Hansard — Monday, February 18, 2008 p.m.

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY


CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page


Introductions by Members		9731

Tributes		9731
	Jeneece Edroff
	Hon. G. Campbell

Introductions by Members		9731

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		9731
	Allan Matthews
	C. Wyse
	Black History Month
	D. Hayer
	Faith-based organizations in New Westminster
	C. Puchmayr
	Kathy Barnett
	J. McIntyre
	Cariboo dogsled mail run
	B. Simpson
	North Shore Community Resources Society
	K. Whittred

Oral Questions		9733
	Definition of revenue-neutral
	C. James
	Hon. C. Taylor
	B. Ralston
	Hon. R. Thorpe
	B.C. Hydro and independent power producers
	J. Horgan
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	TransLink board remuneration and transit rates
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. K. Falcon
	Ferry fares
	G. Coons
	Hon. K. Falcon
	C. Trevena
	ICBC rate structure
	H. Lali
	Hon. J. Les
	Funding for sexual abuse intervention program
	N. Simons
	Hon. T. Christensen

Point of Privilege		9739
	B. Simpson
	R. Hawes

Petitions		9739
	C. Wyse

Throne Speech Debate (continued)		9739
	M. Sather
	R. Hawes
	S. Fraser
	Hon. T. Christensen
	C. Trevena
	D. MacKay
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. K. Krueger

C. James: All of us in this Legislature know that it's impossible for us to do our jobs if not for the support of family and friends in our lives, and I have two such friends visiting me in the Legislature today. They moved in on my street as neighbours and became close friends — we raised our children together — and are a very important part of my life. It also happens to be Pat's birthday, so I would like the House both to wish her a very happy birthday and to welcome Pat and Allan Miller to the Legislature.

Hon. G. Campbell: We all in this Legislature have heard of Jeneece Edroff, a young girl from Saanich who at the age of seven years old started to raise money in her school for children in Variety Club. In her first year she raised $164. She suffers, as I'm sure members will remember, from a rare disease known as neurofibromatosis.

Her family receives support through Variety, but Jeneece thought she could go out and talk with kids in the community, go around the community and try and raise resources for other people. She started when she was seven. I'd like to tell the House that this year alone she raised $400,000. She can now say that she has raised $1.1 million for the children of British Columbia, and I'd like to congratulate her for that exceptional feat.

N. Macdonald: I'd like to make a couple of introductions. First, I'd like to welcome Tara Taylor. She is from White Rock, and she is with Bram Rossman, who is from Invermere and was a journalist in Invermere and has just returned from Central America. If you could join me in making them welcome.

Secondly, it's my privilege to have my wife Karen here with me, and my daughter Danielle and my daughter Brandy. They're joining us, Danielle for the first time. Please join me in making them welcome.

Hon. O. Ilich: I, too, have a member of my family here today. My son Matthew is here to watch the proceedings today, and he is joined by my administrative assistant from my office, Jane Wong. Would the House please make them welcome today.

C. Wyse: Indeed, it must be family day here in the Legislature. I have three introductions I would like to make. I will start off by introducing my daughter to the House, Anne Marie Wyse, who is visiting us from Alberta. I would also like to introduce to the House Al Matthews, who is formerly from Cariboo North. Al now lives here in Victoria. Finally, I would like to recognize Roxanne Carr, who is a councillor with Strathcona county in Alberta, in ward 2. I would ask the House to indeed make these three individuals welcome.

J. Brar: Up in the gallery I have a couple of friends I would like to introduce to this House. We have Jaspreet Singh Kahlon, who is specially visiting us from San Francisco, and we also have Ranjit Sandhu, who lives in this beautiful city of Victoria. Please make both of them welcome.

Hon. R. Thorpe: As you are aware, Penticton this year will celebrate 100 years. On behalf of the Centennial Committee of Penticton, a book has been prepared by the Penticton writers and publishers and all kinds of other volunteers in Penticton. On behalf of Penticton, it's my pleasure to present this book to the Legislative Library of the Legislative Assembly.

C. Wyse: I am particularly pleased to address the House today to acknowledge a man who has recently been recognized for his volunteer work. This man is a volunteer who has given his time, his talents and his heart to his community, and he's in the House today. Allan Matthews, my friend and longtime colleague at Columneetza Secondary School in Williams Lake, was recognized for his volunteer work and was inducted into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in January of this year.

He has devoted his time to young people through teaching, through his sponsorship with school teams in the Kootenays and the Cariboo and through his work in hockey. Mr. Matthews was chair of Hockey Canada in 2005, culminating more than 30 years of involvement in hockey that included minor hockey, Junior A, Junior B, Canada Winter Games, Northern B.C. Winter Games, team manager and team coach.

He was president of the B.C. Amateur Hockey Association and has accompanied hockey teams to tournaments throughout Canada and around the world, has been education consultant for the under-18 team at world championships and was Hockey Canada's delegate to the International Ice Hockey Federation from 2003 through 2005.

He has received the Hockey Canada Volunteer of the Year Award, the Hockey Canada Minor Hockey Week Award, the Dunk Jamieson Award for outstanding volunteer service to the game of hockey, the city of Williams Lake certificate of merit and the Queen's Jubilee medal.

But Al Matthews's volunteer work is not limited to hockey. He has chaired the Williams Lake Parks and

Recreation Commission, was secretary of the Williams Lake new arena fundraising committee and has served on many committees of the school district where he has taught.

Al is a fine citizen, an excellent role model for others and a worthy recipient of the many awards he has received. Please join me in acknowledging my friend, my colleague and a very fine man, Allan Matthews.

D. Hayer: Mr. Speaker, the observance of February as Black History Month is particularly significant to British Columbia as we celebrate the foundation of this province 150 years ago. It's significant because our founding father, Sir James Douglas, was black, son of a Scottish merchant. The history books describe his mother as a free coloured woman from British Guiana.

To further ascribe the multicultural history of our founding father, on a fur-trading trip to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in what is now called Washington State, he met and married Amelia, whose history was native Indian. It is with great pride, as the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism and Immigration, to recognize the incredible mix of cultures that has existed in British Columbia since its birth in 1858.

In fact, it was Governor Douglas who encouraged the first immigration to British Columbia of people other than Caucasians. He actively encouraged blacks from Africa to come to this new colony. On April 25, 1858, the first black settlers arrived at Fort Victoria.

Interestingly, despite the long and deep roots that people of black descent have in our province, it was not until February 1994 that the British Columbia Black History Awareness Society was formed.

Mr. Speaker, I want you to take note that history was created in our Parliament Buildings when Rosemary Brown became the first black woman ever to be elected to a Canadian legislature. I would also be remiss not to acknowledge one of your forerunners to the chair, Speaker Emery Barnes.

I ask all the members in this House to honour the enormous contributions that the black community has made to British Columbia not just in modern history but right back to the roots of our province 150 years ago.

C. Puchmayr: Many faith-based organizations in my community do so much to assist those who have so little. Saint Barnabas Church has a small congregation, yet feeds so many people. They are the host to recovery programs, a child care, a drop-in program, a native artists gathering, a thrift store and an annual Christmas dinner. Shilo–Sixth Avenue United Church has a food bank and a drop-in centre as well as recovery programs. St. Aidan's is active in the Grow-A-Row food planting program, and the Wood Street Khalsa Diwan Temple is active with many other temples in the region in feeding the homeless in the downtown east side.

The Gospel Mission is very active daily feeding the homeless in New Westminster, and the Salvation Army runs most, if not all, of the emergency shelter beds in New Westminster.

One can only imagine what it would be like without the assistance of these organizations, especially now as we see an alarming increase in homelessness — not just with young people. It's with seniors and those with mental illness as well.

There is a common denominator amongst these and other organizations in New Westminster, and it doesn't matter what your spiritual beliefs or faiths are. I'm sure there are many other communities in British Columbia that are blessed in this manner and are trying so desperately to assist those less fortunate. It must be a daunting task, as many congregations have seen a decline in their growth over the years. Yet we see that in a time of need, extraordinary things will happen, and it's extraordinary to see so many get out and help those in need.

J. McIntyre: I rise today to pay tribute to a woman named Kathy Barnett, who on January 30 was taken from us prematurely when she was killed by a motorist while on holiday on a cycling tour in New Zealand with her husband and business partner, Bob Barnett.

Born in 1958, she did not quite make it to a full 50 years, although she accomplished much in her active lifetime. I only had the privilege of knowing her for several years, but from the grief and the shock and the tributes that poured in when the news hit the Whistler community that they had lost one of their true leaders, you can see what a tremendous influence she had on those who knew and loved her, those she volunteered with and those who worked with her.

Kathy was co-founder and publisher of the Pique Newsmagazine and served tirelessly for numerous non-profit organizations and local charities. She was an active member of several boards, including the Whistler chamber; Tourism Whistler; the Women's Enterprise Centre, founded by western diversification; and the Community Foundation of Whistler, of which she was a founding member.

She also served on the Small Business Roundtable for our Ministry of Small Business and Revenue, where the minister and her colleagues will miss her forthright views and her work ethic. She had an infectious laugh and a twinkle in her eye, and she'll be sorely missed by all.

I'd like to read the poem from the celebration of her life held February 10 in a packed conference centre in Whistler, as it suits her to a T. Tributes to her were flowing, and there were tears and laughter. She'll be remembered always as a mentor, role model, good friend and an inspiration to businesswomen in B.C.

B. Simpson: This year the kickoff event for B.C.'s 150th anniversary took place January 24 to 27 in the Cariboo. It was the 16th annual running of the Gold Rush Dogsled Mail Run.

The dogsled mail run follows the old Cariboo wagon road, which was one of the first infrastructure projects of the fledgling Crown colony, and I'm quite certain it wasn't a P3. During this event, mail is specifically sent in specially designed envelopes. It's transported for three days in the basket of a dogsled through the sites of six former or existing post offices, including Barkerville, which is the fifth-oldest operating post office in the province.

In fact, all the mushers had to be sworn in as letter carriers before they could head out on the trail. That included the Minister of State for ActNow B.C. and myself, even though we only participated in the ceremonial start. The trail runs for a hundred kilometres starting in Quesnel, with overnights in Cottonwood House and at Troll Ski Resort. On the final day the mushers go through Stanley and Barkerville before finishing in Wells.

This year there were 33 dogsleds; 28 finished. They were from Australia, Germany, the U.S. — California, Minnesota and Washington State — Northwest Territories, B.C. and Alberta. There were also cross-country skiers, skijorers — which I think is suicide on skis, as it's dogs pulling a skier — showshoers and snowmobilers.

As I said, the Minister of State for ActNow B.C. and I participated in the opening ceremonies and the ceremonial start. I have to say that the community is still abuzz about the stance the minister took on the back of his four-dog team, and there's a video that people can look at if they're curious.

Seriously, though, it takes a community to put on such a successful event. There were 16 committees and 65 volunteers. Special note goes to Jeff Dinsdale, Eileen Seel and Lynn Yorkas, and a very special note to Terry Johnston and the crew who prepared the trails.

K. Whittred: North Shore Community Resources is a non-profit organization with a strong focus on supporting their employees. In fact, they were recently recognized for this leadership. On February 1 North Shore Community Resources received a 2008 WorkLife B.C. award of merit.

The WorkLife B.C. awards recognize B.C. employers who have developed workplaces that support their employees to balance commitments for work and for family. They recognize the challenges that families face in balancing children's dental appointments with professional responsibilities.

Flexibility in the workplace is increasingly becoming a priority for employees. Employers who understand this can help employees juggle the demands, responsibilities and choices they face both at home and at work. Chosen from hundreds of applicants across the province, North Shore Community Resources are deserving recipients for their outstanding commitment to the needs of their employees. By allowing flexible work hours, the ability for employees to bring children to work and the understanding that elderly parents often need care, North Shore Community Resources truly is an example to the province.

Also, as a multiservice agency, North Shore Community Resources includes North Shore Child Care, Resource and Referral, Information North Shore, Volunteer North Shore and seniors one-stop information centre. Having all of these valuable services in one office creates a bit of a one-stop shop of support for many North Vancouver residents.

Once again, I would like to give my heartfelt congratulations to North Shore Community Resources, who are now recognized across the province for their commitment to help people balance family and work.

C. James: For months there has been widespread speculation that the government is going to bring in a new gas tax. Both the minister and the Premier promised that such a tax would be revenue-neutral. Unfortunately, the Minister of Finance's shifting and confusing definition of revenue-neutral has caused much uncertainty. Maybe today the Minister of Finance can clear up that confusion for us.

I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance what her definition of revenue-neutral is. Is it a tax shift or a shifty tax?

As the opposition would know thoroughly, I will make no comments on the budget until tomorrow.

C. James: I'm actually not asking the Minister of Finance to speak specifically about what might be in

the budget tomorrow. I'm asking her to speak about her definition of — what she means by — revenue-neutral. She's been all over the place in her comments about the true definition of revenue-neutral. She's defined revenue-neutral, in fact, as a tax grab.

Again, my question to the Minister of Finance: what definition of revenue-neutral is she going to use tomorrow — the one that's actually found in accounting notebooks or the one that she's made up in the last while?

C. James: I certainly heard the Finance Minister say she can't talk specifically about the budget that's coming out tomorrow, but she certainly has raised lots of concern from families over the last month with her definition of revenue-neutral. This Finance Minister has talked about revenue-neutral as taking in a new tax and using it for special projects. So I think families deserve an answer. They deserve an answer about what kind of definition the minister is using for revenue-neutral so that they know whether this government once again is going to pick their pocket tomorrow.

C. James: Again, nothing to do with the budget tomorrow — a very simple, straightforward question for the Minister of Finance. What exactly is her definition of revenue-neutral?

Hon. C. Taylor: I am sort of disappointed that the opposition has no questions that they actually want to ask the government today, so I will say that in terms of the budget I will answer questions about the budget very happily not only tomorrow but for as long as the session lasts.

B. Ralston: My question is for the Minister of Small Business and Revenue. In 2005 and 2006 his ministry conducted a review of the provincial sales tax. Participating businesses were told that their proposals had to be revenue-neutral. Can the minister advise the House what definition of revenue-neutral he used in that review?

Hon. R. Thorpe: In fact, we conducted some 21 consultations around the province of British Columbia. The net results were 13 changes brought in, in Budget 2007, putting $120 million over three years into the pockets of individual British Columbians and small businesses.

B. Ralston: I'm going to ask the same question again, because there is obviously not an answer forthcoming. What definition of revenue-neutral did the minister use in the review he conducted?

Hon. R. Thorpe: I thought it was pretty clear that we conducted 20 consultations throughout the province of British Columbia. I thought I was clear that this was…

Hon. R. Thorpe: …the most comprehensive review of the provincial sales tax in the history of the province of British Columbia, designed to streamline and simplify things. I also thought I pointed out that $120 million was put back into individuals', businesses' and small businesses' pockets in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, let me just remind the members on that side of the House that they voted against putting money back into British Columbians' pockets.

J. Horgan: Nothing from the tax collector; nothing from the debt collector. Let's go to the third prize here: the Minister of Energy, responsible for B.C. Hydro.

Since 2004, B.C. Hydro rates have gone up 11 percent. B.C. Hydro projects a 25 percent increase between now and 2011. Can the minister confirm that his ideological fixation with private power is compromising the ability of B.C. Hydro to manage the energy resource for all British Columbians? And will he say, now that B.C. Hydro can buy power where it finds it, to do so in the interests of ratepayers, not in the interests of your friends?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm appreciative that my critic is actually asking me a question about IPPs, when he has been going around the province telling — or spreading, I should probably say — rumours that aren't quite true.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It was the NDP that built the largest natural gas–fired plant on Vancouver Island — 250 megawatts — and signed a contract with a United States company, an independent power producer.

On top of that, they were so wise that they took the cost, and they spread it across Fred and Mary. Fred and Mary — Fred and Martha, to tell you the truth — will actually have to bear the cost of the natural gas that goes into that plant. They didn't even have the wherewithal to make sure that that independent power producer had to actually absorb that kind of cost. That's how smart they were.

Hon. R. Neufeld: This group has opposed every green power project in the province of British Columbia — every one of them. They have opposed it unilaterally in here and out on the street. That's unacceptable.

J. Horgan: I had ten cents on how long it would take to get to the 1990s, and I just lost it because I thought you'd give it a little bit more time than that. If we could harness the hot air that comes out of that minister, we'd have more megawatts than we'd know what to do with.

I realize this isn't a mutual admiration society, but a modicum of respect to ratepayers on that side of the House is in short supply. That's for sure.

Will the minister stand in this place and for once defend British Columbians, instead of independent power producers, and defend the people who built B.C. Hydro, the best Crown corporation in Canada? You guys have wrecked it in six short years.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Let's go to a little bit of history. I know it bothers the member over there, but let's….

Hon. R. Neufeld: If they are so opposed to independent power producers, why in 1996…? That was the dark decade, remember, Member.

Hon. R. Neufeld: B.C. Hydro purchased $89 million from IPPs. Can you tell me why, if they're so bad?

Hon. R. Neufeld: In 1997 B.C. Hydro purchased $90 million worth of electricity from IPPs. In 1998 B.C. Hydro purchased $114 million from IPPs, and in 1999, $105 million.

It's hard to understand how in the 1990s it was okay for that group of misfits to actually purchase electricity from IPPs, but today there's something wrong with it.

I want people to be very careful in how they choose their words. I want members to listen to the question and listen to the answer. If we want to continue with

question period, we're going to show a little bit of a sign of respect for both sides.

M. Karagianis: My question today is for the Minister of Transportation. While transit fares in British Columbia have increased to being the highest in Canada, the minister's handpicked TransLink board has met in secret and given themselves a pay raise that amounts to half a million dollars — dollars that should have gone into transit fares rather than their pockets.

Hon. K. Falcon: I guess I'm left wondering if indeed the writers across the way really are on strike, because I got this question last time. Anyhow, I'm happy to answer it again for the benefit of the members opposite.

The members will know that a special committee chaired by former New Democratic Premier Mike Harcourt made a recommendation to the TransLink board — the new professional board — to receive compensation based upon what similar authorities like the Vancouver Airport Authority or the Fraser Port Authority would be earning. I get that it's a lot of money for average folks, but we're asking them to be responsible for their part in implementing the largest transit investment package in the history of the province.

M. Karagianis: Currently in British Columbia we have the highest transit fares in the country — $10 for a rider to go from Surrey to downtown and back. That is more than a lot of people earn on the minimum wage in this province today. This government has sanctioned their handpicked TransLink board to have a 500 percent pay increase.

My question to the minister was whether he would step in and roll back those inflated wages. I would ask him to take a further step to roll back transit fares and make them affordable here in the province of British Columbia.

Hon. K. Falcon: Well, I guess I'll have to put it on the record, because that's twice now that this member has stood up and talked about TransLink having the highest fares in the country. That is absolutely false. I just wish for once you would do your homework, Member.

Hon. K. Falcon: Again, the research department of the NDP, as always, is letting their members stand up and make fools of themselves in front of the public. I'll put it on the record.

Montreal and Toronto charge $2.75 for a basic one-zone fare; Metro Vancouver, $2.50; in Ottawa, $3. It's cheapest, actually, here.

Then the member says, "What about the ride from Surrey to Vancouver?" — which I just took this morning, by the way. Member, I'd invite you to take SkyTrain once in a while. You might learn a thing or two.

If the member wants to know what the equivalent is in Montreal, it's about $9.50 for the same 40-kilometre distance. If the member wants to know what the equivalent is in Toronto for the same 40-kilometre distance, it's about $6.50. It's more than what it is here. We have a great transit system in the lower mainland of British Columbia.

G. Coons: My question is to the Minister of Transportation — or minister of miscalculations, it seems. Over the past three months I've visited 23 ferry communities and heard the stories of this government's abandonment and neglect of those people that live in ferry-dependent communities. Since 2003 the fares have skyrocketed and will climb by over 130 percent by 2011.

Will the minister finally, finally take a leadership role with this file and freeze fares?

Hon. K. Falcon: The fact of the matter is that the B.C. government provides over $130 million a year in subsidies — a number that has gone up every year to make sure that we keep rates as affordable as possible for ferry-dependent communities. I might add that they voted against every single one of those increases that were in the budget.

Let me just say this. I get that fuel prices have gone up dramatically. There's no question. Every industry is affected, whether it's airlines, taxis, buses or ferries.

I wish I could pretend there was a magic answer to all that, but the fact of the matter is that we now have a ferry system that's investing hundreds of millions of dollars in replenishing their fleet and investing in terminals. They're providing a better level of service and more reliability in terms of the service and are doing it very, very efficiently in terms of managing the organization.

G. Coons: I note that the minister didn't mention that the provincial subsidy didn't go up for four years, and it was the federal subsidy that was going up. Obviously, the minister is totally out of touch with ferry-dependent communities. British Columbians deserve a

real response from this minister. But last Thursday all he had to say about ferry users' concerns was: "Boo hoo." It's in Hansard, hon. Speaker.

If the minister won't answer my first question, maybe he can tell us this: what exactly did he mean by "boo hoo"?

Hon. K. Falcon: I guess I'm going to have to provide a bit of a history lesson for the member. What the member apparently forgets is that during the '90s, fares went up over 70 percent.

The difference, of course, is this. They blew half a billion dollars on three ferries that didn't work at all. They bankrupted the corporation with over a billion dollars' worth of debt that had to be written off. The corporation did not invest in a ferry fleet, which had an average age of 42 years. It suffered from political interference of every possible shape imaginable, and they essentially wrecked the ferry system.

We now have a ferry system that we can be proud of again in British Columbia and that is running well. It's being invested in. The fleet is being rejuvenated, and we are not going to interfere the way they used to interfere day after day after day in the ferry system of British Columbia.

C. Trevena: The Minister of Transportation is showing that he is arrogant and out of touch with reality — the reality for families who live on the islands, families who are being forced from their homes because they cannot afford the fares, families who are seeing a complete neglect of what is our marine highway, which does connect our communities.

In my constituency fares have doubled since his government has taken office. Wages haven't doubled. People cannot cope with these increases. So I ask the Minister of Transportation not to have a dismissive sneer, not to be dismissive and just go, "Boo hoo," but to commit to the people of British Columbia, to commit to the people who live on the islands that he will freeze the ferry fares.

Hon. K. Falcon: Actually, the member should know that fuel prices have gone up, and in every sector where fuel prices have gone up, people have had to pay increases. I wish fuel prices weren't going up. I wish there was a world in which we could pretend there's not a reality out there that fuel prices are increasing.

I'll say this to the member. The amount of subsidy that taxpayers are providing for ferry-dependent communities is the greatest it's ever been in history. Just for the Islands Trust area alone — $55 million a year for 25,000 people. That's $55 million each and every year. And we provide additional subsidy for those that are medically at risk, for seniors, for school trips, etc., of over $20 million a year.

We're doing our bit to protect those that are most vulnerable, but we're also recognizing that it is a difficult environment with the increasing cost of fuel escalation in British Columbia.

H. Lali: While the Minister of Finance has been talking about revenue neutrality, average families here are facing real hardship due to this government's ongoing shameless cash grabs. You know, this government's new ICBC rate structure is hitting Metro Vancouver families especially hard, where the rates will increase up to 6 percent. On top of that, there are unjustified new fees for additional young drivers and arbitrarily imposed higher penalties for traffic violations.

While it makes record profit, ICBC is gouging even more revenue straight out of the pockets of average British Columbians. However, most families are actually paying more, not less — especially good drivers.

My question is to the minister responsible for ICBC. How can the minister justify this shameless cash grab, and how does this fit into revenue neutrality?

Hon. J. Les: I think this is my first opportunity to welcome the member opposite out of the penalty box. He….

Hon. J. Les: We'll all recall that he spoke his mind last year, and for his trouble he was banished for a period of time. But I'm glad to see him back.

Hon. J. Les: I think it's important to recognize that the management of ICBC today is much, much improved over what we had in the 1990s. In the 1990s we indeed had an insurance corporation that was nothing but a political plaything for the government of that day. Today ICBC is being run professionally according to sound economic and actuarial principles.

H. Lali: Well, if there's anybody who should be in the penalty box, it ought to be the minister responsible for ICBC, for tax gouging.

Let me repeat again for the hon. minister that families are getting gouged, and ICBC is making more revenue from insurance rates and additional fees from families and good drivers. However, safe drivers are not getting the benefits that they deserve, especially if they are living in places like Burnaby and Surrey and other parts of Metro Vancouver. This isn't revenue neutrality; it's a shameless cash grab.

Again, my question is to the minister responsible for ICBC. What is this minister going to do to help average families and safe drivers with these out-of-control costs being imposed on them by this uncaring government?

What is the minister going to do to actually lower the cost for people who are safe drivers, especially in this province, in the face of record profits which are actually going into the pockets of upper and middle management in the way of incentives? None of these are actually going towards the reduction of rates for insurance purposes.

Hon. J. Les: Well, there's a reason why there is more premium revenue in ICBC today. It's because there's a booming economy in British Columbia. There are a lot more vehicles out there.

As ICBC adjusts the premiums that are charged to individual motorists, it's focusing particular attention on only those 5 percent of drivers who have dangerous driving records. The 95 percent of British Columbians who drive safely, who don't have an extensive claims record…. For those people the rates are going to tend to stay the same or go down.

That's guaranteed because these rates are not going to be politically manipulated. The corporation is in fact accountable to the Utilities Commission, so those rates are set, as I said previously, based on economic and actuarial principles.

N. Simons: The Mary Manning Centre is under threat of closure once again due to this government's refusal to provide it with stable funding so it can help young children who've been victims of sexual abuse. The funding situation, in fact, is so bleak that staff therapists are planning to use their vacation time to go on a little bikeathon across lower Vancouver Island. Unfortunately, this speaks volumes about this government's priorities.

My question is to the Minister of Children and Family Development. Will he commit to funding this centre and others like it appropriately to meet the needs of children who've been victims of sexual abuse?

Hon. T. Christensen: Members may recall that the funding for the sexual abuse intervention program, which funds the Mary Manning Centre, has not increased since the program was initiated in the early 1990s. So notwithstanding ten years in government, members of the opposition chose at that time not to pay any attention to sexual abuse victims and increase the funding for counselling support, similarly to them not taking any effort to increase resources for children and youth suffering mental health issues.

This government has doubled the funding to support children and youth with mental health…. That's resulted in over 90 percent more children and youth receiving services over the course of the last five years.

We have been involved in a review of the sexual abuse intervention program, and I'm happy to say that that program can expect significant additional funding resources as we implement stronger standards and accountability and consistency for the sexual abuse intervention program. Over the coming weeks we will be determining how that funding will be allocated among the 49 agencies around the province that do this important work.

N. Simons: Yes, credit to the former government for introducing a program like this. Unfortunately, it's suffered from the lack of funding from this government. It's had a lot of time to put some funding into these programs. These are little children in this province who are victims of sexual abuse. It's not something that should be delayed or hidden from the public.

So my question once again to the minister is: can he guarantee that program funding for sexual abuse intervention will in fact meet the needs of the province?

Hon. T. Christensen: I can certainly understand the members advocating for additional services for victims of sexual abuse, much as members on this side have advocated as well, in particular for the Mary Manning Centre. But what I find hard to accept is the absolute hypocrisy of members who had ten years in government in this province to pay a little bit of attention to sexual abuse victims.

Hon. T. Christensen: In fact, the Mary Manning Centre in 1999 — $126,000. In the year 2000 — $248,000. This last year — $314,000 to the Mary Manning Centre.

This government recognized that we needed to improve services to children and youth with mental health issues. That includes victims of sexual abuse. We are doing that. We will be adding significant additional resources, something that those members failed to do for ten whole years.

C. Puchmayr: The New Westminster school district's business company is hosting four English-Chinese from Zhejiang province in Wenzhou, China. Would the House please welcome Kathy Zhao, Lillian Yu, April Zhang and Haddie Chen, as well as the general manager and the executive assistant, Valerie Martinick and Cindy Tang. Please make them welcome.

B. Simpson: I rise to address a point of privilege I registered this morning.

During the debate on the softwood motion this morning, the member for Maple Ridge–Mission argued that I had effectively flip-flopped on my response to the softwood lumber deal. The basis of his argument was a quote from the Revelstoke Times that he attributed to me. In fact, that statement was made by another MLA.

Earlier in the debate the member from Kootenay East had actually used the exact same statement and attributed it to the correct MLA. The evidence is there in the article from the Revelstoke Times, and I ask the member for Maple Ridge–Mission to withdraw his claim that, based on the evidence he presented, I flip-flopped on the softwood lumber agreement.

R. Hawes: I have a copy of the article that was in question. It is, in fact, very confusing in that there are some things attributed to the member for Cariboo North, and then immediately after those comments, it says: "It is my obligation to speak for the mills in my area, and flawed or not, this deal is a good resolution for them."

When you read the article, it would appear it was stated by the member for Cariboo North, but I will accept what he says. Clearly, the author of this article perhaps inserted this in the wrong place. It should have been attributed, I guess, to the member from Revelstoke, who for once on the other side does appreciate the importance of the softwood lumber agreement. So to the extent that you've said that, I will withdraw my comments.

C. Wyse: From the staff at Williams Lake Seniors Village supporting and encouraging the provincial government to appoint a seniors advocate to deal with seniors issues, rather than the present system.

M. Sather: It's my pleasure to respond to the throne speech. The throne speech had a number of references to sustainability within the realm of climate change, and I understand we're going to hear more about that tomorrow. But I didn't hear anything in the throne speech talking about sustainability of the resources of this province, such as the resources that are represented by the crown jewel of our Crown corporations, B.C. Hydro.

What we're seeing instead is a greenwashing of a presentation with regard to independent power producers with regard to a number of other claims that the government is making. What in fact we're seeing is the privatization of B.C. Hydro, and what we're seeing is the disenfranchisement of the people of this province who've been represented ably by their Crown corporation for some considerable time.

The throne speech said that consumers will be given new tools to save money on their power bills. Well, they better hope that's the case, because what they're seeing now is exactly the opposite. They're seeing their power bills going up — and going up very, very steeply.

B.C. Hydro has an application in right now, as was referenced just recently in this House, to increase the power rates by 11 percent over the next three years. But their projections, in fact, are for 25 percent — a 25 percent increase in the power rates to the people of this province. Largely, and in many respects, this can be attributed to the energy policies of this government.

We have the IPP power coming online, which this government is beholden to and is encouraging to the detriment of British Columbians, and which is going to raise the rates even further than that. The 2000 request by B.C. Hydro for IPP power, the independent power producers — the private power producers — will raise the rates an additional 8 percent alone.

So the people of British Columbia have real cause to be concerned about where this government is taking B.C. Hydro. What we're seeing is an absolute gold rush of independent power producers in the way of so-called run-of-the-river projects.

I think when most people heard run-of-the-river a few years ago, they thought they were what I thought they were: a turbine in the middle of a river. The water runs through it and produces power. Sounds very benign, but that's not at all what these projects are. These are private river diversion projects, and they are diverting streams in vast numbers in this province and not just short distances — three, five and ten kilometres and more.

There are nearly 500 streams in this province that are under application for water licences for these private river diversion projects. There's no public process in place anymore where the people of this province can evaluate whether or not these projects are in the best interests of this province. There are 200 companies involved, a lot of whom are affiliated one with the other. When you look into it, you will see that they have a lot of connections.

It was said earlier in this House that IPPs were around in the '90s, and they were. The Minister of Energy mentioned purchases of $90 million in '97, $94 million in '98 and $105 million in '99. That's for a total of $285 million. Well, what we're looking at is an entirely different magnitude of involvement with IPPs now.

In 2007 B.C. Hydro and the people of British Columbia are on the hook for $28.4 billion in hydro from independent power producers. That is a lot of cash, and the problem is not having…. It's not about the IPPs themselves. If they're regulated in terms of their environmental effect — and that's a whole other subject that I don't have time to go into right now — and if there's a competition with B.C. Hydro for that hydro, then it's a different matter. But this is definitely open season for these folks, and they're going at it flat out, understandably. There's tons of money to be made.

The Minister of Energy says: "Oh, not to worry. This is only 0.01 percent of the streams in British Columbia that could conceivably be used for IPPs." But in fact, nearly all of them that are economically feasible in the near future, at least, are being claimed.

These water rights, which are the rights, again, of the people of British Columbia, are being given away for a song. The water licences, the rentals — the ancillary costs for the IPPs to produce these river diversion projects amount to about 3 percent only of the income that they achieve.

Water, as we know, is becoming an increasingly valuable resource in this century. With climate change happening, with global warming, water is going to become even more essential to all of us. So it's important that the government, on behalf of the people of B.C., steward that resource carefully. But in fact, that's not what happens. The value of the water, the people's resource, is not even considered as an economic value when these licences are given out.

Contracting and privatization go together. Of course, B.C. Hydro has been forced, through this government, to contract out a third of their workforce — in terms of customer services, administration and so on — to Accenture corporation. Many people will be familiar with Accenture, but probably a lot aren't. It's a Bermuda-based company. That's a nice tax shelter arrangement.

This is a corporation that the state of California refused to deal with. This is a corporation that is an offshoot of the Arthur Andersen consulting company, which was part of Enron and faced obstructing justice charges as a result, along with a number of other folks that were so charged — Ken Lay, Mr. Fastow, and on and on.

This is the organization, though, that we're putting in charge of a lot of our crown jewel, B.C. Hydro. Enron, people will remember, is the organization that brought the electrical system of California into chaos — rolling blackouts and brownouts, and the way they operated to force contractors to stop producing power, only to drive the prices up. What we're seeing, unfortunately, is our crown jewel, in B.C. Hydro, passing from public hands to private hands.

You'll notice that what this government and a lot of people that speak for this government do…. In order to sort of facilitate this changeover, there's been a process of vilifying B.C. Hydro. Saying that it was run-down, and we had to privatize it, is basically what it amounts to. That's the same logic we hear being used with our extended care homes. "Oh, the ones in place were run down, so we had to bring in the privatized companies." That's happening, for example, in my community.

Now, the government mandated that these independent power producers, through the run-of-the-river projects and the wind projects, can only be done privately. They can't be done by the people's corporation any longer. How did the government come to the decision that they should switch from having the people's corporation doing it to having private individuals and corporations doing it? Did they produce any studies that show that it's justified? No, they didn't.

What we're seeing here is that it's like renting instead of owning. By the time we're finished the long-term contract with a private producer for power…. We don't own the resource after that. They own it. So the people of this province, through this government's energy policies, are moving from owners to renters.

B.C. Hydro could be involved in developing these alternative sources of energy, and we would then be keeping the money in British Columbia. B.C. Hydro, being large, has the benefit of working with the economies of scale that a large organization can. Instead, what we see this government doing is that in January of this year the Premier and the Energy Minister passed an order-in-council that's going to make borrowing rates for B.C. Hydro, which has the effect of making it more profitable for the private producers. Everything is being manufactured to their benefit and not to the benefit of the people of British Columbia.

B.C. Hydro also, of course, has the benefit of being able to manage the whole grid in a unified way. With power production in the United States — that's some of the independent private power production — it's not done in a unified way. That has led to a lot of the problems, and we don't want to see that happen here.

Another troubling trend, along with privatization, is the integration of our energy system — our grid here in British Columbia — with the grid in the United States. The American policy is a continent-wide marketplace based on privatization. They are developing what they call standard market designs through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. Regional transmission organizations, or RTOs, are the managers of the resource. The RTO in our case is called Grid West. That's in the northwestern United States.

FERC's mandate down there in the United States is that all provinces that want to export power into the United States should have to adopt the U.S. system. We should be clear that there are no international rules that say we have to adopt the American system, and we shouldn't be. But the Independent Power Producers Association of B.C. and Alcan are encouraging this province and this government to join and to integrate with Grid West. I don't doubt that the government is going to assist in doing that.

What happens then, with that integration with the U.S. market? Who gets to export power to the United

States and how much they get to export will be regulated by the RTOs — by the American government under their regulatory body — not by us. The IPPs will have the option of selling power to the United States.

I know when I talked about this to one of the private river diversion projects — the so-called run-of-the-river projects — in our neck of the woods over in Maple Ridge, he said: "Oh no, we want to sell locally." Well, that's not what they want. In fact, they want to sell at the highest price. If it happens to be in British Columbia, then that's where it's going to go. But if it's in the United States, then it's going to go there.

With this kind of system that this government, with the IPPs, is setting up, we are going to be competing with the United States for power. We're going to pay more, and we're seeing that start to happen already. So we should be standing up. This government should be standing up for our power and for British Columbians — standing up to the United States and not cooperating with them in undermining our system. In fact, the power over our power is being ceded to the United States, and that's a concern. Just like California was at the mercy of Enron, we're going to be at the mercy of the IPPs.

Another key part of the U.S.-B.C. plan involves separating the electricity-transmitting part from the producing part. The sole purpose of that is to make the export easier for the private producers. The government says that's a process of non-discrimination. They call that non-discrimination — that B.C. Hydro shouldn't be able to discriminate against independent power producers. But the people of British Columbia are being discriminated against in the process, and the government should remember who they serve.

Our transmission corporation, the B.C. Transmission Corporation, is not answerable to B.C. Hydro. You know, there's also an advantage to having BCTC remain a Crown corporation, which it is. It's that when the IPP power fully comes into play, there's going to be a lot of need for new lines to export this power to the United States.

Guess who's going to get to build those lines and pay for them. We will, Madam Speaker, through BCTC. It's a golden deal for the IPPs, and it's one that a lot of British Columbians are becoming aware of and are realizing that there's real cause for concern.

The government says that their strategy is about providing security of supply, but in fact that's not what we're seeing. We're seeing them surrendering our interests to those of the IPPs. The energy purchase agreements, the lucrative energy purchase agreements that the government is making with the IPPs, are 20 to 40 years in length. As I said, when these expire, then the IPP is free and clear to export their power should they want to.

American companies are buying into our IPPs at an increasing rate too. GE, for example — General Electric — recently bought 49 percent of Plutonic Power, which is in the process of building a large facility at Toba Inlet up the mainland coast. They've since lent $40 million to get that going.

With more involvement of American companies in our power-producing structure, the investor rights of NAFTA kick in. That's something that we also need to be concerned about in terms of maintaining security of the supply. The government says it's about security of supply. That's not moving in the direction of security of supply.

We've seen this privatization happen in the gas industry already. Not long ago we saw Terasen being bought out by Kinder Morgan. That's Richard Kinder, by the way, who's also associated with Enron. This government had nothing to say about that whatsoever and were happy to see it go.

Apparently, Westcoast Energy has also been bought out by Duke Energy of North Carolina. It's happened. The deregulation has happened in the oil and gas industry, and now the government is looking to make it happen in our electricity grid as well.

The government denies that they're privatizing B.C. Hydro, but people of British Columbia will remember, too, that they denied flatly that they were selling B.C. Rail. We know that's in fact what they did. In fact, that's what's happening here. Through Accenture and through the IPPs they're privatizing B.C. Hydro.

The IPPs — their association claims that privatizing our electrical grid is going to lead to more investment and lower prices. Well, B.C. Hydro invests in British Columbia, so the money stays here. But the IPPs are increasingly foreign-owned, and the money doesn't stay here.

B.C. Hydro also has some of the lowest prices on electricity in North America. I don't think the IPPs and the price they're getting it…. It's not going to be the case that we're going to be getting lower rates, and we see that is in fact not what's happening at all. Privatization in the United States has not lowered the rates.

The IPP power is expensive, as I mentioned. In 2003 B.C. Hydro paid as much to buy the 10 percent of power that they need, which they got from the IPPs, as they paid for the other 90 percent that they produced themselves.

The contracts, the power purchase agreements, are now going for up to $88 a megawatt hour for IPPs. Well, the U.S. Department of Energy and others have said that by 2018 the power is worth about $50 a megawatt hour, so they're extremely lucrative for these organizations.

B.C. Hydro is contracting out for a lot more power all the time. In 2006 they made a call for power, and then it went up by four or five times. There's a real gold rush going on out there. There's a lack of oversight, and people have real cause to be concerned.

We have huge financial obligations to the IPPs. They're considered off-book by the government. They're not part of the long-term debt, but they will be paid by British Columbians through higher rates and through fewer services for the people of British Columbia. The people of B.C., through the energy

purchasing agreements, are financing the construction of assets that will belong to someone else.

The IPPs are also using B.C. Hydro to increase their profits. They want to use the storage in the dams that B.C. Hydro has built to turn their non-fixed energy. In other words, it comes in, in the spring during the spring freshet largely, and it's gone. You have to use it as it comes, whereas of course if you store it in a dam, it's then fixed.

That may be all right in low-water years when B.C. Hydro has room in their dams, but in high-water years, if they do this in order to make storage room for the IPPs, B.C. Hydro will have to spill water. That's water that could be used for export, to put more into social programs and other programs for the people of British Columbia. Right now B.C. Hydro is using their storage to sell when the price is high, and that makes a lot of sense.

Again, if a storage of IPP power essentially goes into these dams, investor rights again can kick in with NAFTA. They have the title, I guess, in their own minds, to continue that. The IPPs have been clear about their intent to export. Their association said that making dam storage available to B.C. IPPs might improve their chances of building for the export market.

There's another concern that British Columbians are more and more beginning to have about these projects. These so-called run-of-the-river projects are going to be able to deny — and in fact, already are denying — access by British Columbians to their valleys, to their rivers.

Where the generator is situated oftentimes is in a narrow valley where there's one road up the valley, and that can be bought fee simple by the IPP. Then if you want to go into the valley, which still nominally belongs to British Columbia, you will have to have their say-so.

In fact, even though they haven't got some of them — and we've witnessed this in the Ashlu already — fee simple, they're already trying to prevent people from going into Crown land, which belongs to the people of British Columbia. Its recreational users particularly have something to be concerned about that.

Madam Speaker, I'm going to have to skip a little bit of what I was going to say, but there's a lot more that could be said about this.

To summarize, the IPPs are driving up…. By contracting out a third of the workforce, they're privatizing B.C. Hydro. They're opening transmission lines to the IPPs for export. They're subsidizing IPPs with B.C. Hydro assets and granting exorbitant energy purchase agreements. They're destroying B.C. Hydro's role as a driver of economic activity in British Columbia and a supplier of affordable energy. They are allowing long-term private power exports to undermine our long-term energy security, and they're increasing the foreign control of B.C.'s electrical system.

The IPPs are touted often as green energy. As I say, there's a lot I could say about that, but I don't think I'm going to have the time to go into that today.

Another area that I wanted to talk about a little bit, which was in the throne speech…. The throne speech claims that supports for women fleeing abusive relationships have all been enhanced. Ouch. That certainly isn't the case in my experience. Before I had this job, I worked in the field of treating men who have been in abusive relationships, and what I saw was that the policy had changed from holding those men to account for their actions to oftentimes giving them a way out and letting them off. That's certainly not the way to deal with the problem.

There used to be a policy in the previous government that you got charged if you abused your spouse, but now that's not the case. This government also cut out the funding to women's centres, which do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work and assistance for women who have been in abusive relationships. They cut victim assistance funding as well.

In addition to that — and I had a friend who worked in this area — the programs for men who are abusive to their partners has been abandoned in the provincial correctional facilities. In fact, pretty well all programming in our correctional facilities has been abandoned. So I don't know how the government can say, in the face of what's actually taken place, unfortunately, that they're enhancing services for women who have been abused. That's not what I've seen.

Another thing that the government mentioned is the program Trees for Tomorrow. It includes urban afforestation, planting more trees in the urban environment. But B.C. Hydro's policy is cutting down trees in Maple Ridge. That's what I see, and I've talked to the Energy Minister about it and will probably have a chance to talk to him some more about it.

What we see on the ground doesn't accord with what it says in here — that there are going to be trees for tomorrow. I see the "trees for tomorrow" in my community being cut down by B.C. Hydro, who used to trim the trees. Now they just cut them down. It's easier, and it's cheaper, I guess. But it's not in the best interest of a climate change approach, and it's not in the best interest for the beautification of my community. I imagine others have suffered the same thing.

The Forests Minister mentioned that their forest management practices are second to none. I'm not sure what he can be referring to there. Maybe it's second to none in closing mills, because we've seen a plethora of those.

I'm very concerned about the mill in my town, which has recently been threatened with closure frequently. Hammond Cedar is a strong employer in our community. We want it to continue. The folks that work there have little faith that Interfor is committed to keeping Hammond Cedar going. They've seen Interfor shipping raw logs across the line and building mills in the United States. They have a lot to be concerned about.

It seems to me that the Minister of Forests is excelling in real estate development but not forestry management. I know he has a background in that area, so maybe he knows of which he speaks when it comes to real estate. As far as managing the forest resources of British Columbia, we have a lot to be concerned in that regard.

R. Hawes: That was an interesting — if not perhaps lacking in some facts — little diatribe.

Before I go into my comments on the throne speech, I just want to correct a couple of the comments my colleague was making in his speech. I guess I'll start with a couple of the latter things he said first. I didn't get a chance to write them all down.

He talked about when the NDP were government, they would charge those who would abuse women, and somehow the government doesn't do that anymore. Well, the government doesn't charge people. It's actually Crown counsel that makes these decisions. It's not the government that goes out and charges people.

The second thing he talked about was cutting trees down and Hydro's policy of cutting trees down in Maple Ridge. In fact, this member wrote some letters complaining about some cottonwood trees being cut down on a dike that was protecting people's property from flooding because it would interfere with the raptors in the trees that were sitting there looking for food, I suppose. The truth is that if you don't cut cottonwoods out of dikes, the dikes are compromised, and you'll lose them.

In terms of Hydro cutting down trees, obviously trees around hydro lines create a public danger, and they have to cut them down. Actually, in terms of shipping raw logs from Hammond Cedar, raw cedar logs, particularly off Crown land, do not get shipped out of this province. So I don't see raw logs, as he explained — and I think that's what he said — being shipped out of this province.

I want to speak for just a moment about the comments about IPPs. First, I want to delve into a little bit of history about B.C. Hydro. When the big assets of B.C. Hydro were built years and years ago by the Bennett government — by "Wacky" Bennett, as he's called affectionately — those were a lasting legacy for everyone in British Columbia.

For many, many years — I'm not going to just say it was the 1990s, because it went on before the 1990s — B.C. Hydro has been looked upon as a piggy bank by previous governments. Everything that could be taken from B.C. Hydro was taken and put into general revenue by preceding governments. As a result, B.C. Hydro was not allowed to or did not have the capital to reinvest in itself to create more hydro generation, nor did it have an opportunity or the funds to invest in transmission lines. In fact, when we took government in 2001, very shortly thereafter we got reports of just how bad the transmission lines were in this province.

We are taking steps to make sure that reinvestment in B.C. Hydro and in its assets, which are protected by legislation, can be made. At the same time, we recognize the debt that Hydro carries, and creating more debt by building things like the run-of-the-river projects is perhaps not first and foremost. It's not B.C. Hydro's forte; it is the forte of the IPPs. During the 1990s and probably before then, we did rely on some independent power production. And yes, there will be more.

The member opposite says — and he attributed a comment to one of the ministers — that 0.01 percent of the creeks and waterways in this province were going to be dedicated to IPPs. The fact is that it's 0.001, which is a significant difference. It's about a thousandth, you know. But give or take a thousand placements, what's the difference when you're making a bunch of statements that don't have to have too much accuracy to them?

Let's talk about things like water leases and the fact that basically the water is being given away. We're getting a very low price. In fact, we're getting millions of dollars from the water leases over time, year after year. We are getting power from the IPPs, which is not what's known as firm power. This is power that relies on the flow of the watercourse. If you have a winter that doesn't have a lot of snowpack and the water volume is down, then there is no power production, or it's reduced. It is a risky business.

I know that the members opposite hate anything to do with private enterprise. Everything in the world should be in the hands of the public. When I listen to this kind of stuff, I have these visions of these people sitting around in a room trying to guess what these evil enemies are doing — you know, these people who are in private business. What must they be doing to line their pockets? It defies logic to think that the government should be the ones who invest in everything.

Madam Speaker, the opposition talks a lot about the price that's being paid for power from IPPs and how that will drive up prices. Well, if you're relying on the prices that we could use or that we were fortunate enough to be able to have — based on the assets built by "Wacky" Bennett, if that's the base price that you're setting — frankly, you're never going to stay there. There is new production necessary, there are new costs attributable to that, and there are new energy demands.

We are now a net importer of power. We can either move to where we are energy self-sufficient, or as the opposition suggests, we can move to relying on or continuing to rely on offshore power. We can import, from Alberta and the United States, coal-fired or gas-generated power, not green power. That flies in the face of the climate change policy this government has laid forward, which frankly, I happen to believe is a good policy, a sound policy. It's one, though, that demands that we move from the old way of producing power — coal-generated without sequestration of the greenhouse gases.

The NDP really are speaking out of both sides of their mouth here. They claim to be on the side of the environment, yet they want the purchase of power from outside of British Columbia. From my way of looking at what they're doing, they're trying to suck and blow at the same time. But that's pretty typical of the way they've operated for many, many years.

Accenture, the Bermuda-based company…. In fact, Accenture is a British Columbia–registered company that pays its taxes in British Columbia, that employs British Columbians who also pay taxes. If the members

opposite took the time to read the legislation that created the Accenture agreement, they would soon find out that there is, in fact, a profit-sharing agreement. As Accenture grows and takes in other…. For example, in Calgary, I believe, they've signed a contract to do the billing, etc., for a Calgary hydro company. A portion of the profits that they'll generate will attribute back to the taxpayers of British Columbia.

This has got nothing to do with Enron. This has got nothing to do with Bermuda. This has got nothing to do with corporate boogeymen. This has everything to do with a business arrangement that makes a lot of sense for British Columbians and allows Hydro to concentrate on what it's very good at doing, and that's producing electricity.

One more thing. The throne speech lays out the ability for us, or our plan, to allow a look at Site C. Frankly, Site C has for many years been a difficult topic to talk about. But I can tell you that in many parts of this province it would be very much welcomed. I see my colleague from the north over there applauding that. That would be carrying on in the tradition that W.A.C. Bennett established years and years ago.

R. Hawes: Well, the NDP have not ever really stated a position on Site C. If they have, it's probably anti, but I'm sure that it'll change tomorrow, as it frequently does.

R. Hawes: We are going to do a review. And that leads to one more thing: the public process. The member opposite said there's no more public process. Well, there's an environmental review process. The public has a full opportunity to participate in that process. It is ongoing, and every single IPP is subject to this sort of environmental scrutiny in which the public has an opportunity to comment.

I'm not quite sure where all of this comes from, other than…. That leads me to another part of what I wanted to talk about. When you're in opposition, you don't really have to deliver on anything. You can say anything. You can make up wild, crazy things that you say you're going to do, because you're never going to have to deliver on them. So when I hear all of this stuff that's, frankly, just a lot of misstatements and a lot of things that really aren't very factual…. When you boil the facts right down, what's happening in the IPP world and in the other policies the government is following actually makes an awful lot of sense.

I want to just mention what was going on in the…. It's still going on. Frequently, as we talk about what our policies are and we try to juxtapose those with the policies that the NDP followed in the 1990s, we hear the roar of indignation from the opposition side. "Oh, that's the '90s. That's old history. We've changed." Well, have they changed?

In the 1990s what often went on would be that new programs would be put together that would put big cost on the government but without any regard to what the ongoing obligations and consequences fiscally would be. That's why we ran into huge deficits. That's why they had to increase taxes dramatically to the businesses that provide the jobs in this province. But they still don't get it.

They say they've changed but yet…. I'll give you some examples. We have revitalized and are revitalizing the ferry fleet. That's going to make a couple of the older ferries that we have redundant. We're not going to need them. We're going to sell them. They may be sold for scrap. They may be sold to somebody who wants to use them, perhaps in some other country or wherever.

The Leader of the Opposition is out there crying that the money that comes from that should go to reduce ferry fees. Well, that's great. That's a really good policy, but what about next year, after you've spent that money? What about the ongoing obligation that it creates? But they don't think about any of that.

We have put in place, starting in 2001, the obligation on the government to file not just balanced budgets by the third — and I'll talk about that in a minute, about what happened in the throne speech and how it was delivered — but three-year rolling plans.

When the NDP were in power, they'd budget for a year. It was edge-of-the-page budgeting. You come to the end of the year, everything falls off, and you start fresh again. When you get a little bit of a problem in your budget, no problem. "We'll just defer a bunch of expenses off into the next year and worry about it next year."

We have instituted the provisions of GAAP. The generally accepted accounting principles govern how we budget and how we report our expenditures — a massive change. The investment world is very clear in telling us they now have absolute confidence in what we are telling them about our fiscal position. It has made us one of the most attractive places in the world to invest money.

The investment dealers who come and talk to us, who actually are pretty important people because they do move a lot of money around, tell us that now the confidence is there.

When the NDP was in power, money was fleeing here, and their clients were looking for places anywhere else to invest money. Today we are a target area. We are a centre where people want to invest their money because they can have confidence in what this government is doing, unlike that previous bunch.

The throne speech, when it comes out, is a statement of where the government wants to go. It is a vision of where we wish to go. In 2001 we inherited a structural deficit of over $4 billion.

We inherited a massive structural deficit. We said we would balance the budget by the third budget out from when we took office.

The NDP at the time, the two members of the NDP that were here, spent a great deal of time…. The members opposite, if they ever wanted to go and read Hansard back to those days, would find many statements by the two NDP members that were here. "It can't be done." "We won't be able to do it." "We're going to fail." "The economy is on its knees because of us," they said — and on and on and on.

The business community said: "Well, maybe now is not the time." Because there were tough measures that had to be taken to bring us to that balanced-budget position. If you live beyond your means for a long time and you get into a big hole, I don't think there are very many families in this province who don't understand that to get out of the hole, you've got to change your lifestyle and you've got to take a little bit of tough medicine.

We took the tough medicine because we had the courage to at least dole it out when it had to be doled out. That's something the previous government couldn't do. They continued with their spending spree while we had to look at finding ways to at least bring the spending under control, create some revenues and balance our budget. We did it exactly as we said we would do.

In 2005 in the throne speech we laid out the five great goals: literacy, health, social safety net, environment and jobs. Every one of those had some great vision attached to it, but that was not a throne speech that said: "This is what we will do in the next 12 months."

This is a vision that moves on down the road. These are lofty goals that are difficult to achieve, that take a lot of work and a lot of vision to get to and policies that make sense. So each year subsequent to those five great goals they do guide what this government does.

As we instil policies that bring us closer to achieving those five great goals, it becomes clearer and clearer, I know, to the public, because I talk to the public a great deal. They begin to really understand that we have it on the right track. We have good control of the economy, in spite of what's going on around us.

At the present time there are dangers lurking in the United States economy and in parts of the rest of Canada, and we have worked hard to insulate ourselves as a people in this province from those dangers. We have tried to build an economy that is diverse enough to withstand the challenges, for example, that we're now facing in forestry. And we will see our way through the challenges in forestry.

But luckily, the diversity and the investment capital we've been able to reattract to this province will see us through the times that other provinces will not be so fortunate to get through like we will. They will suffer some economic hardships that those in this province will not.

I want to talk a little bit about this throne speech, then. What is advancing us to where we want to be? I'll just open to a few pages in the throne speech. To start with, we have talked and the Premier has talked for years about the sustainability of the Canada Health Act.

The five principles of the Canada Health Act miss sustainability. You can't have a health system for future generations if you can't pay for it, and with the rising costs in our health system very clearly something has to happen. That's why we had the Conversation on Health. The Conversation on Health engaged British Columbians all over this province, and we got thousands and thousands of submissions. As a result, we will be able to begin implementing changes that will bring sustainability. Some of those changes are outlined in the throne speech this year.

I don't understand why these people opposite don't get these. Why don't they support…? I don't get it. I understand that they're in the opposition. I understand that their job is to oppose policy even when it's really good policy. I believe in my heart of hearts that most members on the opposite side go home in the evening and look in the mirror and say: "Golly, I wish I could have been a B.C. Liberal. I really like these policies." I truly believe that.

R. Hawes: The member from Maillardville says it's the best thing she's ever heard. I think she's talking about when she speaks to herself in the mirror.

We are developing a Brain Research Centre that's going to take a look and work with the experts in this province. Make no mistake: we have world leaders in this province in problems like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, dementias. We have people in this province who are world renowned, and we're building a centre for brain research to get on that problem, because it is a growing problem, as everyone knows.

Everyone has someone who's been touched with Alzheimer's or dementia or Parkinson's or one of the diseases of aging. As we are all getting older, clearly it's in everyone's best interest that we get on that, that we develop something that is going to actually produce good results. An investment in that is now going to happen.

These investments, by the way, don't happen because the economy was being run into the ground. These investments happen when you build an economy that let's you make these investments. That's what we've done.

We are going to invest in a centre for hip health. I think everybody knows what happens with seniors when they fall — a tremendous number of fractured hips leading to all kinds of complications and crushing costs. Never mind the cost to the families that are involved and the terrible consequences that the people who suffer these falls have to live through, but the cost to the health system is also staggering.

We have to move to a place where we now get into preventative care. I served for a long time on both a hospital board and on the community health committees as we looked at transitioning health care under that government to the 52 unmanageable health regions. We talked a lot about preventative health care.

Government after government talked about preventative health care, and the first item that ever got cut is preventative health care. Investment in preventative health care has been talked about for years and years, and no investment.

Through the Minister of State for ActNow, we are now seriously looking at a major part of preventative health care — that is, how to make sure that people exercise properly, eat properly and look after themselves. That's how you prevent big health expenses down the road.

We are developing now a thing called the Walking School Bus to allow kids to start walking to school in safety again. Parents all over this province just shudder when they think of their kids walking four, five, six blocks to school.

I remember when I was a kid. It was over a mile to the school, and everybody went home for lunch. And you ran home.

R. Hawes: That's what it was. You had to get up an hour before the alarm clock went off so that you could get there — on and on and on. But I do recall that as a youth everybody walked to school. There were no parents driving their kids. In fact, they were probably lucky if some people had cars to drive their kids to school.

The other one — and I've heard this mentioned several times in the last week — was the bike rack at the school. Until somebody mentioned that a week or so ago…. It's such a distant memory, but I recall now that the bike rack was huge at all of the schools. During the day it was crammed with bikes.

They're gone. Kids are getting a ride to school with their parents. So we're also going to develop what's called a bike train and get kids back on their bikes and bring back those days when kids are actually getting a little bit of exercise going to school. They can learn how to be kids again.

I do have to say that I did listen as the Finance Committee travelled the province…. Silken Laumann came and gave a presentation about this kind of thing, and she did talk about building communities where kids are walking to school. The big thing that struck me with what she had to say was that parents get involved. Pretty soon the parents get talking to each other, and then they know each other. That's how you build community. That's something that has been lacking.

Children should not be subjected to secondhand smoke. I've read a number of things lately in the newspaper columns and other places — that government shouldn't be so big and be interfering. Well, if the government isn't going to make sure that kids are kept safe, I'm not really sure who will when there are still some parents out there who don't seem to get it. They smoke in their cars when their kids are there.

This is the right thing to do. I am absolutely positive, if for no other reason, that the members opposite are going to vote at the end of the day for this throne speech, because they would not want to vote against banning secondhand smoke in cars when kids are present. I'm sure that they would.

There will be new patient quality review boards in the health regions. Over and over and over we all hear of instances where people aren't very happy with the health care delivery that they have received, for whatever reason, where they live. One of the reasons, I guess — and it is always going to be that way….

There are literally hundreds of thousands of people receiving treatments in hospitals every single day in British Columbia. Of those hundreds of thousands of cases that are handled, there is always going to be something somewhere that doesn't go right.

The people who have to live with the consequences of something that doesn't go right need to have somewhere to go. Frankly, it shouldn't just be their MLA's office so they can write an e-mail and it can come up at question period. They actually need some true answers, and someone needs to take a look at what's going on.

These new patient care quality review boards will be charged with the responsibility of looking at these kinds of incidents and will, I think, provide a great deal of satisfaction in a non-political way.

Foreign doctors being allowed to practise here. Internationally trained physicians will practise their specific areas under a new restricted licence. I don't know about the other members here. I know what's happening in my community.

We have a shortage of specialists in my area, and the specialists that have come have difficulty getting licences even though they are fully qualified. They have even practised in other provinces in this country, and they have difficulty here. This is going to allow them to practise to their training, and that is a wonderful thing that should have happened a long time ago. I don't think it ever could have happened under that previous government.

The Health Professions Act is going to allow health professionals to practise to the extent of their training. Their scope of practice will be increased — such a sensible thing. Pharmacists should be allowed to give renewals for standard prescriptions that people are getting over and over, and they're going to their doctors every three months for a renewal — same renewal.

There's absolutely no reason that pharmacists, who actually have far more training in the dispensing of medications and understand medications…. They spend a lot more time on that than doctors do. I think most doctors would agree that pharmacists actually are the guys who are the true specialists in the dispensing of medication. Not in diagnosing conditions, but certainly, they know what all of the contraindications and all that around medicines are, and I think it's a wonderful innovation. I know it will come with regulations that will safeguard patients.

Ambulance paramedics being allowed to release patients that don't need transportation to the emergency ward. Gee, I know our paramedics are just absolutely first class and are quite capable of handling that.

There are so many innovations in health care coming in this throne speech. As you go through the throne speech, page after page of good news, great policy, vision. That's the word, I think, more than any other word — vision. As we went through the 1990s and we

lived through that era — the one that they don't like to talk about; they say let's forget about it…. As you think about vision, is that a word you ever would have applied to what was going on in the 1990s? I don't think so. No vision would be much, much more appropriate, yes.

I am extremely proud of the throne speech. I'm extremely proud that I know our government has worked in ministry after ministry after ministry to look at how we can bring our five great goals into absolute accomplishment. The only way we can do that is to continue year after year after year pushing great policy forward, but making sure that we have an economy that allows us to invest in the areas that need investment.

What was happening in the 1990s was an absolute dereliction of any fiscal responsibility. We have created a situation now where all investors can have confidence, where fudge-it budgets are a thing of the past, where there is absolutely no thought that what the government is reporting is inaccurate in any way. I'm very, very proud of that.

When I look at the accomplishments that we have made in seven years and then you compare the ten years the opposition had…. The other day someone in this House in question period heckled that we've had seven years to accomplish something and look what we've done. Well, just look what we've done.

Look at the transformation in British Columbia over seven years. Look at the change in confidence in people in seven years. Look at the confidence in the business community, even as reported by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, where we've gone from tenth to first in Canada in terms of business confidence. That is leadership. That is vision. That is putting what we say and plan into action. We will continue to do that.

I urge all members to read this carefully, vote for it, and not just that, go check with your constituents if they like what's in here. I know they do. So I would urge the NDP to get up on their feet…. I know you can't join our party. I know you want to, but you need to stay as the opposition. At least vote for this sensible, sensible throne speech.

S. Fraser: I've prepared a speech, but I have to address a few of the things that the member for Maple Ridge–Mission stated. First of all, things to be not proud of are the worst child poverty rate in the country four years running; the worst social indicators in the country, bar none; the worst homeless record in history….

S. Fraser: I know it's considered funny, but you guys talk to different people than we do, I guess.

The member referred to the reference to secondhand smoke in cars. Of course, I'll want to give credit where credit's due, and that's my esteemed colleague from Nanaimo. That's his private member's bill. It's fine for it to be stolen by this government if it gets in place. If they want to take credit for it, fine, but I will give credit where it's due.

IPPs. If the member previously had actually talked to any of his constituencies or gone to the UBCM and talked to municipal leaders that this government stripped of all authority over IPPs within their jurisdiction, he'd know what IPPs mean to the people of British Columbia. It's privatization of our rivers. It's piratization of our rivers.

Now, back to my speech. I am proud and honoured to represent the people of Alberni-Qualicum, to fight to protect the rights of the people of Alberni-Qualicum, to fight to protect the environment of the people of Alberni-Qualicum and to fight to ensure that the future for the children of Alberni-Qualicum is a bright one. All of us in this Legislative Assembly, I believe, have an obligation to fight injustice and to speak frankly. The problem with the throne speech is the lack of frankness.

The problem with the throne speech, as I see it, is not in the words. They sound pretty good. It's got the same cover and binding as it did last year. Sounds great. The delivery — that was not the problem. I'd like to congratulate the Lieutenant-Governor. He did a yeoman's job at getting through a very, very lengthy throne speech. No, the problem wasn't in the words or the delivery. The problem is in the integrity of its authors. The problem is in the credibility of its authors.

Now, I see the throne speech used as capstone a quote from JFK. It says: "History and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action." It wasn't cited to JFK, but it is a quote from John F. Kennedy. I suggest that history and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action. Well, that's like an epitaph for this government when it comes to throne speeches.

If you're going to pick a JFK quote, I have a better one: "The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." That was John F. Kennedy, and it applies to this throne speech and every throne speech from this Premier and this government. History has already judged this government by showing the litany of broken promises from the throne speech and from around the throne speech.

We've seen platitudes, slogans. That's the greatest legacy of this Premier and this government, as was referred to moments ago: the golden decade, five great goals, the four As, things like forest revitalization that have destroyed forest communities — polar opposite. The people of British Columbia are getting pretty fed up with the crass politics of Liberals using slogans instead of governing or governing by spin.

Rather than responding to the speech, maybe we should have the Auditor General do a review and

investigation that goes subsequent to it, because the Auditor General's numerous analyses that have come out recently have been important. They put in stark reality the true frailty of this government's promises and their feebleness in intent.

Just look at this government's other throne speeches and promises made there. When this government promises making children a priority — laudable cause — what we get is the highest child poverty rate in the country, bar none. That's four years running now. Great job.

When this government's throne speech promises the most literate jurisdiction in North America, what we get is 40 percent of working-age British Columbians that lack sufficient literary skills to fully participate in today's workforce. We find that no one really knows what is already being spent on literacy or how much funding will be needed to reach government goals. No idea. This is not my opinion. These are the quotes from the Auditor General just several weeks ago.

When we get promises of Olympic costs somewhere around $600 million, we get a reality check again from the Auditor General. Let's put it into billions. When we get assurances of good management, referred to by the speaker before me, instead we get a convention centre expansion project with mismanagement and cost overruns of Olympic proportions.

When we get promises of protecting the public interest, we get a province with the worst social indicators, bar none, in the country.

When we get promises of respect for aboriginal rights, we get a Premier and a government that are silent while Canada votes no to the U.N. declaration affirming the rights of indigenous people. When we get promises about protecting worker safety, we get policies that lead instead to death and injury.

When we get promises about protecting the environment, we get forest practices that make the most seasoned logger gasp. When we get promises about sustainable aquaculture, we get a Premier and a government that ignore all of the work and all of the recommendations that the public demanded through the Special Committee on Aquaculture. When we get promises about environmental stewardship, we get destruction of watersheds.

When we get promises of health care — "When you need it, where you need it"; remember that slogan? — we get loss of local services, massive waiting lists and loss of basic standards like cleanliness in our hospitals.

When we have promises of protecting local government and community values, we get a whole series of guttings of social contracts and a whole variety of legislation that strips away the authority of our local governments. Those on the ground, closest to the community values — gone.

When we get promises from this Premier and this government about addressing climate change, we get a Premier and a government that are overseeing — no, orchestrating — the destruction of all the green stuff, our forests, that sustains our future and our very survival.

We all remember promises like: "We will honour negotiated contracts." Remember that one? "We will not sell B.C. Rail." I like that one. What did we get? That's right — the polar opposite. We got torn-up contracts, not to mention a breach of the Charter of Rights of Canada, which is appalling. With the B.C. Rail sale…. Well, I guess it is a 999-year contract. Maybe it's not quite a sale. The murk around that deal has yet to come forth.

That reminds me of another promise. "We will cooperate with the court and provide any and all information." Remember that one?

When it comes to promises in the throne speech or in issues raised, I actually get nervous. What's going to be listed in this book? There's a perverse irony here. Everything promised in the throne speech from this Premier and this government is actually the most at risk. The Auditor General has affirmed that. It should be the job of the opposition to affirm that, so I'm doing it.

We already have independent bodies. The Forest Safety Council ombudsman just said the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, that ombudsman was a former Liberal minister of state, and he's saying it. So you can't trust what's in here. It's very difficult to debate it, whether it's pro or con, because it is meaningless as words.

I find myself crossing my fingers, hoping that there won't be any issues of importance in the throne speech, with the knowledge that all British Columbians have now — that any issue raised by this government and this Premier in this book becomes the most at risk, the most threatened, especially if it's used in another slogan.

The throne speech highlights health care. In Alberni-Qualicum we have a crisis in health care. We have a crisis on the west coast with the Tofino hospital. We've had the community come together to try to deal with it in the vacuum of this government. The doctors are burning out. There are no replacements. Nurses have been refused critical training. We've lost services like obstetrics. The entire facility needs to be replaced, and we've heard nothing from this government about addressing these issues.

This government's previous slogan was "Health care when you need it, where you need it." The current one, now being adopted in this throne speech, is "Reasonable access." We had "Health care when you need it, where you need it," and now "Reasonable access." That sounds like a bit of a softening there. It sounds like we're going in the wrong direction.

Say you're a woman living in Tofino or Ucluelet or any one of five Nuu-chah-nulth communities on the west coast, or you're any one of a million tourists that are travelling to the west coast, to Clayoquot Sound. If you're a woman there needing obstetric services, "reasonable access" has become a two-hour perilous drive. That doesn't fit into either slogan, "Health care when you need it, where you need it," or "Reasonable access," by anyone's estimation.

Quality end-of-life care is an essential part of any health care continuum. There are members from both sides that went to a meeting just this last week with the hospice palliative care society in B.C. This government's own report came out in May of last year, I believe, and it said that quality end-of-life care through hospice is an essential part of the continuum. There's no core funding. There's nothing from this government. Their own report came out, and it has been ignored.

Just like the report on forest road safety that I referred to earlier, the ombudsman's report — ignored. Actually, rejected summarily by at least two ministers of this House. From answers in question period, clearly they hadn't even read the report.

This does not bode well for the throne speech or for the people of British Columbia. It doesn't even make good business sense. If you don't bring core funding to hospice, it will cost the health authorities hugely. Not reflected. No mention in the throne speech. Even after a major government report on end-of-life care from last year, no remedy in the throne speech. Very disappointing.

Parts of my constituency have the highest percentage population of seniors in Canada, bar none. Yet there is no primary health care facility there. It's a 40-minute drive in any direction to get to one. "Health care when you need it, where you need it." "Reasonable access." Forty minutes to get to primary health care. That's unacceptable by anyone's estimation. No remedy in the throne speech except the new slogan, "Reasonable access." "Health care when you need it, where you need it" didn't work. "Reasonable access" doesn't bode to work any better.

The throne speech also highlights the environment. Meanwhile, we have what is being termed as "liquidation logging" on the coast — some 120,000 hectares and counting, so far, given away from publicly controlled tree farm licences on Vancouver Island alone. I have a hard time with that. That's 500 square miles taken out of the protection of public tree farm licences.

These are values that have been in place since the '40s. The 1956 royal commission report on the state of tree farm licences — that's Justice Sloan — and the critical importance of maintaining forest integrity on public and private land through the tree farm licensing system…. That's been respected by every government, no matter what political stripes, until this government came in. In four years they've dismantled the whole premise of sustainable logging for future generations. You can't make comments about protecting the environment while you are stickhandling that one.

We need watershed protection. It is about our future survival. We don't need more platitudes in the throne speech. In my constituency there's a sensitive watershed known as Hamilton Marsh. I'm hoping we see action from the government, and I want to acknowledge that the minister has agreed to look at the issue. It's not mentioned — watershed protection — in the throne speech. I think that's a problem. It is so fundamental to our future health.

In other parts of my constituency, in the Alberni Valley, it seems like there's a perpetual boil water advisory. There have never been boil water advisories before the forest practices which this government have been engaged in. So since it is this government that brought us these horrendous forest practices that are damaging watersheds, damaging people's private property, damaging salmon streams, fish hatcheries…. Since that seems to be a legacy left by this government, I challenge the government to provide tax relief.

Budget is coming up this week. How about starting with a PST rebate for anyone in Beaver Creek, say, that has bought a kettle in the last year to try to deal with the boil water advisory? Or maybe some break on hydro fees to try to handle the boiling of that water.

I have a constituent, Wayne Crowley, that has been fighting for two and a half years now the damage to his property from forest practices levied by this government. He should get pain and suffering, at the very least.

The throne speech highlights first nations and aboriginal issues. I noticed the leadership council was not present in this chamber. None of the three members from the Assembly of First Nations or the B.C. summit or the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs were present. I am hoping that wasn't an oversight in invitation.

I am surmising only that there is discontent with the contents of this throne speech. The most fundamental part of that discontent, I think, can be demonstrated through this government's handling of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people.

We see words about a new relationship in this throne speech. Well, we had a chance to show it to the world. The UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people brought together many, many nations in the world, who overwhelmingly supported addressing the rights issues with indigenous peoples. One of four countries that voted against it was Canada — 144 yes votes, four no. This is while Canada was instrumental for 20-plus years in actually drafting this.

Now, we obviously have a government in Ottawa currently that is somewhat less progressive about human rights. But to stay silent as a provincial government that purports a new relationship while that's happening? That's appalling.

We had a chance to pressure the Harper government into doing the right thing and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples all over the world. We got silence from the government side of the House.

I rose and spoke to the House in a two-minute statement, urging the government. I raised it in estimates. The Leader of the Opposition showed true leadership in taking a position on behalf of the official opposition of British Columbia in supporting the rights of indigenous people, and this Premier and this government remained silent.

Silence is not acceptable. Abraham Lincoln said: "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." Martin Luther King Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things" that happen. That's what you did; that's what this

government did. Silence is part of the problem. Silence in the face of oppression and injustice is oppression and injustice.

The fact that we had less enthusiasm following this last year, with this throne speech that came forward last week, is no surprise to me. In every venue that I've been in, in the last year dealing with aboriginal affairs, the UN declaration came up. No one could believe the callous disregard from this government and this Premier in staying silent.

The new relationship is raised, and land use agreements are raised in this throne speech. But I'll tell you, I don't see an addressing of some of the key problems with the treaty process or of those not involved in the treaty process. Those have been displaced from the treaty process.

The Auditor General's report last year, again, was quite scathing on this government's handling of the new relationship. It has no official role in government. It has led to confusion in the treaty process. We have repeatedly had a call for rights-and-titles issues to be addressed, by those first nations and by all members of the leadership council, whether they're in the treaty process like the B.C. summit or outside of the treaty process like the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

Yet we have a motion on this side recognizing there's a problem that must be addressed, to empower the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and address these issues publicly, transparently. We got the same silence from this Premier and this government over that motion as we did from this government when dealing with the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people.

This stuff isn't new relationship, hon. Speaker. This is the worst of the old relationship. It is called hypocrisy.

New relationship. Well, tell that to the Pacheedaht on the west coast of Vancouver Island or the Kwagiulth on the north Island or the Hupacasath or the Tseshaht who had to resort to or are looking to resort to litigation to try to deal with this government's lack of respect for aboriginal rights and titles and for the spirit and intent of court decisions levied against this government's actions — certainly with the removal of private land from tree farm licences.

Forcing first nations into litigation is not a new thing. It's not a new relationship; it is the worst of the old relationship.

There is one issue that was raised quite significantly in the throne speech, and I'd like to speak to that for a moment. It's called Jordan's principle. I'm going to give a little bit of credit here where credit is due. We have finally, as a province, recognized Jordan's principle. That is a good thing.

It's a national issue — again, just like the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people that we didn't take any position on, on behalf of the government. Jordan's principle deals with injustice upon reserve children. This is significant too. There's a group called the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, and they have been advocating for Jordan's principle for a long, long time. It affects hundreds of children on reserve.

I first raised this in estimates with the then Minister of Children and Family Development two years ago. I took a liberty in that process to stand in the small House on the record and read into the record Jordan's principle and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms section that affirms Jordan's principle — that children must come first between interjurisdictional bickering between federal and provincial governments.

I followed that with a similar questioning in estimates with the then Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, and I followed it subsequently with further inquiries about Jordan's principle last year. So it's two years later than it should have been, but finally we have seen recognition that children must come first.

My only fear is that the acknowledgment from this government of Jordan's principle and protecting children on reserve may lead to the same place that we got to with this government affirming the importance of children in a previous budget. That led us to four years in a row of the worst child poverty in Canada, bar none. Let's hope that's not the fate of Jordan's principle.

Hon. T. Christensen: It is indeed an honour to rise and have an opportunity to respond to the Speech from the Throne today. I do want to start first and foremost by thanking the people of Okanagan-Vernon, my constituents, who have entrusted me to be here and have given me the opportunity to represent them since 2001. I'm always reminded at the time of the throne speech of what a privilege it is for all of us here, notwithstanding some of the banter back and forth, to sit in this place and have an opportunity to speak on behalf of the people who reside in our communities, to bring their ideas to this floor, to discuss their challenges.

I'm very thankful to individual constituents who have come into my office to discuss their hopes, some of the challenges they face and their ideas about how British Columbia can be a stronger province. I certainly take their trust and my responsibility to them very seriously.

I am incredibly proud to be part of a government that has always looked to the future of this province with hope and with optimism. Certainly, I think that is something that is very much reflected in this year's throne speech.

We came to government in 2001 at a time when British Columbia felt like it had a perennial cloud hanging overtop our heads. It's not surprising — as I've listened to a few of the opposition members provide comments about the Speech from the Throne — that we did have that cloud over our heads, because I've heard a consistent negative, destructive and pessimistic theme about what is actually possible here in this incredible province. I certainly don't intend to dwell on some of what I heard from the opposition members, but I can't help but respond to a few of the comments from the member for Alberni-Qualicum.

We've heard, from a number of members on the opposite side, outright opposition and hostility towards the concept of independent power producers,

notwithstanding that independent power producers have been in this province for a number of years and were selling into the grid through the 1990s at an increasing rate. That seems to be all forgotten. There's no question that there's abject hostility towards the concept of independent power producers providing a resource for additional power in the province.

I do wonder what the member for Alberni-Qualicum thinks when one of those successful IPPs is actually the China Creek project with the Hupacasath First Nation — an opportunity for a first nation to play a critical role, looking to the future, to a new economy, to new opportunities. Those are the types of opportunities that this government has strived to provide to first nations and to others across our province.

I must also respond to some of the member's comments around health care. It is perhaps an understatement to say that governments across Canada — if not throughout the western hemisphere and the world, for that matter — are faced with the daunting task of trying to ensure that health care is reasonably accessible to all citizens and that it is sustainable so that it will be there today, tomorrow and for generations to come.

We are in a dramatically better situation today than we were seven short years ago, when we came to government. Yes, we faced challenges around physicians, but we've almost doubled the number of physicians that are being trained. Here's a bit of a surprise. It actually takes a number of years to train them, so those additional spaces we added when we first came to government are only now producing physicians that can work in the province.

British Columbia has an enviable record, tops among provinces and jurisdictions in Canada, in terms of attracting physicians to work here. That's what is necessary to set us on the proper course to have physician professionals that we require in the province.

We know that in the early 1990s the former government actually cut the number of nurse-training spaces. We've had to work very hard to increase the number of nurses that are being trained in the province, because any of us who have had anything to do with a health care facility in the province know how critical it is that we have sufficient numbers of well-trained and qualified nurses to ensure that the system is working well.

The member mentioned a breakfast last week around palliative care. Let me tell you a little story from my constituency about palliative care. The residents of Vernon and the North Okanagan raised well over a million dollars in the late 1990s to build Vernon Hospice House. It is an incredible facility that enjoys widespread support among my constituents. It was built with community funds.

You know what happened when we went to the government of the day to try and get some operating funds for Vernon Hospice House, a place with a home-like atmosphere, with incredible volunteer support that could assist people in their final days and assist their families in dealing with the many challenges that arise in one's final days? There was no funding available.

You know what's happened under this government? For the first time Hospice House has beds that are funded through the Interior Health Authority.

You know what's happening today? There are shovels in the ground in Vernon. I'm proud to say that at the groundbreaking we had a nice competition to see who could dig the biggest hole. Normally, as a politician, you don't want to be digging the biggest hole, but I actually won that competition.

Now the bigger excavators are in there. They've laid the foundation, and Vernon Hospice House is doubling the number of beds that are there, with the support of the Interior Health Authority.

That's the type of progress that is critical. It's those types of investments, together with the community, that are going to ensure we have a health care system that meets the needs of the people of the province now and into the future.

It's in line with the significant additional investment that the Interior Health Authority is making of $81 million to add a new diagnostic and treatment tower at Vernon Jubilee Hospital — a hospital that hasn't changed a lot since I was born there, in fact, which is a scary thought. We are seeing the types of investments that are necessary to meet the needs of our communities — finally, after a decade through the 1990s where none of those investments were being made.

In listening to members of the opposition respond to the throne speech, it's clear in many cases that they haven't been paying attention to the significant things happening in the province, to the sense of optimism that pervades the province today. It's also clear that those members need to think back and remember the 1990s, as we all do, because we know that if we ignore history, we're damned to repeat it. Certainly, in this province we don't need to go back to what was happening in the 1990s.

For the past seven years this government has worked hard in partnership and in collaboration with British Columbians to build a brighter future, and it hasn't been easy. We've held fast to our shared vision, the vision that this government was elected on: to create a province of opportunity, of mutual respect and strong partnerships, of caring and compassion for our fellow citizens and of fiscal responsibility. Truly, it is a testament to the people of British Columbia that people across this country again look to British Columbia with envy. We can again rightfully claim to be the best place on earth to live, to work and to raise a family.

Just think about it, Mr. Speaker. What an exciting time. What an exciting time to live here in British Columbia. There is unprecedented economic opportunity in a well-diversified economy that's been built upon a foundation of forward-looking public investments in post-secondary education and transportation and is among the most competitive tax and regulatory regimes anywhere.

In two years, amongst this place of great optimism and hope, we'll be in the midst of one of the greatest sporting and social events imaginable, the 2010 Olym-

pic and Paralympic Games. What we are seeing in the excitement of the two years leading up to it is a number of reports in the media and commentary from those outside the province who have experience with a number of different Olympic Games, whether they be summer or winter. What are they telling us, these outside objective observers? That these are the best organized games they've ever seen, and that two years prior to the games starting, already almost all of the venues are complete.

That's great news, simply because you know you've got your venues ready and there's not that last-minute panic that so often is the case in other Olympic Games to get things complete. But it also provides a significant advantage to Canadian athletes, who will have the opportunity to train in the facilities that they will actually be competing in and that we will all be fortunate to watch them compete in two years from now.

Just last week, again with the two-year…. I guess it's not an anniversary; it's two years ahead. There is the opportunity now to volunteer for the Olympics, an opportunity that I know people across British Columbia look forward to taking advantage of — to be part of a significant event, one of the most significant events that this province will ever host.

As we head towards the games, I'm actually reminded of a couple of events that have occurred in my constituency and gave me a bit of a sense, a flavour, of what it's like to be at a world-class event. In December of 2005 we were fortunate in Vernon to host a Nordic World Cup. The sense of energy as you watched those Nordic skiers go flying around that track at speeds that I found unimaginable was pervasive, and it was just a small microcosm of what we're going to see when there's a host of events throughout Vancouver and Whistler two years from now for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Just a month, actually, from today we'll be in the midst of another great world sporting event in Vernon, and that's the Ford World Women's Curling Championships. On the weekend I was up at Silver Star, and we had a bit of a competition between some local politicians and the media and a few others of jam can curling on Brewer's Pond, which is a nice, big outdoor skating rink up at Silver Star Mountain. I can tell you that nobody needs to be threatened by my curling instincts. I'm very good with the last rock as long as there's a bunch of rocks in the house that I can just try and plow out of there. But if I need to try to put it on the mark, I'm in deep trouble.

A month from now people in Vernon and hundreds of volunteers in Vernon are going to be hosting curling teams and media from around the world as part of the Ford World Women's Curling Championship. That's really a credit to my community and the strength of spirit and the volunteerism that pervades the spirit in my community that we're able to host things like the Nordic World Cup in 2005 and now the Ford World Women's Curling Championship.

As we welcome the world in 2010, those visitors and those watching around the world will see a vibrant and dynamic province that's focused on confronting the challenges of our times and demonstrating true leadership on a national and even a global scale. That is what this throne speech clearly demonstrated.

Climate change, improved and sustainable health services, closing the gaps between aboriginal and non-aboriginal British Columbians, ensuring the strongest start for our children. These are the challenges of our time, and these are the themes of this throne speech.

Most challenging among those, perhaps, are the changes we're experiencing in our climate. Global warming is changing the face of our planet, and at an alarming rate. It is not a time to be sitting on the sidelines.

This government is taking action to stem the tide. British Columbia has staked out a leadership position in the fight against global warming and for ensuring a sustainable environment, because having committed to building a brighter future for our children, we need to ensure that that future includes a healthy environment to live in. A healthy natural environment is something that many of us who grew up in this province simply have always taken for granted, but what we are seeing is a shift and a legitimate concern in what is happening to that environment. It is our job — the job of all British Columbians and all members in this House on both sides — to work together to preserve and protect our province for future generations.

This government aims to lead by example, and that work has certainly begun. Just recently with the school district in Vernon funding was announced for environmentally friendly school buses which will reduce exhaust emissions by 90 percent. Down the road in Kelowna the Central Okanagan school district is going to be taking delivery of a diesel-electric hybrid, the first charge-sustaining school bus sold in all of North America.

The government, across government, is in the midst of converting its vehicle fleet to hybrids. Certainly in my own ministry, the Ministry of Children and Family Development, we currently have 106 hybrid vehicles, about 20 percent of our fleet. We'll be getting more over the next three years as part of our normal vehicle replacement cycle.

This throne speech will build on some of that good start with energy conservation initiatives, with reforestation efforts, with the Pacific carbon trust and the new LiveSmart B.C. initiative. I believe that in 2050 we'll be able to look back at this throne speech, at this time in British Columbia's history, and see that we've set the course for saving our environment.

In 2050 we may also be able to look back and see that 2008 was the beginning of what may become the most profound change in how the province supports the development and education of our children. Tasking a new early childhood learning agency with assessing the benefits and the costs of full-day kindergarten and the choice for parents of daylong kindergarten for four-year-olds and for three-year-olds in the future could foster a dramatic shift in how we support families in ensuring the strongest possible start for their child's development and education.

I can tell you that one of the great joys of being Minister of Children and Family Development is the opportunity to get around the province, to connect with families and children. I've had the pleasure of visiting a number of impressive programs, whether they're family resource programs, neighbourhood hubs, early childhood development programs — places where parents, caregivers and children gather, where they get to share ideas, share challenges, share successes in a warm, supportive atmosphere.

These programs, which are a key part of this ministry's mandate, help children to develop the skills that they need to succeed. They support parents in gaining parenting skills, which in turn leads to stronger, more resilient families. And they create a social connectivity which leads to stronger, more caring and inclusive communities. As a ministry we continue to strongly support partnership initiatives like Success By 6, which help give children from all parts of B.C. a good head start in life.

Such initiatives have been complemented by the development of StrongStart centres in 84 schools across the province. I was pleased to see in the Speech from the Throne a further commitment to increase that number to 400 by 2010. I know, based on experience to date, that those new StrongStart centres will be welcomed in communities right across this province.

British Columbia's parents currently have good opportunities to assist their children's early development. What this throne speech does is ensure that we are looking at the means to further develop those opportunities. I'm very much looking forward to the work of the early learning agency.

For the past 18 months I've had the privilege of serving as the province's Minister of Children and Family Development. No question that it has been a time of change within the ministry, a time of taking stock, of careful evaluation and planning and of moving forward, and at the core of this change, the shift towards a strengths-based approach to serving children, youth and families.

I know people are often asking: "What does that really mean — a strength-based approach?" The answer, like the approach, is simple yet at the same time extraordinarily complex.

What it fundamentally means is recognizing and building on the strengths that are inherent in all children, youth and families. It means understanding their challenges and supporting them, through a continuum of integrated programs and services, in reaching their unique potential within the context of their own culture and their community. It means looking at children, youth and families who have use of our ministry's services more holistically, seeing them not just as a sum of their issues or their specific needs but instead digging deeper to look at what things they are succeeding in, the areas where they are doing okay — the areas where they might, if given targeted and effective support, even shine.

Now, that type of approach has a profound impact on how the ministry works with families. So, for example, in the past and too often today still, a concern pertaining to the welfare of a child leads to court with decision-making made in a relatively adversarial form based on perceived deficiencies in the family. But increasingly within the Ministry of Children and Family Development, approaches such as mediation and family group conferencing are being pursued as a less adversarial option, as an alternative and more of a norm.

These approaches don't minimize the circumstances that give rise to a concern, because clearly the safety and well-being of the child is always of the utmost importance. They also identify, validate and build upon the strengths and relationships and resilience in both the family and the community. They result in social workers working with families, such that even where a court proceeding may be necessary, what we are hearing from judges and from others that are there in the courtroom is that instead of it being the ministry on one side of the courtroom and the family on the other, the parties are actually coming into court with a recognition of what the issues are and, in many cases, a very clear idea of how they can work together to resolve those.

More is being done based on what already exists within the child's family and community that can be enhanced and strengthened to keep a child safe. That, in turn, ultimately makes for better plans and better outcomes for children and a better support network for them.

Another way in which the ministry is changing is in our shift away from a central office, top-down decision-making approach. Increasingly, decisions within the ministry are being made at the regional level by people with the firsthand experience and knowledge of what their communities require. In this way, programs, services and resources can be tailored to meet the unique needs of regions and the families who live in those regions.

It is an understatement to say that this is a diverse province and that the needs in downtown Vancouver differ from the needs in Fort St. John or in Vanderhoof or in Burns Lake. The more we can do to ensure that we have a system of strong standards, a system that recognizes that the approaches may be different in different communities, building on the strengths of those communities and the families that live there, the more success we are going to have in better serving the children of this province.

So while decision-making is being decentralized, we're continuing to build the processes and the systems that will ensure effective information-sharing agreements and that information on local services is available centrally. Over time we expect to see a provincial office which has a greater focus on monitoring and quality assurance, on policy development and partnership with the regions and the provision of support to the regions. This is the kind of real and lasting change that is taking place within MCFD.

We do live in a province with a wide range of cultures, employment options and training opportunities,

not to mention those vast geographical differences. So a one-size-fits-all approach made in a central office here in Victoria doesn't work for the majority of B.C. families. With the shift toward regional decision-making, we're taking very concrete steps to change that. It's about listening to the voices of British Columbians and finding a better path forward.

I think it's fair to say that a great deal has been accomplished over the course of the last seven years and nowhere more so than in our work and our partnership with aboriginal peoples in British Columbia. MCFD, like government as a whole, has worked hard to forge a new relationship with aboriginal and first nations people.

More than five years have now passed since the Tsawwassen accord, where aboriginal representatives from across B.C. came together and agreed to work toward the good of aboriginal children. Much of this ministry's efforts over the past number of years have been focused on developing and strengthening that relationship and, most importantly, recreating a child welfare system that, historically, for first peoples simply has not worked.

This is an ongoing and a groundbreaking process that's guided by aboriginal people with the clear understanding that they have an innate right to care for and support their own children. It's also a process and a partnership of which I'm extraordinarily proud.

There are many people who have participated wholeheartedly in this process and to whom I and the ministry offer our thanks. It is this respectful collaboration that has already sowed the seeds of change, and this past year, for me, was highlighted by the establishment of interim aboriginal authorities in both the Fraser and the Vancouver Island regions. We're very close now to establishing an interim authority for the Vancouver coastal region.

In attending the celebrations held to celebrate the establishment of interim authorities on Vancouver Island and in the Fraser region, it struck me just how significant a move forward this was in empowering aboriginal peoples to be determining how services may best be delivered to aboriginal children and families.

I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that path forward is going to be easy, that it's going to be without controversy and without disagreement. But it is something that we must pursue together with first nations leaders, with aboriginal service providers, with delegated agencies, if we truly are going to reach that goal of better serving aboriginal children and families, who for so long have not done well in the context of our existing and our past child welfare system.

I was very proud at the recent chiefs forum that the Premier announced that British Columbia would be the first province in Canada to adopt Jordan's principle, to ensure that a child in British Columbia is not denied access to a service simply because that child is aboriginal, but instead to say that all children in British Columbia deserve access to services and that we will not allow jurisdictional barriers to get in the way of that.

It is vitally important that when we talk of building a brighter future that we also ensure that the future is bright for all children, including the 52,000 young British Columbians with significant special needs. Now, collectively, the Ministries of Health, Education, and Children and Family Development, including CLBC, provide more than 90 programs and services to children and youth with special needs and their families.

The budget for those specialized services has increased to about a half billion dollars. By this coming fiscal year, based on last year's fiscal plan, the MCFD special needs budget will have risen by 40 percent since 2004-2005.

As funding has increased, services have increased. But we've heard from families that accessing those services can be difficult. It can be confusing, particularly for parents whose primary concern is, as it should be, the day-to-day raising of their child. That's why, in partnership with the Ministries of Health and Education, we are creating a cross-ministry framework for children and youth with special needs. The core of this framework is ensuring that services are, first of all, easily accessible and that families get the right services at the right time for their child.

It's the kind of system that any parent…. Certainly, as an MLA and a minister, I've heard families ask for it. It's the kind of system that makes it easier to figure out what programs might be the right ones for your child, how to get information about those programs or services and, most importantly, how to access them.

The cooperative nature of the framework will help ensure that services are provided on a continuum from birth through school-age and all the way through to adulthood — including, where applicable, the transition to adult services. That might mean, for example, accessing infant development services early in a child's life, utilizing assessment and diagnostic services, targeted intervention programs or therapies, supported child development followed by resources in the school system, and family supports such as training and respite care.

Now, I had the opportunity recently to introduce the framework at the BCACDI annual general meeting and then the next day at a separate meeting of the B.C. school superintendents and directors for special needs. The response from these folks who are dealing with children and youth with special needs on a daily basis was overwhelmingly positive.

I'm very much looking forward to speaking with more families, care providers, educators and service providers about that framework and the ongoing work that's being done at the community, ministerial and provincial levels to ensure that children and youth with special needs have every opportunity to fulfil their potential as valued members of our communities.

It certainly is an incremental process, and that can certainly be frustrating for all involved, but it is important that we have begun. That is one area where we are making significant progress.

Similar progress has certainly been made for children and youth with mental health issues, for children that have autism or are on the autism spectrum disorder. We'll be making additional improvements in the coming months.

All of this is undertaken in collaboration with our service provider partners, in collaboration with communities and families, with open ears to hear the challenges that they are facing in accessing services to ensure that the needs of their children are met. That is the approach that the Ministry of Children and Family Development is bringing to our work. It is the approach that is going to allow us on a go-forward basis to ensure that we continue to enhance services.

It's the type of approach that's going to ensure that families who require the services of the Ministry of Children and Family Development and government can look to the future with a great sense of optimism as we do move forward on the initiatives in the Speech from the Throne and to a brighter future for all British Columbians.

C. Trevena: I'm honoured to stand here to respond to the Speech from the Throne, following the Minister of Children and Family Development, who said he was concerned about all the pessimism that seemed to be coming from this side of the House compared to their wonderful optimistic view. I think it is really a matter of perspective.

The minister is talking about all of the things that his ministry is doing in moving the situation on for children, for families within the province. I see in my constituency office many, many families who come in who have children, whether with special needs or who are up against the wall, and who really need help. They don't feel they are being serviced no matter how hard they know the people on the ground from the ministry are working.

I think one of the things that the minister is missing in his brighter-future scenario that he's drawing in his response to the throne is the fact that with this government's policies we are seeing many people who are really struggling. We have one in four children who are living in poverty, which means one in four families are living in poverty. As these families and children struggle, the pressures are greater and the needs are that much greater.

I see that schools are almost becoming social service providers at times. This is partly because of the government policies that are putting so much pressure on the people of B.C. and increasing the poverty levels of people in B.C.

I believe that the role of a government is to safeguard, protect and develop the public good — whether that's through ensuring roads are built and maintained across the province, not just one area; or whether it's providing public health care to all who need it when they need it; or whether it's putting public dollars into public education. The role of government is to look after its people and its lands.

In a resource-based economy such as ours, there is a link between the lands and the people, a contract between those who use our resources, those who have the right to log our trees, and those who live in our communities. The role of a government is to make sure that all people can be included in the benefits of society, and that means tackling some raw issues, raw issues which I believe the minister and other members of the government have missed in their response to the throne — issues of poverty, issues of homelessness, issues of addictions.

We live in a very rich society, and everyone deserves an equality of opportunity. Every community deserves hope. Every community deserves a vision. That should be the core of a government's platform and its policies, but sadly I don't see that this is the case with this government in the coming year in what it has given us in its Speech from the Throne.

I represent the people of the North Island, which is a very diverse constituency. There are first nations there and families who settled the islands many decades ago; people who lived by the resource economy and people who are bringing new technologies and new ideas; villages and Island communities; people who want hope, who want to be able to share a vision for a vibrant future, but people who are living with an uncertainty which isn't addressed in this Speech from the Throne.

On the second day that we were back in this place a delegation came down to the House from Campbell River. They were workers from the Elk Falls and the neighbouring Catalyst pulp mill. The previous week they'd learned that their sawmill, the Elk Falls sawmill, was going to close. TimberWest's last mill on the coast is going to shut down.

It's been on the market for two years, and it's not surprising there hasn't been a buyer. TimberWest refused to supply the fibre for it. A sawmill with no logs available isn't much of a bargain even in the best of times, but this isn't a market-driven problem.

It's not a market-driven problem that's pushing this. There are 200 people out of work because of politics. It is this government's abrogation of the social contract, this government's refusal to realize that giving a private company access to forest lands through tree farm licences means ensuring that that company lives up to its side of the contract — that's providing the logs to the mills. Without that, you don't have jobs, and without jobs, economies start to crumble pretty quickly.

TimberWest has said it's more interested in real estate than it is in logging. It's got prime properties on the Island. That can make a lot of money for the company, and it will, having given up on the Elk Falls mill.

So it's no wonder that people in my community lose faith in a government, have no hope and do not buy into the Premier's slogan-filled vision. They've seen the social contract ripped up. If individuals in my constituency ripped up a contract, you could bet that someone would be after them pretty quickly. But the rules are very different for the big companies — the friends of the government. They can walk away from a mill, walk away from a community, and they still get to keep the TFL.

This closure is going to have an impact on the neighbouring pulp mill, the Catalyst mill. Elk Falls

provided the sawdust and the chips for Catalyst, and without that ready supply, without shipping costs, it will be harder for them to get the fibre they need. A hundred people are already out of work there because one of the paper machines has been down, and now there are fears that more jobs will be on the line.

Campbell River is a community of about 30,000. It's been founded in forestry. These job losses are really going to hurt. But it's not just the value-added sector that's been hit by this government's forest policy. The industry on the coast is in crisis, there's no question, and Trees for Tomorrow — yet another slogan — won't solve those jobs that loggers need today.

The pressure on coastal communities is exacerbated with this current tenure system, where we have one company with a monopoly hold over nearly all the Crown lands in my constituency.

Western Forest Products. On the local level its reputation isn't bad for those who work for it. That's if they still work for it and their jobs haven't been contracted out. But no one private company should have control over so much public land without a watertight agreement on a social contract.

Sadly, people and companies that want access to western fibre on the north Island have to pay Vancouver log market prices and ship the logs that came from their communities back from the source, kilometres away. In the Speech from the Throne: nothing for forestry. A reference to the Premier's round table. More talk. There will be tree-planting in the cities — good to hear. Others have said it, but it certainly bears repeating. It's Trees for Tomorrow and nothing for the workers of today.

There's no answer in this throne speech when it comes to the exclusion of lands from the TFLs, where it leaves the Kwakiutl First Nation, on the north Island, taking legal action against the government for removal of land in its traditional territory. Perhaps they should have waited. After all, there are going to be — and I quote from the throne speech, a very thick document this year — new mechanisms to "facilitate effective engagement of all parties in meaningful consultation and help first nations participate as equity partners in major economic developments."

First nations are overburdened and overstretched and feel excluded. The concept of meaningful negotiations is meaningless for many of the first nations that are swamped with information, have no capacity to handle those requests and are often regarded by those who are charged to consult with them as being little more than a check box on a form. Tick. That has dealt with the first nations.

After the last election this government did make an impressive commitment to the first nations: the new relationship. But now, three years later, the commitments in the throne speech are much, much smaller, and a new relationship seems to have been just another slogan that the Premier could bandy around to show some form of commitment that…. There really wasn't anything there.

First nations want treaty, but resources are being put into a few tables at the expense of many people. We had the Minister of Children and Family Development talking about first nations involvement, about how we're going to help first nations in their development with social problems. But this isn't going to come from this government's approach. This is not going to come from what is being provided in this throne speech. It's clearly not going to come from this government's commitment.

First nations do want treaty. There is no question about this. They want to see their lives move on for their many people, both on and off reserve. They want to have a commitment. But we're not seeing that commitment come from the government, and this government is being criticized in its approach to the treaties by both the Treaty Commission and the Auditor General. It's shortchanging too many first nations who have been sidelined for far too long.

The solution for the government appears to be incremental treaties, business deals outside of treaties. Again, it's a narrow, neoconservative perspective — that everything can be solved using the business approach rather than a democratic approach. "We can form business agreements, economic agreements. That will keep people happy."

It is a sign of the way that this government works, a sign where there is no real commitment to democracy. It is easier to be autocratic. It is easier to have your say and just move along. And I have to say, being the representative for the people in North Island, that I've seen this very closely, very clearly several times in recent months, most recently in the restructuring of our local government system.

We had a regional district which covered Comox Valley, Campbell River and into the north Island. This has been reorganized with no discussion and with no clear explanation or understanding of what it is going to mean financially. With the stroke of a pen we have suddenly two regional districts.

On Friday the two new regional districts met for the first time, but still no one knows what that is going to mean for them, how these entities will work, who will pay and how much. Nothing has been explained. It just came down as a fiat from this government.

The arrogance and the autocracy continue in health care. For more than two years people have been fighting to keep hospitals in Campbell River and Comox. In the last session I presented 19,000 signatures from across the north Island on a petition saying: "We want our two hospitals. We want health care in our communities."

The regional hospital board earlier this month voted in favour of keeping two hospitals. They said: "We do not want a single hospital. We want our own hospitals in our own communities." The Minister of Health, in full arrogance, said: "No, the minister knows best. It will be one hospital."

It is not surprising that the people of the north Island and the people of the Comox Valley have disdain. When they are given a throne speech and told to

have hope in a throne speech, they wonder why, because they know that what they have to say and their views are going to be completely discounted by this government.

I had hoped that if the minister wasn't going to listen to the people in my community — or to the people in the Comox Valley, the community of the member for Comox Valley — about health care, maybe the government would want to listen to the people across the province who participated in the Conversation on Health. In long, detailed hearings across the province, thousands of people came to meetings and wrote submissions, saying essentially: "Keep our health care public. We believe in public health care."

While the government now talks about a commitment to public administration, it doesn't make the same commitment to public delivery, and it goes on to suggest amendments to the Canada Health Act which bring in a principle of sustainability.

Too often with this government, sustainability is basically a code word for privatization, and what in this context it means, we don't know. We're just told "sustainability." We know that what has been said is that MSP is to be fiscally sustainable, which to me sounds like we're going to be paying more for MSP. In my view, MSP should be part of our provincial income tax structure so that it's a progressive payment and not a flat tax.

We are seeing a shift to funding of hospitals on a per-patient basis. This is extraordinarily worrying for rural communities, where there are, as a matter of course, fewer people. They are already seeing their health care diminish, seeing emergency room closures on a regular basis, seeing doctors leave and seeing nurses brought in from other provinces to provide band-aid solutions.

When education funding was shifted to a per-pupil basis rather than block funding, our rural schools suffered. In this government's move to a per-patient basis for funding for its hospitals, I hope that patients in rural communities, such as the one I represent, will not bear the cost and that this government will provide high-quality public health care for everyone across the province, no matter where they live.

There is also throughout this throne speech the classic neoconservative commitment to "individual choice" or "personal responsibility." In this throne speech, those words are said quickly, by talking about an independent living savings account. We have private pensions delivered through RRSPs for those who can afford them. Now we are going to be seeing, provincially at least, people being told to pay for home care or assisted and supportive housing — savings accounts for those who can afford them.

There are many, many people in this province who will never be able to afford that. Does this mean that they won't have access to supportive living? Are they going to be cut out of the equation? How callous can a government be?

In the northern parts of my constituency there is a desperate need for seniors beds and assisted living — in all communities, not just in Port Hardy, the one community designated by the Liberal-appointed health authority.

In Campbell River, the main centre in my constituency, there is a new private facility due to start transferring seniors from the public facility, from Sunshine Lodge. Unfortunately, the private facility will not be transferring the staff. The staff have to apply for the jobs there if they want to work there.

These are the staff who have been caring for the seniors in their last years of life, the staff who don't make a profit and who entered their profession because they care. You now see their compassion and their commitment exploited through a move to privatization. These people who work for low pay, who care about the people they care for, are going to be cut out.

Personal responsibility. It's the hectoring, lecturing, nannying Right. If we all ate healthily, we'd be healthier. If we all did more exercise, we'd be fitter. Perhaps one of the ministers would like to join a single mom on her trek around the community on foot — because she can't afford the bus fare; she needs the money to feed her kids — from the thrift store to the government service agent to the food bank. She's certainly getting the exercise.

She won't be getting much nutrition, though, because the kids are fed first from the boxed and canned supplies that the food bank has to offer. As I said earlier, schools are becoming social service providers, providing breakfast programs so that at least kids can start their day with some food in their stomachs.

Of course, children are going to become fit with the Walking School Bus and the bicycle train. Again, I invite some of the ministers into my constituency. Maybe they would like to join the walking school bus for the walk from Woss to Port McNeill or maybe a bicycle ride of 70-odd kilometres from Sayward down to Campbell River.

This brings me to the already announced transportation plan, which has been announced at the start of the session. Excuse me, government ministers, you do realize that people do live and work outside of the lower mainland, and they do want investment in transportation?

I've written to the Minister of Transportation about Highway 19, which is the main highway in my constituency, and I'm still hoping for a meeting with him. I wondered if he'd been on Highway 28 recently to Gold River or Highway 30 to Port Alice. These are not fun drives, nor are they safe. The minister has responsibility for all the people of the province, not just those in the lower mainland.

Then, of course, there's the transportation route that is completely ignored in the throne speech — the ferries, our B.C. Ferries. In the last months I've been holding meetings in my constituency on the islands about our ferries. As a ferry commuter myself, I often talk to people, while I'm going to work, about our fares. People don't expect a cruise ship. They want a regular highway service which they are not expected to pay hand over fist for.

They look at the Kootenay Lake ferries and say: "Why not us?" Instead, a 114 percent increase on the Campbell River–Quadra run; a 100 percent increase on the tri-ports run.

In March 2001 the Campbell River–Quadra run cost $21.50 for a book of passenger tickets. Now, it's doubled — $44.50 — and it's going up. Vehicle and passenger — if you want to take your car to town to do any shopping or anything — was $58.30 in March 2001; now, $104. For those people who don't know this ferry run, it's ten minutes. This is no cruise.

Families are being driven off the islands, and employees can't get supplies. These costs are killing our coastal communities — and not a word about them in this government's plan for the province. No wonder people lose faith in the government.

Let me turn my attention to my critic area: child care, early childhood development and women's issues. Child care is one of B.C.'s biggest problems. Every family with a child under 12 has to confront what child care means to them and how they'll accommodate it. Tellingly, more and more businesses and other members of the community are also confronting child care and the impacts that the lack of availability of child care is having on their communities, businesses and economies.

The government is going to look at all-day kindergarten and by 2012 is to have something in place for three-year-olds. Now, kindergarten and child care are not the same thing, and the idea raises so many questions that the list is very long. I look forward to asking the minister about them in detail when we move on to the estimates process later on in the month.

What are parents and employees going to do until 2012? Will this be provided in schools? What will the child-teacher ratios be? What will actually happen to child care? The government, clearly, has no idea about the wait-list for infant toddler care across the province right now. The addition of extra StrongStarts won't cut it either, as they, too, aren't child care. The parent has to attend with their youngster on a drop-in basis.

We have an immediate problem with access to child care. We have the B.C. Chamber of Commerce reporting it to be a crisis. The government's response is to assess it through an early childhood learning agency — with no clarity yet as to whether that agency is going to be part of the government or government friends or government appointees or how it's going to work.

This agency is going to assess feasibility for all-day kindergarten for five-year-olds. If all day means nine to three, that really won't help working parents, because working parents usually have to go to work before nine and finish before three. It won't help the parents who are already panicking as maternity leave comes to an end. They have to get to work — they need the money because of the cost of living in B.C. — and don't know who will look after their child. It won't deal with the economic impacts the child care crisis is having on our province.

There's also the philosophical concern about child development and early learning. It isn't just about getting children ready for school. Child care is about giving a child the best developmental start in life, not getting them ready for the first provincial school tests. That's why we on this side of the House have committed to a universally accessible, affordable community-based child care program, and that is what we will be assessing.

Sadly, on women's issues the government has failed again. It's announced a telephone 211 service, which if it's put in place and made accessible is no doubt going to assist some people, but it's not the solution to domestic violence. It doesn't replace the many advocates who've lost their jobs. It doesn't replace the women's centres that this government closed down. It doesn't replace legal aid cuts for civil cases, which had a monumental and disproportionate effect on women of our province — women who need help, poor women, single women.

Perhaps the members opposite can reassure themselves because they have the messianic fervour, which started in the last throne speech — "Everything's going to be okay; we're looking out for future generations; this is going to take us to 2050" — because they suddenly care about the environment. Sadly, though — I realize that I do start many of my arguments on this throne speech with the preface "sadly"; it is very sad to have such a moribund government — it comes back down to personal responsibility.

Of course we have to be personally responsible. We know we need to turn off the lights, use transit and embrace wind or solar power, but we need more. We need to mandate that the big carbon dioxide emitters stop — not trade, but stop — and take radical action. We need to act immediately, not somewhere down the road. The promises of the last throne speech still haven't been realized, and the promises of this, we're already being told, won't be known for weeks to come.

There's also a need to be honest. We were told that school districts are going to have to become carbon-neutral. School districts aren't sure what this really means yet, how much it's going to cost them and what help financially they are going to get from this Minister of Education. We have to be honest with people about what this means, how it's going to be effected and how all the agencies are going to be assisted in making this happen.

Environment is everyone's chance to proselytize. I've got to say that on our side of the House, we have a strong foundation with the sustainable B.C. document that our party has. Its principles are ecosystem protection, resource conservation, biodiversity, resilience, protection of the commons, food security, the precautionary principle, adaptive management, democracy and due process, social equality and full-cost economics.

It will be very interesting tomorrow to see whether this government's budget will be looking at the environmental and social impacts of its policies as well as the economic impacts.

Sustainable B.C. also enunciates a just transition so that no one bears an unfair burden of change. Climate change will require a huge shift in our societal thinking and approaches. It won't come through tinkering. It

won't come through bringing in individual electricity meters or coining another smart catchphrase or repeating good lines from an orator such as John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

It needs a foundation on which to be built, a sense of society and a sense of commitment. It needs a sense of the public good. This government does not have that sense. It has no understanding of public good. It has no understanding of what, really, society is and what a society means.

Society means people working together, people coming together for the benefit of everyone in the communities — not just for the benefit of a few, not just for the benefit of the small businesses or the big businesses, not just for the benefit of their friends, but for the benefit of everyone.

The common good is the foundation for civil society. We have evolved into a public good. Individuals need communities. Communities sustain us, but communities can't work on their own. Communities need support. What binds us as a society isn't slick slogans. It isn't a cheap fascia for empty promises. Our communities need sustenance beyond rhetoric. Our workers need jobs; our children need quality public education; our families need universal, accessible, community child care; and people need public health care.

The role of the government is to protect the public good and to look after its people. Our society, our B.C., deserves better than what this government is offering.

D. MacKay: Once again, it's an honour for me to stand in this chamber representing the constituents who live in the largest riding in the province of British Columbia, also known as Bulkley Valley–Stikine. I would just like to take a moment and describe once again for the benefit of the members in this chamber just the size of the riding of Bulkley Valley–Stikine.

It starts east of Burns Lake at a small creek called Sinkut Creek. It includes the community of Burns Lake. It includes the communities of Houston, Granisle, Topley, Telkwa, Grassy Plains, Southside, Smithers and three Hazeltons — new town, old town and Hazelton itself. It then travels north up along Highway 37 and includes Dease Lake, Telegraph Creek and Atlin.

I just came back from visiting the small community of Atlin two and a half weeks ago. I left Smithers on a Saturday morning and returned on a Friday morning to the community of Smithers. After having travelled and visited those communities, I travelled for 3,000 kilometres, and that didn't include the eastern portion of the riding of Bulkley Valley–Stikine that I represent.

Each of those communities has their own unique challenges. The community of Atlin at present has no governance structure in place. We've been working with the Ministry of Community Services to build an enhanced improvement district for the community of Atlin so they have some control over what actually takes place in that small community.

Telegraph Creek is a rather unique little community located on the Stikine River two hours' driving time west of Dease Lake. A very picturesque community, it's been there for a long time. But I should mention that when I travel from Dease Lake to the community of Atlin, it's eight hours of non-stop driving.

On the way back from Atlin, as I drove to Dease Lake, it was an absolutely spectacular drive. Going and coming from Dease Lake to Atlin, the wildlife viewing was phenomenal. I think I saw at least a hundred caribou standing on the road. The moose were all over the road. Lynx were standing on the side of the road as we drove by.

When I drove from Atlin down to Dease Lake, and when I left the junction at Watson Lake to drive down to Dease Lake, a distance of 265 kilometres, I never passed another vehicle. Not one single vehicle in 265 kilometres of driving. Talk about a remote part of the province and a beautiful part of the province. That is the area known as Bulkley Valley–Stikine along the Highway 37 corridor.

So I'm certainly honoured to be standing in this chamber once again, representing all those communities that I've just described to you. The throne speech is in this fourth session of the 38th Parliament, and it was read into the chamber on the 12th of February.

It was a significant day for the people of British Columbia. Two years from February 12, British Columbia will be hosting a world event known as the 2010 Olympic Games in Whistler and Vancouver. Around the rest of the province communities will have the opportunity, through many programs that we've introduced by government, to feel part of the games, even though they are thousands and thousands of kilometres from where the events will actually be taking place. It's going to be a wonderful day for this province when the torch is finally lit.

It's also the 150th anniversary of the province being a Crown colony and, eventually, the province that we know today.

There's a lot in that throne speech that requires some close examination. The one that caught my attention dealt with health care. Health care is a challenge across this country. It's not unique to British Columbia. Every province and territory in this country we know as Canada has challenges with health care.

The Health Act talks about accessibility, universality, portability and comprehensiveness. We as a government have decided that it's time we added sustainability, a fifth plank in the Canada Health Act. We have to be able to afford the programs that the people in our provinces want and, more particularly, what the province of British Columbia wants.

We can't do that without a strong economy, and we can't continue to spend on health care without some controls. After all, the health care costs are rising at twice the rate of growth, and they have over the past 20 years. If that trend continues, we'll be spending every cent that we as a province collect from the taxpayers and through royalties. We'll be spending everything on health care. What are we going to do for policing, for highways, for other infrastructure that we all need? So

sustainability, to me, is an important word that I am pleased is finally in the Health Act, because we do have to control the spending.

There are a number of things contained in the throne speech about access to our health records. Heretofore, I don't believe any of us has ever been able to have a look at our health records. That will now be offered to us.

We've also agreed to look at the costs associated with independent living savings accounts, which would be tax-sheltered and would allow us to invest a certain amount of money every year until we reach the age of 75. Then we have to start using those funds to look after ourselves in our old age.

We've also got a large number of young men and women who are serving overseas in Afghanistan, and they have been for a number of years. The tragic story about Afghanistan is well known to members in this chamber as well as to the citizens across this country. Those young men and women come from communities throughout B.C. and from other small and large communities across this country. Some of those young men and women have been killed in the line of duty.

We've got young members serving in Afghanistan from the town of Smithers who have gone back for their third tour of duty because they believe in what they're doing. They believe in what they're doing. They think it's the right thing for those people. I think we should all support those young men and women who are serving with our Canadian Armed Forces abroad.

We have done one thing in B.C. that we're hoping other provinces will follow suit on, and that is to waive the residency requirements. Should those Armed Forces personnel come back and decide they want to relocate to British Columbia, we will waive the time commitment that's necessary before they can apply for MSP. We're hoping other provinces will do the same. We owe it to them for what they have gone through.

One of the things that we keep talking about is the cost of health care, the cost of looking after an illness after it's upon us. We continue, on this side of the House, to talk about the advantages of exercise and good food. Garbage in, garbage out. If we eat good and healthy foods, I think it bodes well for our long-term longevity.

The idea of exercise — can you imagine? I can remember that years ago I used to ride my bike to school, and I used to walk to school. I think it was ten miles each way uphill in deep snow. I'm sure we've all gone through that, but the fact that we could ride our bikes in those days and walk to school…. We don't do that anymore.

My wife delivers my grandchildren to school in the morning because they happen to live just outside town. She picks them up after school. She's there because my daughter is teaching school and she's not there to drive them home, and of course, my son-in-law works. So my wife spends a great deal of time driving my grandchildren to and from school. They do live some distance out of town.

We as a government have encouraged and are encouraging young people to eat healthy foods. We've gone so far as to remove junk food from all public buildings that the province has control over or owns.

We're also looking at exercise. Part of the school curriculum today is a certain number of hours of exercise. We do want to get the kids who go to those schools to look at exercise as a way of keeping fit not just at school but walking to and from school and riding their bikes. I think I heard somebody else say that it's like being children again — allowing these kids to be kids again and ride their bikes and walk to school without sitting on a school bus or sitting inside a car waiting for their mother to come out of the house and drive them to school or pick them up.

Some of the other health care challenges, of course, are the number of people that are working within the health care system. We're looking at reducing a bachelor of science degree for nursing to three years from four years. That should speed things up to put more nurses in the field and improve the health care delivery for people who are in need of health care.

We're also looking at increasing the scope of practice for a number of different health care specialties. The nurses who have been trained and authorized will be able to deliver a broader range of health services, such as suturing, ultrasounds, allergy testing, local anaesthetic and cardiac stress testing. If they're trained in that field, I think it just makes sense that they be permitted to exercise what they've been trained to do. It shouldn't be necessary to have a physician do that.

Even today the nurses that we have working in the field have a broad range of expertise, and the scope of practice does not permit them to practise everything that they've been trained in. Under this new throne speech, nurses will also be able to give medications for minor pain while patients are waiting to see a doctor. They'll also be authorized to do lab work, blood tests and X-rays. My goodness, doesn't it make sense that if you've got the expertise…? If they've been trained, why not use those people to their fullest advantage?

Pharmacists will be able to increase their scope of practice, and that has been long overdue. I believe the province of Alberta already permits pharmacists to go beyond the scope of practice that's presently permitted in the province of B.C.

Ambulance paramedics will be able to treat and release when appropriate. This one comes a little bit too late for the community of Houston. I want to spend just a moment and talk about the community of Houston and what they were doing or attempting to do as they strived to get the 24-7 health care that they wanted in that community.

A young paramedic in the community of Houston actually wrote an idea for Northern Health to examine. That was that the paramedics who were on call in that community would staff the outpost hospital or the medical clinic that they have in Houston, because most of the people that came in there wanted bandages changed. They were pretty small items, and they

wanted to be able to continue with the practice and practise what they had been trained to do.

However, because the scope of practice was somewhat restrictive, that suggestion fell by the wayside, and we had to revisit that to find nurses who were trained to be able to work on that 24-7 health care for the community of Houston.

We're also looking at allowing midwives a broader range of services without physicians being present. That's something that actually allows the patient the opportunity to decide what's best for him — or her, I should say, because not too many men go to midwives. The women should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want a midwife to tend to them or whether they want a physician. This new scope of practice that we talk about in the throne speech would allow that to happen.

We also talk about smart, safe communities, and this one creates some problem for me. When you look at the number of gang-related shootings that are taking place on the lower mainland…. It's got to be unsettling to people who live in those areas where the shootings are taking place or when you're walking in downtown Vancouver, because some of the shootings have actually taken place in the downtown core. When you look at that, we have to ask: what are we going to do from a policing perspective to stop that?

Well, this is my understanding of what has taken place so far, and I might be alone on this thought. The police currently have the tools; they have the resources. They could probably use more resources to address some of the problems, but they have the tools. The Criminal Code, I believe, is there.

But what has happened over the years with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is that we have gotten away from what's best for society as a whole and gone to the individual "what's best for me." So we now have a "me" society. I believe the courts at times look upon the rights of "me" as opposed to what's best for society.

I can't help but think of a recent court decision where, not being too critical…. I wasn't there for all the evidence, but the evidence that I did read in the paper about a recent court decision…. We've got police officers who, like anybody else, want to go home at the end of the day. The drug bust that took place in Vancouver where they used a battering ram on a door after identifying themselves…. The outcome of that trial was thrown out of court because the police, according to the judge, who heard all the evidence — and as I said, I didn't hear all the evidence — were excessive in their approach and entry into the home.

I suspect that in the home there were drugs that the police were looking for, but the court in its wisdom threw that out. So once again we see the rights of the individual paramount as opposed to the rights of society as a whole. So we do have some challenges there.

We're going to have to change that mindset, and I'm not sure how we're going to do that. But that's my view on what's happening today in the lower mainland and why the police have got one hand tied behind their back as they attempt to address these problems that we all know are out there — the grow ops, the shootings, crime generally in the lower mainland. We read about it lots in the paper. It's not to say it's not with us in the northern part of our province.

It's just some of the "me" rights that we seem to have enshrined in the Charter of Rights. I'm not suggesting for a moment that we throw out the protection that is offered to citizens of this country, but I think somehow we've got to find a balance between what's best for "me" and what's best for society while protecting the rights of individuals.

A review of sentencing practices in B.C. That just goes along with what I was saying. When you look at these sentences that are imposed on criminal behaviour in the province of British Columbia versus the rest of this country, British Columbia has been historically on the low end of sentencing. I have to ask: why is that happening? Why is it happening on the west coast? Why does it happen in B.C. and only in B.C. and not the rest of the country?

I understand the judicial system is an independent body, and they do their thing without interference from politicians and rightfully so. But when you see the sentences that are being imposed for killing people, for grow ops or for selling drugs, it is somewhat discouraging. So I'm pleased to see that we're going to do a review of sentencing practices in B.C.

Education is another one that I found rather interesting, because I've actually attended some of these StrongStart programs. We have 84 StrongStart programs in the province today, and I attended one at Burns Lake several months ago. I have to tell you that it was a pretty exciting day. I couldn't believe the activity and the number of parents that were there with their children.

I actually read a book to the kids. It was a book that didn't make a lot of sense to me, and I had to ad-lib quite a bit of it. But the parents that were there were excited. The kids were excited. I think that's a step in the right direction — getting these kids ready for kindergarten. We've got 84 of them in place today, and we're looking at another 316 two years out.

These are school rooms that are sitting empty in our schools because of the loss of population. We've lost around 50,000 students from our public education system. That's resulted in school trustees having to make decisions that were very unpopular in those communities where they're having to close schools, just because the numbers are dropping so dramatically.

One of the other things I noticed in the throne speech was the thousand dollars to each child born or adopted after January 1, 2007. I have to say I'm looking forward to that, because around the middle of March my son's family is going to be receiving a thousand dollars. My son is expecting his first child and my fourth grandchild. So I look forward to the money working towards my grandchild's…. I'm not sure if it's a he or a she yet, and I don't think my son knows either. But a thousand dollars today will certainly add up over the years to when my grandchild is ready for school.

One of the things that also caught my attention was mining. You know, in British Columbia last year we hit a record high; $416 million was spent by mining exploration companies throughout the province. In the northwest part of the province where I live, $170 million was spent. That $170 million was for 144 projects in the northwest part of our province. Goodness knows, that part of the province has been blessed with great mineralization and great potential for mines well into the future. It's a vast, vast part of our province. I'm excited. I work hand in hand with a lot of the mining company personnel.

When you consider $416 million spent throughout the province…. That's for 472 different projects around the province, but the northwest part of the province is where it's actually happening today when it comes to mineral exploration and possible mine development.

The Port of Prince Rupert, which just opened up here a short time ago, is already under the second-phase development. We're looking at increasing the number of units that we'll be able to move by rail from Prince Rupert down to Chicago, to the Midwest in the U.S.

Now, I've actually seen some of those railcars passing through the community of Smithers. It's pretty exciting. There may not be a lot of jobs associated with it in those communities where the train is whistling through, but long term, those railcars and those empty containers going back will present very many opportunities.

Independent power production in the northwest part of our province. We've had some very interesting discussions with not just people in British Columbia but people from Washington State and the state of Alaska. The state of Alaska is talking about an inter-tie between southeast Alaska and the proposed termination or the hydro grid, which one day will eventually go up and include Dease Lake. They're talking about tying in with surplus power that southeast Alaska has. There was even talk of running power from using running water from Atlin Lake, Marsh Lake and Teslin Lake — those big lakes up in the northwest part of our province.

The potential for hydroelectric power, which is clean power, is massive. It's huge, and it's on the drawing boards now. People are looking at those potentials.

One of the things that I'm proud about in our part of the province is that we have a rather unique training facility up there. It's called the Northwest Community College School of Exploration and Mining. And just as a reminder to anybody in this House that might be interested in attending, in April we've got Minerals North taking place at Smithers. I can tell you that the trade booth opportunities for the mining industry sold out in a day. So that's going to be pretty exciting. That's on April 16 and 17 in Smithers.

The School of Exploration and Mining is rather unique. It's a rather unique concept. I was back in Ottawa several weeks ago, and I met with the MLA from…. I believe he's the Deputy Premier of the province of Quebec. I was telling him about what we're doing, how the School of Exploration and Mining works — where we actually take the kids out to the camps, to live in the camps and work in the field. He was quite excited about that. He asked me to send him some details on what we're doing in Smithers and in the northwest about educating people on site, while they live in tents. They live in camp life in a variety of areas where the mining industry has said: "This is where we're short of workers. This is what we need."

I sent him that information. Working at the trade booth at the Cordilleran Roundup in Vancouver in the latter part of January, I can tell you that the number of people who stopped there and asked about the Smithers School of Exploration and Mining was unbelievable. We ran out of material to hand out for people who were interested in what we're doing up there and how we're doing it.

I can tell you that I've visited some of those communities, the training camps, and they were full of aboriginal people. I was pretty excited about that. I spoke to some of those aboriginal students that were attending these classrooms inside these big tents studying cleavage in rocks. Now, I had a bit of fun with that word for a while with the young aboriginal students, talking about cleavage in rocks. It was something I hadn't really thought about before.

These young aboriginal students were telling me that for the first time ever they can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There is some opportunity out there for them. All these exploration and mining opportunities that are taking place in the northwest part of our province are taking place near these isolated communities where many of these young students live and now, hopefully, will have some employment opportunities.

The employment opportunities that have flowed from the Northwest Community College School of Exploration and Mining have been great. The number, I believe, is up around 80 percent of young students who attend those programs actually get jobs in the mining industry. That's good for the mining industry, and it's good for those aboriginal communities that have such high unemployment rates today.

One of the things that we have talked about in years past — and I think everybody is familiar with this — was the Galore Creek property. It started off as a $2.2 billion project. I've flown into that camp or that site several times, the last time with the Minister of State for Mining, and it was shortly thereafter that they had to put a brake on the project. Part of that project included a hydroelectric power line running from Meziadin Junction up to Bob Quinn. It required an upgrade all the way back to Terrace for a 287 kilovolt line.

That's on hold right now. That's on hold right now because Galore Creek has had to revisit their projected cost overruns for that mine, but I'm confident that we will see those mines operating with hydroelectric power, as opposed to diesel power, as they come on stream.

In the throne speech we talk about green energy. I'll spend just a couple of minutes and talk about the small community of Houston, where 3,500 people live. They've done some wonders when it comes to cleaning up the environment, when it comes to pollution.

Let me talk for a moment about the Houston leisure pool that was opened, I believe, just about a year ago now. That pool is heated with geothermal heating. We talk about cleaning up the environment. Geothermal is one way of doing it.

I think Houston is the first community in British Columbia to heat a pool with geothermal heating, but they didn't stop there. They didn't stop at that. Attached to the pool is their arena. The arena, as you know, produces ice, and they want it cold in there, whereas the water the kids and the adults swim in, in the leisure pool, has to be warm enough to keep the kids in the water so that they don't jump out after jumping in because it's too cold.

They have now tied those two facilities together. They're heating the entire facility with geothermal heating, and they've got excess heat left over. What they're going to do now is tie the excess heat into the publicly owned buildings within the community of Houston and heat those buildings with the excess heat that is now being generated between the pool and the arena.

I recently attended the community of Houston for a Spirit Square program. Once again, Houston is leading the way. They are looking at green energy to provide lighting for the facility. Actually, their goal for the community of Houston is to become known as the green energy centre of the north. I can tell you that they're getting pretty close to that with the endeavours they've gone through to date, and it's certainly a credit to the community of Houston for all the work they've done to get where they are today.

We have now gone through a number of issues that caught my attention as we went through the throne speech. I can stand in this chamber today on behalf of the constituents who live in Bulkley Valley–Stikine, and I believe I speak for the majority of them when I say that we support the road that the Premier has set for this next term. We support the path that we're going to follow. There are going to be some exceptions. That's a given. But for the most part, the people that I represent…. I think I expressed their views in this chamber today.

Madam Speaker, I stand here today in support of the throne speech that was delivered on February 12 and look forward to other members speaking to this issue as well.

M. Karagianis: As always, it's a great honour to stand here on behalf of the constituents of Esquimalt-Metchosin and, in fact, to stand up here in the House on their behalf and voice their concerns and bring their issues to the attention of government.

I would like to say that the break we've had has given me an opportunity to reconnect again with my constituency office — with my terrific assistant Lawrence Herzog and my new assistant Jayne Ducker, who are always working very hard on my behalf. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to them for all the terrific work they do in the community as well and, by extension, on behalf of the constituents in Esquimalt-Metchosin.

I noted at the beginning of the throne speech that there was a list of those members who have left us here in the province, members who have worked hard on behalf of their communities. I would like to add to that list, if I may, before I begin my remarks here. I'd like to note the passing of two really important members of my constituency, longstanding politicians.

The first, of course, is Dr. Basil Boulton, who passed very suddenly and shockingly from us just a short time ago. Dr. Boulton was well known in the entire community here, the south Island, and probably throughout British Columbia.

As a pediatrician, his care and compassion touched many children, many families — children who grew up to then bring their children to his care. He was also a passionate community leader, a passionate politician, always keenly interested in doing things for his community and very committed to his community. So it's been a great sadness for the community that we lost Basil Boulton.

The second person to have left us — and I've talked about him before in this House — is Jim King, who served on council for 21 years as a municipal leader but who also has just a tremendous and honourable history, during the Second World War as a prisoner of war and then for the many years he was dedicated to his community. A great soccer player, he had a huge love of the game and was very instrumental in bringing soccer and keeping the passion of soccer alive here on the south Island.

Both of these individuals have left us, and we are the sadder for that. I appreciate the opportunity to add their names to the list here.

You know, the throne speech was much anticipated. I was waiting quite eagerly to see what in fact the government was going to say in this leading into the last year before we go into an election. I anticipated with great excitement all of the things that we might expect from the speech, with great expectations that the government, like the members on this side of the House, had heard from constituents, had talked with the public all over this province and in fact listened to many of the things that those members of the public were telling them, both in their own ridings and as they travelled around doing the jobs on the various committees and at events and all of the other day-to-day activities that keep MLAs busy, both in and out of the House.

I know that the government had embarked on a conversation on health care. I was very eager to hear what the government heard during those conversations. Certainly, I participated in some of those in my own community, so I was very eager to hear what it was that government had heard.

Seniors health care is a huge, compelling issue for us that we've heard about in this House throughout the last couple of years. Again, I was really anticipating with great expectation what the throne speech would tell us about seniors health care.

The issue of child poverty. We have talked over and over again in this House. The level of child poverty

that we are experiencing here in British Columbia has been a matter of discussion across communities. Despite the wealth that our province has been experiencing, we are also experiencing the highest level of child poverty. Again, I greatly anticipated what it was that the throne speech would tell us that government had heard and was going to do about child poverty.

The issue of school closures. I've experienced it in my own community, but I've heard from others across the province, as well, about school closures and the significant challenges that it is giving to every community. I thought it would be interesting to see how the government plans on tackling that in their throne speech. We should get an inkling in the throne speech of what they might have in the way of long-term plans to address this issue of school closures.

With diminishing enrolment, it will continue to be an issue unless we find a way to resolve it until, I guess, at some point there will be no schools in rural B.C., only a few in urban centres and most of them in suburban centres, making it very difficult to know how small communities would fare. I was waiting with great anticipation to see what the throne speech would have to say about that.

Of course, the issue of child care. Both in my own personal life with my children and their friends and in the larger community, the issue of child care comes up over and over again. I know it's an issue that is a huge concern for my community. I was looking forward to seeing what the throne speech was going to deliver in the way of child care solutions.

Certainly the forest industry crisis, which has been growing more and more alarming as the months go by. I was very eager to see what it was that the government was going to say when they touched on that topic in the throne speech and foreshadowed the kind of solutions that they might bring forward here in British Columbia.

Transit fares are a big concern ongoing for my community and for other communities. As the critic for Transportation, I've been somewhat fixated with this topic for some months now, caught up in the issues that concern the lower mainland and elsewhere in the province, but certainly here in the south Island, as well, around transit and all of the issues around expansion and affordability of that.

As well, of course homelessness has been a huge concern. As we've seen growing numbers, we've seen the concern that small communities everywhere are even facing now around the issue of homelessness. Again, looking with great anticipation at what the throne speech would foreshadow around government's availability of solutions for homelessness in the future.

Public safety is another issue that has become more and more a focus of my community and of all communities. Attached to this issue of homelessness but beyond that, we have seen issues of public safety every day in the newspapers. It's become more and more of a concern. So I was very interested in seeing what the government's plans were there in addressing public safety.

I guess overarching and above all of these issues was the whole concern for affordability for families. More and more families in my community are being pinched by the cost of living and the demands being put on them. Certainly, government is playing a huge part in that.

As more and more fees and more and more costs are downloaded onto families, affordability becomes a huge issue for families, certainly in my constituency. It's seen that again, the stealthy hand of government sneaks in and plucks money out of their pocketbooks every single day. Families are concerned about that. That constant erosion and concern for all of these costs make it more and more difficult for them every day. The issue of affordability, I think, plays on most people's minds, so it was of great interest to me to listen to the throne speech to see what I could glean out of that in the way of solutions for that affordability.

Accountability, as I mentioned…. The focus for me around my critic's area of transportation has certainly exposed me to the issues occurring around TransLink. We've discussed it in the House here, both in the fall, when this side of the House debated the legislation, and now as we've watched things unfold. All of the great fears that we had in the fall around what the implications of that legislation were have, of course, turned out to be very true.

We have seen the lack of transparency with the new TransLink board that was created by this government. And now the issues around this astronomical raise that they've given themselves have continued to plague transit users down in the lower mainland.

In fact, they are completely out of line with what is happening elsewhere across corporations, Crown corporations and even the port authority and the Vancouver Airport Authority. All have been quoted as being the benchmarks for what the new TransLink board is getting, but when you look here, the facts speak for themselves. No other board anywhere is getting the kind of money that TransLink is getting.

You know, it's always disappointing to have the worst expectations played out and proved to be true. In the case of TransLink, that has very much been the fact.

It seemed to me that with this throne speech, this was government's time to listen and respond to all of the concerns that I've heard in my constituency and that one would expect government members have heard in their constituencies as well — all of the issues I outlined earlier around affordability, around child care, around poverty, around all the concerns that families have about being nickel-and-dimed to death every single day in their lives, and government's responsibility.

Instead, with great disappointment what I saw in most of this throne speech was simply a repackaging of many of the things that we have heard from this government for many years now. Many of the announcements that they have failed to actually deliver on were repackaged, repurposed and reannounced

throughout this entire document. When I was looking for something new and fresh in the way of solutions for many of these issues that plagued my community, I was disappointed to see so many of these repurposed, failed announcements from the past or programs that have yet to deliver and that are now being kind of polished up and marched out once again.

The other interesting thing about the throne speech is how a number of things were kind of jettisoned that had previously been benchmarks for the government. Their great lofty goals and a number of other claims around what government was going to deliver in the way of a year for children, a year for seniors, a year for the homeless — all of these things seem to be kind of jettisoned. The failed promises were either repurposed or were forgotten entirely.

Instead, what my community got was kind of thin gruel. While we were looking for solutions to many of the affordability issues, many of the real and practical issues that face members of my community every single day — whether they're commuting, whether they're trying to take their children to school, whether they have to travel further and longer because their school has been closed, all of those issues that face them in their real life every day — the throne speech delivered a rather thin package of repurposed or sloganized promises for the future.

In fact, there were a lot of fancy and slick slogans. I will say there's no question about that whatsoever. As always, the government is…. The clever usage of new logos and slogans and slick titles and names for things…. But that doesn't mask the kind of lack of substance beneath that.

The very first few minutes coming out of the throne speech, I thought…. Well, here's what I get as the tiny sound bite. "Plant some trees, take personal responsibility for yourselves, pay more for your health care, and certainly, if you're a senior, be prepared." That's what I came away with, and then I proceeded to dig further and read the throne speech again.

On second reading, I realized that it was thin indeed. The first thing that popped out of this was this continual reference to somehow taking personal responsibility — certainly in the issue around climate change, where it's now about how we all personally take responsibility for this. You choose; you save; you have choices.

The translation to that is, at the end of the day, that families in my community will be paying more again — families that are already pinched by all of the demands upon their pocketbook. The government is going to go yet one more time to working families in my community and say: "You're going to pay more. You're going to choose, and you're going to pay more, and it is your responsibility. You're going to take personal responsibility for climate change." I'll talk a little more about that in a few minutes.

I guess how some of these things are going to roll out and how they're actually going to hit the pocketbook will be revealed here in the budget speech tomorrow. But we have lots of indication, lots of foreshadowing here in the throne speech that hydro rates are going to go up, that there will be a carbon tax that is going to affect families and that their costs are going to go up to just get by every single day.

The fact that hydro rates are going up when we have so dismally failed in our ability to keep our hydro resources, again, as an asset for all of our communities for the future…. We're making such a fatal error here by not ensuring, as the past leaders in this province did, the benefits of owning our own hydro and maintaining those resources for our constituents, for the people of this province.

We have, in fact, seen this slow slippage away from the kinds of benefits that should accrue to our constituents and to the people of this province, where we could continue to benefit from that. The affordability of owning and controlling our hydro and investing and expanding our own hydroelectricity here could be for the benefit of our residents. Past leaders in this province knew that and made a concerted effort to keep hydro rates low, to cap them and to make sure that we owned the hydro resource and that that went into our pockets.

Instead, this government has abandoned that and has put us in the position now where we are going to be buying back our own power from privatized companies at a higher rate for every single person in this province — no efforts whatsoever made to make sure the people in this province own and benefit from that resource. Instead, we will be paying a lot more in the future, and it is only going to go up.

We've already seen foreshadowing of a massive increase in hydro rates, and we are going to see more and more of that. Frankly, there is no other way. The way this has been structured, so that the profit-makers are going to be doing that on our backs, means that my constituents will be paying more, and my constituents cannot afford to pay more. They are already pinched. They are already working very hard to make it day to day in their households, and they cannot afford more. If they do, it will be at an expense. It will be at something else in their life. It will again pinch them further and further.

The fact that the government talks now about cap-and-trade as being…. This will be what the responsibility is to big industry: cap-and-trade. If you look at the reality behind cap-and-trade, it has been a hugely questionable endeavour in Europe. It has failed in many countries, because what it does is allow the large polluters and those industrial users who are responsible for their own GHGs to buy their way out. This is not a solution. This is a stopgap, and it is a financial trade-off, but it is not a way to actually reduce our GHGs.

Frankly, we are so far behind the eight ball on this. The fact that we are going to put in punitive measures and make working people pay some kind of carbon tax while we allow cap-and-trade for big industry so they can buy their way out is absolutely appalling to me.

Climate change. We know that this is the Premier's new mantra — right? I mean, he's got Al Gore fever, so now this is all we hear about from the Premier. But

what is the big solution here? Well, we're going to plant more trees. Individually, collectively, we're going to plant more trees.

It seems to me such a trivial way to address such a critical issue, which I think everyone in this House admits is a critical issue. Yet we are trivializing it by planting more trees or taxing the working people of this province with a carbon tax while we allow major polluters to buy their way out with cap-and-trade. That is not a climate action plan, and it's shameful that we are again trivializing it with this really superficial way of addressing it.

All of our goals are so far into the future that it will be immaterial to most of the people who sit in here making the legislation right now. Again, I believe that is not an appropriate way for us to be setting legislative agendas at this point in our provincial history.

Transit plans. I talked earlier about the issue with TransLink. There's certainly lots of money going to TransLink — lots of money going into the lower mainland and very little here for the south Island. What we need and what the families in my constituency need is better transit. We need better routing. We need more options so that people can choose to use transit.

We actually need commuter rail. The government said: "We're not interested in discussing that because we haven't seen a business case." Well, you know what? My communities got together and gave a business case to the government to seriously consider. Did we see anything in the throne speech here talking about how the government might be interested in looking seriously at some transit solutions and some transportation solutions here for the south Island, for my constituents? Absolutely not. Nothing.

All of the big money is going to the lower mainland. That's really, I think, disappointing for my community. Maybe there'll be something in the budget that surprises us. Maybe there will be a commitment to this that backs up the business plan.

The issue of California emissions control and this whole plan of Scrap-It for older cars is a big concern as well. The time line on this and the details of how this is going to roll out will be a huge and critical issue for my community. My community — like many communities across British Columbia, I think — has not got the capacity to go buy hybrid cars tomorrow, each and every one.

Until hybrid cars and some of these alternative fuels reach the second and third generation of used cars, my community doesn't have any other choice. I guess if they could all afford hybrids, they'd be out there doing that, and it wouldn't be a concern, but they cannot. Again, it concerns me what the time lines are going to be on this.

One of the things that they talked about in the throne speech was the solar roof plan, solar panels for roofs. Frankly, it's something that I've been calling for, for a long time. I'm very enthusiastic about the idea of this, and I would love to see ways for…. I sincerely hope that the way the plan that's rolled out here is going to help benefit individual homeowners so they can take advantage of it. I hope this is not about just funnelling money to big developers so that they can put solar panels on new developments only and that existing homes can't take advantage of it.

I would like to see an incentive plan that makes it possible for every single one of us who is now being taxed with making choice and contributing our part to climate change. Let's make it real. Let's make it actually and potentially happen by allowing an incentive for families.

Health care, of course, is a huge concern in my community. I think health care and housing are the two primary reasons that people access help from my constituency office. I'm concerned by some of the things that are foreshadowed here. I'm again trying to translate what it is government means by some of these…. A twist of phrase, a turn of phrase can tell you a lot.

The things that my community…. What can they expect from this term "reasonable access"? Because now it's no longer health care when and where you need it. Now it's "reasonable access," which could mean almost anything.

The idea of MSP sustainability sounds terrific. On the surface of it, any kind of sustainability sounds terrific. But you know what? In the translation, does this mean more fees? Does this mean fewer services, more delisting of services under MSP? Is that what sustainability is? I fear that that could be what this is actually a cover phrase for.

Certainly, all of the indications here around how funding is going to follow patients in the future do lead the way for much more privatization. All of those things concern my community very much. Again, families in my community, who are pinched every single day by the ever-growing demands from this government on their pocketbook, are very concerned about getting fewer services, more fees and privatization so that the wealthy will get better treatment than my families will.

There has been all kinds of evidence here that privatization within the health care system has been a disaster. Experiences elsewhere in the world have shown that it's a disaster. We had a little bit of a taste of it here, as I well know from looking at the conditions in the hospitals here.

What have we got in the privatized segments of services in the health care system? We are seeing a diminishment in the amount of cleanliness. We are seeing continued challenges. Superbugs have become a huge epidemic, and a lot of that is based on the fact that we have not got any kind of accountability or control over these privatized contracts. So we get bad food and dirty hospitals, and that concerns my community greatly.

I know the government, the hubris about what they're spending on health care…. I know all this. I've heard it time and time again. But the reality is that you go into the hospital, and it is not clean. There is not enough cleaning staff. There is inadequate preservation and protection against these superbugs. Where does that come from? If it's not being adequately addressed,

One of the other things that concerned me greatly in the throne speech was this whole idea of the independent living savings account. I will tell you, Madam Speaker, what I believe it actually means. Unfortunately, we've been so true about so many of the translations we've put on government. The real agenda under here is that government is not going to be there for seniors. If they have not looked after themselves and saved, then they will be on their own.

Government, I believe, at this point has failed to deliver the 5,000 long-term care beds. Have we seen those disappear entirely? We continue to see that repackaged, reannounced and repurposed — all of this discussion about these long-term care beds. But now, this time, what we've heard is: "Seniors, you better start socking away some money, because you know what? If you want home care, you're going to have to pay for it yourself. We want seniors to stay in place longer, and you better sock away some money, because it will be in your pocketbook to pay for that."

That means that seniors who contributed to building this province do not now have the security that in their old age the health care system will be there for them or that government will take care of them. It's a promise that they have lived with their whole lives — that government would be there to take care of them in their senior years — and now government has said: "Uh-uh. You start saving in this independent living savings account, or you're going to end up with no care."

One of the other issues I had addressed here that is a big concern is the issue of public safety. In the throne speech my concern about public safety was, of course, addressed with more of a study and more "let's talk some more about it and study it some more, but let's not deliver any real resources into my community."

In fact, there is a debate going on right now between two of my municipalities, Victoria and Esquimalt, which are responsible for the policing here in the downtown core. The government has failed those communities on such a fundamental level, because those communities were promised when they were amalgamated that they were the first of a wholesale amalgamation of the south Island, which has not come to pass. The government failed them on that promise, and now my communities are busy struggling with how they are going to pay for the policing of this entire area because this government let them down. And that is unfortunate.

The government has failed on things like special investigation teams that they had promised as well. The dog teams, all of these things — no. They have all been a complete failure by this government to deliver.

On the education end, school closures are a huge issue. We've had a huge fight here trying to keep Lampson School open and running. The government denied that. Now I think it's kind of a twist of fate that the government is now saying they're going to start using kindergarten as child care and start kindergarten for children as young as three in the future. Yet this school, Lampson, in trying to stay open, was denied the ability to offer any kind of child care or early kindergarten. Yet now the government's got it built into this new throne speech. Too bad my community hadn't waited a bit longer before that school was closed.

I have three or four more pages of issues coming out of this throne speech, and I will probably have to address them as we get through the budget. I fear that many of the things that concern my community — around affordable post-secondary education, the issue of child care, all of these — are going to be issues that I'll be looking for some solution to in the budget.

At the end of the day, it is about providing affordability for families. This government is consistently making it less and less affordable for the members of my community — without child care and with increased hydro rates, ferry fares, transit fees, MSP fees, new carbon taxes. When will it stop?

Hon. K. Krueger: Just over a year ago I was appointed Minister of State for Mining, and I have a fair amount to say this evening about what's been happening in mining before that and since. I do want to say that I'm tremendously proud of our Premier, our government and the course of action that's laid out in this throne speech. It is a course of action that builds on the tremendous successes of the government ever since the year 2001, and it's tremendously good for all British Columbians.

In the mining industry there's an expression. If you don't grow it, you have to mine it. There's a lot of truth to that. Other than the basic elements — fire, water, air — pretty much everything we use in our daily lives you either grow — and the Minister of Agriculture and Lands has a lot to do with that in British Columbia — or you have to mine it.

The mining industry in British Columbia was in a very sorry state before the B.C. Liberal government was elected in 2001. The soundest barometer of how the mining industry is doing is the amount of exploration spending that is going on in a jurisdiction. As a very direct result of the NDP's policy in the 1990s, the dismal decade of the '90s, and their management of the economy, we saw a plummeting of our mining industry's share of Canadian exploration.

Our industry's share was 26 percent in 1991. By 1996 it had dropped to 12 percent from 26. By 2001, when the public happily turfed the NDP government, it had dropped to 6 percent of the expenditures in Canada on mining — from 26 percent to 6 percent. Incredible.

It's a very difficult task to win the mining industry back. They were burned, and they went away. We set about, in opposition, listening to the mining industry, as we listened to all components of the population and all of our industries. We listened, we prepared a plan, and we acted on the plan.

I want to acknowledge my predecessors — obviously, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, who has the overall ministry; also the present Minister of Agriculture and Lands, the member for Prince George North, and the member for East

Kootenay, both of whom preceded me as Ministers of State for Mining — and the very hard work that they did to get the mining industry back on track in British Columbia.

We did that, our government, by creating a competitive mining jurisdiction again. We didn't have that in the '90s. We had exactly the opposite. There are very rich mineral deposits in various locales all around the world, and investors have many options as to where they put their money.

We crafted a strategy to win them back. For example, we gave an income tax cut to every one of their employees and every other income earner in British Columbia. We did that on our very first day in office, making income tax in British Columbia the lowest in Canada for the first $60,000 of income. Since then we've steadily increased our cuts. Now income taxes up to $108,000 are the lowest income taxes in Canada.

We reduced corporate income tax from 16½ percent to 12 percent. We eliminated corporate capital tax. We eliminated PST on machinery and equipment. We simplified fuel taxes. We extended the mineral exploration tax credit program, and we bolstered the exploration tax credits for companies and people who would explore in the large area of the province afflicted by the mountain pine beetle epidemic — almost two billion dead trees, as we all know.

Communities that have been dependent for generations on that pine forest are wondering how in the world they're going to survive. We believe that part of the answer is the mining industry, that mining can and will step up to the plate and replace those family-supporting jobs and help those communities not only survive but thrive in the mountain pine beetle disaster.

We extended the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit program and completely harmonized it with the federal program. We've worked very hard with the federal government to streamline permitting processes, and that again is a credit to my colleagues who preceded me in this role.

We travel with industry to Asia promoting our industry to our prime customers as well as to investors. We host international delegations from Asian and other countries. The federal government responded to the hard work of my predecessors by announcing a major-project office for British Columbia just last fall — a $30-million-per-year commitment for five years, a $150 million investment, recognizing that British Columbia is the hot spot of Canada for mining and mining exploration.

Even though we were very strapped for cash when we became government, inheriting a $4-billion-per-year structural deficit, we met our commitment to balance the budget and have only delivered surplus budgets since we did that. Early on we began progressive programs in geoscience. We put $1.1 million into a program called Rocks to Riches.

Out of that program came a number of discoveries, one of the most remarkable of which is the Kwanika project in northwest British Columbia. It's a potential mine — we believe it will be a mine — located almost underneath a logging road that had been used for 50 years. Nobody knew that wealth was down there.

After that success, we decided to fund Geoscience B.C., a non-profit organization where private industry and government confer and really unique exploration programs are launched. We put $25 million into Geoscience B.C. We're tremendously glad that we did.

Last June in Prince George — together with Lyn Anglin, the CEO of Geoscience B.C., and my colleagues from Prince George — we launched the QUEST program, which involved using high technology that's dangled below both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft flying over a huge zone of the mountain pine beetle kill, measuring subsurface gravitational and magnetic activity to determine where the minerals lie. There's every reason to expect that in that large zone between the Highland Valley copper mine and the Mount Milligan site there are other such rich deposits. Every reason to expect that, and we're determined to find them.

We pledged that we would release all of the results to industry as soon as they were tabulated, and we've done that. Five million dollars was spent on the QUEST program. We told the industry that we'd release the results and that they'd be welcome to stake wherever they saw opportunity. They didn't wait. They began staking immediately.

Since that announcement, 780,000 hectares of new claim-staking took place in that zone. As a result of that success, the Premier made a decision — and our government has announced it — to come to this Legislature in this session and seek another $6 million to launch a QUEST west program, which will do the same measurements in the zone from Vanderhoof to Terrace, again bringing new hope to communities affected by the mountain pine beetle issue and other concerns, particularly with the forest industry.

How did industry respond to all of these initiatives? It responded beautifully. From seeing exploration drop under the NDP — from 26 percent of Canada's number in 1991, to 12 percent in 1996, to 6 percent in 2001 — we have, since this B.C. Liberal government was elected, seen our share of the exploration expenditures in Canada rise to 18 percent — from 6 percent to 18 percent, triple the share of the Canadian exploration expenditures that the government of British Columbia enjoyed in the year 2001.

Dollar figures. The exploration number was only $29 million in 2001. It was $416 million in 2007. That is a 1,300 percent improvement in exploration expenditures from 2001 to 2007 — from the sorry number of $29 million to $416 million.

World exploration in minerals rose by 31 percent during the year from 2006 to 2007. British Columbia rose 57 percent — almost double the world number and a huge increase from 2006, which had been the previous record for British Columbia at $265 million.

PricewaterhouseCoopers does an annual report card on the mining industry in British Columbia. In 2006 they said that mining in B.C. was an $8 billion

industry, paying $99,900 average per employee, including benefits. Mineral tax revenues from 2001 to 2007 have risen almost 700 percent, and that's money in the coffers of British Columbia to pay for health care, education and everything that's important to British Columbians.

I listened to a speech by Don Lindsay, the CEO of Teck Cominco, where he talked about a massive investment decision that Teck Cominco had made in British Columbia. He said that they chose to invest in B.C. because the government demonstrates such stability, sound policy, reliability and fairness.

They could have invested anywhere in the world. They were being courted around the world for various mining projects because they're a tremendously successful B.C. company, but they chose British Columbia. They said it was because of the performance and the results of this government.

When I started in this position, when I was appointed just over a year ago, we were just getting ready for the 2007-to-2008 budget. The senior staff from the ministry who came to brief me said: "You have to get us the budget allocation that we've asked for, for the coming year. We have to have it because we have 30 times more work than when you guys were elected government." I said: "Thirty times more work?"

They said: "Thirty mines. We're working on 30 actual mine proposals. We were only working on one when you became government." Only one mine was in the works for British Columbia. In 2001 the environmental assessment process in Canada was only looking at one mine. In 2007 it's considering 20.

Generally speaking, most of the time we now have in British Columbia about half of all the mining projects in Canada that are under consideration. We employ 28,000 people in the mining industry, and 97 percent of those jobs are full-time. Those jobs are in more than 50 British Columbia communities.

We enjoyed more than $690 million in government revenues from the mining industry in 2006. Of course, there's a huge multiplier effect in the general economies of those more than 50 communities and, in fact, of the whole province.

Exploration projects in 2007 in British Columbia numbered 472 — 472 active exploration projects for minerals, coal, industrial minerals and aggregate — and 102 of those projects had budgets in excess of a million dollars. That was a 42 percent increase of those large budgets from 2006.

The number of new mine proposals presently is 23 — 13 metal mines, seven coalmines and three industrial mineral operations. The number of mines actually in production in B.C. is 57 — 11 metal mines, ten coal and 36 industrial minerals.

We're attracting attention from all around the world. I've had the coal company of India come to me twice. They're eager to sign a contract to buy, they tell me, 100 million tonnes of our metallurgical coal every year from British Columbia. They know that we are the second-largest exporter of metallurgical coal in the world, after Australia. Australia, a country; British Columbia, a province. We're second, and they're eager to be our customers.

What's the biggest challenge in mining? It's where in the world we will get the people to work in all the mines that we're going to have. There are thousands of new jobs coming. I travelled to many exploration sites and mines last summer, and I heard everywhere that a shortage of drillers and a shortage of drills was the biggest problem the industry was facing.

This government has created more than 400,000 new jobs in the general economy since we were elected in 2001. We know that there are going to be a million job openings in the next 12 years, and we've only got 650,000 students in the K-to-12 system. The mining industry is going to create jobs to add very substantially to that number. So we're looking for people, and jobs are looking for people — exactly the opposite of the situation that we saw in the sad decade of the '90s.

Our government is responding to the challenge by adding 25,000 new post-secondary spaces, and we're equipping British Columbians for those opportunities that are coming down the pipe. When we announced the $416 million exploration figure last month, it was at Simon Fraser University, and a lot of students were present.

In fact, we had a wonderful young student — well, a graduate now — named Denay, who I don't think is 30 years old. She's already had international experience. She's been certified as a consultant, and she's on her way to a tremendously successful career. These students were completely enthused about the mining industry in B.C. and the results that this government has been able to deliver.

Our efforts to prepare the labour force for these opportunities are many. One that I'm particularly proud of is the cooperation between the Northwest Community College and the Smithers Exploration Group. The Human Resources and Social Development Canada organization partnered with us, and we committed $7.3 million to the reclamation and prospecting, or RAP, program, a three-year pilot project. That was committed in 2006.

The RAP program provides students from rural first nations with the knowledge and skills they need to find entry-level employment in the mineral exploration and mining industry. Students receive real-world field education in bush safety, prospecting, site evaluation and site sampling. I'm delighted to report that out of the 50 students participating in the RAP last year, 44 finished the program. That's an impressive 88 percent graduation rate. As of mid-January, 74 percent of the students are employed or in school. We can expect more of these graduates to be recruited by industry once this year's field season starts.

Programs like RAP provide aboriginal youth with the opportunity to be more involved in and to better understand the mining and minerals industry. In January 2007 we announced $2.8 million in provincial and federal funding for the reclamation and prospecting program. In 2006 we delivered Mining Rocks, a career and job opportunities tour, to 24 communities to promote the careers and job opportunities in exploration and mining.

Since April 2005, B.C. has contributed over $2.5 million in funding for mining education and skills training for rural communities and first nations. We delivered a grant last year of $7.5 million for more than 80 new student spaces and three additional staff positions over the next five to seven years at the UBC Norman B. Keevil institute of mining exploration.

We have ramped up the provincial nominee program in order to fast-track immigrants to British Columbia who are needed in industries in B.C., including the mining industry. We're seeking to accelerate immigration processes to Canada to face the tremendous challenge of filling all of those jobs.

The B.C. geological survey is an organization that I'm tremendously proud of, and of the people who work there. Dave Lefebure is the province's chief geologist — a wonderful man. The B.C. geological survey has been in operation now for 113 years. It was actually the first use that any government of British Columbia ever made of science.

During this time, they have prepared data that is an example to the world of how to chart mineral occurrences. Mineral Titles Online, our system for staking, MapPlace B.C. — these are all innovations of the B.C. government through the B.C. geological survey. They've mapped over 12,000 different occurrences of mineral deposits in British Columbia.

Last summer we employed 39 students through the B.C. geological survey. They get great experience to go along with their education. In fact, we've employed 1,000 students in that role since World War II. Many of them go on to tremendous careers in mining, and some, happily, feel called to public service where, admittedly, they'll make substantially less money in this day and age than they would in private industry.

In fact, we've had an issue with the private industry hiring our staff away from us because they're doing so fabulously well that they can afford to pay them double and sometimes triple what government pays, even though we're paying the highest rates that have ever been seen in British Columbia.

One of those student teams found a number of new mineralized areas in the Chezacut territory, which is about 200 kilometres west of Williams Lake, and another found deposits in Terrace that may attract new mineral exploration and encourage further investments in the mining sector.

The four new finds demonstrate government's continued commitment to stimulate mining activity in the province, especially in areas experiencing difficult economic times. These new discoveries will foster increased exploration throughout the northern areas of the province, further fuelling an already surging mining sector while providing more jobs for rural B.C.

Noting the hour and having the understanding that there has been an agreement between the sides of the House, I'll reserve my right to continue my remarks next day and move adjournment of debate.

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