Hansard — Monday, November 5, 2007 p.m.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Private Members' Statements		9037
	Education clawbacks
	D. Cubberley
	M. Polak
	Opportunities for renewal
	J. Rustad
	N. Macdonald
	Child care
	C. Trevena
	R. Cantelon
	Breaking down borders
	H. Bloy
	L. Krog

Motions on Notice		9046
	Agricultural land reserve and treaty negotiations (Motion 70)
	G. Gentner
	V. Roddick
	L. Krog
	R. Hawes
	S. Hammell
	D. Routley
	J. Rustad
	M. Karagianis
	H. Lali
	C. Wyse

D. Cubberley: I'm very pleased this morning to have a little bit of time to speak to the issue of the recent announcement of some clawbacks in educational funding for school trustees and school districts across British Columbia.

We read and hear a lot about good intentions for our public education system — very important goals that we would like to believe we share: to raise the graduation rates in British Columbia; to catch and lift those one in five kids who currently don't graduate; to improve the outcomes for the Z\b of kids who are graduating with low literacy, who are going on to diminished fortunes as adults when they leave school; the need to address the one in four not developmentally ready when they come to school — large challenges there; to diagnose the over one in ten who have learning or behavioral disabilities in a timely manner, and then to provide teaching supports throughout their school career; and also the very important goal, very pertinent at this time when we're discussing a first treaty in British Columbia, to improve outcomes for aboriginal students who graduate in startlingly low numbers.

One of the key things in meeting any of these objectives — and the government likes to say this when it is out talking in communities — is to create stability and predictability for educational funding, and that that is a key to success. Yet we see government adding new challenges to the educational system virtually on a yearly basis.

Last year, of course, we saw the accountability contracts rolled over into achievement contracts and a new pressure placed on school districts — again, without any additional resources. We saw the creation of a responsibility to develop and implement districtwide literacy plans not only for kids in schools but for adult learners as well. We've seen in the recent past a notional cap on enrolment of no more than three special needs kids per class — again, no new resources put in play in order to meet that objective.

Most of these new responsibilities are being created without any kind of templates or best practices — just increased responsibilities with new enforcement structures dropped onto school districts, like the new über-superintendents who, so far, are failing to show that they are a good investment in B.C.

Of course, the rubber hits the road at the school district level. That's where the challenges are faced. That's where courses are delivered. That's where real choice occurs, and that's where students' futures unfold.

School districts, as we know, are struggling with the ongoing fiscal crunch of declining enrolments. They have fixed costs for the delivery of programs in bricks-and-mortar schools. There are fewer kids enrolling on an annual basis because of demographic changes, and there's a preoccupation with downsizing, which is wrenching for the system.

School districts, of course, are trying to plan ahead. The official party line is to encourage them to plan on a three-year horizon. You know they're trying to do that, setting aside some amounts of money in a current year to engineer new programs or program changes in a subsequent year. They need to be able to do that in order to maintain choice and diversity, to remain competitive with very well-funded private schools and to meet the broad goals of improving outcomes for high-risk kids.

Predictability and stability are the most important things for school districts to know where they're standing, what their resources are and that they can implement the plan they have agreed to, based on an agreed formula.

Let's look at October 2007. The money was the money, the year was set, the hard choices had been made, and the program was in the field. Then presto, an e-mail from a bean-counter arrives, and without so much as a "By the way, are you sitting down? This is significant," it moved from per-pupil-based funding to course-based funding. And it did that in the middle of the text as if it were just the same as any other thing a bean-counter might announce.

"By the way, it's not for next year. We're not changing it for next year. It's immediate. It's retroactive — not next year; now." To add injury to insult, it says in the course of the letter: "We've just discovered you've been overbilling us — double-billing us — for administrative costs."

This strains credulity, of course, because it's the government's funding formula and it's been in place since 2002. So if anybody was overbilling anybody, it was obviously by design — no notice, no period of adjustment, no courtesy of informing, and the implication that this was a minor change.

In fact, the political spin put on it has been: "We haven't changed anything at all, really. The same amount of money for education is still there. In effect, this will be revenue-neutral. We're just correcting a little problem that's been occurring that we just can't tolerate any longer."

What's the real problem being corrected here? The real problem is that there's a $50 million deficit in the minister's budget — in her budget, not school districts'. So what's being done once again? We're going to raid the school district larder rather than face the wrath of Treasury Board.

Never mind that it's going to come at the expense of the most needy; that it will remove funding for extra supports for kids in alternate schools, for first nations kids; or even that it will mean no fewer spare blocks, one of the tools that was used to try and meet class-size requirements as a result of Bill 33 being implemented without any additional money.

It's not a small problem, and it's not a small change. The whole basis of calculating funding for grades 10, 11 and 12 is being changed unilaterally.

Before, half an FTE for getting a kid enrolled and the other half for that kid taking four courses. Now you've got to take eight courses to generate the same amount of money for a school. Per-pupil funding will not recognize that many kids take fewer than eight courses, that overhead costs are inflexible per-course funding — whether taking four or eight courses — and that at-risk and special needs kids require special supports.

We need predictability in school funding, not constant change and in particular not change that doesn't address an educational outcome.

M. Polak: The title of the member opposite's message this morning was "Education Clawbacks." The term clawback has been used frequently in what he's said, so I thought to myself that maybe the first question we ought to ask is: what is a clawback?

Well, if I tell my daughter that I'm going to give her a hundred dollars in a month to go and buy some clothes and then I take $50 of it back, that's a clawback. But what happened in education? What has this change meant? Let's examine that.

Before the change, $4.345 billion was committed to boards of education for their school district operating grants. What happens after the change? Well, interestingly enough, $4.345 billion is committed to boards of education for their operating grants. It's the same amount of money before and after. Is this a clawback? I think not.

Then we talk about how students are funded. The member opposite was not quite correct in saying per pupil. We use that term; it's a vernacular. It helps the public understand how we fund students. When you become a school trustee, one of the most challenging things to understand is the difference between how you count an FTE, and a head count and a per pupil…. Full-time-equivalent. "What is a full-time student?" is the question you ask.

Well, I think most members of the public would think that a full-time student is a student who attends full time. It's fairly logical. It's fairly predictable. Is this a change? No question, it's a change. Is it something that school districts will have to adjust to? Certainly it is. But is it out of the realm of logic? Is it unpredictable? I would say no, and I would say it for a number of reasons.

First and foremost because in the day when we used to have a funding formula with hundreds of different categories, an academic I knew who worked in the system said jokingly one day, after we tried to work on some proposals for the ministry for a new formula: "You know, I think this formula takes a PhD to understand, and I have one, and I don't understand it."

Back in those days, not only did school districts not know how much money they were going to get from year to year, but they didn't even know when they were going to find out. As a former school trustee, I can remember being at a meeting where I was hearing the leader of an opposition speak and the then Minister of Education speak. They both made promises because it was election time.

After the then governing Education Minister made his fantastic promises about how great things were going to be in British Columbia, I got up and asked him one question. I said: "I can hear all your promises. There's one thing I would like you to promise me. I'd like you to promise me that we're going to find out about our funding allocation on time. That's all I want. I just want to know when the date is." In the entire time they were in government, the opposition didn't provide funding announcements on time once.

So let's talk about what has changed. What has changed is that school districts now know for three years what they're going to be getting. They can plan ahead because they know there are going to be increases. They can start their budget every year knowing that they have money to distribute to new programs, and there's a plethora of those.

They're not starting their budget time saying: "Oh my goodness, we have another $12 million or $7 million to cut this year. Where are we going to find it?" They're saying: "You know, maybe we should think about being involved in the StrongStart program. That's something we'd like to participate in. Maybe we'd like to start with some literacy programs."

We've got $125 million that has gone to literacy programs for '09-10. We've got $116 million where they've increased their funding allocations year over year in British Columbia. Now that you have a rolling budget, you have districts able to plan what programs they'd like to engage in.

You now have more than half a billion dollars to support students with special needs. You've got record school completion rates at 79 percent. Class-size limits for the very first time. Districts are actually being asked to report on them. We're able to work with districts and say: "You know, you've got a problem here. You've got an issue, and you need to solve it." There's accountability for the first time in this province.

We've got 35 aboriginal education enhancement agreements signed to date. You've got the first-ever virtual school. This is innovation on a high, high level with LearnNow B.C. So it's choice for students and expanded on-line tutoring opportunities that parents have been asking for, for years.

Now we're moving into the realm of adult basic education. I was on the Standing Committee on Education, and adult basic education was something we heard an awful lot about. Now $17.5 million….

D. Cubberley: Well, I think that demonstrated very clearly that the government doesn't understand what it's doing at all. To have someone talk about predictability being supported by a funding change, which is announced unilaterally for the year in progress….

After all the contracts have been let, all the teachers have been hired, all the support staff have been put in place and the program in the field and the choices made, you changed the funding formula and suggest it will apply for the year in motion.

How does that contribute to stability and predictability? To me, it's counterintuitive to make that kind of suggestion, but then there is an Alice-in-Wonderland quality to the entire exercise on the other side of the House when it comes to talking about funding for education. The Queen of Hearts, of course, in Alice in Wonderland said: "It is so because I say it's so, and if you disagree with me, off with your heads."

I guess trustees are probably in the position of disagreeing with you. Hopefully, they won't lose their heads as a result of that. Certainly, they've sharpened their pencils, they've done the math, and they know it's not revenue-neutral — $3.4 million in school district 61 in Victoria; Surrey school district, $3.6 million. That is not chump change; that is not revenue-neutral.

I'm quite convinced that the overall education budget hasn't changed. What's changed is that the minister has a hole in her part of the budget that she's got to fix — whether it's summer school, distance education or something she hasn't described yet — and she's decided to raid the larder.

The fact of the matter is that you would never make a change of this kind midyear. If collaboration had any meaning for members opposite, they would have given a clear signal of an intent to change the funding formula, and they would have met with their partners and said: "What are the implications for your school district?"

Some school districts, the member might be interested to know, have had to go to a four-day school week in order to protect choice for their students. This money is going to make it harder for any of them to get back to a five-day week. They may have been planning to try to do that, because they know you get better educational outcomes from it. They may have been trying to do that. They may have been trying to bolster outcomes for first nations students. They may have been trying to put additional teaching aids in place to help special needs kids.

Taking $3.4 million out of a district's budget like that, while the year is in motion…. That is not predictability; that is not stability; that is not a partnership in education. That is meant to cause disruption and chaos. What it really comes down to is the government's unwillingness and the minister's unwillingness to approach Treasury Board and ask for enough money to fund the programs she has in the field — her part of the program.

Reaching into the larder and taking it away from school districts is not the way to improve outcomes. And by the way, Member, FSA scores are falling in literacy.

J. Rustad: I rise today to talk about an industry that has been the backbone of this province for many, many generations, and that is the forest industry. Currently, in the industry we are facing some challenges, but I want to talk a little bit about the cyclical nature of forestry.

I've been involved in forestry pretty much all of my life, whether it be through my parents' involvement or my own direct involvement in forestry, and I've seen the industry go through many, many cycles over time. Some of those cycles were pretty serious, some of them were more shallow, and the current situation that we're facing is almost unprecedented when you look back at some of the cycles.

We have seen the Canadian dollar at record highs. Every penny that the Canadian dollar rises, it costs the industry in direct operating dollars — millions of dollars, literally. The Canadian dollar has risen 22 cents in the last year alone. That's a 26-percent increase. Couple that with the low demand for lumber, relatively low prices on lumber prices and the challenge of the American market, and you've got pretty much an unprecedented situation with forestry.

However, forestry has, in the past, always been able to look through the current situations to the future. In the near term we are seeing that U.S. housing starts are continuing to struggle in the States, and as we know, the industry is very dependent upon its interaction with the U.S. and its access to U.S. markets. Because of that we're seeing, around the province, that some mills are starting to look at production curtailments. In my riding there have actually been some mill closures.

These are not unheard of. We have seen these before throughout these types of cycles, but it does leave one to pause and think: what is the future? Where is forestry going? Many — some in the opposition — would suggest that perhaps it's a sunset industry or that we're going to see a change, fundamentally, in how that works. I disagree. I think forestry has been our backbone and will continue to be a strong component of B.C.'s industry in the years to come.

Just to give an example, when you consider the fibre basket that we have in this province…. When you consider the overall basket and that we have the challenges of the pine beetle, we have a very strong basket of fibre available for our forest industry. When you compare that to other places such as Ontario and Quebec in terms of their production of forestry, we're seeing their fibre basket drop. We're seeing the amount of wood that they can potentially produce drop, and we're seeing some of those other impacts in other areas in North America.

What that means is that once we go through this economic cycle, which is typical of other cycles — it may last another six months, another year or another 18 months, whatever that process will be going

through — we have the opportunity to be able to emerge out of that a stronger industry. That means there may be some pain over the short term, through some of that process, and a little bit of instability.

I also believe that mills understand there are those opportunities. They want to make sure that they try to keep things as stable as possible for their workforce and within their communities.

B.C. has always had a competitive advantage not just because of fibre supply but also because it's had literally hundreds of millions in reinvestment that keep it competitive relative to its neighbours and to its other markets. That competitiveness, quite frankly, is something that we won't lose. It's something that, as you go through cycles, only means that you will be stronger coming out.

In the interior, in the pine beetle areas in the province, we have seen many things happen. In particular, the innovation and the productivity gains that we have seen through there have meant that the downturn, which has been going on in the States for some time now, for the most part has had a minimal impact. That impact is going to increase. There's no question that there are going to be some challenges. Canfor announced that they're going to be reducing 250 million board feet in production, and that will mean there'll be periods of time when facilities need to take some downtime.

That changing environment is not something that is new to the industry. That changing environment is actually what often drives innovation. I want to talk for a second about what some of the options may be going forward. Where will we be going forward?

When you look at the timber harvesting land base across the province, we're currently only harvesting about 0.7 percent of the land base. On a yearly basis, 0.7 percent of the land base means that even after the pine beetle epidemic has run its course, there are significant amounts of timber left in the forest to be able to fuel future forest industries. There are things we could be looking at in terms of how we utilize that fibre, the constraints that are on the land base and what becomes available in the basket.

I've done a fair bit of work in forest inventory. Forest inventories tend to be very conservative in estimating the wood that is available in the forest, so there may be opportunities to be looking at the forest inventory and what type of fibre basket we may have coming out of that.

There are also opportunities for things like tenure reform. Instead of having an 80-year rotation, maybe we could look at a 60- or 70-year rotation, which changes the fibre supply significantly, making fibre available.

Despite the fact that we are going through some challenges here, there are plenty of opportunities for the forest industry to see a renewal coming out of this. Moving forward will create a very viable, stable industry that will continue to be a backbone for this province.

I remember someone once told me that pine trees used to be a waste product that was plowed under. Industry changed, adapted and started to use those trees, and that became a backbone for a number of years. As we see this change from the pine beetle, we will see that evolve again.

C. Trevena: I'd like to introduce to the House two members of the real opposition in Ottawa. We have in the gallery today Olivia Chow, the NDP critic for child care — she's also the MP for the riding I used to live in, Trinity-Spadina in Toronto — and also Denise Savoie, who introduced Bill C-303, the Early Learning and Child Care Act, whose third reading comes on November 30. She's the MP for where we all are now — in Victoria. I hope the House will make them both very welcome.

N. Macdonald: Before we start, I'd like to take the opportunity to make an introduction as well, please. Visiting today is Ryan Starr. Ryan Starr is with the Business Examiner. He was formerly with the Golden Star and is a fine journalist. He's here to see how the Legislature works, and I'd invite people to make him feel welcome.

N. Macdonald: With that, I'd like to take the opportunity to respond on a topic that is of incredible interest and importance to the people I represent, and that is forestry.

Forestry has been a key part of the economy in British Columbia for a long, long time. I think what all of us recognize — and certainly the member for Prince George–Omineca knows — is that it is the industry that has been the backbone of this province for a tremendously long period of time.

There is no question that it is an industry that faces incredible challenges. What I would start by saying is that it is an industry unlike many others, in that it is using public land for the most part. Because of that, it is an industry that for most of British Columbia's history has been dependent upon public policy set in this Legislature to dictate whether it is going to be successful or not.

It is an industry that will always face worldwide challenges, and I recognize that at this time there are significant challenges to the industry. But if you go back and talk to former Forests ministers, it is a tough ministry to run, because there are always significant challenges that need to be overcome.

What we need, and what I think the member for Prince George–Omineca is talking about, is something that all rural MLAs understand. We need a government to set public policy that is going to be successful, and that has not happened. Since 2001 there have been

over 40 major wood and paper manufacturing mills that have been closed in British Columbia. These are jobs that are important parts of our communities. They are high-paying jobs, and they are part of a balanced economy for rural communities.

We have increases in tourism, which is something that is really valuable to us, but we always looked upon those increases as something that would work in balance with the important manufacturing jobs that we have in forestry — the important jobs that contractors provide to people.

If you look back at what the Finance Committee has heard, you have industry leaders coming in a very public way and saying what they have said privately: that the industry in the interior — and this is not to mention the coast, but the area that we're familiar with in the interior — is going to see unprecedented shutdowns. It is at a point of crisis that the government needs to recognize and needs to act with a tremendous amount of energy on. It is public policy that can make the difference.

What Forests ministers have done under the Social Credit, under the NDP, is recognize that there are good times. And the member is right; it's cyclical. There are good times where a minister needs to be in there insisting that the industry act in a sustainable way, insisting that the industry prepare itself for the downtimes. When times are bad like they are now, you have to have a ministry that is in there making sure it comes through this down cycle and that those manufacturing jobs remain in the communities when the cycle again improves.

What you see in B.C. right now is the deindustrialization of the province. You have these mills shutting down, and many of them will shut down permanently. When they do, they cut the heart out of many communities and they fundamentally change communities that I value and that I'm sure any rural representative values as well.

The government has to get in there and find the answers, because those answers are there. Companies have been clear and communities have been clear on what is needed. There needs to be a series of things done. This member has talked about a few ideas. There's no shortage of ideas. What there is a shortage of is action.

What Tembec asked — this was at the Finance Committee — was: do we actually value the industry in the southern interior? He listed a whole series of companies that he says will go down, and the manufacturing capacity that has been there for an incredibly long period of time will permanently leave communities that need those sorts of jobs.

That is something that cannot happen. What I know is that historically, the government of British Columbia has always said: "Yes, we value it. We value it a great deal and will put the energy, the resources and the capacity of a provincial government in place to make sure that the right result is found."

I can say that in my communities the people I represent will unequivocally say: "Yes, we want the industry strong, vibrant and sustainable." We want it to be in place so that, for the children and grandchildren of the people working there, they have an opportunity to work in this important industry.

With that, I turn back and give my colleague the opportunity to speak. I know that like me, he values the industry. I thank you for the opportunity.

J. Rustad: I thank the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke for his comments. He talks about policy and how there's been an impact. I'm not going to bother spending time talking about the 1990s and 13,000 jobs lost. Quite frankly, what I'm talking about is opportunities for renewal, not looking backwards.

When we talk about the opportunities for renewal and policy, we have to think about: what will the forest industry look like going forward? As I mentioned earlier, the opportunities in the timber-harvesting land base and opportunities for the fibre basket…. The reason I was saying that is because where there is fibre and where there are those opportunities, there will be innovation. There will be companies come forward that want to use it.

I want to talk a little about some of the innovations that are coming out, particularly out of UNBC in Prince George. There have been innovations in terms of the types of products that potentially could be used from our forest industry. Those kinds of products could revolutionize and change the idea of secondary manufacturing.

There are also opportunities to use hybrid species, which have a much shorter rotation period, perhaps as short as 30 to 40 years. All kinds of technology advances have been looked at through UNBC and others. There are also actions being taken by the chief forester, looking at the future forest industry and coming out with strategy around that.

Our government has been looking at the idea of power production and whether we can utilize forest products for power production. There will be a call coming out in the near future to actually look at doing that.

The new industry of the pellet industry has taken root in this province and should see some significant expansion. In particular, countries like Japan are looking at taking significant amounts of their energy production and are considering using pellets or biomass for that production. Those are opportunities in the forest industry, opportunities for renewals.

So what will the mills of tomorrow look like? I don't think we're going to see quite the focus on the spaghetti factories that we have today — factories that just go through and produce 2-by-4s and dimension lumber.

I think what you will see is that a combination of types of products will be produced — whether that's a combination of pellets, energy, secondary manufacturing such as finger jointing — as well as primary breakdown of the wood. I think that is where you will ultimately see that, because the fibre basket is there, because there are opportunities.

Hopefully, through tenure reform, we'll be able to look at also filling some of that downfall gap. There will be those opportunities for renewal in the industry.

The member opposite mentioned that there are some challenges coming forward, and I don't disagree. There are some real challenges coming forward, but I also believe that where there are opportunities, where there are opportunities created through policy in fibre and where there are opportunities in technology, you will see innovation come forward. You will see investment come forward, and you'll see a renewal of the forest industry that will remain strong in this province for generations to come.

C. Trevena: I rise today to talk about child care and the threat of commodification and commercialization it faces. It's widely recognized that a child's formative years are from birth until the age of seven, and we as a society recognize youngsters as children until they're 12. Yet as a society, we don't start taking societal responsibility for children until they're five, entering kindergarten, or six, when they're going into grade 1 — in other words, when they're at school and, most often, at public school.

The system steps in to provide education, guidance and structure, and this is publicly funded. It's publicly funded because we as a society recognize the importance of education and that all children should have access to education. What's so surprising is that our society does not place the same value on younger children.

Up until the age of five or six, parents who want to go to work or parents who want their children to socialize and to learn, have to simply hunt for child care. The search is painful and worrying, the waiting lists are long, and availability is scarce. This puts families under a huge amount of stress.

I've talked to numerous parents who simply cannot go back to work because they can't find child care. It has been recognized as a problem by B.C.'s chambers of commerce and by the Union of British Columbia Municipalities. It's recognized by communities and definitely by families. B.C. needs child care — affordable, accessible, community-based and publicly funded.

We need to deal with the problem of space, quite simply, by ensuring that trained child care workers get adequate pay, not the survival salaries they receive now. Only then will centres be able to retain staff. Only then will centres not see a drain of skilled staff to the school system or to other fields.

Sadly, the answers that seem to be provided at the moment centre on bricks and mortar, on capital spending instead of running costs. What doesn't seem to be understood by a government which prides itself on its business nous is that capital investment is worthless without operating costs, without running costs and without staff. More worryingly in this business-minded scenario is that public funds — taxpayers' dollars — are now approved to go to private providers.

I said at the start of my statement that I wanted to talk about the commercialization of child care. The decision for taxpayers' money going to private daycares makes it very attractive for people to start treating child care like a business rather than as part of the social fabric. Sadly, because of the lack of government commitment to child care there is still a sense among some people that child care is not part of our social fabric, although there is a huge social need for it, so that spectre of commercialization looms.

It isn't a nightmare scenario, Madam Speaker. It is real. People who run child care centres across the province have received letters from Adroit Investments LLC. "Re: Purchase of your child care centre." I quote from the letter: "We represent a large financial/child care group purchasing child care centres across Canada and looking for centres in British Columbia."

One child care operator said that when she followed up with Adroit, the response was immediate. The purchase of her centre would take just three weeks.

Adroit Investments lists 123 Global on its correspondence, and 123 Global is a partner with corporate child care operators in the United States, Britain, Japan and China. It's linked closely to ABC Learning Centres in Australia, a multi-million-dollar business operation. ABC Learning Centres is in fact the world's largest publicly traded child care provider. I hope I am not alone in thinking that juxtaposing "publicly traded" and "child care provider" seems an oxymoron.

In Australia, where one in four child care spaces is run by ABC, the company has assets worth more than $4 billion Australian and made a profit on child care of $143 million. Under the present B.C. Liberal government's announcement of public funds going to private operators, taxpayers' money could go to these big-box stores, these big-box child care conglomerates. Big-box child care, which is already making a huge profit, will also get child care subsidy money for those families who need subsidy.

ABC recently said that it doesn't plan to enter the Canadian market. However, 123 Global has a Canadian website set up, 123 Busy Beavers. Under the section "Find your centre," the message is that they will be coming soon. So far they haven't bought any centres in B.C., but they have bought in Alberta.

Lessons can be learned from where big-box, commercialized child care is operating. Australia, which effectively pioneered the commercialization of child care, is a case in point. Firstly, the big boxes have shareholders, and they're running child care for a profit. Profit-seeking in the child care field usually means two things: increased fees and cost-cutting in the care of children.

In Australia child care costs have increased at double the rate of increases in household income since public funding for for-profit centres started. By 2006 the cost of child care was rising faster than almost any other good or service.

Big-box child care doesn't mean a solution to the shortage of spaces. On the whole, they're not in rural

areas, they're not in low-income neighbourhoods, and it's hard to find a space for an infant who has special needs. A recent survey in Australia found the country still short 100,000 places.

Perhaps most telling about the commercialization of child care is that in a recent survey in Australia 21 percent of corporate-chain workers said they wouldn't send their children to the centre where they worked because of quality concerns. They're worried about the impact of cost-cutting on the health and safety of their children. In Australia, as in B.C., the staff aren't benefiting. The wages are still low.

A lot of it comes down to the fact that there are shareholders to satisfy and profits to be made. In Australia the government will argue, like here, that they're spending on child care, but much of that money in Australia is going to the big-box operators. At least 40 percent of the revenue earned by Australia's largest child care company comes from government subsidies.

People may say: "That's Australia; this is Canada." But this B.C. Liberal government is opening doors to the system. It is accepting that private operators can get public dollars. It's not standing up to say that the move of big-box child care into our province will not help deal with the crisis in spaces, will not help staff earn a living wage and, most importantly, will not provide our children with the start that they need if they're going to thrive through life.

R. Cantelon: I was a little confused as to which House I was sitting in, whether it be the Australian or the New Zealand House, because much of what the previous speaker from North Island talked about was private big-box operators in New Zealand and in Australia which, as she also indicated, are not here and are not coming here.

Our approach has been entirely different. Yes, we have funded what she referred to as private…. I think it was a bit of equivocation to make that leap to say that private means we're funding the big commercial outfits. In fact, they are private not-for-profit. Let me reiterate and repeat that: private not-for-profit institutes.

In fact, we provide capital funding for 34 such facilities on Vancouver Island, and the list is extensive. There are two in the member's riding. These are not-for-profit institutions. Some are operated in cooperation with school districts, and one is a first nations. That has been the focus in capital funding.

The member also spoke of operating funding, and let me correct her. She said that there is no support for children under three, and that is wrong. On July 1, 2007, the child care operating fund, which funds $60 million in the province and helped subsidize some 82,000 children, was extended to children under three years old.

Also in 2005, recognizing the withdrawal of some of the federal assistance, the subsidy threshold for assistance in child care funding was raised from $21,000 to $38,000, which enables the parents and supporters and caregivers of some 17,000 children on Vancouver Island to receive the benefits of subsidized funding.

The member also mentions a shortage of workers and the need to get it. The government has responded there with $4.5 million of grants, operating grants to fund in-house training, to provide subsidies and bursaries to those taking child care.

There are two classes of child care, really: the group and the family. I'm a parent of five children, and certainly, child care was very important to me. Most recently we had our children, when they were smaller, in what we would call the family child care. That worked very well. I endorse it and support it. I think the friendships that my children built with the daughters of the child care operator have endured to this day. They're now preteens and early teens, and their best friend is the child of one of these day care operators.

I think that encouraging the groups and the family providers of day care services is the way to go, and that has been the policy of this government. If the member opposite has heard some policy statements which contradict the facts I've presented, I'd certainly be interested to hear them. They might be forthcoming.

I think the community-based solutions are the best way to go. I'd like to say that it was in my constituency, but it was in the constituency of the member for Nanaimo that a society came forward with a great idea for John Barsby School: to create a day care centre for children of all ages. I hasten to add this for the member opposite, who stated that it's only children over six. This is for child care right from birth, virtually, so that young mothers, particularly young mothers who had to drop out of school specifically, could receive child care benefits and child care support right on the school campus of John Barsby and continue in their education.

It's really touching. We have one woman who said: "It's different coming back to school after having a child." She said she wanted to finish high school, and then she would actually like to become an early childhood care worker. Another young woman wanted to become a nurse.

So here we have what was a community-based, non-profit — but private — organization. They took the initiative, received the funding — half a million dollars — to set up this facility. They now employ seven full-time workers with 28 spaces, and they meet the needs of the parents.

It's all oriented towards what the parents need, principally young mothers who want to go back to school and finish their high school. It's an intergenerational situation. There's mentorship provided to the young mother to help her become an effective parent. This kind of mentorship, I think, is extremely valuable.

We're working on many fronts. I think I may have mentioned that there were two in the member's riding that were supported — non-profit organizations. I hope we continue in this stretch.

C. Trevena: I agree with some of what the member opposite was saying. Non-profit child care is a very, very good way forward for many families. I think

I think the member opposite missed an important statement by the Minister of State for Childcare a few weeks ago, where the minister of state said that $12½ million of capital funding was going to be made available to private operators, not non-profit. Non-profit is a very good way forward for child care, but these were going to go to private operators.

The member also seemed to miss my statement that we are getting approaches by large operators, big-box child care providers, here in B.C. Letters have gone out to child care providers across B.C. I know that in my own constituency child care providers have received these letters asking if their child care is for sale.

The door is open with $12½ million, some of which can go to private operators. The door is open for the commercialization of child care, which — it seems the member opposite agrees with me — is not the way forward. The way forward is for small operators, for family operators and for group child care. I'm very pleased to hear that. I hope the member will also talk to his minister of state about this and encourage her to go that way.

He also mentions that there are grants for training and for wages for staff, which is very useful, but the staff don't need just grants for training. They need money for wages. Many staff get trained. Many people get trained and can get a job very easily if they wish, but they would have to be earning $14 an hour and can't afford to.

I'd also like to bring to the member's attention the number of child care centres that have closed because they can't find the staff. This is why I say that we have a real child care crisis in this province.

Here in Victoria alone, Beacon Gardens has closed a toddler program because they couldn't get staff. A second program that was going to be opened also closed because they couldn't get staff. Blanshard Community Centre closed their preschool and after-school programs because they couldn't get staff. Harvard Daycare closed because they couldn't get staff.

In fact — and I think it's just outside the member's constituency; it's in the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith's constituency — the Ladysmith Children's Centre closed in August because they couldn't staff. There is now no group child care in Ladysmith.

The Comox Valley and Beaufort children's centres are threatened with closure because they can't get staff. On the mainland we've got the Cariboo Centre closing because they can't get staff.

There is a crisis in child care. There is the fact that we have many centres that need staff. We have many parents that want to have child care. At every centre I have visited, I ask: "What's your waiting list like?" Most of them laugh at me. They say, "Of course we've got a waiting list," and they'll bring out a thick folder of names of families who are desperate to get child care. You talk to those families who want to get child care, and they're desperate. They just need space.

H. Bloy: It's a pleasure to be here this morning to speak to this assembly about an important issue, something that I think is one of the most important goals in our province, positively impacting our well-being, our quality of life and the future of our children. It is something that requires us to work together, not only as a community or a province but truly as a global nation, requiring us to essentially break down borders to form partnerships and make a difference.

We have 4.4 million people in this wonderful province. Together we can join forces to make a huge effort to improve our lives and the lives of all generations to follow in British Columbia.

We face significant challenges with this goal, particularly with the rapid growth in our province and our booming economy. These all result in stress on our natural surroundings. Many things have changed our lives over the years — the way we do business, the distance we travel, and of course, a positive is that we have a much better understanding of what we can do to conserve energy and recycle our waste.

We have come very far. I am encouraging everyone to go further. Even the smallest changes in our daily lives make a great difference. For example, personally, this summer I had an audit conducted on my constituency office by B.C. Hydro in order to learn ways that we can become more environmentally friendly. Since then, I have made huge efforts to turn off lights when I leave a room, unplug my cell phone charger from the wall when I'm done using it. Our office staff is looking at many ways to conserve energy.

Simple changes such as switching to T8 or CFL lightbulbs will make a difference in your office or home's energy consumption, which I encourage everyone to try. However, one of my biggest savings in energy consumption was when my daughter graduated and moved out of the house. I found that the washing machine wasn't running all the time, and the lights weren't left on all the time. She is now learning on her own to conserve energy.

I am proud to see a number of initiatives our government has taken to move us as a province in the right direction towards battling climate change and improving our quality of life. We are truly leading the world in environmental management, with one of our great goals for the golden decade being the best air and water quality and the best fisheries and environmental management, bar none.

Our government is doing a number of things to reach our goals. For example, recently a coalition of European countries, the United States, Canadian provinces, New Zealand and Norway all formed the International Carbon Action Partnership to fight global warming. In fact, our Premier was just in Portugal for this exciting announcement.

We are joining an international forum in which government and public authorities adopting mandatory greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade systems will share experiences and best practices in the design of emissions of trading schemes. This program is truly breaking down borders across the world, making us

I want to say that global warming is a problem that requires a global solution. Our Premier was in Portugal for this event. I see the launch of the international carbon market partnership as a truly significant step forward in the global effort to combat climate change.

Building this global carbon market is fundamental to reducing greenhouse gas emissions while allowing economies to grow and prosper. Tackling global warming requires borders to be removed and international cooperation and collaboration unlike anything we have ever seen before. Together we can do this.

I am very proud to see our government making this a reality. Later this fall the B.C. Liberal government will introduce legislation that mandates greenhouse gas reduction by 33 percent below current levels before 2020. We are leading the country with our targets. B.C.'s energy plan requires net zero greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generated by 2016.

In contrast, I'd like to point out that the provincial NDP tripled greenhouse gas emissions from B.C.'s electrical sector between 1996 and 2001, when they were in office. It's clear to me that this party has no thought on how to deal with climate change. The NDP failed British Columbians throughout the '90s with their lack of care for the environment. The NDP has a sad record on environmental protection.

B.C. is leading Canada in climate change with real action. Our Premier has a plan for climate change which will lead to real results.

I look forward to the response from my colleagues on the other side, and I look forward to my closing remarks on what I think is the most important issue we can deal with in this province.

L. Krog: I'm delighted to rise in response to the member for Burquitlam this morning. When I saw his topic this morning, I thought he might be talking about TILMA or breaking down trade barriers, but I see he took on a much bigger and, frankly, a much more important discussion that should concern every citizen of the world.

Firstly, I have to respond to his suggestion somehow that the government that brought in the Forest Practices Code, that moved so strongly to reduce emissions from pulp mills and polluting industries in this province was somehow a decade of environmental failure. I don't think there's much question that history will look back and say that from 1991 to 1996, under the leadership of Mike Harcourt, this province actually got out of the 19th century and into the 21st century, finally.

The fact is that for decades, under previous right-wing governments, there was no interest paid to the environment. Logging practices were horrendous, overcutting. It was the NDP government of Mike Harcourt that took steps to actually reduce the annual allowable cut to a sustainable cut. It was the NDP government under Mike Harcourt and the leadership of Moe Sihota as Minister of Environment that made British Columbia the leader in the environment.

I find it quite astonishing this morning that the member, when he had an opportunity to talk about something that we all agree is the most important thing facing the planet — climate change — instead took the opportunity to make what I would call fairly cheap partisan shots.

L. Krog: Ah, the member for Vancouver-Burrard, always a clever fellow. I'm delighted to hear his voice. He'll have his opportunity later this morning to speak.

The fact is that you cannot as a government talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions unless you're prepared to talk about reducing consumption, pure and simple. That's the big question no one wants to talk about.

A couple of weeks ago Craig McInnes, a columnist at the Vancouver Sun, I think made some very important points in his column. The reality is that if we are going to reduce consumption, then we are going to have a real impact on climate change and on environmental degradation around the planet. It is not for us in this country to turn to China, for instance, and say, "Stop polluting," when at the same time we buy all those Chinese goods produced in factories that are heavily polluting, that have led to something like a 50-percent increase in infant health problems in China in the last five or six years.

We are going to have to step back and say to ourselves: "You know what? Maybe what we learned from our grandparents is important. Maybe we don't throw out the twist-ties. Maybe we save the plastic bags. Maybe we just don't buy things simply because we have the money to do so. We buy it because we actually need it."

If we are going to really address climate change, if we are really going to make an impact on what happens in the world, we're going to have to do dramatic things in this country in particular. As we all know, Canadians are the highest per-capita users of energy on the face of the planet. We're the guilty ones.

In fairness, we live in a northern climate, so we face some difficulties. The member for Peace River North knows about that. The member from Prince George, who spoke earlier this morning, advised me that over the weekend he was shovelling snow. Well, we weren't shovelling much snow down here on beautiful Vancouver Island over the weekend, but they were in Prince George.

That aside, it is about us stepping up to the plate and acknowledging that we cannot continue to grow, grow, grow the way we have historically. It is simply not the solution, and that's the big problem that no one wants to talk about. That's the big problem that no one wants to face.

How, in the face of a planet that is reacting to human consumption — whether it be of carbon fuels or minerals or fish out of the sea — are we going to react

and change our lifestyles so that this wonderful word "sustainability," which has become the buzzword for everybody, actually takes on a real meaning for everyone? It means that we're going to have to — whether it's through government policy, taxation, the cost of fuel, the availability of transit or whatever — live where we work.

Years ago I said to a millworker from Alberni who was at a public meeting on the other side…. He lived in beautiful Qualicum Beach. I said: "Some day, I hate to say, if you want to work at that mill in Alberni, you're going to have to live in Alberni. You're going to have to make Alberni just as livable.…"

H. Bloy: I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member for Nanaimo. I somewhat take exception to his cheap political shots when I was speaking of reality. There's a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

You know, on January 18 of this year the NDP released a report card documenting what they deemed to be the failure of our government to affect climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. As proven in this House today and in the past, the B.C. NDP talk the talk, but they can't walk the walk.

I want to point out a few of the NDP failed attempts at the facts. The NDP claim greenhouse gas emissions rose 5.5 percent in our government's first three years, the largest three-year increase since 1990. Fact: GHG not only rose 24 percent between 1991 and 2001, but the largest three-year increase actually occurred under the NDP when gas emissions increased by 16 percent between 1993 and 1996. Fact: the B.C. government has the second-lowest GHG emissions per capita in Canada, and we are improving rapidly on that rank.

On the subject of energy production, the NDP claim that the government refuses to take a leadership role in the production of alternate energy. Fact — so that the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville will know: a total of 325 megawatts of wind power has been approved by B.C. Hydro in our 2006 call. Fact: the NDP failed to approve one single wind project in their ten years of government. The B.C. government has allocated $204 million to expand the Brilliant hydro power plant near Castlegar to produce additional clean energy from a renewable resource.

On the subject of transportation, the NDP claims that government broke its promise that climate change and GHG reductions will be addressed in B.C.'s transportation planning and investment strategies. Fact: road transportation GHG emissions increased by 24 percent from 1991 to 1999. Total transportation GHG emissions increased by 26.3 percent from '91 to 2001 compared to 12 percent from 2001 to 2004 under our government.

Fact: the government established a $40 million LocalMotion fund to help B.C. municipalities build bike paths, walkways, greenways and improve accessibility.

Hon. G. Abbott: I call public bills in the hands of private members, and I call private members' Motion 70.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 70 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper.

Mr. Speaker, many aspects of provincial law govern every corner of the province. There are exceptions, of course. Take, for example, local government. Some provincial laws or regulations are more applicable to one region as opposed to another.

The same could be said, I suppose, for various first nations throughout the province, where there are different circumstances and different resources for one first nation versus the next. With regards to local government, by statute there are different rules applied differently to different municipalities. For example, the Vancouver Charter gives the city of Vancouver more authority in some respects than other municipalities governed under the Community Charter.

However, any differences are set out in law. There are some laws that govern us — laws that not only ensure our economic survival as a province but that ensure our most important resource, along with water and air, which is food.

The implications of destroying our agricultural land base are enormous. In British Columbia we are not making any more farmland. As we cover our food-producing lands with asphalt, in turn we place greater emphasis on developing countries to produce cash crops to feed us. On the surface this may not seem to be a bad thing until, of course, it becomes unsustainable, as vital planet-surviving entities such as tropical rain forests are burnt down for more crops in order to feed you and me.

Hon. Speaker, you're well aware of the member for Burquitlam, who just gave us the boastful notion about his government's record relative to fighting climate

change and global warming and the need to talk the talk and walk the walk. We heard the dissertation about greenhouse gas emissions, the need to tap global warming and stop it and the need to reduce carbon by 33 percent by the year 2020.

We agree with that kind of notion, but you have to walk the walk. You have to deal with it in all aspects of life, and saving farmland is the first precept towards that. We can't go on destroying our valuable farmland and then tell others in Brazil that they can't destroy their rain forests in order to feed us.

We have a self-reliance index in British Columbia whereby we are only 56-percent reliant on our food base, which means that 44 percent of our food comes from elsewhere. That importation of food increases the carbon footprint.

A year ago, strangely enough, I was in Florida and came across a B.C. Hot House tomato. I was quite impressed with that one, but then I realized, of course, that it came from California. B.C. Hot House actually does produce tomatoes in California.

The point of the matter is that you'd think that in somewhere like Florida they would be producing their own produce, particularly tomatoes. But that's what's happening regarding our food production.

The Agricultural Land Commission, set out in 1974 under the Land Commission Act, universally applies throughout the province to lands that are agriculturally viable. Unfortunately, it has on occasion been politicized for the developer, but on the whole it's worked. The Agricultural Land Commission is the envy of North America.

We must learn from our mistakes. In 1974 governments around B.C. began planning their communities around the preservation of farmland. In my community of Delta we've seen that happen. We've seen developers having to go through a process. They actually can — seen on occasion — trade land, but it goes through a process. On some of it, I don't like the proposal, but it goes to the Land Commission, and they make those decisions.

What is done before the Land Commission has been done. Those days of unchecked development cannot be repeated for whatever reason. If the removal of B.C.'s best soil-based farmland is the ends to a means for settling treaties, then all farmland could be up for grabs.

The rationale for ALR exclusion, according to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations, is based on unleashing historical wrongs by freeing up restrictions imposed upon the land. I've heard him say that the first nations should be able to develop the land like anybody else. He will cite McDonald's hamburgers and gas stations as examples, zoning that predated the Land Commission.

But he really is showing his government's own disdain of land restrictions, because he knows that local governments must go through a process first before any change to that land restriction. The ALR has been a hindrance to developers that have many politicians in their back pockets.

So how do we settle treaties? How far do we set the clock in order to settle treaties? Do we arbitrarily say it's within the NDP golden years of creating the ALC? Why not remove the restraints around the air quality standards of today and use, let's say, the 1950s or '60s standard for making a treaty? After all, by law, these are imposed standards, and they weren't there many years previous.

I can see that this may seem a little silly, but where is the benchmark? Something is happening. Legislating exclusion of the ALR for the desire to develop the best farmland in B.C. for port-related industry and development in Delta is creating the precedent. But destroying farmland is not in keeping with traditional values.

I want to conclude by citing the Salish creation story — which the Tsawwassen, eerily enough, are members of — as to why we must save the ALR. According to Salish legend, our story began when the Creator, the maker, put the animal world on this earth. The world was not yet fit for mankind because of many evils. So the Creator sent the coyote first with his brother the fox to this big island, as the elders called this land, to free it of evils.

The brothers were responsible for creating many geological formations and for providing special skills and knowledge for mankind to use. However, the coyote, being the coyote, left many faults such as greed, jealousy, hunger, envy, anger and many other imperfections that we know of today.

At the core of this story is the fact that we are all made by the Creator, and we must respect and love each other. All creation consists not only of mankind but of all creations in the animal world, the mineral world, the plant world — all elements and forces of nature. Each has a spirit that lives and must be respected and loved.

The elders tell us that the coyote, a scavenger nevertheless, and his brother are at the edge of this island, this land, waiting. When the coyote comes back through here, it will be the end of our time, the end of this part of the universe if we do not live as one creation — all part of one big circle.

We must always work for a time when there is no evil, no racial prejudice, no pollution; when once again everything will be clean and beautiful for the eye to behold; a time when spiritual, physical, mental and social values are interconnected to form a complete circle.

Have we become the coyote, if we do not live as one creation, all part of the big circle? By protecting our animal world, our plant world and our farmland and by respecting all people in British Columbia, we can live together and form the complete circle. We can find harmony. We can build meaningful relationships. We can create treaties. And, yes, we can save farmland. Creating treaties and saving farmland is benefit-mutual. I ask that all members of the House support this motion.

V. Roddick: This motion truly is illogical. I would like to start off by asking: how could this member insist that a large decision like this one go before a body like the Agricultural Land Commission rather than being decided by publicly elected representatives? This is the

type of decision that each and every one of us sitting here in this Legislature should have an opportunity to vote on. It's rich that this member is speaking out against this treaty and what it means when he and several of his colleagues didn't even have the wherewithal to show up and vote.

It's taken a long time to negotiate treaties in B.C. Having the ALC or any other similar jurisdiction as a final arbiter on treaties would undermine the entire treaty negotiation process. Treaties involve three negotiating parties: first nation, provincial and federal government. It's not the role of the ALC to determine the outcome of treaty negotiations. The mandate of the ALC is to preserve today's farmland, not settle historical treaties.

The proposal would put the ALC in an untenable and inappropriate position. Each treaty negotiation is unique to the first nation or first nations involved, taking into account their distinctive history, geography, goals. Successful negotiations require flexibility, pragmatism and good faith from all parties.

Much of the developed land in Ladner and Tsawwassen was at one time prime agricultural land, as it was most everywhere else in the country. First nations communities should have the same opportunity to make decisions in their best interests and to have some land available for development, just like the rest of us had.

The opposition's proposal is the height of hypocrisy and is akin to saying: "Here's some land. But you can't build houses on it; you can't build businesses on it. In fact, you can't redevelop it — period."

To be blunt, Mr. Speaker, the NDP record is less than stellar. Six Mile Ranch immediately springs to mind. Under the NDP, significant land was removed from the ALR. In four years between 1997 and 2000, 39,300 acres were removed. By comparison, in the five-year…

V. Roddick: …period between '02 and '06, less than half the amount of agriculture land came out of the ALR, or approximately 7,500 acres — less than half the amount removed by the NDP.

Since 2001 the province has added more land to the ALR, removed less, thereby increasing the total by approximately 116,000 acres. We will continue to add and, possibly more importantly, build more land in the future.

Our government supports regional decision-making so our best agricultural lands will remain stable and secure for future food production. The Agricultural Land Commission administers the ALR as an independent, arm's-length agency. Having six regional panels instead of one provincial panel balances provincial interests with those of local communities in a regionally responsive manner.

The David Suzuki Foundation supports the ALR moving to more regional representation, in its report named Forever Farmland: Reshaping the Agricultural Land Reserve for the 21st Century. While we recognize that there are needs and challenges that will continue to face the ALR and the ALC, the province firmly believes in protecting agricultural land, particularly prime agricultural land, because we all still have to eat to live.

L. Krog: Well, having had the pleasure of listening to the member for Delta South, I am convinced of two things. Firstly, she didn't listen to the member who spoke previously and who brought the motion forward nor, obviously, did she read the motion itself.

The motion is pretty clear. It's simply asking that if you're going to exclude agricultural land in the future from the agricultural land reserve, instead of this House doing it, you actually put it in front of the commission that's designed to look after that — independent — so that it isn't influenced by crass political decision-making. That was the whole point of the agricultural land reserve.

The member for Delta South goes on and on in this House about the importance of preserving agricultural land — we have to eat to live and blah, blah, blah. Of course we have to eat to live. We understand that on this side of the House. It's why the NDP, with the leadership of people like Harold Steves and Dave Stupich and Dave Barrett, brought in the agricultural land reserve.

What did it meet? It met a bunch of real estate developers on the lawns of the Legislature dressed up like farmers in their new overalls, pretending they were concerned about private property rights. Yeah, that was a great bit of political history.

The creation of the agricultural land reserve is one of the most profoundly important pieces of legislation that has ever been passed by the Legislature of British Columbia. It marked a goal and a step forward that should be a model for this country.

I see that Ontario has finally gotten into the game. They have figured out that they have to preserve their agricultural land — because we can't eat unless we can grow food, and we grow food on farmland.

What the member was speaking about in his motion was simply the concept that when you've created an Agricultural Land Commission and an agricultural land reserve, you don't make the process political.

I must admit the member for Delta South was correct when she talked about the Six Mile Ranch. I'll be the first to acknowledge in this House that that was a mistake. It was a bad decision. It was a bad decision, and it never should have been done. I can tell the member for Delta South that no NDP government will ever make that stupid a decision again, because we are now beginning to see the wisdom of the Legislature in 1972 when the Barrett government was elected during that term. We are now beginning to see the wisdom of bringing in an agricultural land reserve.

As the degradation of agricultural lands around the world occurs, as the cost of transporting food increases over time, as the importance of having locally grown, locally produced food consumed at home, as the importance of the 100-mile diet becomes clear to us, the wisdom of that particular government becomes even clearer.

I say to the member for Delta South and to all members of this House this morning that this is an important motion. This is a concept and a principle that should never be abandoned: that you leave the decision about what stays in the agricultural land reserve to the Agricultural Land Commission. You should be restoring it to its full independence. You should be taking all decision-making out of local bodies. You should be putting it back to an independent commission that looks out for the interests of all British Columbians.

Frankly, every acre of land that disappears, particularly prime agricultural land, is irreplaceable. It takes millions of years to create good soil — millions of years. It only takes a stroke of a pen to eliminate it — only a stroke of a pen.

I'm on the side of nature on this one, not the people who hold the pen. So I support the motion brought forward this morning. This is a first-class motion. This is an excellent motion, and the government benches should support it.

R. Hawes: The debate so far has been very, very interesting. I read the motion, and to be honest, I think the motion is really the wrong motion. I think what the mover was trying to say is: "Let's never take any land out of the agricultural land reserve. So therefore, let's just not have treaties." That's what it would appear to me to be.

We negotiated the treaty with the Tsawwassen, which included removal of land from the ALR as part of that negotiation process, as the member for Delta South said. It was a three-party negotiation between the Tsawwassen, the provincial government and the federal government — not an outside, unelected body.

However, the fundamental question of this motion comes down to, as far as I'm concerned: first, are treaties in the provincial interest? Second, should land be taken out of the agricultural land reserve, if it is in the provincial interest? Apparently, for those on the other side in the NDP, this is not in the provincial interest.

The mover told a story about the Salish. I have a story, so I'm going to tell my little story. It's more modern. It happened in the 1990s.

It involved a number of players — the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who was, at that time, principal secretary to Premier Glen Clark; the member for Saanich South, special assistant to Cathy McGregor, Minister of Environment; the Minister of Agriculture, from Nelson-Creston. There was sitting in cabinet, in this House, the member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, the member for Surrey–Green Timbers, the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, the member for Yale-Lillooet — all in cabinet. There was the member for Nanaimo sitting in the House. When the event of the day took place with them all here, there was nary a whisper of complaint from any.

This involved, and it does involve, Six Mile Ranch. The Premier was asked whether or not his principal secretary had been sent to lobby at the Agricultural Land Commission to remove this land. The Premier's answer was: "I do know that staff routinely discuss with the Agricultural Land Commission proposals that are before it. All staff do, and I did as an MLA and as an opposition member, as well, around issues before the Agricultural Land Commission."

That is very funny, because subsequently the Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner ruled that "a minister must not make personal representation on behalf of a constituent…regardless of the ministry under which the commission, board, agency or other tribunal operates. A minister acting in such a way would always be seen as a minister of government, and that is a position of responsibility that he or she cannot shed at will." In other words, you cannot act as an MLA when you are a minister. You are a minister. That little quirk didn't seem to bother the Premier of the day.

What happened when the principal secretary and perhaps the Premier himself had lobbied the Agricultural Land Commission? They said: "No, Six Mile Ranch cannot come out." In the words of Premier Clark from Hansard, very clearly the commission made an earlier finding against Six Mile Ranch. "We then chose to seek as to whether it was in the provincial interest and set up a different process to review the matter."

Clearly, the government wanted the land out for some reason, because they thought it was in the provincial interest. Perhaps it was crass political motives, as the member for Nanaimo said. Well, I don't know. Let's examine that, as the story progresses.

Wow, a window into the cabinet and the caucus in the NDP. This is getting to be good stuff. "We have moved it to a different process." Very interesting — a different process.

We have heard the NDP get up and talk about…. "Don't make land removal political," said the member for Nanaimo. He was here on that infamous day this story unfolded in the 1990s.

Here's the memo that went from Cathy McGregor, Minister of Environment, dated September 23, 1996, and read into Hansard as part of this ongoing story. "This project" — Six Mile Ranch — "is necessary…and it will be significant from a re-election point of view, as Kamloops is well known as the 'bellwether riding.'"

Gosh. That's the window into the NDP provincial interest. "Let's go. It's good for my re-election." Then they have the crass temerity to get up and say: "Don't make this political." How is making a treaty with a band like the Tsawwassen political? It has absolutely nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with doing what is in the best interest of British Columbians.

What is so interesting is how quickly the NDP are able to shed the cloak of shame they should be wearing and point fingers at what is going on here today, when,

as the member for Delta South said, over 30,000 acres were removed in a five-year period in the 1990s. Clearly, here's an example of where land was removed for crass political motives.

I don't see how any member from the NDP could get up and try to lecture on this topic, given the history. The interesting thing, as former Premier Clark said, is that all of it is transparent, including debate internal to the NDP. Well, the debate internal and the transparent part is this: "It will be significant from a re-election point of view, as Kamloops is well known as the 'bellwether riding.'" That's the insight; that's the clarity; that's the transparency that came out through a leaked document — right? — that is forever to be the shame of these members, who were here.

I read the list. They are still here. They were totally and completely mute on this topic in the 1990s, yet today they get up and want to expound forth with this new-found sense of…

R. Hawes: "Sanctimony," says the member for Yale-Lillooet. "Sanctimony," he says. How can anyone, including that member who sat here in the 1990s, stand up and say "sanctimony"? Shame, shame on him. The bottom line….

The interesting thing is that we are in favour of treaties. We understand how you negotiate a treaty. Through the 1990s no treaties were negotiated the way this treaty under the Treaty Commission has been negotiated, and another one is coming later this month. We are making progress with settling the wrongs that have gone on for too long with the aboriginal community.

We will not let this sanctimonious, hypocritical motion stand in the way of settling our historic problems with the aboriginal community. The grievances that they have had for many, many years that have been outstanding are going to be settled. They're not going to be settled by involving unelected boards that really have no responsibility back to the taxpayer. These treaties are going to be settled through negotiation between the parties that are to be there.

I will look forward to hearing some more sanctimony, but I really hope that the NDP members, as they get up one by one, will read this memo as part of their speech — the fact that from a re-election standpoint, clearly that's one of the criteria for provincial interest in their party.

L. Krog: I rise on a point of personal privilege. I hate to be critical of the member for Maple Ridge–Mission, who gave the most inaccurate dissertation about the 1990s, but I was neither a member of cabinet nor a Member of the Legislative Assembly at the time that he refers to. I'm sure he's going to apologize.

R. Hawes: Just to respond to that, I believe that what I said was, "As well, the member for Nanaimo sat," but not as a member of cabinet. I have a list of who was in cabinet at that time.

L. Krog: I was not a member of the assembly. If the member listened as well as he talked, he'd know that.

S. Hammell: The actions of the NDP government in the '70s were visionary and courageous — visionary because the government could see clearly the future of agricultural land in B.C., and the future looked bleak. Everywhere in B.C. voracious cities were pushed by their need to expand, and they gobbled up the land surrounding them. As the suburbs relentlessly sprawled out from the cities, the easiest land to develop was often the tilled land of farms. Much of the farmland of Richmond was the first to disappear — the place I grew up.

Close to Vancouver and with a growing airport, some of the best farmland in B.C. was alienated and destroyed by runways, roads, houses, commercial buildings and all the other paraphernalia that is needed to support the growth of a suburb. The farmland of the delta, which took years for nature to deposit, was sullied by perceived higher needs of the community it supported.

If we were to preserve the farmland — and it was needed for the future — action had to be taken and the land protected. Therefore, the agricultural land reserve was created. This was visionary because the government saw the problem and saw the solution, and the solution that was created has stood the test of time. It was courageous because no government in this country had been so bold, courageous because the reaction was heated and intense and courageous because the action cost them at the polls in '75.

But a legacy for this province was created that no government has since dismantled — altered somewhat, but not dismantled — not the Social Credit government that followed, not the NDP government nor the Liberal government, because the people of B.C. have embraced the value of the agricultural land reserve and its protection for all of our future.

What we should be doing now is curtailing any future actions that remove agricultural land from the agricultural land reserve. In fact, we should be adding to the reserve. If land must be removed, an equivalent amount of land of equal quality should be added. All of this should be overseen by the Agricultural Land Commission.

All of us, every one of us, now understand that the world around us is heavily impacted by our behaviour. One of the responses to the consequence of the CO2 emissions pumped out into the air by automobiles and trucks is to look for our food closer to home. Reducing the miles food has to be carted to reach our tables is critical.

Currently we buy food from around the world that is shipped by truck, airplane, freighter and any other way we can. Protecting our farmland is key to producing our food for our future and for protecting our ability to grow our own food.

This farmland needs to be close to and part of our cities and suburbs. The hundred-mile diet is a serious movement followed by many people who are concerned that we, as a society, become self-sufficient in our food sources and that the food system is sustainable. To do this, we need land.

We need to be adding to the agricultural land reserve viable land that is outside the reserve and currently producing food. We need to be mindful of climate change and how that is affecting the land. Land that was not arable for years may now become arable. Changes that may not seem possible now may, indeed, be our future. Who would ever think that at some point we may be growing pistachios in Winfield? Amazing.

With global warming, our future is uncertain. To meet and mitigate that uncertainty, securing the land that will grow our food is critical. The Agricultural Land Commission is the independent gatekeeper who should guard that food source for our future.

D. Routley: I rise to support this motion, which seeks to protect the ALR from the greedy hands of the B.C. Liberal Party that would use it as a bartering agent, a bartering piece, in the quest to settle not treaties but transactions.

The B.C. Liberal approach to treaty-making in B.C. has been one of transaction-making, not treaty-making. The B.C. Liberals ought to change their name to Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers — or maybe it is "Riches Auctioneers" — because whether it's the TFL or this issue, the ALR, it's a matter of liquidating the interests of B.C.

They took government in order to dismantle government. They took government in order to open the doors of the treasury to their friends, and this is how they're doing it.

Why are the B.C. Liberals afraid of this ALR? Because it's the one piece that stands in the way of the commercial development of the agricultural lands of B.C. In this age when they claim to be environmentalists, this age of food security awareness, of environmentalism, of the hundred-mile diet, this is when the B.C. Liberal Party would step up and try to break down our ALR — the envy of this country.

Who are the B.C. Liberals acting for? Pragmatism was driving the bus. Pragmatism powered the bus, and greed was the driver — pragmatism in finding solutions to treaties in order that their friends can build terminals or that they can have access to oil and gas quicker without the consultation, without the nasty business of process under the ALR. This is their simplified solution, which is an attack both on treaty-making and on the ALR.

Treaty-making under the Liberals is as simple as short-term opportunism. They have now created an unsustainable model which has placed us firmly in stasis. How will we solve treaties in the future with demands similar to the one that has been offered here? There will be no ALR left, and there will be no resources left in B.C. if they are to continue.

This is particularly galling with a Premier who stood up to challenge the Nisga'a agreement and whose party has stood up in the past to challenge the ALR.

These Socreds in Liberal clothing haven't changed a bit. They were destroyed, and they invaded the body of the B.C. Liberal Party, but they're Socreds nonetheless, who have had their sights targeted on the ALR ever since it was created in 1973.

It's taken them this long to figure out a pragmatic way to assault that precious body, the ALR, and it is disgraceful. It is a disgrace to the treaty process that the ALR would be put up as a bargaining chip, and it is a disgrace to this province that this B.C. Liberal government should act as land agents for the biggest business people in B.C. while they pretend to seek reconciliation.

J. Rustad: I am pleased to be able to rise to speak to Motion 70 this morning. You know, I've been listening to some of the debate and listening to the intent of the motion, and the first thing I have to say is: why is this motion on the floor today?

Is the opposition that opposed to a treaty that they're looking for a backdoor route to be able to oppose treaty processes? It seems to be the reason why this is even on the floor here.

I understand the need for agricultural land. I understand that. But you know what? I have to say that if people are not happy about this treaty and about the terms of this treaty, why don't they have the ability to be able to stand up in this House and vote their conscience?

I know that one member, the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, did say that they were going to stand up to vote their conscience, and look what happened. They got kicked out of the party.

Now we have a motion that is being brought up to try to put forward a backdoor way to be able to oppose something like this treaty. This is the definition of hypocrisy — to stand up in the House and say, "Yes, we support this treaty," but then to stand up and say: "No, we're not interested in this, and we want there to be another process that goes on."

The ALR is very important to this province. It has been for a long time. The ability to be able to grow food, to be able to meet our needs within our province, has always been a critical component.

But I have to say this. This motion suggests that something as important as treaties — something as

important, as groundbreaking and as historical — that rights wrongs that have been there for 100 or 150 years…. They are suggesting that the ultimate hammer on that should come from unelected, appointed officials.

How on earth could it be that that side of the House believes that democracy is so flawed that they want to have appointed officials to be able to hide their actual intentions about treaty-making? It's clear to me that treaties and…. This particular treaty with the Tsawwassen is so important to move forward, for the people but also for the province. Like I say, it's just a shame.

I want to go back and talk a little bit about the ALR and about the process involving the ALR. There has only been one time in our history that government directly interfered and removed land from the ALR. I have here an order-in-council that was signed on June 10, 1998, by the then Minister of Agriculture, the member for Nelson-Creston, as well as the then Premier of the province — a direct order-in-council removing land from the ALR.

That has never been done in the past, yet it was done under the NDP government in the 1990s. So to stand up today and say that for something as important as treaty commissions and for something as important as the treaty process, there should be special rules, that it should go through the Agricultural Land Commission…. Like I say, that is the height of hypocrisy. This motion….

You know, I do want to come back and say that the ALR is important. There's no question that it's important. There's no question that there are values, and the needs in this province….

But when you consider the fact that treaties spanned so much more legislation, so many more needs and so many more interests in this province, I cannot see how you would want to muddy the waters, how you would want to bring other groups into this process, which is so difficult to do, only to try and — quite frankly, it looks like to me — stymie the process of actually being able to go through and negotiate treaties.

Having seen a little bit of the treaty process…. It's only a small amount because I don't have a great history in working with first nations. But I have seen just a little bit of the challenges and the difficulties there are to get through that process — understanding the emotions and the difficulties within each community, not just the first nations but also within the people of the province and of the country.

To be able to go through, to be able to put things on the table, to be able to hammer them through the treaty process and to ultimately come to an agreement…. I mean, it's historic. It is amazing to see, and it is something that we should be proud of because of the groundbreaking that this does.

You know what? I just can't understand. If the member for Delta North really wants to see another process put on in front of that, how many more do they want to put in? What is at the root of the issue? I can only conclude the root of the issue is that he was not able to stand up and voice his opinion against this treaty, and he's looking for another option.

With that, I have to say that I'm very much opposed to this. I'm surprised, quite frankly, that the opposition even brought this forward. I'm surprised that they put this as one of their top priorities, given that we have had three weeks of debate on this treaty — on all the issues of this treaty — in this House.

Given the importance of this and given the fact that that party had it as a whipped vote so that their opposition members could not stand up and vote as opposed to this, I am very surprised they are bringing this motion forward for debate this morning.

M. Karagianis: In following the debate this morning, it's fascinating to see how many of the members of government have been debating on a bill that they obviously have not read. The essence of this bill is about getting rid of political interference here, and it's interesting how the government members immediately want to start talking about the treaty. They seem very defensive about the ALR component of the treaty.

I'd like to talk here a little bit about, in fact, the moral imperative here that comes out of this member's bill, which is around making sure that the ALR is protected now and for the foreseeable future. While the members like to stand up and talk about Six Mile Ranch as being somehow the poster child, let's remind those members that while they were in opposition, they not only supported it but were demanding that that occur. If you want to talk about sanctimonious argument here this morning, I think we're hearing more than enough of it from the other side of the House.

One of the previous speakers talked about the 100-mile diet, and we hear in the House all the time about having to eat to live. Food security is at the heart of this. As we move further and further into the imperative of climate change, it is going to be more and more important that we can actually eat food that's grown closer to home. There's a growing demand across the economy by consumers for more and more locally grown food.

As long as we are going to continue to erode the ALR and force ourselves to be more and more dependent on countries elsewhere, not even on this continent, who will supply the food to us while we know what kind of politics are unfolding in their own communities, then we actually have a moral imperative to protect the ALR. This is where the line is drawn here. So this debate is about no more political interference.

I speak strongly in support of the motion and urge everyone in this House as well to vote in favour of this bill.

H. Lali: I rise to support this motion that is before us, and just for the record I want to read it.

Nothing in here says anything about going against treaties, as some of the members opposite have suggested. Really, standing here to look across at the members opposite and the hypocrisy that is coming forward in terms of their statements and the shameful comments that some of them are actually making in terms of this, it is just a little hard to take.

It is the Liberal Party that has changed its positions in terms of treaty-making and even in terms of the ALR, when you talk about it. I'm not going to sit here and actually recount all the history of the ALR. Since 1973 it has been the NDP that has consistently, starting with Dave Stupich and Dave Barrett, put forward the ideas every time that agricultural land has to be protected.

It's been the Socreds, now dressed up as Liberals, who have always consistently tried to erode theindependence of the Land Commission, whether they want to build golf courses or regionalize the Agricultural Land Commission into small regions or outright trying to — doing it, not just trying it — sneak land out of the ALR through the back door because they couldn't do it honestly in the front door, and put it before an Agricultural Land Commission whose independent right it has been, according to the laws before this House…. It's their independence, and they decide whether land should be taken out or not. They've done it in the back door.

Nobody on this side of the House has ever suggested there was any kind of a secret deal between Deltaport and the aboriginal people. If there's a secret deal, it exists between the Liberals and Deltaport, because they couldn't do it through the front door, so they tried to take the land out through the back door and use treaties as a reason to try to do that.

It was the NDP that started the Treaty Commission. It was the NDP that put forward the Agricultural Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve. There's nothing that says that one has to be sacrificed for the other. There's nothing that says that ALR could not be a part of treaty-making. As a matter of fact, it was the NDP in the 1990s that said that Crown land, ALR, could be a part of treaty-making.

It's the Liberals that have basically blown up the independence of the Agricultural Land Commission, and in turn, they're trying to look after their buddies in the Deltaport — their friends, those folks that actually financed their election campaigns. They couldn't do it through the front door and do it honestly. They've allowed it and used the excuse of treaties to try to do it. If there's any shame that folks in this House should feel, it should be the members opposite — they're the ones.

We have only a small portion of our province that is agricultural land. We need land in order to survive, in order to grow our own food. It's the Liberals who have consistently eroded the integrity of the Land Commission. If you look at it, it's actually the thin edge of the wedge.

If you look at the statements on December 8, 1998, referring to treaties in this House, here's what the Premier, then the opposition leader, said during question period:

If you want to talk about hypocrisy, right here in that statement…. Maybe it's the Premier. Maybe it's actually these Liberals who should be talking to the Premier and asking him this question — not the members on the opposite side but the Premier himself. He's done it. Whatever he was speaking against in the 1990s, he's done it now himself. He's reversed it, and these people across the way should feel shame because they're not standing up to protect our agricultural land.

All this talk about actually expanding the ALR. In 2004 the David Suzuki Foundation and other groups, especially the foundation, put out a report criticizing the Liberals. They wanted them to actually protect farmland. They say that the report suggested the reserve had grown to an "all-time high of 4.76 million hectares…mainly through the addition of less productive land in northern B.C." It criticized the loss of land in more fertile areas.

They should be ashamed of themselves because they say one thing when they're in opposition, and they do another when they start governing.

I rise to support this motion, put forward by my friend from Delta North, that the integrity and independence of the Agricultural Land Commission ought to be protected, that this Liberal government ought not to use treaty-making as a back door to try to get land out of the ALR. I want to say that this is something that I support very much.

C. Wyse: I do note the hour. I would like to make some comments on this, but taking direction from you, I would adjourn this most important debate that I wish I'd had the opportunity to speak to.

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