Hansard — Thursday, May 31, 2007 a.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


Second Reading of Bills		8417
	Human Rights Code (Mandatory Retirement Elimination) Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 31) (continued)
	M. Sather
	R. Fleming
	Hon. W. Oppal
	Legislative Assembly (Members' Remuneration and Pensions) Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 37) (continued)
	D. Routley
	D. Cubberley
	D. Chudnovsky

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		8430
	Estimates: Ministry of Children and Family Development (continued)
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. T. Christensen

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I call in this chamber continued second reading debate on Bill 31, Human Rights Code (Mandatory Retirement Elimination) Amendment Act, and in Committee A, Committee of Supply — for the information of members, continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

HUMAN RIGHTS CODE
(MANDATORY RETIREMENT ELIMINATION)
AMENDMENT ACT, 2007
(continued)

M. Sather: It gives me pleasure to rise to speak to Bill 31. It's unfortunate — and this is part of the discussion that we're having around this bill, the lack of process — that the government has brought in closure on this bill, not allowing for full discussion of a piece of legislation that they said is important, a part of this Legislature agenda that this government said that they wanted to bring forward for full debate. That's not happening.

It's another broken agreement, and we shouldn't be surprised. We shouldn't be surprised at all, because that's the record of this government. That's the record of this government when they were elected and came in and said: "We won't expand gambling — no, no." But they did. They said, "We wouldn't break written contracts, negotiated agreements," but they did that. We saw that, and the health care workers saw the effects of that.

Mr. Speaker: Member, may I remind you that the bill at hand is the Mandatory Retirement Elimination.

M. Sather: Thank you. For sure, we want to talk about this bill, and we want to let the government know that we support the bill in principle. That's not the question. We support mandatory retirement…. That's not the issue. The issue is being able to discuss this bill in full.

The issue is being able to address the broader implications of this bill. The issue is being able to discuss this bill with the hon. Attorney General, to be able to talk to him in committee stage about this bill, to have some back-and-forth about what this bill means for people that are going to be retiring — what it means for seniors.

That is certainly a concern that we have on this side of the House and that we will continue to have. We take exception to the way this government has handled this piece of legislation and the way they're ramming it through. We take great exception to that.

We had a couple of members on the government side yesterday get up to speak to this bill. I want to correct a statement that I said earlier. It's not supporting mandatory retirement. We're supporting this bill, and we're supporting the amendment to the Human Rights Code. It's an interesting issue, and it's far beyond simply a human rights simplified issue the way that the members on the other side want to characterize it.

The member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale said yesterday: "Why would we be talking about workers in relation to this bill? It has nothing to do with them." Mr. Speaker, that's the problem with this government. They don't see the connection between real people out there on the street and the effects that their legislation and their actions have on them and what happens in this House.

Absolutely, this bill has to do with workers. Absolutely, it has to do with people that are facing retirement. It's age 65; it's about seniors. It's about workers. Yes, it's a two-page bill. It's a very short bill, but it has a lot of ramifications that go beyond the simple statements in that bill.

The member for Peace River South said yesterday that this bill is just a matter of choice, and choice is a good thing. Well, that's true for many workers that are approaching retirement. The option of working beyond age 65 is one that they'll embrace.

People that are at the height of their career, people that are doing well, people that may be at the height of their earning power — working a few more years will add benefit to their pensions. That's a good thing for them.

They oftentimes don't want to go into retirement to feel that they've been put out to pasture at age 65. That's a good thing for them, and we support that. But those are not the only people that will be affected by this legislation. There will be effects on other people. There are effects on the people who aren't prepared to go into retirement, who don't have the background and don't have the supports that are there. This government hasn't created the programs and the supports for them.

Look at women workers that are in the pink-collar sector. Oftentimes they don't have the savings. They don't have a pension at all, or they have a meagre pension. So it's not a matter of simple choice for them; it's a matter of necessity. It's a matter of survival. It's a very different thing for them. It's not simply a matter of choice, and that's all there is to it.

We have, as I say, some great concerns about what effects it's going to have on some people. There's only real choice if there's a strong and comprehensive retirement system and protection against dismissal based on age, and there isn't. There isn't in British Columbia, and that's a concern for those workers. We would have

hoped that the government would want to discuss that with us in full, but that's clearly not the case.

Low-income supplements are insufficient to eliminate poverty in retirement, and that's significant. This bill is related to that because if these workers are going into retirement and are going to continue to work, they don't have the low-income supplements, a lot of the workers — insufficient to eliminate poverty in retirement.

We're looking at workers. It's not just that this is the best thing since sliced bread. Great, I get to work longer. That's wonderful for some workers, but for those that are going to be in poverty in retirement, it's a different matter altogether. We had hoped to be able to discuss that more completely with this government.

There's no requirement that large employers provide a secure defined-benefit pension plan. That makes a huge difference. The members on both sides of this House are very aware right now…. Later today we'll be discussing the pension issue. We know the importance of pensions. All workers know the importance of pensions.

Not all workers have pensions, and it's a significant issue. That's not provided for them by large employers. This bill will provide for them to be working after age 65. It's not a real choice for them; it's a necessity, based on their circumstances.

We saw it not just with people that are impoverished. We saw it with the retired civil servants and the issues that they've been having. They've come to the front of this House to speak about their issues in retirement and how their benefits have been reduced, how their dental plan has been eliminated. Those are significant issues for seniors to face going into retirement, and we would have liked to have that discussion with the Attorney General. We would have liked to see what his views are on that.

It's great to talk about eliminating mandatory retirement, but what about the other issues? What about the effects on real people out there in the communities? The B.C. labour standards lack a requirement for just cause for dismissal. What effect will that have on workers that are going to be in the workforce after 65? Are they going to be thrown on the streets without just cause? That's happening. That continues to happen. That's a significant issue related to Bill 31 that we would have liked to discuss with this government.

What about the skyrocketing cost of benefit plans for older workers? Older workers get sick more often. That's going to cost those plans more. What is going to be the effect on that? We would have loved to talk to the Attorney General about that. Maybe he will have an opportunity to make some comments on the issues that we're raising, but not in the format that we had anticipated, that we had understood, that we had been told would be the case by this government. It's not happening.

The member for Peace River South said yesterday that it's good for their health to keep on working. That's a very selective view again, because for some seniors it is good for their health. For other seniors, it is exactly the opposite. They aren't in a physical or mental state or condition that they really should be working, but they have to work. They have to keep working. This will allow them to continue working, but it is not going to remove the issues of poverty, the issues of lack of support that they're facing — not at all.

It's interesting, too, when the government says: "What are you talking about seniors for? What are you talking about workers for? This is just about human rights. It's a human rights amendment." It's interesting that this government's attitude towards human rights amendments is so selective. When we had the opportunity to talk about the school codes of conduct — an amendment we put forward that would enshrine the spirit of the Human Rights Code for the codes of conduct — this government voted against it, with the exception of one member, from Vancouver-Burrard. Good on him.

The government members are so keen on talking about human rights, but only selectively. They don't want to talk about the related issues here. This is just a matter of strictly human rights — doesn't affect real people.

Some workers are going to be compelled to work until they're unable to work anymore. In the absence of an adequate social safety net, that's the reality. That's some of the reality that we should be talking about, which we should be having a back-and-forth discussion about, but we're not. The issue of things that are not going to be changed in this amendment, like WCB pensions being cancelled, being terminated at age 65, since this government came in….

What happens with those people? They go back to work. Is that what they're going to have to do? Their pension has been cut off. They're 65 years old. Hallelujah. They can continue working now, but they're not capable of working. But they may have to work, and that's not free choice at all. That's necessity; that's survival.

There are broad issues definitely related to Bill 31. This is about seniors. The fact that British Columbia is leading the country in homelessness of seniors is a shame. It's a shame. I don't feel that this government is addressing the issues, certainly not through Bill 31. Bill 31 is helpful to some workers, and it's welcomed by them, but it does not address the issues of poverty in retirement for many workers.

We had put forward the issue of raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. This government didn't support that. That would have been helpful to low-income workers. That would have been something that those people that are working in their mid-60s could have benefited from. But this government is not concerned, it seems, about the broader issues related to aging workers.

It's not just us that have talked about these issues. The government is aware that the Premier's Council on Aging had looked at a number of issues, a whole broad range of issues, and they definitely supported the banning of mandatory retirement. That's the good part. But they had a whole range of other issues, and I just want to mention a few of them that they said were important — that the government shouldn't just focus on one thing, mandatory retirement, and ending it, which they've done.

They talked about providing a wider range of home support services. But what in fact are they facing? In my community and other communities in the Fraser Health Authority, the service plan says that there are going to be service costs, extra billing for home support services. That's not going to help seniors going into retirement. That is going to have the direct opposite effect. As much as these government members may want to ignore it, there are related issues. It's a broader picture than just ending mandatory retirement as required under this bill.

We know that the health and well-being of seniors is inextricably intertwined with the retirement issue, because a lot of seniors' health is going down after age 65. It goes down quite precipitously sometimes.

Being active is an important part of the broader-based well-being of seniors that we need to support. They said they would like to see free access to community activity programs for those with low incomes. That's something the government could have brought in that would be helpful for seniors retiring. It would be more than just talking about banning mandatory retirement.

They suggested higher taxes on unhealthy food. These are connected. These are issues that are connected to this bill. It's not just a narrow issue of a human rights amendment. The government would like to portray it that way.

Why could you possibly have any issues with this bill? It's all about human rights. But it's not. In the narrow sense it's about human rights, all right, but in a broader sense it's about the rights of low-income seniors and the lack of those rights under this government.

The seniors talked about improving the health care system for them by having salaried teams of health care professionals working in multidisciplinary clinics to provide quick access to primary care. Issues like that would be very, very significant to them in their retirement years. They need to know that the health care system is there for them. They can continue working all right, but what about their health? Are they going to lose their job because of declining health and the lack of proper health care in the system?

They want to see assisting low-income older people with the cost of vision and hearing aids, something else that the government could look at to bolster the effect.

As I said, we support the ending of mandatory retirement. That's not the issue. The issue is a broader one, and we're hopeful that the government will look at those issues. We were hoping that they would discuss those issues with us in full.

Seniors talked about appointing a minister of state for aging. We have an aging population. It's a significant part of the issues that we have with health care and the well-being of our citizenry, and it would be good to have a minister of state that had responsibility for aging.

They talked about modifying pension rules to allow workers to choose among retirement with full pension benefits at age 65, part-time work while receiving a prorated pension or continued full-time work while continuing to contribute toward an enhanced pension when they do retire.

They're looking at and asking for a range of options and opportunities and about not being allowed to continue working — when in fact they have to, some of them. They have to continue working, and so they will. The concern too is that they will be exploited by employers in certain instances, and that's not being protected under the labour standards.

Just one last thing that I wanted to mention that seniors had called for is ensuring that low-income older renters need not spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Housing is inextricably linked to retirement and to this bill.

I want to express my support for the bill in principle but my grave concerns about two things: the lack of proper process around this bill — the agreement being broken around this bill — and the lack of addressing the broader issues of the retirement of seniors and the poverty of seniors after retirement. The fact is that the government has not addressed that in full, and it hasn't been willing to discuss that with us.

R. Fleming: I rise to speak to Bill 31 this morning. I don't even pretend for a moment that I would be able to duplicate what the member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain did yesterday. I think he spoke for us all.

He certainly thundered on for all of us about why we're here on the last day of session debating this bill and how unfortunate that is and such a departure from other jurisdictions that have adopted legislation that ends mandatory retirement and makes similar changes to what this bill proposes to our Human Rights Code in B.C. I think he represented us well.

The fact that this is the last day of the Legislature and we are only just getting into some of the issues surrounding what the implications of this bill might be speaks for itself. I certainly think all members of this Legislature have probably had a great deal of time to consider the issue of mandatory retirement.

They've heard from their constituents on it. They probably thought about it themselves as it may pertain to their own lives or family members or in whatever occupation or industry they come from. They've had time to think about it as an issue for society. But in terms of our jobs here as legislators, we have not by any stretch had adequate time to consider the legislation that will do this.

That is a shame, and I think that is a longer-term issue that this government is going to have to respond to because it is a public issue about its style of governance and its demonstrated interest in passing legislation in this rushed manner.

Debate improves legislation. There could be no denying that. I don't think we're going to even have…. Well, we won't have any committee stage on this bill.

Some of the points have been raised by my fellow members. There is no chance to reflect upon that, to make this legislation better. We — many of us on this side of the House — are left to speak in favour of the bill because it does accomplish something that this side of the House is interested in, which is to end discrimination based on age.

But it does not guarantee that we will be doing it in the best manner possible through this House because we are going to be deprived of third reading on the bill. We are going to be deprived of the ability to perhaps amend clauses to this legislation, and there is no ability for the sponsor of this bill to incorporate some of what he is hearing from members. I think that is a great shame, and that is not the way a government should conduct its business. That is not the way a modern participatory democracy should conduct itself.

I do hear about this issue in my constituency. Greater Victoria does have a large demographic of those around, near or over 65. Many of them are working now, and many of them are wondering, particularly those who are about to turn 65, what their options are.

I hear from a number of different people, and I hear a number of different perspectives on this issue. One of the most common ones — if I can group them into the shared stories that as the MLA for Victoria-Hillside I typically hear — is that there tend to be those who simply cannot afford to retire at 65. They haven't been working in an industry or had a long record of employment that enables them to have planned properly and contributed to retirement. They have obligations to their family, maybe even mortgages and other costs of living, which they have an anxiety about should they not be permitted to work.

They have done their budgeting post-retirement, and the ends are just not going to be met. A lot of the people who fall into that category are older women, and they can't afford to retire. What they would like to know — and this is one of the reasons why I'm supporting this bill — is that they can, beyond 65, perhaps work part-time, collect federal benefits for their retirement and thereby be able to meet some of those obligations to their families and be able to have a quality of life for themselves, most importantly.

There's another group that has a great deal of anxiety about the implications of this legislation in my constituency, and I suspect that the same is true right across the province. That is middle-aged to older manual workers, who have a lot of anxiety about what this legislation means. They hear mandatory retirement is going to be ended.

Some of them may be members of trade unions, for example, and contribute to group employer pension plans and those kinds of things. They worry that we are setting into motion something that will erode benefits that they have fought for over many, many decades — benefits that provide for them and their families and that provide security in their lives.

Of course, many manual labourers are actually interested in the opposite. They want to retire early. Try being a construction worker. I mean, if you started in your early 20s, by the time you are 55 years of age, your body has probably taken a lot of hard knocks. You've worked in all kinds of weather conditions, and you've worked on job sites that…. It's just tough physical work, and it wears on. That's the other group that I think members of this assembly hear from in their constituencies — older or middle-aged male manual workers.

I think I know what the government says to those concerns. They say: "Don't worry about it. This doesn't affect your pension plan. It won't affect the cost of your group benefits. It won't shift responsibility to fund those things further to the individual worker." But context is everything. We don't control everything in this bill. And this bill is a statement. It does change work practices in the province in virtually every industry.

It will mean different things for employers, and I think that's why it is receiving a mixed response, both from organizations that represent working people and federations that represent major employers or even small and medium-sized businesses, because it changes the game for them in terms of how they do succession planning. At least with a mandatory retirement age, you have the ability to determine when some of your workforce would be leaving the company or the business and when you would have to begin your recruitment or plan your promotions or all those kinds of things.

Comments I have heard, too, are that some HR managers say that when it comes to managing human resources in the workplace, rather than manage people after they get to a certain age — say, 60 — they simply look at the clock that that worker has and rather than invest in training, invest in some kind of personal plan for each worker, they start to look at that person as a clock that's ticking down. That is a bad thing, obviously. That is part of, I guess, discrimination based on age that we see throughout society but most typically as it relates to employment.

I said that context is everything. Is this bill going to set in motion some things in society that are of concern to my constituents around their security? Is this bill going to further or hinder our interests in reducing poverty among senior citizens in British Columbia? We have an appalling rate of poverty among seniors. While seniors are interested in this legislation as it pertains to their lives and increasing their security, their ability to continue earning income past 65, maybe to supplement their pension benefits and others….

There are changes, and there are responses, of course, that could come from a senior level of government to this bill. We know that Prime Minister Harper could follow what President Reagan did in 1983 in the United States. He could change the Social Security Act, the Canadian provisions and legislation that provide benefits to seniors. Why not? The province of British Columbia has said that you can't discriminate on the basis of age, and the government has motivated this by saying that the demographics in society are changing. We need younger earners to support more and more seniors.

In the United States they manufactured a crisis around the solvency of federal benefit plans. It was an ideologically motivated attack on security for seniors, and it raised the age of when you could receive those benefits to 70.

I worry, Mr. Speaker, that that's a chain of events that could be set in motion by Bill 31 here in Canada. I think that's a legitimate concern. After this legislation is forced through by the government without full and

proper debate, ministers of this government are going to have to be very strong in dealing with their federal counterparts and to simply tell them that that is not on. We're not going to allow such a change — as was done to the Kelowna accord, as was done to national child care agreements. The social agreement on age 65 and earlier retirement provisions for federal seniors benefits — old age security, CPP — will not change. You will have a fight on your hands.

I haven't even heard that utterance from a single member on the government side. They downplay that anxiety as if it's invalid politically. I mentioned that it happened south of the border here — an ideologically driven government. We have a very strong CPP. It is financially viable for years to come. There was a period when CPP was seen to be in trouble. It is not the case anymore.

Just as it happened in the United States, make no mistake, Prime Minister Harper could for the same ideological reasons attack that plan and change the age provisions around that. He could use it as an ideological cover for that. The example that we have provinces where they're ending mandatory retirement is a sign that: "You know what? Sixty-five ain't so great. You should work longer, and that's the way it's going to be with federal benefits."

I think that's a very valid concern, and I would like to have seen, in committee stage of debate here, whether there was any way that we could do whatever possible to write into this legislation signals that that is not the intent of this bill at all and that that would not be tolerated in the future.

Look, I think other members have explained very eloquently why it is not acceptable for British Columbia to accept discrimination based on any criteria and it is no longer acceptable to tolerate discrimination based on age. I think that others have done that very well. I want to talk further about the situation of retirement and some of the concerns that people have around the changes being proposed here in this bill.

I know that labour shortages are a preoccupation of labour market economists and of members of this Legislature. It's in the public discourse as something that Canada and British Columbia are really not well prepared to deal with, and I think it is fair comment that this government has not done enough to deal with that as well.

There are all kinds of skill shortages where this government has had six years to listen to business and industry leaders and prepare for things. They did not serve themselves well by dismantling the trade and apprenticeship system that we had in place for many decades as one of their first actions in government. We are paying the price for that in sections of our economy.

It is a fact — and I don't think there are any politics to this at all — that the demographics and labour shortages across a range of fields confront us as a province. It confronts a lot of industrialized northern countries. We're just on that part of the curve around an aging society.

I think what governments need to do primarily in their response to that situation is to invest heavily in their young people. The way to make sure that your pension plans are strong and that your society is capable of caring for older and younger members of the family is to invest in that generation of new workers coming into the workforce and give them the skills they need so they can earn the salaries to sustain the lifestyle and the prosperity that our country has come to enjoy.

There are going to be some impacts from this bill. There are going to be some great stories where people are able to improve their lives because now they can work and can have additional income coming into their family. They can pay for costs that they have to deal with — housing, food and everything else for their families.

Let's be clear. There are some places where they have eliminated mandatory retirement — Quebec is one place; Manitoba, even in the United States — and where, very quickly after that, there were changes.

I think the average age of retirement in British Columbia right now is 62. That hasn't changed significantly for much time, but in those provinces that have adopted legislation like this, the average age of retirement has increased by two or three years within a fairly short space of time after the change. That is not always a good thing. It is not always a person exercising their freedom of choice.

Hon. G. Hogg: Thank you to the member for Victoria-Hillside for the opportunity. I seek leave to make an introduction.

Hon. G. Hogg: We are joined in the House today by two classes from Ray Shepherd Elementary School: Mrs. Graham's grade 5 class and Miss Charleston's grade 5 class.

Ray Shepherd School is particularly unique because they have taken an initiative with the parents and the children to have a very healthy eating program in their school. Their parents have been involved in it, and their aim is to change the minds of kids so it's not so difficult to make the right choices so they can enjoy eating the things that they should eat.

I think they deserve extra accolades from this House for the work and the activity that the parents and teachers have taken and that the students indeed have taken. Please welcome the students from Ray Shepherd School.

I was speaking about one of the impacts that has been most visible in those jurisdictions that have

adopted legislation and amendments to the Human Rights Code, as is proposed here. Clearly, the result is that the average age of retirement is increased by two, sometimes three years.

We may think that's a good thing and that it may address the labour market shortages. I know that in some organizations, depending on what kind of business it is, it's problematic that somebody can't work beyond 65. They take an incredible amount of organizational knowledge out the door, and the organization suffers as a result.

Allowing those people to continue working as they were before that magic 65th birthday is a good thing for that individual business, and perhaps that has ripples throughout the economy. There are skilled trades out there as well, where the high-quality workers that are leaders in their workplace are being forced to retire, and with them go some of the skills of that trade.

There are those situations, but there are many more. We could be setting something in motion where people are working longer simply because the social supports that our country, our province have built up over many years begin to disappear. Or some people are just working longer because it's pressure put upon them.

Some of those with RSP plans, for example, as their major means of settling into retirement are looking at the inadequacy of their savings. Really, through no fault of their own, they may worry that a couple more contributory years is what they're going to do. An employer has sort of suggested that they can't leave the organization. Those are the kinds of informal pressures that go on in daily life for British Columbians.

Now the laws are going to be changed. There's a power dynamic that goes with that, I think — an employer-employee dynamic. I don't know that we have fully considered disputes and occurrences that may happen, which are not in the spirit of fairness and in the spirit of greater choice and control over one's lives — which this bill intends to introduce.

In those examples where we see unintended consequences that are quite negative, I don't think we have considered how we might make this legislation better able to deal with that or at least make a consistent statement that that is not an intention of the bill. Certainly, that is related to the lack of debate that this government is providing around Bill 31.

I think there are some people who are going to be very happy with this legislation. I have heard from faculty associations at the university in particular.

I talked about the anxiety that manual labourers have. They fear they'll have to be working longer, and their bodies and their minds tell them that's the last thing they want to do. I think the opposite could be said for many people who occupy positions in academia, who are really in the prime of their research productivity at a university, who are about to turn 65 and through this legislation will be very clearly able to remain faculty members.

I think there were some ways they could avoid it prior to Bill 31, as contractors and setting themselves up in business to work on research projects. This will make it clearer and cleaner for universities to continue tenured faculty members in their positions.

I think that is a very good thing, because British Columbia actually needs to do much more. It needs to catch up on the lag we have with other provinces. I think British Columbia ranks eighth out of ten in terms of its support for research and development dollars in this country.

The government has promised to address that. They've taken very small, incremental, modest steps to do that in this budget — inadequate ones, I think, in the view of the research community. Perhaps this bill will at least give something to a section of those engaged in the research community to continue doing what they're doing. For obvious reasons, we know that the research conducted there can lead to things that are in the interests of all of us in British Columbia.

I think that the points around superannuation and pension plans have been canvassed by other members, but there still is going to have to be an incredible amount of communication from the government on this issue. There are hundreds of thousands of people that participate in these plans that are not clear on what the implications are going to be. They have anxieties about what this bill means. They are people generally interested in retiring early. They have contributed to plans that allow them to do that, and now mandatory retirement is being ended.

Those are some of the major concerns. We are going to have to, outside of adopting this bill, ensure that it does not increase poverty among seniors in this province. We know that it will probably lengthen employment periods. The average age of retirement is most certainly going to go up in British Columbia. We need to do everything we can in British Columbia to make sure that insecurity among seniors is not an unintended consequence, and a disastrous one, as a result of this legislation.

Hon. W. Oppal: In closing debate, I want to recognize the contributions made by the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale. She has been championing the cause of seniors for a long period of time. It is her diligent work that led to this legislation. I want to recognize the work that she has done and all the legwork that she has done in proposing this legislation. She was well ahead of her time when she proposed that this legislation go forward.

As well, I want to recognize and express my sincere thanks to the member for Peace River South for his eloquent remarks yesterday in support of the bill.

Second reading of Bill 31 approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]

Hon. M. de Jong: Noting the interest expressed in the bill, I move, with leave, that Bill 31 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House forthwith.

Hon. M. de Jong: Leave having been denied, I move that Bill 31 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House at the next sitting of the House.

Bill 31, Human Rights Code (Mandatory Retirement Elimination) Amendment Act, 2007, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (MEMBERS'
REMUNERATION AND PENSIONS)
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2007
(continued)

D. Routley: It's my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill 37 and encourage the members opposite to vote no.

D. Routley: …at this time, Madam Speaker. Now we should consider a 29-percent raise for MLAs and a 54-percent raise for the Premier? I think that I can only go as far as I already have, and so I'll summarize that.

This question is brought before this House at a time when B.C. continues to lead this country in poverty rates among children, single moms, families. It is atrocious that at a time when our resources are in such high demand, while there is benefit flowing to a few in this province, there are so many being left out.

This bill galls all of those people as well as myself. This bill is an affront to those who live on our streets as a result of the policies of this government. This bill is an affront to those who have had their contracts torn up and their circumstances lowered, thereby lowered by this government, not raised — a government that has refused to raise the minimum wage. People who earn the minimum wage have gone now for ten years without a raise. In fact, their circumstances were reduced, as well, by this government.

Even though we see a skills shortage in this province, still 20 percent of British Columbians working today earn $8 or less per hour. Yet this question is brought before this House before the questions of homelessness are answered, before the question.

Why do 25 percent of the children in this province live in poverty? Why do 50 percent of the single moms in this province live in poverty — those families earning less per year than the amount of this raise alone? Why have those questions not been answered before this question is brought to this House?

This government, which is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the convention centre overruns. This government, wrought with secrecy and corruption, some of its highest political operatives in front of courts facing corruption charges. How can it be true that this government could bring this question to myself and my colleagues?

We have seen British Columbians hurt by their failed privatization schemes, and yet we see this question brought to us. This government is hurting real people. This government is failing the real people of British Columbia.

The most cynical piece of all of this is that the flowery words of throne speeches and the promises unmet of budgets — dubbed housing budgets and children's budgets — have done nothing but raise the bar for others. When we in this House raise the bar for others and then fail to clear that bar ourselves, we feed into something that's very dangerous to democracy. That is cynicism, a growing sense that what people care about doesn't matter to the government that represents them and that the government that represents them is completely disconnected with their circumstances.

This is the saddest aspect of all of this, this grand breaking of contracts with individuals, with groups, with workers, but most particularly with the voters of B.C. All of the acts of dilution of people's circumstances will come to be symbolized by this bill, and the value of symbols is deep. It will come to symbolize the closing of women's centres. It will come to symbolize the growing homelessness. It will come to symbolize the dismantling of the apprenticeship system. All of the steps that were taken to reduce the circumstances of British Columbians will come to be symbolized by this bill, which would give MLAs a 29-percent increase — a number far in excess of anything that any British Columbian expects.

In a sense, I suppose I should welcome it, because it underlines to British Columbians just how disconnected this government has become from them. But I don't, because it does feed into that cynicism. When there is a real crisis in this province and we do call on British Columbians to make sacrifice, how will they respond in the face of this cynicism?

This free vote is another cynical commitment to a principle — a commitment like other B.C. Liberal commitments to principle that amount to a mere marriage of convenience. We hold tight to a principle

only to use it as a tool to advance ourselves or to take from others. That is the saddest part of all of this. Now we see this guillotine approach to legislation that will limit debate on such crucial aspects as this bill and the bill on mandatory retirement, which has just passed.

It's a sad day for British Columbia, but I say this: British Columbians know when they are being asked to stand south of a north-facing mule. There aren't too many good things that can come out of that. But we know that one day we will again have a government that will listen to British Columbians. That government will have a heavy task on its hands to right the wrongs of this government, to reduce that poverty rate again, to restore the conditions that have been taken from this government, to reaffirm a commitment of British Columbians to their environment — a real commitment, not this marriage of convenience. A real commitment that is equalled by action.

This action is the worst of all because it will come to symbolize all of those other deprivations to the conditions of British Columbians. I feel so sorry for this House to have to entertain this question from a government with a record like that.

D. Cubberley: I just want to begin by saying that from my perspective, I certainly would prefer to see a different bill in front of us today. One that proposed a more reasonable increase to the salaries of legislators. One that would include a defined-benefit pension plan, because it's something that I personally do believe in and that I believe legislators and all workers should have access to.

It would, in my mind, be one that is less generous than the one that is in front of us — on the wage side unquestionably, but on the pension side as well — but also one that would be fairer and more equitable to all current members of the House and all past members of the House — those who served after the time of the defined-benefit plan being cancelled but who are no longer members of the House.

Ideally, of course, what we're doing today is having a debate on a piece of legislation where legislators' minds are open and can be influenced. We have heard from several sources — mostly through the media, not in this House from members opposite — that this is a free vote for the government side. One has to hope — because we live on hope, especially in opposition — that there are some open minds and that the kinds of arguments being marshalled will in fact sway how some members on the other side vote and allow us to accomplish the task of defeating this bill.

Our job is to try to convince those with doubts on the other side to join us in voting it down. It's a bad bill, and it should be voted down by the House. To promote at this point in time an increase which is double the last ill-fated effort to increase MLA wages is incomprehensible, especially when one looks at the context that the province is in at the present time. The speaker before me, the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith, spoke quite eloquently about it. I think context is very important in this case.

Interestingly, despite there being a free vote on the other side of the House, we have not heard anyone to this point address any matters to do with this bill within this chamber apart from the introductory remarks from the Government House Leader.

There's no evidence at this point that any minds are open, because no one is speaking to the bill except outside the Legislature to media and mostly commenting, I would say, on what members on this side have to say about the bill. It's intriguing, really. The theatre of politics is always entertaining and interesting and never more so than when legislators are dealing with how to fatten their paycheques.

One of the things I find disturbing, personally, about this whole idea is — and the member prior to me invoked this: what does it mean to say there's a free vote and then to hear no opinion expressed? What does it mean to say there's a free vote and there is no diversity of opinion? What does it mean when everyone thinks with one mind and doesn't feel the need to even express those thoughts?

Surely it must be, as W.A.C. Bennett said, that when everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much at all. That would appear to be the evidence coming from the members opposite.

I don't think we in this chamber can afford to deal with something as significant as this as though it were housekeeping, as though it were administration — almost as if it were just busywork and it should be moved through quickly. We do have to slow it down, and we do have to talk about it. I have to do the media scan in the morning in the way that every member of the House does, but I saw the comments from the Government House Leader in the newspaper about the fact that the opposition was pontificating on the pay raise. We were pontificating.

D. Cubberley: No, apparently not. Members opposite do not pontificate. It is curious to this member to hear New Democrats be accused of pontificating. Pontification, of course, means, from pontiff, a sense of infallibility. I would say that if there is a sense of infallibility in this chamber, it is surely seated on the other side of this House and not on this side of the House.

I'm not so sure that it's infallibility so much as it is simply the arrogance of power — power that doesn't really want to hear, doesn't really want to debate and address issues because it's in power. It's made up its mind, it has its own logic, it will keep it to itself, and at the end of the day, it's got the jets.

To me, sadly, there was no opportunity to influence what's before us now prior to it coming before us in this form, to be able to shape the things that were included in it. I think it would have been better for the House, for its credibility, to have the opportunity to review the recommendations that were made by the

commission and to modify those, to take account of factors that were not considered by the commission — factors that matter to the public who we represent and to whom we ultimately report.

Had that happened, we might have produced something that was fairer. Certainly we would have produced something fairer and, hopefully, something more in line with the expectations of British Columbians — something that we on this side might in fact be able to support. We cannot support what's in front of us now.

I'm going to proceed in the hope that we can change minds, because I heard the minister responsible for ActNow speak earlier in the House and talk about the noble act of trying to change the minds of children. Well, I think it's equally noble to try to change the minds of legislators and bring them back to their senses and get them to change their ways.

What's before us today, in my view, exceeds what's acceptable and by a long shot, particularly in the area of salaries but also as regards pensions. The 29-percent wage hike and 54 percent for the Premier…. It's too big a hike in the context that we are in as a province and as a Legislature.

You can rationalize it easily in relation to other legislators. You can rationalize it easily in relation to professional occupations, what businesspeople earn. That's, I think, what the commission chose to look at and how it chose to frame its recommendation to us. But what you can't rationalize is that pay raise in the context of many of the electors that we represent who are not doing so well.

My office has had some contact with people since the recommendations came forward — contact from people who live on fixed incomes; people who are dealing with disability benefits, for whom that benefit is their entire fiscal framework that they have to exist on; people who care about or who are constrained to try to live on the minimum wage in British Columbia; people who care about or who must live in poverty for lack of opportunity in the province.

We are leaders, of course, in poverty in British Columbia. It's the growth industry in this province. It's never talked about on the other side, but we do in fact have the highest rate of child poverty in Canada.

It does raise issues both of optics and, I believe, of substance about the legitimacy of what's being proposed in this bill. What we're doing is raising salaries without regard for the context that we are legislating in and without regard for the implications of actions and inactions by government. It's government which has the resources not only to improve its own salaries, the salaries of all legislators in the House, but to improve conditions for all British Columbians, and it's making conscious choices as we go along not to do that.

You know, Madam Speaker, a lot of communities have seen tremendous increase in homelessness, people living on the street in our communities. We all as legislators, I'm sure, deal with our local businesses, the citizens who use downtown and local governments.

Surely we must grasp the concern that people feel about deteriorating downtowns and about deteriorating conditions in our cities — and the sense of shame, quite frankly, which increasingly pervades cities across British Columbia about the lack of action to address these issues.

Lack of action is a bit of a lame expression, actually. Lack of action is leaving it in the sphere where government appears just not to have gotten around to it yet. But I think that in relation to homelessness — and with regard to other issues that affect those who have less or who are thrust into a circumstance not of their making, which is one that none of us would wish to be in — it's not a lack of action. It's a decision not to act at all.

It's tangible in British Columbia. On any given day there'll be a new report comparing how provinces are doing on issues. Yesterday there was another one I noticed in the Province. This is the context that we're in.

We're not doing very well in British Columbia on incomes for lone-parent families. In the rest of Canada they're rising. In British Columbia they're not; they're falling.

Two communities in particular are faring very poorly. All of B.C. is faring poorly, but Vancouver and Abbotsford are doing very, very poorly. In Vancouver the median income is $29,700 for lone-parent families, down 5 percent from 2004, and in Abbotsford, down 3.9 percent from 2004. That's in the province of British Columbia, which is seen — trumpeted — as an economic leader with high employment, but in fact has a growth industry going in poverty.

So 29 percent as a wage hike and 54 percent for the Premier is too big a hike in a context where homelessness is rising, where people are doing without, where the wealth which is flowing into government coffers — whether it's from gambling or property transfer taxes or whatever — is not being utilized to lift people out of those circumstances.

The last time we dealt with this, 15 percent was controversial. How can it be that 29 percent would not be controversial? This time we've heard from members opposite through the media that the timing is right. The Government House Leader said there was an independent process and that the context is different.

Certainly for those who have collective agreements and mandated bargaining, things are better than they were in 2005. There's absolutely no doubt. But for many among us, and especially the most vulnerable people among us — those who need the hand up — the times are only getting worse. And that's the context that we're deliberating in. That's the context in which we're looking at raising legislators' wages.

At least we on this side are deliberating. I have to say that so far we've heard only one speech from members opposite, and that was really only the official party line. It's not concerned at all about the 29-percent increase or the 54 percent for the Premier or the context, but it is seeking shelter behind the large skirts of the independent commission.

I have no doubt that the commission operated independently and no hesitation in acknowledging, by the way, that I responded to the confidential survey

which all legislators were asked to respond to. I participated in the confidential survey.

I have to say that I was shocked to hear the commission chair talking publicly about who had participated in the confidential survey and breaking the results out for public consumption. I was shocked personally. That hasn't happened to me before, but caveat emptor, I guess. Just because it says it's independent doesn't mean it is. Just because it says it's confidential doesn't mean it is.

I was shocked to hear the commission chair publicly criticize this party — publicly criticize it — for daring to actually ask questions about the recommendations that had come forward in the bill. I did not hear the chair criticize the government for introducing a suicide clause into the recommendations. There was no criticism of that, even though that altered the recommendations and even though that differs from the official party line as given to the House by the Opposition House Leader — that nothing had been changed, and we are simply flowing through the recommendations of an independent panel.

It's not appropriate, Madam Speaker. One wonders whether the chair, whose work I respect, will actually comment on the propriety of government modifying the recommendations.

The suicide clause is a nice little political tool, but it really does poison the well, and that was its intention. It makes the package "take it or leave it," with major penalties by way of lost opportunity to participate in a bona fide pension plan with defined benefits. It denies those in perpetuity to people who opt out of the plan, to anyone who goes down that path. To me, that rather ugly addition gives the lie to government's position that it was taking a hands-off approach and simply passing through the work of an independent commission.

There's more controversy around it, but I don't want to belabour that side of it. I want to talk a little bit about the pension plan and express some considerable concern, as well, about the framing of that, because I think government should be interested in making sure that what it brings before the House stands up to scrutiny.

The history, of course, of MLA pensions is one of a populist attack in the 1990s led against the idea of a defined-benefit plan. Rather than reforming the existing pension plan, actions were taken to actually dump it and replace it with RRSPs to which members make a contribution and to which the employer, which is the public, makes a contribution.

I think that the RRSP plan is inferior in this respect. The money doesn't grow, because unless you're an investor and skilled at it…. You're the pension fund manager. Not much happens with RRSPs. At least that's been my experience. I guess you could conclude that I'm not financially astute, and in that respect I think you would be quite right.

The upside, though, of the existing pension plan is that the employer portion, the employer contribution, is treated as a deferred wage, which is an important principle of pension plans that has been fought for since World War II. The goal of all post-war pension reform has involved two basic elements. One of them is to see the employer's contribution treated not as a gift but as a deferred wage, which is what it is, and that involves early vesting.

The second aspect has been to achieve portability so that people who do not take a job and stay for life are allowed to take pension contributions with them so that they can accumulate a pension towards the end of their life, when they can retire.

Those two elements of reform have moved ahead dramatically. They've moved ahead during the dark decade of the 1990s here in British Columbia, where the public service pension plan finally stopped the longstanding practice of denying vesting until long service had been achieved and enabled early vesting of both the employer contribution and the employee contribution, at which point in time many people who were working in government, but didn't know how long they would stay, opted into the plan because it made sense and because it trapped all of the contributions to the pension plan.

This plan has late vesting. This plan has six years. What that presumes is that people are going to be re-elected. Many, many members — and not just members on this side of the House but former members and future members on that side of the House — will not serve more than a single term in office.

I had a representation from a constituent on the matter of pensions. This is kind of an interesting one because this constituent wanted to make the case…. He wasn't arguing so much against the wage increase, but he made that argument from the mid-'90s — and I respect the argument, but I disagree with it — that being a legislator is not a career and that therefore a defined-benefit plan and contribution to a pension plan of that kind is inappropriate because it is not a career.

I disagree with that profoundly. It doesn't matter whether you're in a career or working at a job. It doesn't matter if you're a day labourer or you stay in a job for life. It's all service that should contribute towards a pension plan, and the employer's contribution should be vesting in that plan and travel with it as a deferred wage and not as a gift.

I want to quote the words of the Premier in the 1990s: "In order for us to change the public image of MLAs as self-serving, it's going to require MLAs to stop being self-serving." I love those kinds of things. "Being an MLA should be a public service, not a career. We cannot ask others to tighten their belts if we're not willing to tighten our own."

That was the Premier, a pension warrior in the mid-'90s, then the Leader of the Opposition, who had to get rid of that gold-plated pension plan. It was wrong. "This is not a career. You shouldn't have access to a pension."

Now, the fascinating thing is that back then, he agreed with my constituent today who doesn't believe this is a career and doesn't believe it should have a pension. But curiously, now he does. I just find it interesting that in looking at a bill which contains a complete reversal of a position which led to the

abolition of the legislators pension plan in this chamber, it isn't necessary and the Premier feels no obligation to come to this House and tell us how he changed his mind and why.

It's fascinating to me the inelegance of the reversals that occur on the government side of the chamber. I think the public is owed, and I think all of us are owed, that explanation and to have that member join us in the House as one amongst equals and tell us how and why he changed his mind.

I happen to agree that there should be a defined-benefit pension plan. There should be one for legislators. There should be one for all citizens. I happen to agree, and I believe fundamentally that it is not about the employer. We could quibble over the amount. The employer's contribution to this pension plan is substantial. We could quibble over the amount, and there are good discussions that should be had there.

More importantly, there's an element of justice or injustice in the way that this is being defined, because it's being defined as if it were a 1950s pension plan. This has gone back to the immediate post-war era where the whole design of the plan was to reward people who stayed in place — not to treat years worked as pensionable service no matter how many of them there were, but to reward those who went long. Whether they went strong, not so important. Reward those who went long.

I think that more needs to be done there. More should have been done there. If we had an actual debate about this in the House, we might engage in further sausage-making. You know the Bismarck analogy with legislation being analogous to sausage-making. It's a bit ugly, sausage-making, but the product can be very enjoyable to eat.

Well, legislation can be somewhat ugly in the way that it's brought about as well. But it needs to be capable of going through a process of modification.

I cannot support the legislation that's before the House in the form that it's in. The fact that government is unwilling to debate it only increases my resolve to vote against this bill. I would urge that if there are members on the other side of the House that share any of these concerns, we vote this legislation down, we put something together that's more appropriate for the context in which British Columbians find themselves, we roll up our sleeves and do that work, and we find a ground of agreement. That's what I would urge, Mr. Speaker — without great expectation that that is about to happen.

D. Chudnovsky: Good morning to you, hon. Speaker. I look forward to my opportunity to speak today about Bill 37, the "Show me the money" bill, 2007.

I had meant to talk about the "Show me the money" bill, 2007, but it seems to me it needs to be renamed. As of yesterday when the government decided to limit debate and shut down the House on this very, very important and controversial bill, it should be called "Show me the money right now" bill.

It's important that we be clear that that's the way my constituents think about it. I've heard from them over the last number of weeks, and they're very clear about what this is. This is a bill that provides for MLAs what my constituents can only dream about.

There is no one in Vancouver-Kensington who's getting a raise of $23,000. Find me one. I challenge the members opposite to find me one constituent in Vancouver-Kensington who's getting a raise of $23,000. Nobody in Vancouver-Kensington is getting 29 percent or 30 percent or 40 percent or 54 percent, as the Premier will get when this bill is rammed through the House this afternoon.

In fact, in Vancouver-Kensington where I come from, the average annual household income…. That's everybody who's earning money in a house, and in my constituency, that's two and three and four people in many cases. The average annual household income is substantially less than the raise that the Premier will get.

In my constituency there are thousands of people who live on an income less than the raise that we will be entitled to when this bill is rammed through the House this afternoon. In my constituency where I live, and speaking to the people who I represent, they are looking for the "End the 25 percent of constituents who are children who are in poverty" act, 2007. Where's that? Where's the "End child poverty" act, 2007? No time for that. No time for the 25 percent of children in the province and their families who live in poverty, but we're ramming through the "Show me the money" bill this afternoon.

In my constituency they're looking for the "What are we going to do about housing for the people living on the streets?" bill, 2007. Where's that? No time for that. We're too busy ramming through the "Show me the money" bill, 2007. Right now, today — ram it through the House.

In my constituency my constituents are looking for the "Let's fix up the emergency rooms in our hospitals" bill, 2007. Where's that? No time for that. We're busy ramming through the "Show me the money" bill.

They're looking for the "What are we going to do about students with special needs in our classrooms?" bill, 2007. That's not here. No time for that. We're busy. We're busy with the "Show me the money" bill.

I am opposed and will vote against this bill and do so in the absolute knowledge that I am representing the people of Vancouver-Kensington, who are appalled at the notion that a 29-percent raise is being put before the House and will be rammed through this afternoon.

In my constituency many of my constituents work in our hospitals. About 1,100 of them work in the hospitals. They had a bill that spoke to the issue of their salaries come through this House. Bills 28 and 29 came through this House and stole 15 percent of their salaries from them. That's what they got. They didn't get the "Show me the money" bill. They got a bill that

Those were the lucky ones. The lucky ones had 15 percent ripped out of their pockets. As a result of decisions made by this government that's ramming through a bill on MLA salaries here today, many thousands of hospital workers in this province had their jobs privatized and contracted out and, therefore, their salaries reduced by 50 percent or so. They were the lucky ones, because thousands of others, as a result of decisions made by this government, lost their jobs altogether.

Then they come into the House with a bill to increase the salaries of MLAs, and they rush it through. They bring in the guillotine, and they invoke closure and limit debate. There's not going to be any clause-by-clause debate of this bill, where the people who represent the folks of the province….

I represent the people of Vancouver-Kensington. They'd like me to ask some questions about the elements of this bill, because that's democracy. Democracy isn't getting to choose…. I noted the Premier speaking the other day. "I'll be accountable." When? "In 2009." Accountability between 2005 and 2009? No, that's not important. Accountability is about making one choice every four or five years. But we know that's not the case.

This institution, as it has developed over generations and centuries, is one in which the government and the opposition engage in debate. The opposition has a responsibility to hold government to account and to engage in debate on the details of the legislation that's put before us, but that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen today because the "Show me the money" bill is going to be rammed through this afternoon.

One of the justifications that's made for that raise — a justification for this enormous raise that's coming before the House today and that nobody where I live can even dream about — is how hard we work. We're such hard workers here.

I want to say that it's my view — knowing the folks from this side of the House and knowing some of my colleagues who sit on the other side of the House — that a lot of people do work hard here. Many of us work very hard. But don't tell me we work harder than the single mom who's on two jobs at $8 an hour to make sure that her kids can live reasonably. Don't tell me we work harder than she does.

It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable to pretend that our lives are more difficult and more challenging than her life — unacceptable. There are lots of those people, lots of those single moms who live in Vancouver-Kensington, and they want me to be here to say no to this "Show me the money" bill, 2007.

Don't tell me, hon. Speaker, through you to those who haven't managed to speak here in the House…. Don't tell me, notwithstanding the fact that some of us work very, very hard in this House in our jobs, and it's a complicated and difficult job…. Don't tell me that we work harder than the farmworkers in the fields of the Fraser Valley working on piecework. Don't tell me that. It's a kind of arrogance that inappropriately separates the people who work in here and work hard from the people who work out there and work hard.

I don't accept the notion that we work so hard that we deserve to have the right to vote ourselves these enormous raises. There are thousands of people in the province working on the real minimum wage, the "six bucks sucks" minimum wage that was brought in by this government — thousands of workers. They work hard, and it is the height of arrogance for us to suggest that our raises be at the level that's going to be rammed through today when others are working hard.

I'm very proud of my own children, as each of us is. My son works in the restaurant industry. He's a fabulous guy, and a guy who has inside him a passion for justice and fairness. Not a political guy in many ways, but he's got a passion for justice. I was talking to him last week about this bill. I was talking to him about this bill, and he was saying: "How can people justify this?" He just shakes his head. He says: "How can people justify this?"

I said: "Well, one of the things they say is that they work hard." He said: "Send them to me. I'll take them on a tour of the restaurants in Vancouver, and I'll show them the people who work on their feet all day washing dishes at $8, $9 and $10 an hour. Then let them tell me how hard they work."

The other day in the House, in some of the banter that goes on, a member opposite asked, perhaps rhetorically — I hope rhetorically; I hope he wasn't serious — of one of the people on this side: "Did you ever have a job? Did you ever really work?" I note that the person who asked that — perhaps rhetorically, in the banter that goes back and forth in this House — is a person whose major contribution to the economy before he was elected to this House, as I recall, was to organize dirty tricks at political meetings. But nonetheless, he asked the question.

I want to tell you, hon. Speaker, I've had a few jobs in my time. I've worked at a few jobs in my time, to respond to the member who asked that question. I've worked as a clerk in a government office. I've been a truck driver. I've been a teacher and a union officer. I worked on a garbage truck for several years. I worked for an insurance company, had jobs in the public service and in the private sector.

I want to tell you, hon. Speaker, that in every single one of those jobs that I've had in the real world — outside of this House, outside of the marble and the power that we have entrusted to us that allows us to vote ourselves a raise and limit debate on it…. Outside of this House I've had some jobs, and in every one of those jobs I've worked with people….

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of State for Intergovernmental Relations would like to make an introduction.

Hon. J. van Dongen: I appreciate the member deferring so that I can introduce a classroom of 34 grade 5 students from Alexander Elementary in my constituency, four parents accompanying them and

D. Chudnovsky: Just to repeat, I've done a lot of different jobs outside of this House, and in every single one of those jobs there were people who work as hard as we work. In every single one of those jobs there were people who worked long hours and had to face the stresses and strains of their responsibilities. They went home with their work and went home with their stress, just as we do here.

To summarize on that point, and I think it's really important, if salaries and wages were determined by how hard people work, it would be a different world. It would be a very, very different world if it were a question of how hard you work. Perhaps we should have the opportunity. I'd like that opportunity to actually have a debate like that in this House. If the people who justify this enormous raise, which we can push through ourselves in a day, would like to have a discussion about: let's reorganize things so the people who work the hardest make the most money…. That would be an interesting discussion to have, and I'd like to participate in that. The world would be very different if that were the case.

At our present salaries, the basic MLA's salary of $76,000 and change a year, not the salaries including the bonuses that almost every single one of those on the government side get for various responsibilities that they take on…. They are responsibilities that they take on. But let's not forget that virtually none of the members opposite earn the basic $76,000 and change a year.

Most of us do. Some of us here on this side receive stipends for additional responsibilities as well, but at the basic salary of $76,000 a year, we're in the 93rd percentile in British Columbia. We make more money than 93 out of 100 of our neighbours and less than seven out of 100 of our neighbours.

The argument goes: "You know, if you don't up the salary, you won't get the good people." Well, that's interesting. In the House of Commons, you know, they make about double what we make, and you might ask yourself: are they twice as good in the House of Commons?

You might ask yourself: are they twice as good in the House of Commons because they get double the salaries? I don't think so. I think not.

We're in the 93 percentile, and the argument goes that if we don't provide a salary that's high enough for MLAs, you won't get the good people. Well, I believe — and I believe it about those opposite, not just us on this side but those opposite as well — that the prime motivating factor for working here is not the salary. It's not the salary, and I'll talk about this a little bit more in a few minutes.

Even if it were that the prime motivating factor for working here is the salary, you know what, hon. Speaker? I say higher than 93 percent, less than 7 percent, is not bad. It's a raise to come to this House for 93 percent of the people of the province, and for 7 percent it's a disincentive to them. Okay; they've been making a lot of money for a long time, most of them. The disincentive doesn't bother me. It doesn't worry me with respect to that 7 percent.

I'll tell you one thing, hon. Speaker. There's virtually nobody in Vancouver-Kensington…. I don't know; go look around. Take a tour of my constituency and find me the people for whom it's a disincentive to work in this House at $76,000 a year. You're going to have a lot of trouble finding anybody — a lot of trouble.

What could we have done? What could we have done that would have elicited in response support from the people for whom I work in Vancouver-Kensington and the population at large across the province? What could we have done? Well, here's what we could have done. We could have brought before the House a proposition that the members of the House, who deserve a raise from time to time — I wouldn't argue against that — receive a raise commensurate with what other public servants are getting. It's pretty simple.

Public servants in B.C. are getting about 3 percent a year over the next four or five years. I'd support that. I'd support that for the members of this House — notwithstanding the fact that we start in the 93rd percentile. But it's fair. It would be fair — about 3 percent a year; what other public servants are getting. Makes some sense. I would have supported that.

On the pension side. Everybody deserves a pension. I have, as a trade unionist, fought for decent pensions for people my whole life, and I support them. This pension…. I have a lot of criticisms of it, but everybody deserves a pension. So we could have brought to this House a proposition for a pension commensurate with what other public servants are getting, with a couple of changes I think we'd need. I support the notion that my colleague who spoke before me talked about, which is that for this kind of work, early vesting, I think, is an important thing to do for a pension. That makes sense. It's a slightly different kind of work.

But with respect to the amount of money that goes in and comes out of the pension plan, it should be about what other public servants get. I would have supported that. Others would have supported that. That would have been reasonable. I would have been able to go to Vancouver-Kensington and walk up Fraser Street or along Kingsway in Vancouver and speak to my neighbours. They're my neighbours. They're not just my constituents. They're my neighbours, and I would have been able to say: "Well, look. It's reasonable. We're getting what other public servants are getting with respect to salary. We're proposing a pension. Everybody deserves a pension. That's about what other people who work in the public service get."

I think, frankly, that my constituents would have said: "Yeah, okay." Some of them would have been a

little ticked off because of course we start at $76,000 minimum, and hardly any of them do. They would have been a little critical, maybe, of that. Some of them would have said, "Yeah, you deserve it; you're a good guy," or "You all work hard," or "You're trying to help us," or something. There would have been some disagreement.

We wouldn't have had the response we got now. I'd love to take you on a tour of the e-mails that I've received and phone calls in my office, which are overwhelmingly outraged at what we're doing. We could have done something that made some sense and that people would have said, "Yeah, that's okay," and wouldn't have undercut the kind of confidence that people should have in their elected representatives. We could have done that, but we didn't. We brought forward Bill 37, the "Show me the money, 2007" bill.

Hon. Speaker, two more quick points to make, if I may. The first one is to go back to this notion that I talked about briefly a few minutes ago. We're here to provide public service. That's the motivation, and that should be the motivation. We're here to do a job for our constituents. That's the motivation, and that should be the motivation.

For those who want to do very, very well as compared to their neighbours — that is, better than the 93rd percentile…. We already do very well, but if you want to do better than the 93rd percentile, there are a lot of things to do in life. There are a lot of choices. You can make those choices, and you can do that kind of work, and you can receive that compensation.

This is about public service. This is about contact with our neighbours and our constituents. This is about being the one guy or gal who lives in the neighbourhood or in the area who comes and does this job on behalf of the people with whom they live. You can't do that well, in my view, and you can't do it in the way that it should be done if what you're doing is separating yourself or separating ourselves in such a dramatic way from the conditions that our constituents and our neighbours live under. You can't do it. It has to be about public service, and this isn't. This isn't about public service — what's going to happen here today. It's not about public service, and it is a shame that it isn't.

Finally, if I could say a word about the process. The government has chosen that this debate will be cut off, will be silenced, will be ended, will not proceed after today. You know, if it's such a good idea to provide $23,000 raises in the case of your basic MLA, up to $98,000 and change, or if it's such a good idea to provide a $70,000 raise for the Premier, it will wait until the fall. It will wait until the fall when we have time — assuming that the government chooses to call the Legislature, which is an open question.

It's an open question whether the government will call the Legislature, and there's an irony. Big raise; maybe not a fall session. There's an irony. If it's such a good idea, it will wait until the fall, when we have the opportunity to give it full and fair debate.

I'm afraid that those on the other side have let their greed get in the way of their good sense. They've let their greed get in the way of their good sense, and they can't wait another day. They can't wait another week or another month or until we have an opportunity to have a real debate in the House next fall.

They've got to do it today. It's the "Show me the money" bill, 2007, the "Show me the money right now, right this minute; I can't wait another second" bill, 2007, and I'm opposed, and I'm going to vote against it.

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

M. Karagianis: Looking at where we left off last night, I would like to ask the minister if we could perhaps clarify a little bit further. We left off in discussion about how funding and services are allocated between MCFD and CLBC and where the crossover exists. In rereading the minutes of our discussion last night, I realize that there is still a bit of confusion as to how funding and services are allocated.

Perhaps the minister could give me a little more clarification on that. I know he made comments again

and alluded in his last comments to the children's agreement. I thought we had established that in fact the children's agreement has not been fulfilled or put down anywhere as an official document. Perhaps the minister could elaborate a bit more on how funding and services are allocated between the two bodies of the ministry.

Hon. T. Christensen: From a budget perspective, the way the division has been determined is that for all children with any disability under the age of six, MCFD is responsible for funding. In some cases, they may access a service through CLBC — those are relatively limited cases — and there is an internal accounting between MCFD and CLBC to ensure that MCFD is actually funding that rather than CLBC.

For children with disabilities other than a developmental disability who are over the age of six, if it's a non-residential service, MCFD is responsible for the funding. Similarly, if it's a residential service under a special needs agreement or a continuing custody order, then MCFD ultimately is responsible for the budget for that.

For children who have a developmental disability or are believed to have a developmental disability and who are over the age of six, if it's a non-residential service, then it falls within CLBC's budget. If it's a residential service through a special needs agreement, it falls within CLBC's budget. But if it's a continuing custody order, then it's MCFD's responsibility.

When CLBC was first established, the budgets were divided based on what the caseloads had been, and certainly there is adjustment for that over time as CLBC and MCFD work together to reflect who's actually doing what work and who's funding different children.

M. Karagianis: Does the minister anticipate that a memorandum of understanding, then, will be established in a more formal way about clarifying the responsibilities between MCFD and CLBC?

Hon. T. Christensen: There is in fact an MOU in place that's guiding that relationship between MCFD and CLBC around the delivery of services and the budget. CLBC's website has a fact sheet with respect to the highlights of the MOU that we can provide to the member, if that would be of assistance. It's about a page and a half long, so I can read it out, but that probably doesn't help much.

M. Karagianis: Thank you very much, and no. I can certainly look up that information.

I'd like, then, to move into some questions about the service delivery model. I note in the service plan here, under the service delivery model on pages 16 and 17, there is language that says that implementation is complete but refinements will continue and that staff, individuals and families will require time to understand and experience this new approach.

Could the minister maybe elaborate, please, on what exactly that means and how in fact families can interpret it in the way of continuing changes and perhaps unknown expectations for the future?

Hon. T. Christensen: What has happened in the first two years of CLBC being established is that they have made a very fundamental shift in terms of how a family interacts with the worker they're dealing with. When community living services were within MCFD, it was really a case-driven approach where you tended to have a worker from within the ministry that you worked with.

CLBC, after considerable consultation with the community living sector and looking at how they could try to move towards a model of service delivery that was more responsive to individuals and to families, developed an approach where, as a family, you work with a facilitator, who helps you to plan what it is you need for the person with the developmental disability and what services may be generally available in the community — that would be available to any citizen, whether they had a developmental disability or not — that may assist in meeting some of that person's needs. They're not just focused on very specialized services but also including what types of specialized services they need.

Once that individualized plan is developed — and really, the strength of the model is the development of an individualized plan for the person that is reflective of their needs and wants — they then work with an analyst, whose role is really to work more with the service provider community in determining how we can then make those services available to that particular individual.

Part of the transition, and the part that is very much ongoing, is that not all people who have traditionally been receiving community living services have that individualized plan developed yet. CLBC anticipates that it will likely take in the neighbourhood of a five-year period until everyone who is being served by CLBC has that individualized plan in place. Probably, in most cases, people are receiving the services they have always received — in some cases for decades, depending on the age of the individual — so there's not an urgency to be sitting down and working on their individualized plan. Over time the intent is to have an individualized plan in place for all people.

As families and the individual with the developmental disability engage with CLBC in developing that plan, this is certainly something that is new to that family. What the service plan is trying to reflect is that as CLBC works with more families, there'll be additional people who will encounter sort of a new model of community living that CLBC is trying to execute and to deliver.

It's very fair to say that over this two-year period it has been a very fundamental shift for the staff, who had been working for MCFD and who now work for CLBC, in terms of how they do their work and how they interact with the people who are in receipt of the services that CLBC funds. There's no question that that

has been a monumental shift, and there have been some bumps in that road in terms of people becoming knowledgable and comfortable with what the requirements of their new roles are.

This is somewhat anecdotal, but I know, from having just a few conversations at a recent CLBC staff conference that I was able to attend, that the level of comfort and confidence staff are feeling around the new model is markedly different this year than it was a year ago. Certainly that's the part of the evolution of change that anybody would undergo in making the type of shift that CLBC has done in terms of how services are delivered.

While there have been challenges, no doubt, in the course of making that shift over the last couple of years since CLBC was first established in 2005, the most recent information certainly suggests that everybody — families and CLBC professionals and staff — is becoming much more comfortable with how this new model works and the fact that it's delivering and enabling much more individualized planning and services for CLBC clients.

M. Karagianis: In addition to the language that I noted in that previous question, there is also a directive here of improving operational efficiency and reducing administrative overheads. My question is: given what the minister has now described as a shift in workers' duties from casework to facilitation and being analysts to families, in conjunction with operational efficiencies and reducing administrative overheads, what has been the real impact on the ground? Are we talking about reduced resources to families, reduced staffing? When we talk about reducing administrative overheads, it often implies personnel.

I'd like to know, in the picture here of how we're delivering services, whether this has provided more stability to families or less. I know the minister talked about families and workers having more comfort with the new model, but in reality, when you're also achieving operational efficiency and reducing administrative overhead, has this provided stability? Are there more or fewer resources for individual families now, with this new definition of the workers they access resources from?

Hon. T. Christensen: I think it's important to recognize that on all fronts there has actually been an increase in financial resources to CLBC in terms of the province's contribution, and that will continue to increase by about 15 percent, I believe, over the next three years.

In terms of the total number of individuals who are supported by CLBC, that's increasing by anywhere from 3½ percent to 4½ percent per year, so there are more services being provided by CLBC with those increased resources. There are also more services in terms of the number of services that are available.

In some cases, there may be a change in the service that a particular individual is receiving. That will have only occurred in the context of developing an individual plan for that person, in consultation with that person and his or her family, to try to better address what their particular needs are and respond to their input in terms of what they believe will best improve their life.

Certainly, there have been changes, but they have been positive in terms of being able to take the additional resources and actually allow additional people to be served and additional services to be provided.

The member asked specifically about staff. There has been an increase in staff over the last couple of years as CLBC has gone through this transition.

M. Karagianis: I'm not sure I got a clear answer there about how operational efficiencies and reduced administrative overheads were going to be achieved, then, given the fact that the minister has talked about increases in staff. I did note, in his opening remarks, that the increase in funding is expected to be about 6 percent this year and 15 percent over three years, which works out to be about 4½ percent and 4½ percent in each of the next two years. Certainly, the number of individuals is increasing, but I do want to go back to the very clear statements here about operational efficiencies and reducing administrative overhead — exactly what that means and what the implications are.

Hon. T. Christensen: Certainly, the ongoing intent of CLBC is to look for administrative efficiencies in terms of their operations so that they can focus more of the resources they have on actual direct delivery of services to their clients. They have done, I believe, an effective job in terms of serving a greater number of people. The number of clients being served is increasing at a faster rate than what the budgets are increasing at. They're consistently looking at ways of minimizing the part of the budget that has to go to what I would call the backroom services, the head office–type services in terms of managing the organization as opposed to the service delivery part of what they do.

More recently, what they've been engaged in — well, really since CLBC was established — is the development of a new contract management system. This will certainly allow for significant efficiencies in terms of moving away from what has been pretty much a paper-based system to embracing new technologies around systems that will allow some much greater efficiencies there. Again, all of that is important in terms of then allowing a greater percentage of the overall budget to focus on the front-line service delivery that's actually providing something to individuals.

M. Karagianis: There are a couple of questions, I think, coming out of this that I may come back to again — about, as the minister has admitted, the number of clients needing service outpacing the financial increase in the next couple of years.

The minister has touched on something here that leads into my next question. On page 22, again as part of the operational service delivery model here, it says that there is a goal to decentralize budget authority and accountability. Could the minister elaborate on exactly what that means?

Hon. T. Christensen: One bit of factual information to add to the previous answer around the admin efficiencies. By focusing on that, what it allowed last year, in '06-07, was for CLBC to reallocate about $2.7 million of their admin budget toward services to clients. So they are certainly making progress on that front, which I think we should all be able to agree is helpful in terms of focusing the dollars on the front line.

In terms of the service plan intent to move in the direction of more regionalized input and decision-making in terms of the budget…. CLBC, in terms of its service delivery areas, is divided into nine regions. Those nine regions were initially funded based on historic funding patterns prior to the establishment of CLBC. Over time CLBC is working to bring greater equity to those regions in terms of looking at demographic data and better allocating budgets based on the relative need in each of the regions.

What has been done in terms of ensuring that CLBC can be responsive to individuals and families and communities is that they've established a number of community councils around the province. The intent is that once those community councils are up and established — which are made up of families and individuals receiving services from CLBC, as well as service providers and other stakeholders of Community Living — they will be very much involved in providing input to set the priorities for spending within the particular regions. Ultimately, those decisions around budgeting will be largely driven by the nine regions rather than all of the decisions being made, around budgets at least, more centrally.

M. Karagianis: The minister has said that these community councils will then be driving the budget decisions, and I can see that that explains the decentralizing budget authority. But what about accountability? How is budgetary accountability going to be monitored and overseen by the minister when community councils in regions are driving budgetary priorities? Why is government allowing that kind of community authority over budget directions?

Hon. T. Christensen: Certainly, ultimately, government will set the amount of the budget contribution to CLBC. CLBC's board will then ultimately determine the allocation of the budget among the regions. The intent here is to ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, budgets are being responsive to the community that the budget is intended to serve. So community councils won't have absolute authority over allocation of the budget, but the intent here is that they will have a very significant input in setting the priorities of how budgets will be spent in particular regions.

The ultimate decision will still lie with CLBC staff in terms of where a dollar gets spent. Staff are obviously responsible in terms of those decisions within CLBC as an organization. The CEO is ultimately responsible to the board, and the board is ultimately responsible to government in terms of meeting their overall budget.

CLBC has had a balanced budget in each of the two years that they've been in place, and we have every expectation that on an ongoing basis they'll have a balanced budget. There is no question that they'll have spending pressures, but there is a significant degree of accountability in place within the organization in terms of how they're spending their budget and ensuring that they're operating within budget as required by government.

M. Karagianis: Under the goal of decentralizing budget authority and accountability, which it very clearly says here, I'm concerned again with the minister's response around the accountability side of this.

These community councils are appointed. These are not elected individuals. How is the accountability established on how funding is spent, how priorities are set and whether or not there is any possibility for, shall we say, misspending or shortfalls? In the case of budget or funding shortfalls in a region, where is the accountability? Who takes the accountability, and who takes the responsibility for that at the end of the day?

How do the families in those regions look to the government for accountability on that? Where is that thread that carries from the minister right down to families being able to say: "We have no funding in our region. We've run short." Or there may have been accusations of misappropriation or misuse of funding or conflicting priorities in a region. How does the buck ultimately stop with the minister on this?

Hon. T. Christensen: It is important that we be clear here in terms of who has the authority to make spending decisions because certainly nobody wants to see any misspending. So we need to be very clear that while the community councils are expected and encouraged to be providing significant input in terms of setting the priorities for spending within a particular region, ultimately the spending decision is made by CLBC staff people.

In that regard, the same safeguards around accountability are in place, in terms of CLBC, as are in place in terms of government generally. Staff know what they have authority to make decisions around in terms of spending and where they need to go to a more senior staff person in terms of getting authority to spend. Ultimately, it is CLBC as an organization that is subject to audits, and all of those other sort of processes around accountability, and is responsible for meeting its budget and, ultimately, balancing its budget on an annual basis in accordance with government's requirements.

M. Karagianis: The concern that I have here is around funding shortfalls and conflicting priorities. It's no secret to any of us here, to the minister or to me…. I have stacks and stacks of correspondence here from individuals who have gone through the process of designing their plan as the minister has outlined. A necessary component of the new model under CLBC is designing a plan for individuals that will provide services and lifelong security, in most cases, for these individuals.

Yet funding shortfalls in the past fiscal year, which have been reported regionally, have resulted in a whole number of clients being turned down — their plans being turned down. It has resulted in freezes of medical supplies. I've had the opportunity to question the minister in the House on this and to write to the minister. We have individuals — families like Jan Morrison-Hines's — reporting an inability to get an adequate number of diapers for her 14-year-old, non-verbal, autistic son.

Cathy Grant, an individual who has cerebral palsy, is an adult who is now living independently and has frequently had to contact my office in order to get Tena pads, which should be supplied to her without any kind of barrier or hardship. But she has been told over and over again, as have been many of these families, that there's an inability to supply a steady stream of medical supplies without a lot of barriers and constraints because of funding shortfalls.

For individuals whose plans are being turned down every single day across the province by their region because of funding shortfalls, I have a grave concern here with the minister's comments around decentralizing accountability on this and with the fact that regions are setting their own priorities. Where do they turn when they have had funding shortfalls?

How is the minister accountable to these individuals, to explain to them why they can't get what would certainly seem to be, to most reasonable people, very reasonable expectations of medical supplies — or if, in fact, they have gone to the effort of coming up with a personal plan and have been told there is no funding?

Can the minister elaborate on how the goal of decentralizing budget authority and accountability offsets what is clearly a growing concern and need within the community living sector around where they turn when they hit an obstacle that says there is no funding left?

Hon. T. Christensen: I want to clarify a couple of things in terms of the questions around medical supplies in particular. I'm not going to comment on specific cases for two reasons: (1) I don't have the permission of those individuals to do that, and (2) I don't, for the most part, have the information about individual cases. If the member does have concerns about individual cases, I would encourage her, as she has done in the past, to bring them forward to me, and we'll certainly look into them.

In terms of medical supplies specifically, if they are for children, they're funded by MCFD, not by CLBC. If they're for adults, they're funded by the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, not by CLBC. I'm not able to comment in terms of those supplies to adults. It's not within this ministry's area of knowledge.

However, in terms of supplies to children, what becomes an issue there is discussion around whether or not a particular supply is necessary. Where the lines get drawn in terms of whether a particular supply is necessary is not a funding issue. In fact, in the past what we found is that we will overspend the budget allocation for that area so that we can meet need. Certainly, in that area we have seen a growing trend in terms of the costs, in some cases due to products improving to serve the needs of children.

In this year's budget for MCFD we've increased that budget item from $13.2 million to $15.7 million. It's certainly not an issue of whether or not there's funding available to provide the supply. It's based on a question of whether it's deemed to be a necessary supply in a particular set of circumstances. This is certainly my understanding.

In terms of the broader question around people developing an individual plan and then not being able to access that particular service immediately, there is no question, as I've indicated before, that there are pressures on CLBC's budget due to demographics and an aging population of individuals with developmental disabilities — and a growing number, in general terms.

Certainly, CLBC has done a good job in trying to focus their funding on front-line services. In this last year, '06-07, compared to '05-06, they saw 25 percent more people receive new or enhanced services from CLBC. They are certainly serving a great number more people and providing additional services with the increasing budgets that government is providing to them.

I know that the member's question stems back to that issue of where the accountability lies as we try and get input around budgets and the setting of priorities more at a community level. Government's view is that we want, as much as we possibly can, to be having priorities set at the community level — by community councils, in this case — that are closer in terms of their contact with the individuals and the families being served. They'll be in a much better position to have the information at hand and know the factors at play in their own communities around what types of supports are most critical.

I think it's very important that we get very strong input from community councils in terms of setting the budget priorities. Ultimately, that information is fed back to CLBC, who then gathers that information in terms of the cost pressures that they face. They communicate that to their board. MCFD and CLBC have an ongoing dialogue in terms of what cost pressures they are facing and how we work together to try and ensure that people who require service are receiving that service.

It is important to note that this is the first time ever that there has been an effort to actually determine what services people would like to have and what services are required on an urgent basis and to put in place a system that's responsive to that. The reality, historically, is that we didn't have the appropriate collection of information to actually be able to say at any point in time who was looking for service and perhaps couldn't get it.

CLBC has taken a very significant step forward in terms of developing individualized plans so that they have a much better sense of what the demand is in terms of the services they provide. They're doing that in a transparent way, with very clear policies around the delivery of service and the establishment of what people may have to wait for. They're certainly prioritizing the delivery of service in terms of anybody who requires an urgent response.

In the context of the overall pressures that CLBC faces going forward, I think they have very much made significant improvements over where things were at four, five, ten, 15 years ago in terms of having policies in place to respond to the demand and to ensure that people have some sense of how the service is going to be provided over time.

M. Karagianis: I think the minister has alluded several times here to the pressures, the cross-pressures and the financial pressures that Community Living B.C. has around allocation of funding. Certainly that is also played out by the minister's agreement that people have put together plans, submitted their plans, and perhaps there is not always the funding there to carry out the plans as those clients wish.

My question, then, to the minister is: how can we create a responsive system if in fact there is a funding shortfall? I guess the real question here is: why are there funding shortfalls? Why is CLBC so incredibly pressured here that many clients are not getting approval of their plans? Is it fundamentally that CLBC is not getting an adequate amount of funding? Is that what's creating their pressure?

The minister has outlined here, as we very clearly know, the number of clients that CLBC is currently serving. The expectations in client growth…. The minister himself alluded to the fact that clients will outpace the funding. That's very clear throughout the service plan. We'll talk as we go on about language that alludes to that over and over again — about the fact that resources may not meet the needs and are not currently meeting the needs.

Fundamentally, is CLBC underfunded? Is that where the root of the problem is here? That then stems down and becomes a barrier for families who are creating plans exactly as outlined by CLBC, following very prescribed procedures to the letter of what CLBC has asked of them, only to be turned down for funding and then find themselves in hardship and anxiety, with no security for the future for their children or, in some cases, for adults living with developmental challenges.

Is that the heart of the problem? Is CLBC simply not getting adequate funding in the first place?

Hon. T. Christensen: The budget for CLBC in terms of the provincial contribution is going up each and every year in response to the growth and demand for services from CLBC.

I think it's critically important to recognize that this is the first time, in establishing CLBC, we've looked at really developing a system that is responsive in how it's prioritizing the delivery of service to individuals in terms of ensuring that the types of supports being provided are more aligned with the particular disability needs of the individuals requesting those supports and that is looking for innovative ways, looking at best practices from around the world, to best deliver services to these individuals and at how, in planning for an individual's needs, we may be able to access generic services in the community that aren't specific to people with developmental disabilities but are opportunities that are available to all citizens in a community.

In doing so, what CLBC is doing — very effectively, I would argue — is being a responsive system that is aligning its priorities in terms of its spending with the available funds and is identifying clearly where the pressures are so that we can together be planning in how we best address those pressures. Quite frankly, the easiest solution ever is to throw gobs of money at a particular challenge. That's not particularly sustainable in this ministry or in any other ministry of government.

What government has done in planning in terms of CLBC's budget is to try to be responsive in terms of the demand growth that we're seeing with CLBC, increase the budget year over year and engage with CLBC in the dialogue about where their effective pressures are. The individual planning process, in terms of individuals with developmental disabilities, is part of identifying that demand side of the equation.

M. Karagianis: The minister has talked about the fact that the budget is going up, and I think he outlined very clearly and has indicated that here. We know that it's 6 percent this year and a total of 15 percent over three years, which leaves us 4½ percent over the next two coming years, and that the number of expected new demands is likely to outpace that.

I understand that certainly CLBC is looking at best practices, innovation in how to provide services, and hopefully that's not clashing with the community councils being able to set priorities that are perhaps not seamless with some of the other best practices or with efficiencies that are being looked for.

My question overall here is: at the end of the day, how is the minister guaranteeing that budget-setting is actually meeting the needs out there? What is needed to provide adequate services to the existing clients, to the expected new client intake — which I believe at one point the minister said 1,600, but I'm sure there are probably a variety of statistics that could say what

In all of the considerations here — looking at budgets, priorities and best practices — evaluating the last two years of CLBC's existence, is there a determination yet on what exactly is needed to provide adequate basic services to the community living sector?

Hon. T. Christensen: I think I more or less answered that question earlier in terms of the collaborative relationship that MCFD is trying to ensure we have with CLBC — in terms of the discussion we have with them around the pressures they face, around the information they're able to gather and provide to government. That's why the budget is going up from about $611 million in terms of the provincial contribution to CLBC last year to almost $702 million by '09-10. That is a direct response to the information we've gathered from CLBC and elsewhere around the trends in terms of the needs for community living services.

Certainly, my intent is that we're going to continue that close working relationship with CLBC to ensure that we're being realistic about the pressures they face and to ensure in working with them that they have the tools needed to do their job. I certainly have confidence that CLBC is going to continue to focus on how they can best allocate their budget, in consultation with the people they serve through community councils and otherwise, to meet the needs of their clients.

M. Karagianis: If I can just clarify with the minister. I think, in the course of our conversation over the last two days, the minister indicated that not all individuals who obtain services from Community Living have their plan and that that's expected to probably take another few years. It's expected that it would be a five-year process. So how can we anticipate that the budget the minister has outlined by 2010 will meet those demands if we don't even have those plans in hand at this point?

I would ask as well: how many of the clients being served currently by Community Living have a plan in place that is part of the consideration for budgets and part of Community Living's overall service delivery?

Hon. T. Christensen: As I indicated earlier, the intent over time is to have an individual plan in place for all people who are receiving services from CLBC. At this point in time the focus in terms of the development of those individual plans is on new clients to CLBC. So when somebody first approaches CLBC for service, it's a case of developing the plan at that point.

People who have been in the system for some time continue to receive the services that they have been receiving. It's not a case of developing a new plan for them. They have services in place already. But as time allows, the CLBC staff are trying to work with those existing clients to also develop individualized plans.

In terms of how that factors into the budgets going forward, this three-year plan is based on the best information we have at this time in terms of the demand for services and the expectations in terms of growth around that demand. History has shown that these three-year plans are subject to some adjustment year over year as additional information comes available.

Obviously, as we get closer to the year 2009-2010, I would expect that we'll have additional information that would influence decisions across government in terms of the budgets of various ministries and Crown agencies.

This is certainly the projected budget for 2007-2008, '08-09 and '09-10. But as I said earlier, our intent is to work closely with CLBC in terms of identifying what the pressures are, what the demands are, and being responsive in terms of our working relationship with them.

M. Karagianis: On page 34, on self-identified risks, CLBC says that the forecast demand for services exceeds resources. So how is the minister reconciling that with everything he said here today, when CLBC has identified that the demands for services exceed the resources? Who is being left out of the equation? Who is not going to receive services, and how is that determined?

Hon. T. Christensen: Certainly, the service plan rightly sets out assumptions around the budget and sets out risk assessments in terms of going forward. I think it's important that we have our eyes open to those risks. But, also, those risks are based on an assumption that everything remains constant in terms of how we're doing things.

I think what CLBC has proven over the last two years is that they're very capable of being innovative, of finding ways of serving additional people, of providing additional services within the budget allocations they have in terms of spending dollars more effectively to meet the needs of more clients.

Certainly, CLBC will continue to work in that direction to try to spend their budget in a way that meets the needs of as many people as possible. As I said, they'll continue to be forthright with government in terms of determining what the pressures are and discussing those with us so that we can all be alert to what the true pressures are and how we might respond to those.

M. Karagianis: It's my understanding that there are about 3,000 individuals right now on a waiting list for services and that in some areas waiting lists have also been upgraded to critical waiting lists for services that are urgently needed. In fact, there may be more than 3,000.

I'd like to know: what is the status of these waiting lists, and where is the data on these lists? Can we actually see the latest statistics on the wait-lists and the critical wait-lists in some regions?

Hon. T. Christensen: It's important to recognize that there is not a critical need wait-list. If a need is

identified as being critical, CLBC responds immediately. It's also important to recognize that this is the first time ever that there has been a comprehensive attempt to determine who might be in need of services and those services not be immediately available.

The development of the wait-list of approximately 3,000 individuals that the member refers to was a first cut at attempting to try and identify what some of the additional demands might be. That information is about a year old now. I'm advised that it included, in some cases, not an immediate need, but something that was anticipated.

Staff were looking at a particular individual who may still have been living at home with parents, but the parents were aging, so there was an anticipation that in a year or two there would be an additional need for a service. They weren't waiting that day for it, but the list was developed as a means of trying to determine what the true demand would be. In some cases it didn't identify a service that the person was looking to access right away. It was something that it was anticipated they might need in the relatively foreseeable future.

CLBC has been working over the course of the last year to better refine that list and ensure that we're gathering as good data as possible in terms of determining who is requiring service. As I indicated, I think it's critical that that type of work be done to inform both CLBC and government in terms of what the anticipated need is going forward so that CLBC, in working with government, can be responsive to that.

M. Karagianis: The minister mentioned that this is the first time you've had a comprehensive understanding of who is needing service and who is getting service. When CLBC was formed, did MCFD not have a comprehensive list of who was receiving services then? Where did that list go? Was that given to CLBC? What is the current status of that list and those individuals receiving service?

I actually didn't hear from the minister what the current waiting list is. If, in fact, it is not 3,000 because that's historic and doesn't truly reflect what the waiting list is, how many are currently on waiting lists?

Hon. T. Christensen: Certainly, at the time that community living services were transferred from MCFD to CLBC, we knew who was on the caseload and who was receiving adult community living services. What we didn't know was who was looking for services and wasn't able to access them yet.

That data hadn't been effectively collected by the province previously, by any government. So I think that the work CLBC has done in terms of trying to plan ahead is very effective, or much more effective in terms of trying to identify the demand and look at ways of then working to meet that demand.

We do know that since CLBC was established, or at the time that it was established, there were around — these are round numbers — 9,600 adults who were receiving community living services. That's now a little over 10,400 who are receiving services, so there has definitely been growth in the number of adults that are receiving services and a shift and growth in terms of the types of services that they're being provided.

In terms of the information around the initial wait-list that had been put together, as I said around a year ago, CLBC is currently in the process of gathering the additional data to provide some update to that and to refine it so that, again, that information can better inform decisions moving forward.

M. Karagianis: Will I be able to get that information on the numbers of people on waiting lists? Will that information be provided, and can the minister say when that might be provided?

Hon. T. Christensen: Certainly, I'm happy to commit to provide the information. I'm not going to commit to a specific date, because I don't want to miss it. Last year I think the commitment was made during estimates to provide it by the following fall. I don't think it will be that long, but in the next, probably, two to three months we expect that data will be much more refined and should be available to all.

M. Karagianis: One of the things I do know from page 20 of the service plan is that CLBC has a fund for respite for families who are on the wait-list. I know that's direly needed by these families.

Can the minister elaborate on how much is in that fund and how it is distributed?

Hon. T. Christensen: CLBC set aside a million dollars in a respite fund for this current year. That's based on anticipated need in terms of that spending. There is some flexibility in their overall budget in the event they find that the demand far exceeds that, but at this point they're expecting to spend about a million dollars on that.

M. Karagianis: Because we are running out of time, I am going to move into another topic here, although there are certainly a number of areas that I would love to follow up on at some point around the funding shortfalls and the concerns that I'm hearing from the community around that.

I actually would like to move into the issue of group home closures. I know this is an issue that the minister and I have grappled with in question period in the past, but I would like to know what the status is currently on the number of group homes that have been closed here in the province.

Hon. T. Christensen: CLBC has not forcibly closed any group homes. There have been a couple that have closed by their own choice as a result of, in some cases, the clients who were living there having passed on, so the home has not continued. In some other cases, the service provider who owns the home has chosen not to continue in the business of providing that service, so there are some circumstances like that.

I can advise the member that there have been, over the course of the last year, approximately 55 new placements into group homes. The issue really is one of compatibility in terms of aligning the needs of a particular individual with the group home placement that may be available. What CLBC is very much trying to focus their efforts on is aligning the needs of individuals with the service that may be available.

In the context of group homes, one of the challenges that has been highlighted to me is often what we're finding is that the people who are currently in group homes are much older. They've been there for a number of years. When a vacancy arises, it may not be appropriate to place someone who is 19 or 20 years old with three or four other individuals who may be well past their 50s. There is an attempt to make placements very much in a compatible fashion.

M. Karagianis: The minister mentioned that there have been no forcible closures, yet we do know from a memo that Community Living clearly indicated they wanted to try to create conditions that will allow agencies to close group homes. That was from October 27. The minister is aware of this memo, because we have discussed it in the House.

I have letters upon letters here from families, agencies and service providers across the province of imminent closures — four group homes to be closed from Burns Lake to Hazelton. I would have to disagree with the minister that there have been no forced closures. I guess conversely, can the minister tell me if any new group homes have been opened?

Hon. T. Christensen: The member mentions anticipated closures. I would encourage the member to provide my office and CLBC with the examples of specific closures, because certainly we're not aware. As I indicated, there have been no forcible closures. We're happy to look into the circumstances and provide the member with more information in the event that there have been homes that are no longer operating.

I can advise the member that here in Victoria there has recently been an opening of a new group home, so that responds to the member's question. Unfortunately, neither myself nor the officials I have with me can remember the exact name of it, but that's one of the more recent openings of a new group home.

M. Karagianis: I'm sure that one new group home for the province is something that the families all over British Columbia will be very excited about — although wholly inadequate, I believe, for the demand that we've heard from families out there.

Can the minister give me an update on the reclassification of group homes that has been undertaken by CLBC? Can we have an update on the status of that reclassification?

Hon. T. Christensen: Perhaps the member could clarify what she means by reclassification, because we're a bit uncertain.

M. Karagianis: It's my understanding that the definition of group homes is being rewritten and that they are being reclassified. Is this in fact not true? Are group homes not undergoing any kind of redefinition or reclassification under the government?

Hon. T. Christensen: There's not, as I think the member phrased it, a deliberate plan around reclassifying group homes. What CLBC is finding in discussions with service providers and with families, in terms of looking at the types of residential options that individuals and families desire, is that certainly there are individuals that want a group home–type placement in terms of the traditional model of a group home. That's why those remain an important part of the range of options that might be available to families, but there are others that want more of a residential-type setting.

Certainly, demographics to some extent are playing into that in terms of what the expectations of younger people are for some of these places and some of the pressures around how you enable people to age in place with the types of facilities they're in.

All of those are factors at play that are influencing the discussion that CLBC is having with its service providers around the types of residential options that need to be available.

M. Karagianis: The minister has mentioned residential options, and I have before me here a report from November 2006 on residential options. I would like to then ask the minister how successful CLBC has been in presenting community-based services to individuals. How many have chosen to leave group homes and move into other residential options?

Hon. T. Christensen: In the course of the residential options project — which is intended to be a means of interviewing people in their current residential option and determining whether that's what they feel is appropriate for them or whether they'd like to pursue another option — there have been a little over 2,400 individuals that have been contacted.

Of those, 170 have indicated that they'd like to have some further planning done. So they're in their current residential setting but have asked to have some further planning done around what other options there might be for them. There are about 160 that have asked for a follow-up meeting at a later date. So they don't want any planning done right now, but they're interested, and there may be some follow-up at a later date to see if they'd like to look at different options at that point. And there are 89 that have moved in this last fiscal year.

Now, of those 89, some of them have moved from one group home to another group home. It's very much designed, truly, as a residential options project, to say: "Are you happy with your current setting? Is there

something else that you're aware of that you believe would be better? Can we enter into a planning process that might find that better option?" Certainly, the experience to date with those that have chosen to move has been very, very positive in terms of them being pleased with the outcome and their family being pleased with the outcome.

I note that I am getting a nod from the Chair. I would ask that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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