Hansard — Monday, October 22, 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


Private Members' Statements		8671
	Forest lands on Vancouver Island
	J. Horgan
	R. Cantelon
	Pluralism
	J. Nuraney
	D. Cubberley
	“Time to clean up” the meat regulations
	C. Evans
	V. Roddick
	Coping with future growth
	D. Hayer
	S. Hammell

Second Reading of Bills		8680
	Minimum Wage Fairness Act, 2007 (Bill M214)
	C. James

Standing Order 67 (Speaker's Ruling)		8681

Second Reading of Bills		8681
	Promotion of Safe Antifreeze Act, 2007 (Bill M202)
	S. Fraser
	R. Cantelon
	M. Farnworth
	L. Mayencourt
	L. Krog

Speaker's Ruling		8686

J. Horgan: It's a pleasure to rise in this House today to represent the people of Malahat–Juan de Fuca and to talk about a very important issue for people in my constituency, for the people of south Vancouver Island and, in fact, for all the people of British Columbia, and that has to do with the land giveaway with respect to Western Forest Products and tree farm licence 25, and tree farm licences 6 and 19 here on Vancouver Island.

People have asked me: "What exactly happened there?" What happened was that the Minister of Forests gave away the tree farm.

In the 1950s the people of British Columbia, through their government, invited forest companies to bring their private lands into a management process called a tree farm licence. The point of that was to put public lands with private lands to create employment, to create milling capacity, to put British Columbians to work, to bring taxes to the treasury and to protect and preserve those forest lands in perpetuity.

"In perpetuity" are important words, hon. Speaker. You'll be aware of that. Perpetuity seems to me to be a long time, but to the B.C. Liberals, it's about 50 years. That's how long it took for the B.C. Liberals to say to their corporate backer Western Forest Products, a contributor of some significance to the B.C. Liberal Party campaign team: "Here are 28,000 hectares of land to do with as you will."

In February of this year the Minister of Forests, without any consultation, without a peep of public notice, announced quietly on a Friday afternoon that the government of British Columbia was giving a corporate donor 28,000 hectares of land on the west coast of Vancouver Island and on the north coast of Vancouver Island.

In my constituency it represents some 12,000 hectares, five kilometres of waterfront. I don't know about you, hon. Speaker, but on south Vancouver Island, five kilometres of waterfront is worth a couple of bucks — worth a couple of bucks, indeed.

I got my assessment recently for my little plot in Langford — a great distance from the coast, I have to tell you. If I had five kilometres of waterfront….

My friend from Shuswap is smiling. I'm sure he'd like a piece of that as well. Who knows? Maybe his friends at Western Forest Products are going to give it to him.

With the creation of the tree farm licences in the 1950s, what the government of the day was trying to do was build industrial capacity to keep people working, to keep money coming to the treasury. That covenant, that social agreement, that economic agreement between company and community, has been broken. It was broken without a peep of consultation from the people on the other side.

It's not just the New Democrats who are concerned about this. There was a public meeting in my constituency, in Jordan River, last week — 140 people in the little town of Shirley spilling out onto the streets. The hall holds about 80 people. They were looking in the windows and standing on the streets, wanting to hear how this could have happened. How could it have happened in British Columbia in 2007 that the government of the day, without even speaking to a person in the community, would give away 12,000 hectares of very, very lucrative development land? So it's not just New Democrats.

I want to quote to you from the Victoria Times Colonist, the journal of record here on the south Island, in an editorial. "Forest-land Deal Shortchanges B.C." is the headline. The end result of that editorial is that the government sold the farm.

Later a columnist, Paul Willcocks, put it in better words. I'll quote from him, September 25 in the Times Colonist, "Taxpayers and Vancouver Island communities actually were the donors. Forests Minister Rich Coleman just wrapped it up and handed it over on our behalf" — a gift and a giveaway for no reason other than to shore up the bottom line of a B.C. Liberal contributor.

Last week another editorial in the Victoria Times Colonist — that's two in less than a month on this particular issue — was headlined "Forest Land Fiasco Betrays Taxpayers." The editorial concludes as follows: "This deal has been a shocking betrayal of the interests of Islanders and British Columbians. It's up to local politicians and the public to repair the damage done and hold the provincial government to account." Shocking.

What in the world were the cabinet ministers from southern Vancouver Island doing on that day when the Minister of Forests came in and said: "Good news, folks. I'm giving away the farm. The tree farm is going to our friends at Western Forest Products"? Where was the Minister of Advanced Education? More importantly, where was the Minister of Community Services?

The challenge we see on the west coast of the Island now is that 45 percent of the official community plan in Otter Point, Shirley and Jordan River is for sale. Would that happen in Vancouver-Langara? I rather doubt it. Imagine 45 percent of your community on the real estate market at one time.

J. Horgan: My good friend from Kamloops is talking to me about partisanship. Happy to hear it.

I'm recording — for the record, hon. Speaker, as you know — the views of the journal of record in my community, and I'm asking where the Minister of

Community Services was. I've been speaking to her for two years about lack of capacity on the west coast of the Island to deal with development applications, and she sat at the table when the Minister of Forests released 12,000 hectares for development.

How does that advance the coastal forest sector? How does that advance the treasury? Maybe the property transfer tax. Maybe the Minister of Finance is seeing this as an opportunity to shoot up the property transfer tax.

We're certainly not going to get money from stumpage. This is private land all of a sudden. Snap, the stroke of a pen — the covenant between company and community was broken.

The moneys that will be raised from strip-mining this property before it goes into condo development will go straight offshore. It'll go straight to shareholders in Toronto. Not a dime will come to the people of British Columbia. Not a dime will come to the people on the west coast of the Island.

The challenge we face as legislators is to do the right thing. In this case the government…. Unabashedly, the Minister of Forests said just as much on Thursday. "I will not reverse this decision. It's in the interests of Western Forest Products."

What about the public interest? Isn't that what we're here for? I thought we were here for the people of B.C. Apparently, the people on that side are not here for the people of B.C. They're here for the shareholders. They're here for the shareholders of Western Forest Products, the shareholders of TimberWest, not for the people of Vancouver Island — certainly not for forest workers, because there are not going to be any jobs on this land other than framing.

They're turning foresters into framers. They're turning land that has been used for recreation, for surfing, for walking on trails and for viewing wildlife into condominiums, gated communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The Liberals say: "How do you win seats on Vancouver Island? Plant more Liberals, more rich people." That'll help you.

R. Cantelon: It should be no surprise to this House that I am not only diagonally opposed but diametrically opposed to the views expressed by the member opposite. But let not the distance between us indicate any lack of distance of views. We are very distant on this.

I can tell you…. First of all, the member opposite talks about a land giveaway. Generous as the forest companies have been in agreeing to designate areas for conservation, and parks in some case, they weren't so generous as to actually give the land away.

In fact, what has actually, technically happened is the land has been removed from the tree farm licence and is still under the ownership of the forest company. It is now no longer part of the tree farm licences. This does not mean, however, that the land is now suddenly open for development. Au contraire.

In fact, it's under the jurisdiction, as well it should be, of the people in the local communities. That land can't just be put into gated communities, as the member so gratuitously suggests. I do sympathize with him, by the way. He indicated that he wants a piece of it as well. Well, I'm sorry. They didn't give it away. They didn't give it away to anybody. They kept it all themselves, though I'm sure you would have been happy to disclose such a gift to the Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner, should the company have been so generous as to give you just a few hectares of waterfront out of that entire parcel.

It does remain, of course, in the ownership of the forest company that owns it, but that does not mean that it's immediately a giveaway to other uses. In fact, no log exports can be effected for three years, even if the land title transfers. But now it's up to the community, and I think that's very appropriate. In my community — and I'm sure your community will be as responsive — the regional district placed a 50-hectare minimum parcel size on land that is zoned for silviculture. What this means in the regional district of Nanaimo is that you can't chop those parcels up into parcels smaller than 50 hectares.

The first intent of that is to send a clear signal to the forest companies that in the regional district of Nanaimo they wish to continue with land that's under forest silviculture to remain so. That, of course, is the prerogative of the local regional district in the southern area as well. I'm sure that they'll respond, as the member has found, very quickly to any community meetings that will be required to be recalled. Of course, if it's not within the official community plan, if it's not zoned, then there will have to be proper rezoning applications. There the people of that community will certainly have their effective say, and it won't just be some sort of random unstructured meeting as may have happened. It will be a meeting focused on a goal, focused on a purpose, and that purpose will be: what are the best interests of the people in that community?

Rightly, they should have the opportunity to say that, and they will, as they did in the Nanaimo regional district, where clearly the hand was held up to the forest companies and said: "No smaller than 50 hectares. Don't come here with your subdivision plans." So I'm sure the people in this community will also respond quite well to any proposed changes in official community plans, to any proposed changes in zoning. They will have the say.

Let me also add to that the fact that one of the major considerations in all of these subdivisions will be services.

R. Cantelon: I think I heard across the way that there are none. Well, indeed, in order to subdivide or do anything with these lands, one of the prime considerations of the local governments, of the local communities, of the local administrations, will be: in what way can we subdivide and use these lands? How do we

service them? How do we provide adequate services — sewer, water and other amenities?

What may well come out of it…. There might well be some land that might actually provide opportunity for the residents of the area for what has become a rich tourism area. Maybe some of the facilities are needed, but I hasten to add that that will be the decision and the prerogative of the local communities. To find a new balance as the economies change, it may well be that the uses have to be adjusted within the desires and plans of the community so that everybody has a better opportunity and a more diversified economy.

So to sum up, Madam Speaker, the land was not given away. Forest companies may be generous in the uses that they put to their lands, but they didn't transfer the title.

In fact, the member opposite also mentioned property transfer tax. Well, that only applies if you transfer the property. The member well knows that. There was no transfer of property here, and there was no tax payable. However, should the land be subsequently resold, although I hasten to add that no log exports from the affected land can be done for three years, they would then have to pay property purchase tax.

J. Horgan: I asked the Minister of Forests at the time what the public benefit was, and what was going to happen to forest productions on these lands, and he said the following: "I don't think any effect, quite frankly. This isn't a removal from forest production."

That's the one line of comfort I got from the Minister of Forests. Here's an inch-thick book from Colliers International selling 2,500 hectares of this property. They're selling it for development.

Did the forest companies magnanimously give their private lands to the people of B.C.? Pish posh. Pish posh. They got 50 years of tax breaks. They got 50 years of no taxation. They got 50 years of access to the best land on Vancouver Island — public land.

It wasn't a giveaway. It was a compromise; it was a consensus. This government threw it away without a minute of consultation.

Did you talk to first nations? No. The Premier had an epiphany about climate change. What did we do? We gave 12,000 hectares for urban sprawl on the west coast of Vancouver Island. That's good thinking. That's using your head.

We're going to alienate forest lands. What about carbon sinks? What about thinking about the future? What about reconciliation with our first nations people? Some of the best reed grasses on the coast of the Island are in this area, and now it's going to be a gated community.

Did you talk to the Beecher Bay band? No. Did you talk to the people of Jordan River? No. Did you talk to the people of Port Renfrew? No. You gave it away for political contributions. It's that simple.

Western Forest Products did very, very, very well by tree farm licence 25, and they're going to do very, very well again. Why? Not for any public benefit. Corporate benefit. We have to shore up their bottom line. That's what the Minister of Forests said. They made $16 million last quarter in profit. They must be really suffering in Toronto.

Where are CEO bonuses? We need a higher return on our investment. Let's ask the government to give us back the land we put into a tree farm licence for all the people of Vancouver Island and all the people of British Columbia. That's what we would have done.

What did they do? Gave it back. What did we get out of it? A three-year moratorium on log exports. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very, very much.

Holy cow, are we going to ask for any of those taxes back? Apparently not. Are we going to ask for any stumpage on the land after they start strip-mining it before they plant their condominiums? Apparently not. Not a thing comes back to the people of Vancouver Island, and not a thing comes back to the people of B.C. — except the Minister of Finance, who will get some property transfer tax when they sell 2,500 hectares of it today.

There's a meeting in my community tonight to talk about this issue. I encourage all those who may be listening at home — I encourage the Minister of Health, who likes to come to public meetings — to drive out to Shirley tonight. The Minister of Tourism — come on out and take a look at the new condo developments. All your buddies are going to be buying them.

J. Nuraney: The subject that I've chosen to speak on today is pluralism. I have in the past spoken in this House about our diversity and multiculturalism. The concept of pluralism goes beyond this. Whilst multiculturalism advocates tolerance among groups of different ethnic backgrounds, pluralism promotes energetic engagement with diversity.

Diversity can mean and has meant creation of religious ghettos with little traffic between or among them. Today multiculturalism and diversity are a given, but pluralism is not a given. It is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.

Secondly, pluralism is not just tolerance but the active seeking of understanding across lines of differences. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and other ardent secularists to know anything about one another.

Tolerance is too thin a foundation for the world of religious differences and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and it leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truths and the fear that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.

Third, pluralism is not relativism but the encounter of commitments. The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments.

It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation but in relationship to one another.

Lastly, pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences.

Dialogue does not mean everyone at the table will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table with one's commitments. In the words of His Highness the Aga Khan: "The challenges of tolerance today are manyfold. People who once lived across the world from one another now live across the street. Societies which have grown more pluralistic in makeup are not always growing more pluralistic in spirit. What is needed all across the world is a new cosmopolitan ethic rooted in a strong culture of tolerance."

In Canada and, in particular, in British Columbia we have witnessed in the last decade a significant change in the makeup of our society. With immigrants making British Columbia their destination of choice, we are seeing enclaves of different ethnic groups taking shape. It is, therefore, important that we not only welcome our new neighbours but work with them to make them feel part of our fabric.

Language must be the centre of our efforts. Being able to speak English can ease a lot of tension and help new immigrants find their rightful place in our society.

I am also an immigrant to British Columbia. The fact that I have the privilege today of representing my constituency in the Legislature speaks of the opportunities of those who seek to excel.

Burnaby has truly become a microcosm of Canada. We have over 70 different ethnic communities living in our area, and each one of them strives to espouse the Canadian value of tolerance and inclusiveness.

I am proud to see that our government has had a number of positive accomplishments over the past years supporting immigrant communities. WelcomeBC represents a total of $217 million over two years and brings together the province's comprehensive immigration, settlement and multiculturalism strategies under one umbrella.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about a subject I feel very passionately about. While we have many successes to celebrate in this matter, we also have challenges.

Indifference, lack of understanding and sometimes even racism rear their ugly heads. It is, therefore, incumbent on all of us to make sure that these destructive elements should not be allowed to thrive.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate both having the opportunity to respond and the tenor of the member opposite's remarks on this important topic. As it happens, it was an immigrant to British Columbia who made the remarks about the importance of pluralist democracy and the need to build toleration and a society of toleration and to grow it, and it is indeed an immigrant to British Columbia and to Canada who will respond to the remarks and who will agree with the sentiments expressed by the member opposite.

I would say as a whole that there was a little in what the member had to say that I would disagree with. I do believe he's correct in characterizing the challenge we have in front of us to secure the integration of peoples coming from a broader and broader array of backgrounds to our society — to secure their integration, and to secure their integration into the values of the dominant society. Those values, in fact — pluralist democracy and tolerance — are what Canada has been about and needs to be about in the future. There is, indeed, a challenge to secure that kind of integration.

Canada has the highest level of immigration per capita of any society on the planet. We absorb greater per-capita numbers of immigrants than anywhere else in the world — a quarter of a million people, I believe, last year, and we are plus or minus that number in most years now. That's like bringing a Regina into our little polity every year, and we do that in perpetuity. I see some members opposite have never thought about it in that way, and I encourage them to reflect upon that.

Canada and Canadians, I believe, have an openness to this. I think if you look at the latest opinion surveys, the deep research on attitudes in Canada, the younger generations coming up in Canada are increasingly colour blind and increasingly open to the diversity of cultural backgrounds that they see in the schools they go to in this country. I think that's something we should be very proud of and that we should continue to enlarge upon.

The member also made the comment, and I think it's absolutely correct, that language is the key. Before I comment in the positive sense on what I think needs to be done in this regard, I want to say that the history of western democratic pluralist societies, in receiving large populations from other countries and trying to integrate them and to build tolerance, has not been entirely happy. If we look at the history of countries like England and France, for example, there have been some significant problems because there has been a lack of effective integration into the society.

One of the key factors that affects integration into the society is access to language. Access to language is the key to participation in the economy. We have to be concerned about the potential for alienation from our society to trump integration and to become a force for intolerance and for claims against the society that would undermine its democratic and pluralist nature.

In that regard, all of Canada has a great deal of room for improvement in the way in which we enable immigrants who are non-English speaking to acquire language and to participate effectively in our economy. The member knows, because he chaired the Standing Committee on Education which looked into the topic of adult literacy, just how many adult British Columbians suffer from low literacy. What I would remind him of is that at level 1, which is the lowest, there are 390,000 British Columbians. Two-thirds of those are immigrants who are stuck at the lowest level of literacy. There is a

much broader group of people who are at the second level of literacy, equally and adequate for full participation in the economy, and 32 percent of those are immigrants.

What we need to have…. I know the member referenced some increasing investment in ELSA for immigrant adults. That's very good. Let's make sure that that's to benchmark 8 — Canadian benchmarks, level 5 to 8, intermediate English — that we are providing that. Let's make sure that there are not half-year or one-year waits to get access to that language. Let's remove the tuition fee from it and not penalize people and say that you have to have economic resources to learn English. Let's supply those courses near where the communities are that the people are integrating into, the cultural communities, and let's make sure we have day care available to people so that women can participate in the economic benefits that will flow from acquiring language.

J. Nuraney: I am really encouraged to hear the remarks from the member opposite. It is increasingly important, as I laid down in my arguments earlier on, that as our Canadian fabric begins to change in terms of different ethnic groupings, we not only have that understanding of the basic Canadian value of pluralistic and multicultural values, but we also need to make sure that these groups are not isolated.

This, I would say, also includes our first nations people. It has been our experience that over the years, even though the first nations people are not true immigrants…. They are actually the owners of this land, and we are the immigrants. But what has happened in history is that the first nations people have always been isolated and have never been accepted in the mainstream.

I had the opportunity to ask some of the students in a school: how come the first nations people and the children leave school earlier and do not complete their graduation? The biggest reason I heard across the table was that it is because these children do not feel part of that educational group, the society. They feel isolated. It is that question of isolation that I feel could be quite dangerous and costly, as I said earlier on.

The integration, the learning of the language, understanding the education that needs to be done among all kinds of communities to make sure that we understand each other's values, that we respect each other's values, that we understand the different religious beliefs and that we respect those beliefs — it is that kind of freedom that we need truly to exercise in our societies.

At the same time, I may also say that freedom is not a licence. Freedom also has its boundaries. We need to make sure that our freedom includes the freedom of speech, the freedom to practise religion, the freedom to bear your cultural garments, if you so wish. Those are the kinds of freedom that I would say really emphasize what Canada is all about.

Canada is the envy of all different nations across the world today. People outside Canada would like to understand how come we in Canada have this great, integrated, multicultural society without any conflict. So there are lessons to learn from this great country.

C. Evans: I rise today to speak on the subject of the meat regulations that came into effect three weeks ago in British Columbia, making it a criminal act for a farmer to kill his chicken and sell it to me or to kill her cow, cut it up, and sell it to me or to you, hon. Speaker, or to anybody else in the province.

For those folks at home who may be unaware of the history, or those urban members whose mailbag may not be full on this particular subject, let me just help you with what we are experiencing, both on the back benches on the government side and the opposition.

Rural people are incensed. They woke up three week ago and found out that what their family had been doing for three centuries is now a criminal act. Raising cattle or poultry or pigs and selling it to the community in which you live makes you a lawbreaker.

Before I carry on to say what I think about this legislation, I would like to say, on the record, thank you. I mean, this is a haywire, silly, ridiculous, over-burdensome, unnecessary regulation brought in by the Minister of Health, who couldn't, at the time, cite a single example of a person getting sick or dying by buying their neighbour's meat. It's a completely unnecessary, indefensible law with no backup to prove that we needed it.

But I would like to start by saying thank you to all the wonderful people in the Ministry of Agriculture and those hired by the minister and working out there in the communities and the consultants, Kathleen Gibson and her folks. Everybody is working to try to make this really stupid law work, and thank you to those folks who are working so hard.

Why the citizens find this law so difficult to comprehend is because it's so counterintuitive. This is, after all, the government of deregulation. Statistically, we know that photo radar saved lives. But in the interest of deregulation, to get the government off people's backs, the government came in and wiped out photo radar. Everybody got that. That was deregulation.

This is the same government that said: "The forest companies are burdened by the Forest Practices Code. It's too big; it's a bit of a cookbook. Let's go to" — what do they call it? —"performance-based forestry." Deregulate the forest industry. Right, everybody gets that. That's what the government is about.

The people cannot comprehend why a government that believes in deregulation would do the opposite to farmers as what they do to the forest industry. Why say that the forest industry should be deregulated, the entire criminal justice system should be deregulated, get rid of photo radar — even though it saves lives — and then impose on agriculture a criminal act for doing what you have always done — raising animals and selling it to your…? People don't get it.

I've been to dozens of public meetings in the Cariboo, in Quesnel and in Comox. In Duncan — on a sunny summer day when people should be making hay — with 24 hours' notice, the hall was filled with a hundred people, every single one of them engaged in the agriculture industry, and everyone against this legislation.

Meetings in Metchosin, meetings in Creston, meetings in Nelson and hundreds of letters from people who don't get it. Why would this government impose on them a regulatory regime that is completely unnecessary and that they don't need? In the meeting in Nelson, farmer after farmer after farmer got up and said: "Show me one person who ever got sick or died from buying what I raise with love and sell to my neighbour. No antibiotics in it. It's fed organic food. We treat it and sell it to our neighbour, who wants to buy local food. Show me one example."

Finally, the civil servants got kind of annoyed because everybody was beating on them, saying: "Show me why." So the civil servants — wonderful people, great people — said: "Look, it's not about safety. It's about BSE and international trade. We had to do this to make Japan and the United States and the European Common Market buy our food."

The farmers all said: "Well, we want you to solve BSE. We want to resolve the trade crisis. But how come, while you were trying to do something for the United States and Japan, you said that what I do for a living here in British Columbia is illegal?" In 130 communities in B.C., where the municipality borders on ALR land it's now against the law for the farmer to sell food to the people in the city.

That's just the municipalities. What about all the unincorporated areas like Tlell, for example? We have hundreds. People, farmers, farm groups wrote in for two years. The B.C. Food Systems Network wrote in with eight wonderful examples of how to make this work, because farmers don't want to just make it go away. If it's solving trade crises, they want to make it work.

I've talked to hundreds of people, and probably only two, three, four have ever said: "Make it go away." The others said: "Make it work." People write in with good examples of how to make this work, and the government ignores them — for two years.

Hon. Speaker, even if you believe this is important public policy, this is the worst enforcement regime, regulatory regime and most mismanaged piece of government-forced policy I know of since the federal gun act — and imposed on the same rural people.

Maybe it's a good idea. Maybe it's important public policy, and they just completely botched the implementation so it is offensive to people.

The most wonderful suggestion I know, out of the hundreds, to make this work comes from a farmer in Tlell who farms on the land that his family has been farming for 88 years. He says: "All I ask is for the ability to continue our family's 88-year tradition. Please allow my farm to sell to my neighbours until such time as I have reasonable access to one of the many licensed facilities that the minister is so proud of." There are 71 people who are trying to become a licensed facility — probably hundreds that we need.

What this fellow is saying is: "Given that they are not anywhere near my home, allow me farm-gate sales, freezer sales, until the government can put a legal, licensed abattoir close to my house." It is simple, it is doable, it would make it work, it would get the people off the government's back, and it would stop killing the businesses — the real business that farming is. If you kill those businesses, they can't participate in the farm income. They will no longer be legal farms, and you know what will happen to them, hon. Speaker? Every single one of them is going to say: "Let me out of the ALR. You made my business a criminal act. Let me out of the ALR, and I'll become a subdivision."

Government, please, move to common sense in order to make the regulation work now, or see the farms go down and the ALR die.

V. Roddick: I'm pleased to respond to my colleague from Nelson-Creston on the issue of meat regulations, because despite what the member may think, the provincial government is enhancing food safety in British Columbia with this new meat inspection regulation. Supported by the B.C. Cattlemen's Association, the meat inspection regulation under the B.C. Food Safety Act, 2004, will strengthen the province's meat surveillance and inspection system.

The act supports the rapid identification, tracking and elimination at source of food-borne risks to public health and promotes public confidence in the province's $22-billion-a-year agrifood industry. The Ministries of Health and Agriculture and Lands continue to work closely with the small producers and processors in rural and remote areas to support the viability of local food production. The regulatory system has remained flexible to accommodate small-plant operations while ensuring that B.C.'s food safety standards are now consistent across the province and are in line with other jurisdictions in Canada.

The member opposite should note that provinces including Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have meat inspection systems in place similar to what has recently been implemented here in B.C. The few provinces lacking a complete meat inspection system are also re-evaluating their meat safety systems in light of concerns over the safety of the meat supply, including mad cow disease and avian influenza outbreaks.

As part of a commitment to help small producers make the transition, the province has been allowing temporary transitional licences to be issued — that will expire after six months — to processors whose facility upgrades to the new standards are already in process. This is in addition to a one-year extension of the original 2006 deadline, plus a $5-million meat transition assistance program. Government has allocated this $5 million to assist small meat-processors to make the transition to the new standards — $50,000 and up for individual plant owners, and up to $100,000 for community-based projects to develop regional slaughter capacity, including mobile abattoirs.

Government has also agreed to cover the costs of all inspections of these small facilities until 2012. As of Friday, October 19, there were 44 licensed slaughter plants in B.C., including three transitionally licensed plants. There is prospect for another ten to become transitionally licensed in the next few weeks.

There was a total of only 25 licensed plants, both federal and provincial, in B.C. when these announcements were made in 2004. The meat industry enhancement strategy and the MTAP program will continue to work with small producers and processors to help them adapt to the new regulatory environment.

One innovative example is in Fort St. John, where a mobile abattoir for the slaughter and processing of red meat will travel to several docking stations to serve the area's meat producers. Lars from Ladner, a first-class chef at La Belle Auberge in beautiful downtown Ladner, is the spearhead of this mobile abattoir.

We have not forgotten about small producers and processors in the development of these new meat regulations. I feel the government is doing everything in its power to make this transition as smooth as possible. No one, no matter what jurisdiction, does business the way they did 30, ten or even five years ago. I know that from my own agribusiness. The majority of all those required upgrades and improvements have been funded by the private sector.

Let's not forget that if, heaven forbid, in the future there were to be an instance of contaminated meat due to poor meat regulations, it would be the members opposite that would be asking why the government hadn't implemented protections to ensure a safe food supply for British Columbians.

This is about public safety. The Public Health Agency of Canada issued a report titled Provincial-Territorial Enteric Outbreaks in Canada, 1996 to 2003." In this eight-year period nearly 180,000 cases…

V. Roddick: …of enteric or intestinal diseases were reported across Canada. B.C. was significantly higher than any other province in Canada.

V. Roddick: This is concerning, and we should do everything we can to promote public safety.

C. Evans: I actually quite enjoyed the member's discourse, including the extra time. I would say it proves my point. I was arguing that the government imposed a stupid regulatory act that they didn't need and then didn't do a darned thing to make it work for two years because they didn't care and didn't pay attention. The hon. member proves the case in point.

This is the hon. member that chaired the government's agriculture committee, travelled all over the province and heard the farmers say that it doesn't work and explain to her the regulatory regime. Then two weeks ago, after ignoring their complaints, she went on the radio and said, "Oh, it's perfectly legal for a farmer to sell to their neighbour," and then later found out she was incorrect and had to retract.

She's a lovely person, a wonderful person, an intelligent person, and it proves that the government did not consider this issue for the entire two years that they had to fix it.

Now there is an argument that we have to deal with this in order to solve BSE, and I agree with that. I agree with the trade issues. But if we have to make it against the law to do on-farm sales in British Columbia, how come Nova Scotia gets to do it while Canada claims that all of the meat is trackable? Why wouldn't our government, our Minister of Agriculture, stand up for farmers here the same as the Minister of Agriculture in Nova Scotia? Why are there two kinds of equality in Canada?

The speaker could only name two provinces where they imposed a regulatory regime like ours. Why can't we be like the other places that say that farming is a good idea and producing healthy, organic food in the community is a good idea? What is the government's real agenda in wanting to make what we do for a living where we live against the law? Why is raising chickens starting to look like raising marijuana?

Why doesn't the government say: "Okay, we want it all to be gone through a legal processing facility, and so we'll see to it that they get built, and until there's one within 50 kilometres of your farm, you can do farm-gate sales"? Then you win.

Then the Minister of Health gets what he wants — every piece of meat inspected — but it forces the government that brought in the regulatory regime to see this job through, to actually put an abattoir within 50 kilometres of every farmer's door, or until it gets there, they can sell to their neighbours like they want to and always have done.

D. Hayer: In less than 25 years the city of Surrey will be the largest city in British Columbia and the fourth-largest in Canada. By that time, the population of cities located south and east of the Fraser River will be approximately 1.3 million. That is almost twice the entire population of Vancouver Island.

Surrey and its neighbouring communities, the townships of Langley and Abbotsford, are already the fastest-growing areas in the province, if not the country. The growth they are facing is incredible. More than half a million people are expected to be added to the South Fraser population over the next couple of decades. That is more new people than are currently residing in all of Vancouver.

This growth is fuelled by the incredibly buoyant economy this government has created over the past six years. Today we have the highest bond rating, the best bond rating, the lowest unemployment rate in our

history. The average hourly rate for workers is $21.73, and for the youth it is $12.97.

Our government has created the largest boost in B.C.'s standard of living in two decades. Disposable income rose by 4.3 percent in 2006, which leads the country. B.C. created more jobs than anybody else. B.C.'s job creation rate is 1.5 times the national average, and we have the second-strongest growth in job creation after Alberta.

These factors are the ones that are fuelling our future population growth as well as our commercial industrial development. Surrey is working hard to develop options to accommodate commercial industrial areas that provide the workplace and economic stimulus for jobs closer to home. One of the key areas for that is the industrial commercial centre of Port Kells in my constituency, along with the potential for new industrial and commercial lands throughout Surrey.

Having this exceptional growth has not been overlooked by our government. We understand the need for short-term planning, mid-term planning and long-term planning — planning for as long as 50 and 100 years into the future. In fact, this government is always ahead of the curve, particularly in transportation infrastructure. That is why we are developing the Gateway program. That is not just a bridge, as the Leader of the Opposition has led you to believe.

Gateway is a comprehensive transportation plan that involves twinning of the Port Mann Bridge, adding more lanes to the freeway from Vancouver to Langley, building the North and South Fraser perimeter roads, adding new underpasses such as 156th Street on Highway 1, and upgrading all interchanges and overpasses in my constituency and other places around Highway 1.

Linking into all this are huge transportation projects that are already underway, such as the Golden Ears bridge connecting Surrey and Langley as well as Maple Ridge and north of the Fraser. The Gateway program will connect to Pacific Highway, 176th Street, which is now being four-laned from the U.S. border to Highway 1 to enhance cross-border trade; and the four-laning of the Fraser Highway and Highway 10 four-laning.

This is a fully integrated transportation system that will improve the lives of people in Surrey and of our neighbours. It will improve and enhance economic stability for all British Columbians and all Canadians. Best of all, it will dramatically improve the environment. It will move people and goods quicker and eliminate those day-long traffic jams that see thousands of cars and trucks stuck idling, spewing emissions into our airshed, particularly in the air space of Surrey-Tynehead residents. They daily endure vast quantities of pollutants caused by cars and trucks waiting in frustration to cross the overcrowded Port Mann Bridge.

First and most, Gateway is about moving people. It will provide dedicated bus lanes for commuters on the new Port Mann Bridge. Plus, the new Port Mann Bridge is designed to include bicycle lanes and has provisions for a light rail rapid transit system, a system that will serve the future population of Surrey and the valley well into the 21st century. That system will link up to SkyTrain.

I fully support the Minister of Transportation and his vision to extend the SkyTrain to Langley and the Guildford area. My constituents believe it is needed; it is needed as soon as we can get to it. These are current and future high-growth areas that need a rapid transit system to serve the growing population of Surrey and rest of the valley south of the Fraser. As the area south of the Fraser River grows, so too will the employment opportunities. As we grow the population, as the population increases south of the Fraser River, so will the employment opportunities.

Already many people commute east. With population growth many more companies and industries will be locating to Surrey and its neighbouring communities. I can see one day when more people travel from Vancouver and suburbs to the jobs in my area rather than the other way around.

My city has a long-term future, and it is full of hope and promise because of the role this government has played in encouraging investment, encouraging the 2010 Olympic bid and encouraging the immigration needed to fill the jobs that will go wanting for workers as our economic growth creates more than one million new jobs — 350,000 more jobs than we will have people to fill them with over the next decade.

Too often I hear Vancouver and Burnaby municipal politicians adding their voices to the Leader of the Opposition's, saying that they don't need change, that they don't need improvements, that they don't need transportation infrastructure. Well, this government understands that change is acting on it for today and for our future, and for the exceptional growth that we will see today, in the future and over the next 25 decades. We are planning not just for today; we are planning for the future. We're planning for the 21st century.

S. Hammell: It gives me pleasure to respond to my colleague across the floor.

As the member for Surrey-Tynehead has identified, there certainly has been significant growth south of the Fraser. In fact, there's been significant growth in all the Vancouver region going back as far as 1986.

We saw growth of 2.6 percent in the Vancouver region during that time. An average of five new residents per hour had been entering, up to the year 2001. The growth over that period of time went from 1.4 million to two million. The consequence of this huge growth resulted in challenges in managing the influx of new people.

As the member has said, on the south side of the river and, in fact, on the north side of the river outside the immediate Vancouver area we are going to see…. There is a population forecast of 68-percent growth in the metro region, with the Fraser Valley being the place

where the growth is centred — in Surrey, Abbotsford, Langley township and, of course, across the river in Coquitlam.

We are actually going to see a huge expansion of growth that moves now from outside of the Vancouver area out into the valley. That provides incredible challenges, because one of the significant containments of sprawl has been, over the last number of years, the agricultural land reserve. Without the presence of the agricultural land reserve our city would look more like Seattle, where there's unlimited sprawl and unlimited gobbling up of good farmland by the suburban region.

What we need to do as a province and as the cities that are managing this growth is reaffirm our commitment to the agricultural land reserve, and we have to turn our attention to transit. We will never manage the growth in this region without a significant investment in transit. The Evergreen line has to be built. We have to build transit. We have to add 500 buses to the city of Surrey. We have to look at light rail.

There is an existing light rail route from the Scott Road SkyTrain station that goes through Newton, Cloverdale, Langley city and eventually ends up in Chilliwack. It was the old interurban.

Instead of trying to re-manage and reinvent the wheel, what we need to do is take a look at the existing transportation corridors and see how we can enhance them so that we are turning our attention to light rail. There is no way we will manage to move around that kind of growth using a single strategy of the automobile. You have to take a look at transit and figure out how it will enhance and maintain smart growth.

Smart growth is not sprawling out where you have a lot of people per acre. Smart growth is where you're contained and you have a significant density in those town centres or city centres that you're identifying, which are being identified by both the speaker across the way and myself.

I don't think anyone disputes the fact that transit is the key to the future, and we have a huge distance to go. We need to extend the Millennium line out to UBC. We need to look at whether we should extend the SkyTrain that ends at King George station to Guildford and then on to Langley. We have to look at the light transit situation.

Yes, all of us know growth is coming. The question is how to manage that growth so that you end up with cities that are dense on the uplands, the farmlands saved on the lowlands and you have a region that is livable where people can get out of their cars into their community.

D. Hayer: Thank you to the member for Surrey–Green Timbers for her comments. I appreciate her comments. At the end of the day I was hoping she would say something about supporting the Gateway program. I was hoping she would say that she would like to see the Port Mann Bridge twinned, Highway 1 widened and the South Fraser perimeter road…. But she didn't say that.

She does support extending the SkyTrain to Langley and to Guildford, which is good to see. We are going to extend the Evergreen line. We are also going to have more buses. We're going to have more bicycle lanes. We will have more walking lanes. We will have more sidewalks available. Some of the local systems we have, the highways we have…. We want to make sure people have different options. They can walk, they can take a bicycle, they can take buses, they can take a light rail system, or they can take other options.

Otherwise, the city of Surrey is the largest city with the largest area in Canada. It is a municipality that has the largest area in Canada. When you talk about putting more buses in the city of Surrey…. If we were to take 500 buses and put them in the city of Surrey tomorrow, it will not work because our roads are not there to accommodate that.

We have to make sure we can work in the long term putting in a mass rail system such as SkyTrain, such as a light rail system, and also improve the buses. One of the reasons we never had more buses for a long period of time was that there were no major road improvements. This is why our government has made major investments in transportation such as the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge and other infrastructures as well as widening Highway 10. This is the first time in a long period of time that somebody is actually doing it. It was talked about for more than 15 or 20 years, but nobody did it.

So 176th Street is the same thing. Nobody looked at it — same about the Fraser Highway. I think we have to work with our cities to make sure the density is there, that we have a higher density. We work with our developers to make sure…. Rather than spreading the houses all over Surrey, we should put them in certain centres and have a higher density so we can put more buses and maybe connecting the light rail system or the transportation system.

We have to make sure we all work together, not just look at other towns, and start supporting the politicians and councillors from Burnaby or Vancouver. We should look at the city of Surrey first.

I think this is very important. We need all the MLAs from Surrey and North Delta from the NDP side to come out there and say that we really should be twinning the Port Mann Bridge so our brothers and sisters who use the Port Mann Bridge and Highway 1 don't spend so much time stuck in traffic burning fumes.

We also need to make sure we have designed a program that looks after our future growth because this province is an economic tiger in Canada, probably in all of North America. We want to make sure that when the Olympics come over here in 2010, which is only about 22 months….

Hon. G. Abbott: I call public bills in the hands of private members — specifically, second reading of Bill M214, Minimum Wage Fairness Act, 2007.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Bill M214 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.

C. James: I am very pleased to stand and speak to the Minimum Wage Fairness Act. November 1 marks the sixth anniversary of the last minimum wage increase, and B.C. is the only province in Canada that hasn't raised the minimum wage in the last two years.

I don't think there's a member in this Legislature who would say that over the last two years or over the last six years they haven't seen costs rise in British Columbia. Whether we're talking about price of housing, the price of gas, ferry fares or MSP premiums, we have seen huge increases in cost of living over the last six years. Simply put, it's time to give B.C.'s lowest-paid workers a raise.

After all, the Premier gave himself a raise worth $65,000 a year. That's almost four times what a full-time minimum-wage worker makes for an entire year. How could anyone say that that was fair? It needs to change. A quarter of a million of British Columbians make less than $10 an hour. They come from all walks of life.

I often hear arguments on the other side of the Legislature from people saying that it's simply students who are starting their first jobs who are making minimum wage. Well, that's simply wrong. People making minimum wage under $10 an hour come from all walks of life: students, parents, immigrants, seniors. They work hard, they pay their taxes, and they live by the rules. They should be rewarded for their efforts.

The B.C. Liberal government has made every excuse in the books to keep the wages low for minimum-wage workers. But I ask you: if not now, then when? When is it a good time to increase the minimum wage?

If we accept the Premier's logic, there's no time that is a good time to increase the minimum wage. Apparently, the Premier believes that minimum-wage workers should never get an increase in their wages, that there should be one standard for him and another standard for all of the people making minimum wage.

It's offensive. It's offensive to British Columbia's basic sense of decency and fairness.

It's also bad economics. Letting B.C.'s lowest-paid workers slip further and further behind contributes to the growing divide that we see in British Columbia and is a threat to the fabric of our society.

We already know that B.C. has the highest child poverty rate in Canada. Children don't live by themselves in poverty. Families live in poverty.

We have the fastest-growing income gap in the country, and as the economy moves ahead, the benefits aren't trickling down to large numbers of hard-working British Columbians and communities.

I'm sure there are some decent people on that side of the House who are embarrassed, who are embarrassed and ashamed by their Premier's refusal to raise the minimum wage — if not, they should be — people who, like New Democrats, can't believe that the Premier would take a huge 54-percent increase for himself and would deny others a basic increase in their wage.

Today I'd ask those MLAs on the other side of the House to raise their voices with us. I ask the Minister of Labour, the person who is actually in charge of the well-being of B.C.'s workforce, to make the case for a minimum-wage increase, to tell the Premier that the time has come, to tell this side that they can't stall any longer.

If the members on that side of the Legislature can't appeal to the Premier's sense of decency, then perhaps they'd like to appeal to his place in history. Does this Premier want to go down in history as the only Premier who never, ever gave an increase to the minimum wage — our lowest-paid workers — the Premier who kept the minimum wage as low as he could for as long as he could?

We all have heard that this Premier seems intent on changing his image. He says, in fact, that it was wrong to fight against justice for aboriginal people. This Premier says he now sees the light when it comes to climate change. Now, both of those reversals, as we all know, are bogged down by the Premier's short attention span and his penchant for getting headlines instead of actually taking action. But I'm going to give this one to the Premier, because here's one where he can actually show that he has a commitment to do something different.

On November 1 the Premier can increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour, index it to inflation and reward B.C.'s lowest-paid workers with their first raise in six years. While he's at it, he can scrap the $6-an-hour training wage. That was an insult to everyone in our province.

The minimum wage is a reflection of our society's sense of fairness. All over this province we've seen British Columbians saying that the time has come. Over 30 municipalities passed motions supporting an increase in the minimum wage.

Just two weeks ago Radio India sponsored an event for an entire day to look at increasing the minimum wage and to raise it because they understood it was an important community issue. They understood. Unlike the other side of the Legislature, they understood it was important to people in their communities.

We've seen petitions signed by thousands and thousands of people, and I would ask every member of this Legislature to join with those people, to join with New Democrats and support this important bill, to do what's right, to do what's just, to do what's good for working families and good for the economy. I would urge support to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, this bill provides for an increase in the minimum wage and a reduction in the rate of income tax payable by corporations other than credit unions. The reduction in the rate of tax payable is an interference with the Crown revenues and out of order in a private member's bill. The increase in the minimum wage imposes on many employers.

Standing Order 67 would require a recommendation by a message of the Lieutenant-Governor to validate such a bill, and I note that only the government can obtain such a motion. Accordingly, the bill is out of order.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Bill M202 without disturbing the priorities and motions preceding it on the order paper.

S. Fraser: I am speaking today on second reading of Bill M202. That's the Promotion of Safe Antifreeze Act, 2007. I introduced this bill in the spring with the apparent support of the Premier and members of the other side of the House, as was noted by their applause.

My private member's bill is intended to save the lives of companion animals and wildlife, and to prevent poisoning of humans, especially children. It's also a dangerous toxin in the environment. Ethylene glycol–based antifreeze tastes like candy, and it kills. The deadly combination is linked to the killing of thousands of companion animals — these are pets, dogs, cats; thousands of poisonings of humans, often children; and linked, the literature shows, to the death of wildlife as well.

When ingested, ethylene glycol antifreeze is converted to oxalic acid, which attacks the kidneys and in a few hours will usually kill — in a not very pleasant but very painful way — the animal or the person that may drink it. The fact that it tastes like candy, that it is a deadly poison and that it is readily available is a bad combination by anyone's estimation.

The statistics speak for themselves. We have people from across the province that have written in to the Premier, to government members and to myself. I've submitted petitions with signatures in the range of 20,000 in support of this bill.

It is essentially a no-brainer. The combination of a toxin that tastes like candy and is everywhere in our society must be addressed. My intention is to bring this forward to committee stage to discuss options to minimize the danger to companion animals and the poisoning of children and also to protect the environment and our wildlife.

I note that the cost of propylene glycol–based antifreeze, which is the safer alternative, is $3 more per gallon. That's retail. I know because I have switched my vehicle over to that propylene glycol–based product. It does not taste like candy; it is bitter to the taste. It has very low toxicity comparatively. The use of propylene glycol antifreeze would save the lives of thousands of companion animals and would prevent the poisonings of children — and adults, because it's not exclusively children — and also protect our wildlife and environment.

I note that the support for my bill is not just from the 20,000 B.C. residents that are concerned about this. It's obviously had an effect on them personally and tragically. I have received the support of groups like the Pacific Assistance Dogs, who for 20 years have been providing support for people with the need of assistance animals. My bill has the support of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. It has the support of the David Suzuki Foundation. It has the support of the Sierra Club of Canada, B.C. chapter.

I note that there is some opposition to this from groups like the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association. Their arguments against it run in the range of: "We would have to stop cars at the border and drain their antifreeze out," or that there's no evidence to show that there is a need for such a bill. I consider those spurious arguments at best.

That is why this bill needs to be brought forward for discussion and deliberation at committee stage to protect the wildlife of this province, the environment of this province. That's the fourth great goal, I believe, of this government. If it's to be made more than a slogan, I would suggest that this bill must be brought forward to committee stage.

During my time of deliberations on this bill I have received, as I mentioned, thousands and thousands of letters of support and signatures on petitions. The most difficult and challenging part for me has been receiving the events that have occurred to people tragically. Seniors have had a delivery van show up in their yard that happened to have a leaking radiator, and they've lost their cat — their family member — or their dog. You've got to know that anyone who has faced the death of a companion animal…. It is a tragic event in the life of any family. The most difficult stories I've heard of have been from seniors. In some cases the companion animal has been their family.

I ask all members of this House to consider being proactive, raising the bar in protecting the environment. Consider this bill for second reading. Bring it forward to committee stage. Let us suss out the details on how to make this work.

There are so many organizations and so many B.C. residents waiting for this decision to be made, hoping that the loss of their companion animal, their pet, their

family member will not be for nothing but that their story will represent a change for the better so that this won't happen again, so that our environment, our wildlife, our family members, our children, our pets, our companion animals are all protected.

It's quite simple. Ethylene glycol–based antifreeze tastes like candy, and it kills. It is its own attractant, and it's lethal in small quantities. A teaspoon will kill a cat. An ounce will kill a dog. A similar amount will poison children. The product is everywhere.

Propylene glycol–based antifreeze does not taste like candy, is not lethal in small amounts and would save the lives of countless animals — our own, feral cats and wildlife — and prevent the poisoning of thousands of humans as well. This is a no-brainer. We must promote the use of propylene glycol–based antifreeze and ensure that we remove the products that are killing wildlife and our companion animals and poisoning humans.

I note that one of the other arguments to the contrary for this bill, put forward by the CCSPA, is that there is limited and inconclusive data supporting any danger. That is patently false. The SPCA in B.C. supports this bill, of course, and they do so for good reason. The American SPCA has also been trying to deal with antifreeze poisoning as one of the primary causes of death of pets and companion animals for years.

The statistics are there. They've been there for years, for decades. A 1989 survey done by the British Columbia Veterinary Medical Association showed that 1,589 cats and dogs died in this province alone as a result of ethylene glycol–based poisoning. This figure only includes the diagnosed cases.

The nature of the poisoning often means that the companion animals don't manage to crawl home. They do not get veterinarian help — what limited help is available after they've been poisoned. So the statistics are clear.

As for wildlife, there's a well-documented case of a California condor — a species on the brink of extinction, making a comeback, one of the most endangered species on the planet — being killed by ingesting leaked antifreeze off a highway. So in the most stark terms, the statistics are there. The worst statistics are from those who have just lost a pet, and as I'm speaking today, that is happening.

Somebody's rad is overflowing. Some fender-bender has caused ethylene glycol–based antifreeze to be running down a gutter and being licked up by a dog or a cat, or going into the gutter and killing ducks and fish. And it's preventable.

To not discuss in this House making it preventable, protecting our companion animals, protecting our children and protecting our wildlife would be ludicrous. We must bring this forward for debate at committee stage, and it must be voted on in this House for second reading.

I note that the product, ethylene glycol–based antifreeze, is readily available. There is enough product in the parking lot of this building to kill every companion animal in the city of Victoria if it were to enter the environment. All it would take would be for the animal to come upon the product because the product is an attractant. It tastes like candy.

A dog, if it gets a little flavour of this product on a container of antifreeze in the garage, will chew the cap off and drink it and die by its kidneys being destroyed. It is a terrible death. It is a painful death, and for us to allow a lethal toxin to be used readily — that is its own attractant to animals, to children, to wildlife — is appalling. It's our chance now to address that.

From this House, from this B.C. Legislature, we have the opportunity to change that, to make a difference in the world, because others are watching. The support I've received for the bill has come from a lot farther than within our borders.

With that, I shall sit and hope that all sides of the House will consider this bill based on its merits and not based on politics. This is not a political issue. This is a health and safety issue. This is an issue of protecting our environment. We all must care about that. British Columbians demand it.

R. Cantelon: I appreciate the comments from the member opposite for Alberni-Qualicum. I certainly have the greatest respect and, indeed, support for the intent of what legislation he puts forward and supports today.

There's no question that we all love our pets. I won't be supporting the bill in its present form, and I need, I think, to qualify my credentials to a certain extent as a pet lover, lest my comments be mistaken in the context of what I put forward.

In fact, not long ago, my wife came home with a cute little kitten, a little black cat, and it's a wonderful little animal. We weren't totally supportive of that, but once this little animal — we call him Zipper — crawls up on your chest and puts his nose to your face, you quickly become very attached. He became an instant hit in the household. We call him Zipper because he just flies around the House from one room to the next.

His very cute way of getting your attention is to run right across your path of walking, just to try and catch your feet and cause you to stumble forward. But you have to laugh. You have to be amused. You become quickly endeared to these small animals. They're very important to people. Cats particularly are very important.

My wife worked for a time in an extended care wing of the Nanaimo regional hospital. There they have a resident cat, which is very comforting to all the residents. When the member speaks of the therapeutic values, it's certainly more than just affection. The cat is actually improving the health, well-being, mental stability and mental outlook of patients as it moves from patient to patient in the ward.

Animals and cats can be very beneficial, as can dogs. So I only have the greatest respect for the member's comments regarding that. Certainly, there's no doubt that the SPCAs will and do and should and must support any and all moves to protect animals, because they perform great benefits to society.

In fact, I didn't mention, but probably should mention, that this cat is a black cat. But that didn't affect my immediate acceptance of it as a householder, because some of my family is of Irish descent. Despite what you may know or hear about black cats being unlucky, to many people in the United Kingdom black cats are a sign of luck. I embrace that characteristic.

One thing I appreciate about these debates is that members can freely express their views from both sides of the House. Today I'm encouraged and delighted that I seem to be receiving what would be called heckling comments from this side of the House. I take them only in good measure and good faith, and I know that it all contributes to the debate.

It's unfortunate, though, that this licence to talk to all issues and perhaps confront them across the House with comments isn't open to all members of the House. I think it's very important that members be free to speak their views, and I regret that this is not a courtesy or right or privilege and that what should be part of our protocol is not extended to both sides of this House.

Notably, the members opposite are not permitted to speak on all issues. But I won't dwell on that, Madam Speaker. I have been in the House when you have redressed members who have attempted to defend that right, although I reserve the right to defend that right.

To the issue. The reason I'm not supporting it is because, although the member opposite refers to this as a no-brainer, I think it requires a little more thought put into it than there was in the legislation. It's for technical reasons. Of course ethylene glycol is poisonous. We know that. And I won't dispute the fact that it's a horrible death in the bodies of small animals.

It's a very deadly thing, and that is why I, and I'm sure many responsible people on both sides of this House and in their communities, take special note and special care with regard to the integrity of their cooling systems. It's not just a matter of cost, because it's cheap enough to top up your antifreeze, but it's a matter of the risk that any drippings from a leaking and faulty cooling system cause — the danger that it causes to people.

I know that people are more aware. I'm certainly more aware of any drippings that might happen. Fortunately, I would say that these occurrences with modern equipment and modern engines are, of course, substantially reduced. The quality with which motor vehicles are now put together and put forward on the road is considerably improved.

You know, it used to be said that they don't build them like they used to. Actually, that's not the case. Motors run much longer without regular maintenance. Cooling systems operate considerably better without any accident or incident. It used to be a common occurrence, back when I was working in service stations, that a thermostat would plug or stick and cause the pressure to build up, and the rad hose would explode at the most inopportune times. That's a rare occurrence today.

All the components are built to a much higher standard and operate with much higher reliabilities. It used to be that regular draining and flushing was required of the cooling systems. Of course, this could often be done in a back yard, where the person would just dump it into the ground and make the material available to a wide variety of animals and even wild animals.

I was visited by a three-legged raccoon on our back step not long ago. That animal had certainly fought hard for its survival, and it would be a shame to see an animal like that accidentally fall victim to ethylene glycol.

The reason is really quite simple — that it does require further thought and that the bill, in its present form, should not go forward and doesn't deserve to receive further consideration. That's simply this. Let's take the example of a car that you buy — whatever brand. It doesn't matter. We don't make any cars in British Columbia. All the vehicles that we use in British Columbia are brought into this province from Japan, the United States, Ontario and other jurisdictions, even Europe in many cases. They already come preloaded with ethylene glycol. That's a standard coolant they all use.

We can ban the sale of ethylene glycol, but we're actually only furthering the risk and continuing the risk to the animal. If you do have a minor leak and the ethylene glycol goes on your driveway or on the roadway or wherever it might go, you go to the store and buy propylene glycol. The member opposite clearly described its characteristics, which are non-toxic.

Well, I'm not sure it's non-toxic, but it's certainly non-palatable. I would seek further clarification of that. That is another issue that needs to be clarified. Propylene glycol and ethylene glycol are very similar in chemical composition. Before we move to something, I think we need to know that in fact propylene glycol is less harmful to animals. Therefore, we should be careful that before we jump to a blanket solution, we're not really moving from one set of problems to another.

The other question I would raise on the chemical nature — and I would admit to you that I am not an expert in this area — would be the taste. The member opposite indicated primarily that one of the big attractions of ethylene glycol is, of course, its taste. It is a sweet taste. It's basically a sugar-related compound. It has a sweet taste that does appeal to animals and perhaps even to small children, were they to taste it on somebody's driveway.

But I take most of the other comments as to the incidence. Although they're greatly diminished by the reliability of the cars and the extent of the problem is no longer of the magnitude that it once was, it does represent a real concern.

Perhaps the answer is not in transferring holus-bolus to a completely different type of antifreeze, because this may very possibly engender a lot of resistance from the automobile industry, who will make the usual complaints about cost, changes and so forth.

I come to the point about how enforceable it will really be. How effective can it really be? Someone loses a few litres of antifreeze, and he tops it up with propylene glycol. Well, I presume that cutting it with a little propylene glycol won't render the rest of the system

less toxic. This is very likely to be the kind of vehicle that the member opposite wants fixed.

We can require them, once they achieve a certain level of depletion, to not add more than a litre. That would cause us to control the amount of fluid put into these antifreeze systems so that people couldn't top up faulty systems.

Now, this raises a question of regulation. I don't know how you would do that. I don't know how you could compel people, once they encounter a certain amount of leakage from their systems, to flush the whole system and replace the ethylene glycol with propylene glycol.

I think this is the core problem with this. Yes, you can ban the sale. That's very easily done. But I would submit to you it isn't a no-brainer that this will fix the problem and remove it. What we really need to do — well, perhaps really need to do; it might be another solution — is insist that no vehicles brought into the province of British Columbia have as their principal coolant medium ethylene glycol.

Well, this is where it isn't so much a no-brainer. I don't know how we do that. I don't know how we impose on other jurisdictions the requirement to convert everything to propylene glycol so that every vehicle brought into British Columbia now comes in only with propylene glycol.

R. Cantelon: It is an absolute core…. Despite the spurious comments from the opposite member, it is essential. If they're coming in with ethylene glycol and every vehicle running on the road still has ethylene glycol as the principal component of its coolant, then how will we save animals by banning the sale?

R. Cantelon: Perhaps another answer is to change the flavour of the ethylene glycol. The member opposite mentioned that the principal attraction to ethylene glycol is its sweet taste. I don't, this time, hear any complaints or challenges to that concept. That is indeed the case.

Maybe a simpler answer might be through some sort of chemical alteration of ethylene glycol — that we insist that every vehicle coming in with ethylene glycol have the chemical cut in a way that alters the flavour to make it less attractive…

Now, of course, the member says to make it propylene glycol. Of course, his suggestion probably is: "Let's make sure that banning the sale necessarily implies that we're going to ban the sale of vehicles with ethylene glycol."

That, of course, is an unintended consequence, and I would say that unintended consequences are not something that is foreign to the members opposite. They may have quick ideas that seem to be quick fixes, no-brainers, but the unintended consequences that flow from these enthusiastic, not necessarily well-thought-through pieces of legislation — though they may be characterized as no-brainers…. So that is the problem.

I would like to conclude by saying that I support the intent. I value my animals. I would rue the day that little Zipper doesn't cross my path and cause me nearly to stumble and fall in my kitchen, because it's an exciting interaction between me and the animals. I love it when I'm sitting in my easy chair watching a hockey game and little Zipper jumps up on my chest and puts his little cold, wet nose against mine. I'm not as enthusiastic when he sinks his claws into my feet and pretends that they're some sort of new toy that he's there to play with, but I tolerate that. It's all in good fun and jest.

I think we need to step back from this. I do support the member's intent — that we should protect our animals, that it is very valuable — but I can't support this going further, because I think it's basically flawed in its implementation.

We need to consider how else we might do it, what other options there are, without messing with and interfering with other jurisdictions — without spreading our concerns to others.

Yet maybe there is an easy way to do that, maybe by approaching automobile manufacturers. Certainly, the cost shouldn't be a factor — the propylene glycol. I endorse that it is the case that propylene glycol could well be used as a worldwide standard. I would salute initiatives set forward by this province to support that.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence with respect to my comments about speaking freely in the House. I thank you for allowing me to continue. I consider this interaction between both sides of the House a privilege and a privileged conversation, and I appreciate that all members should have the right. With that, I conclude my remarks and give way to the opposite side.

M. Farnworth: I rise to speak in favour of this bill, which I think is an important piece of legislation brought forward by our member from Alberni. It's one that I would urge this House to support because — you know what? — it does matter what happens to the thousands and thousands of animals — cats, dogs and other animals — that are poisoned every year by antifreeze. There is a simple solution to deal with it, and that is the issue of propylene glycol.

What I found fascinating, in listening to the argument put forward by the government member to not support this bill, is that if you were to buy that logic — if you were to buy that specious argument that was put forward — we would have done nothing on Freon refrigerants in refrigerators and car air conditioning systems.

We would have done nothing because "it may cause an inconvenience for the car companies. British

Columbia is just a small little jurisdiction, and what impact can we have? We need to study it further. The link hasn't been proven." What a load of nonsense that was being spewed.

To take that logic one step further…. One of the showcases of the government's legislative agenda has been global warming. To use that logic would mean that we would do nothing on global warming. "British Columbia is a small jurisdiction. It doesn't generate much in the way of greenhouse gases. This is a bigger issue that needs to be studied further. As many people like to say, it's not been proven. The link hasn't been made, so we shouldn't do anything."

What a load of nonsense. The link has been proven for a long time now. Ethylene glycol antifreeze kills. It kills animals, it kills pets, and it can be toxic to children. There is a safe alternative.

This is an opportunity for British Columbia to take a leadership position. As we're very fond of saying, we can do anything here in British Columbia. We should lead the way in the rest of Canada. We want to lead this country in so many areas. Well, this is an example for us to do that — the safety of pets, wild animals and children.

When an animal ingests ethylene glycol antifreeze, it dies in a very horrible way. It's painful, it's slow, and it's cruel.

There are a large number of organizations and people right across this province who are asking government to do something, to take a leadership role. We as legislators should be prepared to do that. What's wrong with being the first province in this country to say that we need to change and make a shift away from ethylene glycol antifreeze to propylene-based antifreeze?

What's wrong with taking that leadership role? What's wrong with sending a message to other provinces and to our federal government that this is something we believe should take place? Absolutely nothing at all. That's why we should support this particular piece of legislation.

I know the member was concerned about the automobile industry. Well, guess what. Car manufacturers already stand behind propylene glycol in their warranties if you use it in the cooling system of the car. They already stand behind it, so it's not a challenge for the automobile industry.

M. Farnworth: Someone said that it's a choice. What we're saying is that it's the wrong choice to have ethylene glycol in vehicles.

We need to recognize that what we put into things can have long-term, lasting consequences. We know how it is in terms of pets. We know how it is with animals. We know there are thousands of animals…. People's pets go missing, die in a very cruel way, but just as many, if not more, disappear into the underbrush, into the dark corners, into secluded places, where they curl up, suffer and perish. No one knows, and no one seems to care. It's not right, and there's something we can do about it.

I want to illustrate this a little further, because this speaks to an issue that is broader in many ways than just antifreeze. We develop tens of thousands of chemicals every year. Many of them are tested for their safety and efficacy, and just as many aren't. That is increasingly a major issue across this country — in our health care system, for example. Tests done on people — on MPs in the most recent one — revealed a toxic cocktail of chemicals in their bloodstream.

Right now there's a documented article in The Economist magazine. In 1991, the year I was elected, the population of vultures comprising three species in India numbered 40 million birds. They performed a huge service in terms of the disposal of carcasses, of garbage, of waste. A chemical was used in agriculture as a treatment, like an antibiotic in cattle. It was deemed to be safe, but it wasn't. Or at least for the cattle it was safe, but not for the birds.

In 16 years the population of vultures in India has plummeted from 40 million to 10,000. It has been the largest decrease in a bird species in the entire world since the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Now there is a dramatic attempt to rescue them and save the remaining birds. In the case of one of the species, there are only 430 left — in the space of 16 years.

An unintended consequence — this is an example of that. But we know it has a consequence, a very serious consequence. Ethylene glycol has a very serious consequence. As such, we need to recognize that there is something we can do. We need to take a leadership role on this. We need to know that there is a safe alternative — propylene glycol.

It is time now to stand up and take a leadership role in this province and in this country and say that there's a safe alternative to ethylene glycol, and we should push for propylene glycol. It will mean thousands and thousands of pets and animals in this province are spared a horrible, agonizing death. It's time to do it, and it's time to do it now.

L. Mayencourt: I'll be brief because I know there are a lot of members who want to speak to this. I'm a pet owner, and I really applaud what the member has brought forward here. I think this is just a sensible thing. There may be a need to figure out how to get it done and all that sort of stuff, but I think we're intelligent enough that we can debate that and figure out how to get a consensus here.

I am also a private member, and I've brought forward bills. You know, this is the work of every member of this Legislature. I really want to applaud him for bringing this bill forward. I think it makes sense, and it's been very clearly articulated by the Opposition House Leader and also by the member from Parksville-Qualicum. I look forward to further debate and perhaps even committee stage on this bill.

L. Krog: I will be brief. I was astonished this morning to hear the remarks of the member for Nanaimo-Parksville. I would have thought he would stand in

this House and compliment the member for Alberni-Qualicum for bringing this forward.

I can't imagine a thinking British Columbian who would be opposed to the passage of this legislation. I can't imagine a pet owner or a member of the SPCA or anyone who cared about the environment not supporting this legislation.

We have an opportunity to ban the sale in this province of a substance which is demonstrably dangerous and poisonous, harms animals and livestock, and is a threat to the environment. We have a chance to ban its sale and protect pets. How could anyone oppose this?

For the member for Nanaimo-Parksville to go on about the auto industry and the fact that the cars come in with ethylene glycol now and that it would be difficult, etc. — what a lot of silly nonsense. To suggest that that's going to be a roadblock, that the auto industry, shipping thousands of cars into British Columbia monthly, can't figure out how to put in the appropriate substitute for a dangerous and poisonous substance…. Unbelievable. That we would waste our time here this morning opposing this bill — opposing this fine piece of legislation, the excellent work of the member for Alberni-Qualicum — is beyond belief.

On behalf of my constituents for whom I speak here today, I will support this bill. We strongly support this bill. We encourage this Legislature to pass it. Get it to committee stage, pass it into law, and do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I must advise you that Bill M202, at section 1, creates an offence under the Offence Act. The creation of an offence is an interference with Crown prerogatives in a private member's bill. Accordingly, this bill is out of order.

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