems to put quite a bit of provincial money into an area that looked initially, if you go back to when the plan was being put together, like it would be more directly coming from the businesses that were going to be impacted by the building. That is an interesting area.

Since I've asked questions about it, I will take the minister up so that I do understand it. I have to admit that it doesn't sound as if it will be riveting, but maybe that will be a challenge that your staff members can take on and make riveting so that it is helpful in understanding that.

The next thing that I need to understand will again be something that I think I'm going to find complex. In a simplistic way we have said in question period — where on both sides there is an element of simplicity in what we say — the question around cost plus. It is something that I'm curious about. In preparing for question period, we certainly go back and look at the very unequivocal statements that were made by the Premier around the use of cost plus.

I know that when the project was first talked about, there was talk about using a different model, the P3. I have questions around that — about why that was discarded. I also have questions around the use of cost-plus contracts, because I think the direction this minister is headed in, pretty clearly, is to do it in a completely different way and to wrap it up into something that's solid and dependable.

When I look back at the comments that other ministers have made, they have eventually found that what they thought were clear numbers were anything but clear. I have no doubt that that was a disturbing thing to discover.

So that's the question. Help me to understand how the government moves with the experience that it had, where it had been very clear that cost-plus contracts were the wrong way to go. How do we seem to enter into a series of cost-plus contracts that have been difficult to manage for the government? Could you explain that process to me?

Hon. S. Hagen: Back in 2002 the ministry was directed by cabinet to initiate a P3 process for the convention centre expansion project.

Apparently — and I say apparently because I wasn't there — this P3 was attempted, but it was abandoned for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons are the complexity inherent in defining pricing and transferring convention centre operating risks.

As you know, there aren't many, if there are any, convention centres around the world that actually have a positive cash flow or make money because the benefits sort of get transmitted to the greater community. As you said, a lot of businesses and hotels benefit from having a trade and convention centre.

My understanding is that there weren't any companies who were willing to take on that risk. Then it moved to the method that is currently in process and which I'm attempting to change by negotiating a firm-price contract.

N. Macdonald: So the firm-price contract — certainly in retrospect, but perhaps even given what the Premier was saying long before that — seems the direction that one would naturally go as a government. The question I have is: when the government went in with the federal government to begin this project, was there an attempt at that time to use that model for contracts rather than the cost-plus contracts that were used?

Hon. S. Hagen: I'm told that attempts started with PCL around the middle of 2005 to negotiate a stipulated fixed-sum contract, but because of the volatility in the marketplace with regard to prices, they were unwilling to come to an agreement. Now you move forward to the spring of '07, and we're very close to signing a stipulated fixed-sum contract with PCL.

N. Macdonald: In 2005 when you first attempted, what percentage of contracts in terms of value were open then as compared to the percentage of contracts in terms of value that are open now?

Hon. S. Hagen: The staff tells me that about 50 percent of the work was contracted at that time, but the

steel and concrete had not been contracted. Then they held off until they could try and tie the steel and concrete into it.

N. Macdonald: In terms of value, then, I'm not sure if you are talking about the value of contracts or the number of contracts. So just for my sake, if we could use the value of contracts. I apologize if that's what that was.

From what the minister said before, it sounds like, in terms of value, it's the contracts which are using steel and concrete. Those are the expensive ones. I could be wrong. We've also talked about the pile driving as being exceedingly expensive.

The question is: when the board attempted to first put together that fixed-price contract in 2005, how much of the project's contracts were still outstanding, as compared to what we're doing right now or what the minister is doing right now in terms of value?

Hon. S. Hagen: I don't have an exact number, but they tell me it's around $105 million that would have been spent by the middle of 2005.

N. Macdonald: Thank you, Minister. So the bulk of the contracts were still to be let out.

The question that I have is just around the fixed-price contracts. There must be a good reason why that type of contract wasn't attempted right at the very beginning. Why not, with all parts of the project, aim for fixed-price contracts rather than having any at all with the cost-plus contracts?

Hon. S. Hagen: There has been an ongoing procurement strategy with the board and the senior management at VCCEP about what they would have to accomplish before they converted. What they decided was to wait until they had the mechanical and electrical contracts sewed up.

What happened as a result of that was that then they started getting some interest from the private sector and moving towards a stipulated fixed-sum contract. Those negotiations were started towards the end of '06, and those are the negotiations that are being finalized now.

I guess what we'll come back to is this. I need to understand, in as much detail as possible, why the fixed-price contracts weren't used from the beginning. I realize the minister has indicated that there's a complex set of circumstances.

What I would ask him to do, as best as he can in the time that we have remaining, is try to walk me through the steps so that a layman…. And the people that are paying for the project are all laymen. So help a layman understand how a type of contracting that the government identified as problematic and leading to cost overruns in previous projects that they were highly critical of….

Why would they then choose to have that same sort of contracting system used? Were they wrong when they identified it in the first place, or in some cases is it the appropriate way to go? Or in retrospect, was a mistake made here? If not, then could the minister just walk me through the steps that the board of VCCEP went through in trying to decide the appropriate sort of contracts?

I think the minister is in a place right now where he has decided the absolutely correct way to wrap this up is with a fixed-price contract. I think there's also a recognition that that attempt was made earlier in 2005 to also wrap it up into a fixed-price contract. I guess what we're doing now began in 2006 and has moved forward into a place where it's being wrapped up.

But initially it sounds like the use of cost-plus contracts was something that the board of VCCEP was comfortable with. That's what I want to understand.

What was the rationale for using that sort of contracting in the beginning, and how did it change over time?

Hon. S. Hagen: During this period of time, the board felt that the risk premium that they would have to transfer to get a fixed-price contract was too high. That's why they wanted to lock down more contracts before they went to a fixed-price contract.

We reached that point in the late fall of last year, and that's the basis on which the negotiations are going on with the prime contractor. Those negotiations should be completed very shortly.

N. Macdonald: If we could continue on Monday with this, I'll take it, and I'll try to understand more. We'll have a few more questions on this.

I'm going to let my colleague finish off with one question. Then we also have ActNow that we need to get through. As I mentioned, I have a colleague from Victoria that had another question.

I'll take the opportunity to thank staff and to thank you, Minister, for walking us through this. I'll just let my colleague finish off, and then we'll take a break for the weekend.

G. Gentner: I have before me activity by the lobbyists registry, and I have a person by the name of Mr. Ken Dobell, who has been lobbying for the development of a cultural precinct. He's working on behalf of the city of Vancouver, the organization. His status began in April 5, 2006, to December 31, 2007.

My question is: how much money has Mr. Dobell requested — either grant money, during the time he has been registered, as he lobbies for the city of Vancouver…? Requesting from the minister.

N. Macdonald: I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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