Hansard — Tuesday, March 11, 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		10429

Tributes		10430
	Doug Bondue
	C. Trevena

Introductions by Members		10430

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		10431
	Musqueam Reconciliation, Settlement and Benefits Agreement Implementation Act (Bill 12)
	Hon. M. de Jong

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		10431
	Journée de la Francophonie
	R. Cantelon
	B.C. firefighters
	C. James
	Team B.C. at Special Olympics
	R. Lee
	Forest industry in B.C.
	D. Routley
	Joseph Creek residential care facility
	B. Bennett
	Aboriginal canoe naming ceremony
	S. Hammell

Oral Questions		10433
	Government relationship with Ken Dobell
	C. James
	Hon. W. Oppal
	J. Kwan
	S. Simpson
	R. Fleming
	M. Karagianis
	D. Thorne
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. M. de Jong
	Status of Ken Dobell with Law Society of B.C.
	B. Ralston
	Hon. M. de Jong
	Disclosure of documents in B.C. Rail–CN Rail investigation
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. W. Oppal

Reports from Committees		10438
	Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, third report
	R. Fleming
	J. McIntyre

Committee of the Whole House		10438
	Forests and Range Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 8) (continued)
	B. Simpson
	Hon. R. Coleman

Report and Third Reading of Bills		10454
	Forests and Range Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 8)

Committee of the Whole House		10454
	Local Government Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 7)
	Hon. I. Chong
	C. Wyse
	G. Robertson
	M. Farnworth
	G. Gentner

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		10462
	Estimates: Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. O. Ilich
	R. Chouhan

Hon. M. de Jong: On a historic day, a remarkable day, it's my pleasure to ask members to welcome to the Legislature a number of very special guests. Included amongst them from the Musqueam Indian band are Chief Ernie Campbell, Councillor Wendy Grant-John, Councillor Delbert Guerin, Elder Larry Grant and Leona Sparrow. In addition, of course, there are a number of elders and community members from the Musqueam First Nation.

We also have in the precincts Grand Chief Edward John from the First Nations Summit and Leadership Council and Chief Shawn Atleo, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Having just attended the signing of a historic agreement, all are awaiting the next step in that journey along the path of reconciliation. I hope all members will make our guests feel very welcome today.

C. James: I'll add our appreciation to the chiefs, the elders and the councillors who are here today — from the opposition as well.

I am also pleased to introduce Laura Collier, who is here today. She is completing her fourth year in the University of Victoria's School of Social Work. It's been my good fortune to have Laura working in my community office as a practicum student over the last while.

Visiting today with Laura are her parents Del and Lynette Collier of Gull Lake, Saskatchewan. The Colliers own and run a grain and cattle farm in Gull Lake. They're here visiting their daughter today. I think it's especially nice, as we celebrate Social Work Week, to be able to welcome Laura and her family to the Legislature.

Hon. J. van Dongen: With us today in the Legislature to celebrate journée de la Francophonie are Mr. Moussa Magassa, board member of the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique; Mr. Walter Deplazes, consul general of Switzerland; and Mr. Real Roy, president of the Victoria Francophone Society. They are here along with many members of the francophone community, and I ask the House to please make them all very welcome.

D. Thorne: Over the last couple of days, we've had visitations from many of British Columbia's fine firefighters. I have had the distinct pleasure of having two young men from Coquitlam, fabulous examples of firefighters. I would like the House to welcome Mac Sullivan and Jason Miller, loyal members of Local 1782 and representatives of Coquitlam's best.

Hon. S. Bond: It's my pleasure today to introduce Mme. Marie Bourgeois to the House, who's also here to celebrate Francophone Day in British Columbia. Mme. Bourgeois is known for her unwavering commitment to the promotion of French language and culture. In fact, she was awarded the Order of Canada in 2005 in recognition of her unparalleled leadership and work on various boards and francophone organizations. I am very proud to say that she is the board chair of school district 93, which is B.C.'s francophone school district, le conseil scolaire francophone.

Alors, je vous souhaite une bonne journee de la Francophonie. I ask the House to give Mme. Bourgeois a very warm welcome.

C. Wyse: I would also ask the House to join with me in welcoming Daryl Cooper and Rob Chalmers, who met with me this morning on behalf of firemen from around the province. In welcoming them, I would ask whether the Speaker might also consider welcoming all the other fire representatives that are here in the House with us.

Mr. Speaker: On behalf of all members, I would like to welcome all the firefighters who are here today and, apparently, last night also. A number of members, I think, enjoyed an enjoyable evening with them.

R. Cantelon: Indeed, there are five of Nanaimo's finest firefighters here in the gallery: Mike Rispin, Bill Eggers, Brian Wood, Ron Daly and Chad Porter.

Thank you for broadening the welcome. Should things get too heated in question period, Mr. Speaker, they're prepared to leap into action to help us.

M. Farnworth: Just in quick response to the member opposite, I think that if things get too heated here in question period, they want to enjoy the fire.

It's my pleasure to introduce a couple of firefighters from Port Coquitlam, Mr. Rob Bonas and Mr. Nick Zupan. They're here to inform us of their issues as firefighters and also to observe the fireworks in question period. Would the House please give them a big welcome.

In the gallery today from Delta Senior Secondary School, fondly referred to as Ladner high, are 60 civics 11 students that are really, really engaged. I almost froze to death out there, but it was the most terrific time — great questions.

They are joined today by Mrs. Alka Goel-Stevens, Mr. Graham Harkley and their teacher, Mr. John Powell. So would the House really make these young people welcome.

C. Puchmayr: I, too, had the privilege of meeting with one of New West's finest, Greg Simpkin, a New Westminster firefighter, and also with one of their union reps, Tim Bailey. We decided not to meet in the great big board room and meet in the coffee shop. They made me buy them breakfast, so they're very astute. Please make them welcome.

Hon. I. Chong: In the gallery today is Mr. Gérald Moreau, a former constituent of mine and a retired university professor from the University of Victoria. He is also here to celebrate Francophone Day at the Legislature.

More recently, Mr. Moreau served as a citizenship judge here in British Columbia, performing many ceremonies and welcoming many new Canadians to Canada. I just wanted to say that I first met Mr. Moreau through his late wife, Mme. Henriette Moreau, who was my French teacher at Mount Douglas high school, where she taught for 23 years.

Mrs. Moreau was tireless in her efforts in the promotion of the French language and culture here in Victoria and in Coquitlam. In her honour and in her memory, five awards will be given annually through several organizations for Mme. Henriette Moreau. I would ask the House to please welcome Mr. Gérald Moreau.

K. Conroy: I so rarely get to introduce people from the Kootenays that I am going to take this opportunity to welcome two firefighters from Trail, Richard Melnyk and Tim Boutin, both from Local 941. They both actually live in Fruitvale, but it's great to have them here.

Hon. S. Hagen: We are joined by Mlle. Lucille Riedle from the Comox Valley Francophone Association, here to help us celebrate B.C. Francophone Day. Would the House please join me in making her welcome.

B. Simpson: I want to introduce all the firefighters that are left. Actually, I'm going to introduce another group that's here today, United Steelworkers, a lobby group that's here lobbying various MLAs for immediate assistance for laid-off workers and for communities impacted by the current downturn in the marketplace.

From Local 1-424 Prince George we have David Stoll, Kapal Kilshaw, Alfred Wilkins; from Local 1-3567 in Langley, Caleb Boustall, Igor Berzowski; from USW District 3, Kim Pollock, who is no stranger to this House, and from Local 1-85 Port Alberni, Rita Lajeunesse. Would the House please make them welcome.

C. Trevena: I would also like to introduce one of the steelworkers in the gallery who is the president of the Campbell River, Courtenay and District Labour Council, Leslie McNabb, who we will be meeting with later.

I would also like to introduce one of the many firefighters who came to meet with us, but he was also one of the organizers of the event. I think the House may want to make Reid Wharton, a Campbell River firefighter and the co-chair of the association's legislative committee, particularly welcome.

C. Trevena: Some of our communities have some very special people in them, and I would like the House to help me recognize one such person, Doug Bondue from Port Alice, the top hockey volunteer in Canada. Doug has been a stalwart in the local hockey community, starting a hockey society in the village, keeping the arena open when the mill was shut down and keeping hockey alive in the community.

Now he's being recognized by the RBC Local Hockey Leaders program. Doug is the only person from B.C. to be so recognized and will have his name displayed in a permanent exhibit at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Doug is also going to receive $10,000 to be put toward the registered charity of his choice. He's going to get a Team Canada jersey, and a banner will be raised in his name in the Port Alice arena. I hope the House will help me congratulate Doug, B.C.'s top hockey volunteer.

D. Hayer: We also have five of the finest firefighters visiting here from Surrey. They met with us yesterday, and they're meeting with us later on at 2:30. I would like to welcome them to the House. Would the House please make them very welcome.

M. Karagianis: I see that we've just had a new guest enter the gallery. It is the Esquimalt Nation chief, Chief Andy Thomas, and I would ask the House to please make him very welcome.

R. Fleming: I'd like to add to the welcome of the firefighters who are here in the precinct today and single out Rick Farrell and Gary Birtwistle from the Victoria fire department. It's a fire department that is older than this province has been in Confederation. It protects Victoria residents and, of course, this precinct.

This year they're celebrating protecting Victorians on land and on sea with the addition of a new fire boat to the new navy of the fire department. Will the House please make those two firefighters welcome.

J. Rustad: Prince George faced a real challenge this past winter with the floods that came along, and the firefighters played a tremendous role in helping our community fight that battle. I'd just like to introduce three of the finest from Prince George: Fred Wilkinson, Blake King and John Iverson. Would the House please make them welcome.

J. Nuraney: I, too, would like to extend our welcome to the firefighters from Burnaby. They are not just hard-working and very efficient, but they also made the calendar — the firefighters' very famous calendar that they issue. Please join me in welcoming the firefighters from Burnaby.

Hon. P. Bell: The finest of the fine, the president of the B.C. Professional Fire Fighters Association, from the wonderful community of Prince George — Al Leier. Would the House please make him very welcome.

Hon. M. de Jong presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Musqueam Reconciliation, Settlement and Benefits Agreement Implementation Act.

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I stand in the chamber today and introduce Bill 12, the Musqueam Reconciliation, Settlement and Benefits Agreement Implementation Act.

This legislation acts upon the government's commitments made in the reconciliation, settlement and benefits agreement signed with the Musqueam people and Chief Ernie Campbell just a few moments ago. This agreement puts the province and the Musqueam people on a new path of reconciliation and will provide the Musqueam people with a solid foundation upon which to develop their community.

We are, as I pointed out earlier, joined on the floor of the House today by Musqueam Chief Ernie Campbell, Councillors Delbert Guerin and Wendy Grant-John, Elder Larry Grant and Leona Sparrow. I do want to pay tribute to the leadership of Chief Campbell, the councillors and the elders for their courage and vision in taking this step together. They did join with me and others in a ceremony earlier today to sign this historic agreement. It was a proud moment for B.C., one that puts mutual respect, recognition and reconciliation into action.

This agreement establishes new economic opportunities for the Musqueam people, is a basis for reconciliation and resolves many years of outstanding litigation. It creates the foundation for a new relationship between the province and the Musqueam people, one that provides a positive future and moves us away from the era of confrontation and litigation.

The transfers of cash and land contained in the agreement will create economic opportunities so that the Musqueam can fully engage in the lower mainland's mainstream economy. This is a great day for the Musqueam, a great day for British Columbia and the beginning of a new relationship between us.

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

Bill 12, Musqueam Reconciliation, Settlement and Benefits Agreement Implementation Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

R. Cantelon: C'est avec grand plaisir que j'annonce la proclamation du 20 mars en tant que journée de la Francophonie en Colombie-Britannique. Puisque la chambre ne siège pas la semaine prochaine, nous soulignons cet important événement aujourd'hui.

Comme nous le faisons depuis 2002, mon collègue le ministre van Dongen organise un événement spécial, à l'heure du midi, pour souligner la journée de la Francophonie. Cette année les célébrations mettent en vedette le secteur des arts et de la culture francophones et soulignent le 150e anniversaire de la Colombie-Britannique.

Dans les années 1850 les francophones constituaient jusqu'à 60 pour cent de toute la population européenne en Colombie-Britannique. Les francophones ont contribué à l’exploration de la province et y ont établi la première colonie de peuplement au XVIIe siècle. Plusieurs lieux symboliques de la ville de Victoria, soit l'hôpital Saint-Joseph et l'Académie Sainte-Anne, ont été construits par des francophones.

Cette proclamation honore notre communauté francophone. À la fois dynamique et bien vivante, elle regroupe plus de 63 000 personnes, en plus de centaines de milliers de Britanno-Colombiens qui ont adopté la langue française.

La proclamation du 20 mars en tant que journée de la Francophonie en Colombie-Britannique fournit à toutes les personnes parlant français — et moi aussi — dans notre province une occasion de célébrer et de partager leur joie de vivre.

Veuillez donc vous joindre à moi pour féliciter et remercier les citoyens de la Colombie-Britannique parlant français pour leur contribution à notre société.

C. James: Continuing on with the theme from introduction of guests at the beginning of this session, the B.C. Professional Fire Fighters Association is holding their annual legislative conference in Victoria, and I had the pleasure yesterday of addressing that conference.

Over the next couple of days all MLAs will be meeting with delegations of firefighters from their communities. Each MLA in British Columbia has a deep appreciation and respect for the firefighters association and the work that they do.

The Professional Fire Fighters Association is an extremely effective advocate for firefighters, for fire safety and for the health and well-being of our communities. One of those amazing community supports is the firefighters burn fund. Through awareness, research and prevention programs, for 30 years the

firefighters burn fund has made an enormous contribution to B.C.'s communities, providing support to burn research, burn survivors and to the families of burn victims.

The firefighters association also led the fight to recognize different forms of cancer as occupational diseases. New Democrats were proud to support Bill 11 and to offer amendments to expand its scope, recognizing that fire is only one of the dangers that firefighters face.

One of the most passionate advocates in the campaign to recognize cancer as a presumptive illness passed away last year. Robert Hall fought his illness with the same resolve and purpose that he fought for the health and dignity of all firefighters. Robert served others so that we could all be safe. I know all members in this House will miss Robert's smile on a day like this, when we remember him being here each year to lobby all of us. That smile and that legacy will remain forever.

I ask all members in this House to join with me to honour firefighters for their sacrifice, their dedication and their bravery.

R. Lee: On February 24, I attended the Team B.C. send-off ceremony for the 2008 Special Olympics Canada National Winter Games in Quebec City. I was pleased to join the Minister of State for ActNow B.C. at the draft and athletes' send-off.

The draft was in NHL style, where each of the athletes and a sponsor, including the government of B.C., were paired and photographed on stage. We also heard from three guest speakers: the Minister of State for ActNow B.C.; Colin MacKinnon, chair of the board of directors of Special Olympics Canada; and Ken McLean, a Team B.C. athlete who delivered a very inspiring speech.

Events like this would not be possible without the hard work of Karen Hamilton of Special Olympics B.C. It is indeed an exciting opportunity for sponsors to meet these amazing athletes.

The games took place in Quebec City from February 27 to March 2. I am pleased to report that the games were a tremendous success for all participants. The team of 98 athletes, along with 42 coaches and mission staff from across the province, proudly represented our province at the games.

Along with new friends made and many personal bests, the Team B.C. athletes won 134 medals in seven sports at the games, including alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, floor hockey, snowshoeing and speed skating. Of particular note are the achievements of Bridget Colvin of Burnaby, who came home with three medals — gold, silver and bronze — in various snowshoeing events.

Would the House please join me in sending our congratulations to all the athletes, their dedicated training coaches and team coaches, and supporting family and friends for reaching new heights in Special Olympics.

D. Routley: I rise in the House today to talk about the number one industry in British Columbia, and that is forestry. I rise to talk about forestry in B.C. and in my riding of Cowichan and Ladysmith.

Forestry is an industry in crisis. Over the last three years we have lost 45 percent of our revenue from stumpage. From '04 to '07 we went from $1.3 billion in stumpage to $714 million. A further $40 million is expected to be lost from that total this year, which will take us down to $674 million exacted from forestry stumpage. That will be a 50 percent decline.

Over the last five years we have seen over 50 major mills close. On Vancouver Island the most recent was Elk Falls, affecting hundreds of workers and their families and indirectly affecting the entire community.

The communities of Vancouver Island are calling out for a plan that will deal with our forest inventory, that will assess our forest health, that will give us new current data on our timber supply and that will provide us with an old-growth strategy. We need an innovative 21st-century approach that will recognize the ecosystem services that our forests provide when it comes to carbon, air and water services and preservation.

We need to ensure that full value is extracted from our resources when it comes to dimension lumber, remanufacturing, value-added, engineered wood products, pellets, pulp and paper, and hardwood products. Those should be the priorities, not raw log export.

We need a community and worker stability program that will provide the economic diversification required by our communities for their survival, but one that retains our industry and retains workers within that industry. If we are to have a 21st-century forest industry, we need the workers, we need the skills and we need the methods to be developed, not transitioned out of that industry. So I call for this House to endorse a recommitment to forestry in British Columbia.

B. Bennett: On Saturday night my wife and I attended the Cranbrook and District Chamber of Commerce evening of excellence. It's an annual event. Awards are handed out to small and large businesses for everything from marketing prowess to best-improved.

The top award of the evening was for business of the year. It's the award that's given to the business in the area that shows leadership, job creation, environmental enhancement, good labour relations and high-quality, safe service.

I am pleased to announce today that the Joseph Creek care home in Cranbrook was awarded the business of the year award. Joseph Creek Care Village is a relatively new facility in our community, which provides 29 assisted-living units and 100 complex care units.

Whereas seniors once waited up to two years in my area to get a complex care bed in an outdated facility, today seniors and their families wait an average of two months to get a beautiful, bright new room in Joseph Creek Care Village.

Of course, seniors where I come from had never even heard of assisted living before Joseph Creek Care Village. If they were too weak to be at home, they were shipped to the hospital to occupy an acute care bed or were institutionalized in old buildings with long hallways and tiny rooms.

Joseph Creek Care Village has brought hope and optimism to seniors in the Cranbrook area, partly, at least, because they recognize the aging process in itself is neither an illness nor a medical condition. There are no patients. Instead, there are residents who bring with them an extended network of relationships with family, friends and others that are maintained within the social fabric of that facility.

Joseph Creek Care Village accepts and adapts to each individual senior's functional abilities, personal desires, life experience and health needs. They respect individual differences, they promote individual choice, and they focus on strength and wellness. This is the fundamental distinction between the medical and the social models of care.

When thinking about this statement on the weekend, my wife mentioned to me a recent obituary in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman. The obituary closed with the following statement: "Fred spent the last months of his life under the tender, loving care of the amazing staff at Joseph Creek Care Village."

Congratulations to Joseph Creek Care Village in Cranbrook, especially to the 160 hard-working people who work in that facility.

S. Hammell: The event at Queen Elizabeth high school was on my calendar, as well as a number of other events, on Saturday, February 16. I stopped by, planning to spend an hour, and stayed for eight. I witnessed and was chosen to bear witness to the naming ceremony of a 30-foot hand-carved aboriginal canoe.

Many of the moments of the next eight hours were simply amazing. The hand-carved, traditional-style northern canoe entered the gymnasium to the beat of drums on the shoulders of about 60 people. The transformation from a huge western red cedar tree to this long, narrow, elegant and beautiful 30-foot canoe was simply breathtaking.

The canoe took its place in the front of the gymnasium, and as the canoe was given life and a name, the accomplished carver Michael Dangeli described in detail the journey of the carvers and the dream of teaching people about first nations culture, traditions and protocols through the carving of Ishqual.

The canoe was named Ishqual, meaning flight of eagles. In the aboriginal tradition, the transformation of the tree to its new life as a canoe was complete when it was named. At that point more drums were heard, accompanied by singing and dancing from the Nahanee family dancers who entered the gym. Masked in black paint and moving to the music of creatures of the forest, the dancers honoured the naming of the canoe and the carver Michael's accomplishment.

They were followed by a troupe, 50 strong, of Nisga'a cultural dancers who were able to make one's hair stand on end. The beating of the drums accompanied by the blowing of a conch shell horn echoed through the gym as the singers and dancers came on stage in waves of mesmerized singing and dancing. The effect was astonishing.

How fortunate I was to bear witness, and I wish all of us to assist them with their accomplishments.

C. James: Yesterday the Attorney General denied there was a cloud over Ken Dobell. Well, as it turns out, there is a cloud, and it's not only over Ken Dobell. It's over the Premier and his entire office.

Yesterday we learned that the Premier's top adviser, Ken Dobell, has been charged with violating the Lobbyists Registration Act. The special prosecutor also said that Mr. Dobell could be charged with influence-peddling based on a contractual scheme that was approved by the Premier and his deputy, Jessica McDonald. Today we learned that the Premier has been asked to testify in the B.C. Rail corruption trial.

Hon. W. Oppal: Well, if it was coherent, I would understand it. If it was coherent and comprehensive and it stuck to one issue, I'd understand it.

If the question relates to Mr. Dobell, Mr. Dobell is scheduled to appear in the court tomorrow. I would assume that when he appears tomorrow, he'll enter a plea of either guilty or not guilty. So why don't we wait to see what happens in a courtroom tomorrow?

C. James: This relates directly to the Premier's office and the Premier's deputy. In 2006 Ken Dobell sent a letter to Jessica McDonald, the Premier's deputy minister, and to Judy Rogers, a Vancouver city manager. In that letter he expressed his own concerns about conflict of interest. Jessica McDonald, the Premier's own deputy, brushed off those concerns and personally approved an arrangement that the special prosecutor has said is influence-peddling.

My question is to the Deputy Premier. Given that Jessica McDonald and the Premier set up this scheme, will the government do the right thing, remove Jessica McDonald from her position as Deputy Minister to the Premier and actually do something about integrity for this government?

Hon. W. Oppal: We have faith in the system. We have faith that whatever the judge will decide as far as imposing a sentence on Mr. Dobell will be an appropriate sentence. We'll live by that.

C. James: The Attorney General says that he has faith in the system. What we don't have faith in is any kind of integrity and trust in the Premier of British Columbia. That's where we don't have trust.

Ken Dobell's letter and Jessica McDonald's own admission in 2007 make it clear. The Premier and his office were complicit in what the special prosecutor is calling influence-peddling. There was no due diligence. A whitewashed report and a continued favour to the Premier's closest friend.

Ken Dobell is not the only one to blame. He raised the concerns himself. It was the Premier and his office who approved those contracts. It was the Premier and his office who approved what the special prosecutor says is influence-peddling. It's the Premier and his office who should be held accountable.

So again, my question is to the Deputy Premier. When will the B.C. Liberals fire the Premier's deputy and actually restore integrity in that office?

Hon. W. Oppal: I find it unfortunate that the Leader of the Opposition has such disregard for the process and such disregard for the rule of law that she makes statements concerning other people who are not involved in the issue that will be before the court tomorrow.

J. Kwan: Let's be clear. It was the Premier's office that allowed a scheme that the Crown prosecutor called influence-peddling, which went on for months in the Premier's office, and the Premier's office did nothing about it. They even kept Dobell on in key positions. He was chair of the convention centre, a project now $400 million in budget overruns. They allowed him to keep on lobbying his office and several other cabinet ministers. They even appointed him to lobby Ottawa on B.C.'s behalf. All of this was signed off by the Premier's office and by Jessica McDonald.

Again to the Deputy Premier: will this government hold the Premier's deputy to account and fire Jessica McDonald today?

Hon. W. Oppal: Mr. Dobell will appear in court tomorrow. He will presumably enter a plea at that time. A disposition presumably will be made, and we'll live by it.

J. Kwan: This is a question about the Premier's deputy, Jessica McDonald. The Premier is not going to hold himself to account. Let's be clear about that. At the very least, the Premier's deputy should be held accountable.

Ken Dobell's protégé, Jessica McDonald, gave her former boss a pass on issues of conflict, on violations of ethical standards and the Lobbyists Registration Act. Her actions have put the Premier's office into disrepute.

My question to the Deputy Premier is this. Will she stand up and hold Jessica McDonald to account and fire her today?

Hon. W. Oppal: The last time I looked, the charge was sworn against Mr. Dobell. That will be heard. As far as other witnesses or other people involved….

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm sure that's something that's fodder for the opposition to speculate upon. But what we're concerned about is….

S. Simpson: In April of last year Jessica McDonald cleared Mr. Dobell of any conflict in a memo. We have now learned from the work of the special prosecutor that he was much less than clear of any conflict and that, in fact, the memo from Ms. McDonald was nothing more than a whitewash. That's unacceptable conduct by the deputy Premier. Will the government do the right thing, and will they fire Ms. McDonald now?

Hon. W. Oppal: As long as that same question will be asked, I'll give the same answer. We'll wait for the trial judge to make his or her decision.

S. Simpson: The trial judge will make a decision about Mr. Dobell, who presumably, from reports, will plead guilty. This issue isn't about Mr. Dobell. This issue is about the Premier's office. It is about Ms. McDonald and her conduct in clearing Mr. Dobell of charges that we now know he clearly was guilty of, by his own admission. The question is Ms. McDonald.

Why won't this government protect its own integrity? Maybe its integrity is not important to it. Maybe its sense of entitlement is all that's important to this group on the other side. Fire Ms. McDonald for her breach of proper conduct.

Hon. W. Oppal: If the opposition is so preoccupied by Ms. McDonald and is making the allegations against her, why don't they step outside and make them?

R. Fleming: I'm trying to glean something out of the Attorney General's non-answers, so my question for him is about Mrs. McDonald. If tomorrow Mr. Dobell is found guilty, is that the moment that the deputy Premier will have been found in serious breach and serious error, and she will be fired? Is that the moment when it will occur finally — tomorrow after the trial?

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, once more we see how the opposition is showing a complete disregard for the legal process. They're rushing to judgment.

The matter will be heard in the courtroom tomorrow. Why can't we wait to hear what the judge has to say? Is there nothing else that they have to go on?

Hon. W. Oppal: The matter will come up before the judge tomorrow. We'll hear what the judge has to say and what the decision will be.

M. Karagianis: I think it's appalling that no one is able to be held accountable in this government for these actions and for what clearly has been outlined as influence-peddling.

Yesterday the Attorney General refused to admit that it's not okay for any of his ministers to continue meeting with Mr. Dobell while he's being charged. So I would ask through to the Minister of Transportation, who's nice and chirpy over there. Mr. Dobell is registered to lobby him on behalf of Cubic Transportation Systems. Will the Minister of Transportation agree today to call off any and all future meetings with his ministry and with any public agencies like TransLink?

Hon. W. Oppal: I'll read the portion of the report again. "Mr. Dobell is scheduled to make his first appearance in Vancouver Provincial Court in the morning of March 12, 2008. As this matter is before the court, it would not be appropriate to comment on the circumstances of the case at this time."

M. Karagianis: Let's talk a little bit about the history of this government. In the past it was okay to fire Mr. Basi and to suspend Mr. Virk at the very first hint of an investigation in the B.C. corruption scandal — the very first hint. Yet here we have Mr. Dobell going before the courts and a special prosecution, and it's okay to continue meeting with him.

Again, through to the Minister of Transportation: do the right thing and say today that you will cancel all the future meetings with Mr. Dobell with your ministry and with any public agencies like TransLink.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'll do my best to speculate where the question was in all of that. I assume in that lengthy speech, there was something about Mr. Dobell. If there was, my answer is the same.

D. Thorne: The special prosecutor has already said that Mr. Dobell's contract to lobby the provincial government on behalf of the city of Vancouver involved influence-peddling. Influence-peddling is something that I would hope this government would take seriously, but they're refusing to do anything about it.

Mr. Dobell is still registered to lobby the Minister for Housing. So my question is to the Minister for Housing. Will the minister agree not to meet with Mr. Dobell and not allow any of his staff to do it either?

Hon. W. Oppal: Let me, through the Speaker, give some advice — unsolicited as it may be — to the member opposite. Yes, the special prosecutor has said that. Yes, the special prosecutor has filed a report. Yes, there is a charge before the court. The judge has not made any findings yet. Those presumably will be made tomorrow in a courtroom in the city of Vancouver.

D. Thorne: That response is not only not acceptable; it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The judge hasn't rendered any decision in Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk either. We're talking about the same thing here and getting different answers.

It's beyond belief that this government will not sever its ties. It's beyond belief. Maybe the only reason is because Mr. Dobell is such a close friend of the Premier…

D. Thorne: I was going to finish that sentence by saying: "…and Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk are not."

I again ask the Minister for Housing: will he agree to not meet with Mr. Dobell or have any of his staff meet with Mr. Dobell? It's a simple question. Please, let's have an answer.

Hon. W. Oppal: Somewhere in that question there has to be a common thread, and I'm trying to find out where it is. There's Mr. Dobell, there's Mr. Basi, and there's Mr. Virk. I guess they're all before the court, so that's something common there. That makes a lot of sense.

N. Macdonald: We'll make this clear. There is one standard for Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk, and there is another standard for a good friend of the Premier. That is what is clear in this issue.

Let's turn to the Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts. Mr. Dobell is registered to lobby the Minister of Tourism with regards to the cultural precinct project. Meanwhile, he is being charged with breaking the law regarding lobbying.

My question to the Minister of Tourism is very simple. A yes or a no — will he agree to sever all ties with Mr. Dobell?

Hon. M. de Jong: Here's what is clear. In less than 24 hours an individual is going to appear in court. The information we have in the report is that that individual is facing charges.

What is abundantly clear from what has taken place here today is that the opposition has so little regard for the time-honoured independence of that judicial process — to allow that judicial process to run its course, to allow that individual to have his day in court for a finding or a plea to be entered and for that charge to be dealt with…. I have never in 15 years seen such a despicable display and such blatant disregard for the independence of the judiciary.

N. Macdonald: Nothing speaks clearer to the failure of the Attorney General than to have the House Leader have to stand up and save him from the pathetic answers we've been getting on this issue.

I'll tell you what's clear on this. The deputy minister in the Premier's office cleared Ken Dobell of conflict twice — twice. The deputy minister also gave Ken Dobell permission to violate the cooling-off period. Those two things.

So the question is around the credibility of the Premier's office. And if the House Leader wants to get up and explain to the people of British Columbia why there is special treatment for a longtime friend of the Premier…. Is it poor judgment on the part of the deputy minister, or is it cronyism, pure and simple?

Hon. M. de Jong: Time and time and time again, British Columbians have seen the same thing from this opposition — an opposition that has no new ideas and is desperate to create an issue. Today they saw this opposition hit a new low. Time and time again we see what they do. Bankrupt of ideas, they choose to malign the reputation of public servants who are, in good faith, providing a service to British Columbians.

Hon. M. de Jong: This is pretty straightforward, Mr. Speaker. If the members opposite want to allege bad faith on the part of the deputy to the Premier, they should go out in the hallway and do so. If the members opposite want to allege some kind of improper conduct on the part of the deputy to the Premier, they should go outside and allege it, free from the kind of immunity that exists out here. I have never seen such a despicable attack as what I see from this opposition today.

Mr. Speaker: Just take your seat for a second, Member. We're not going to continue until there's quiet. Just take your seat.

B. Ralston: The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, the cabinet, has the power to appoint six lay benchers to the Law Society. Those are the governing body of the Law Society. Mr. Dobell is one of those lay governors. As of 1:30 today on the website, he's still listed as being a lay bencher of the Law Society. Will the Attorney General confirm that Mr. Dobell has offered to resign from that position?

Hon. M. de Jong: Again, blanketed in the security that the immunity of this chamber grants all members, the opposition continues to cast aspersions on individuals. I am astounded that…

Hon. M. de Jong: …this hon. member, a member of the bar, who practised the profession of law, a member of the Law Society of British Columbia, would — 24 hours in advance of an individual going before the court to have a matter dealt with — stand in this chamber and pass judgment in anticipation of what is going to take place in the court.

I say shame on that member. I say that he has today revealed a level of disregard for the independence of the judiciary that I would not have expected from this member.

B. Ralston: Were this person, Mr. Dobell, a police officer who was before the courts and a special prosecutor appointed, the presumption of innocence would continue to apply while the matter was before the courts. But his employment relationship might well be suspended or ended. There's a different standard. Certainly the hon. House Leader knows that, as a sometime member of the bar, I believe.

So the question is an entirely proper one. Has Mr. Dobell offered to resign as a governing member of the Law Society?

Hon. M. de Jong: Look. The member seems to have no qualms whatsoever about injecting himself into a process that the criminal justice branch and the special prosecutor went to pains to urge people…

I'll read it too. "Mr. Dobell is scheduled to make his first appearance in Vancouver Provincial Court the morning of March 12, 2008." Gee, I guess we'll have to wait the 15 hours it will take for that to happen. "As this matter is before the court, it would not be appropriate to comment on the circumstances of the case at this time."

If there's something about that which this member or this opposition has difficulty understanding, then maybe they should hire a lawyer and have someone explain it to them.

M. Farnworth: The Premier has said that he would cooperate with the B.C. Rail corruption trial. He promised openness and transparency. Well, in the court today the defence raised the issue of the unilateral change to the disclosure protocol made sometime in the summer of 2007. The defence has alleged this may be grounds for litigation under section 7 of the Charter of Rights, and the defence says that the Premier's change to the disclosure protocol will form the basis of defence application alleging breach of process application.

Can the Attorney General inform the House as to whether the Premier has cleared his calendar so that he can testify?

Hon. W. Oppal: I want to read, first, a portion of a letter sent by the Deputy Attorney General to the member for Nanaimo. It says:

M. Farnworth: This case is of an extremely serious nature. It goes right to the heart of trust in government and the conduct of the Premier's office is central to this. Questions have been raised. We learned today that the Premier will be called as a witness — a distinct possibility of the Premier being called as a witness. That is a very serious thing.

We're just asking the Attorney General, because we know the Premier has very many commitments in this chamber, that they will not be used to block or delay his ability to testify.

Hon. W. Oppal: That question indicates to me how little that person understands about the system. What has happened here is that application has been made by the defence lawyers to have the Premier testify.

Hon. W. Oppal: People don't testify in a courtroom unless they have relevant evidence to give. It's my understanding….

Hon. W. Oppal: That member should understand what all this is about, above anyone else, you know.

Hon. W. Oppal: The judge decides if any particular witness has relevant evidence to give or not. If that witness has relevant evidence to give, then that witness would be called. It's not a question of who wants to go and who should go and all the questions that have been posed here by an uninformed member. The answer here is that if there's any relevant evidence to give, that witness will appear and give the relevant evidence.

R. Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the third report of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts for the third session of the 38th parliament.

R. Fleming: I ask leave of the House to suspend the rules to permit the moving of a motion to adopt the report.

R. Fleming: I move the report be adopted and, in doing so, would like to make some brief comments about the committee's work during the last session.

I am pleased to report that our committee has worked very well to provide parliamentary oversight to the activities and the programs of government. We've done this through a close working relationship with the Office of the Auditor General, which is now led by Mr. John Doyle, the province's fourth Auditor General, who began his duties on October 29, 2007, relocating here from Western Australia after an international search that the committee conducted.

During the third session, the Public Accounts Committee reviewed 11 main reports and one follow-up report tabled by the Office of the Auditor General with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. The topics covered and reviewed this year ranged very widely from public administration to performance reporting; value-for-money reporting on the subjects of financial reporting, treaty negotiations, post-secondary education and transportation policy; a report on the child and youth mental health system; and other health care–related matters. The Public Accounts Committee also reviewed and approved the Auditor General's annual financial statement audit coverage plan.

I'd like to thank all of the committee members for their participation for these past months at the Public Accounts Committee and particularly the Deputy Chair, the member for West Vancouver–Garibaldi, for her hard work in convening the committee and contributing to the committee.

I'd also like to give special thanks to the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville and the member for Delta North, who served on the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts and who will no longer serve during this session as they move on to other standing committees of this House.

I'd like to welcome the member for North Island and the member for Cariboo North to the Public Accounts Committee, who now serve on this committee. I look forward to working with those members as the Public Accounts Committee continues its work with the Office of the Auditor General.

J. McIntyre: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to echo the sentiments expressed by the Public Accounts Chair and add my thanks to the Chair and to the committee for their hard work over the past year.

We accomplished much at the committee level, all the while engaging in our active search for a new Auditor General, whose appointment was approved unanimously in May of that year. From all the feedback we've received, I'm very confident that we've selected an outstanding gentleman of integrity who's already making an impact and providing value to all British Columbians.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in Committee A. Committee of Supply, for the information of members, will be discussing the estimates of the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services. In this chamber continued committee stage debate on Bill 8, Forests and Range Statutes Amendment Act.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 8; S. Hawkins in the chair.

B. Simpson: Now, section 11 is amending section 109, according, again, to the explanatory notes. This is an area that I need some assistance to understand. The explanatory note says something about shifting, allowing money derived from a particular expenditure to be credited to B.C. Timber Sales on approval of the Treasury Board and then allowing money in B.C. Timber Sales account to be expended for the prescribed purpose on approval of the Treasury Board.

This is one of those small amendments. We're inserting a subsection (i) under section 2 and (e) under section 3. I wonder if the minister can describe what is going on here and why these two particular related sections are important in how it relates to B.C. Timber Sales.

Hon. R. Coleman: Welcome this afternoon, Madam Chair. We're all pleased to see you in the chair this afternoon.

Section 109 establishes that B.C. Timber Sales account and defines a qualifying revenue and expenditures stream relating to that account. The amendment to section 109 will allow money in the B.C. Timber Sales account to be expended for a prescribed purpose, subject to the approval of the Treasury Board. The amendment is also to ensure that any revenues generated from such an expenditure be credited to B.C. Timber Sales account.

This amendment will enable B.C. Timber Sales to pursue innovative business practices that support government objectives that are closely aligned with the program's mandated objectives. Any new expenditures falling under this category will require a supporting regulation and will be subject to Treasury Board oversight.

Basically, in order to do something…. For instance, where we might want to work with a first nation and do some fee-for-service work in order to help them build their capacity and move the wood, that would allow for them to do that charge. But it has to be approved by Treasury Board in order for them to do it because it has…. Well, it doesn't have a huge fiscal impact, but it's not unusual for these things to have to go to Treasury Board.

B. Simpson: The minister's remarks on introducing the bill go to the latter point that he has made just now that somehow this is going to support new relationships with first nations, allowing more timber to market. It deals with an issue near and dear to both first nations and licensees, and that has to do with each other.

Then later on in his supplementary comments to close off the debate on second reading, he said that first nations asked us to allow B.C. Timber Sales to be one of the partners that might be able to form a joint venture with them to move wood.

I wonder if the minister could describe what the nature of a joint venture between B.C. Timber Sales and first nations might look like that would be covered under these two section additions.

Hon. R. Coleman: Right now we can't have any relationship with first nations outside of…. B.C. Timber Sales is pretty restricted in what they can do. They can do work on selling their own timber, designing their own timber blocks, designing their own roads and taking it to auction.

This would allow B.C. Timber Sales, if the first nation asks for it, to work into a planning relationship where they would be able to plan — basically, expend some funds for planning to help the first nation achieve their goal. It would allow them, if the first nation wanted to, to include their wood in an auction, to auction wood, and also to be able to actually joint-venture in a relationship, for instance, on reforestation.

That's the type of thing that they can't do today. All the money can't be expended outside the account, and they don't have the ability to do it. This section amendment would allow them to pursue other business practices like that.

B. Simpson: Does it only apply to first nations, or can they enter into joint ventures with any other licensee? I don't see any constraints in the legislation that restrict this to joint ventures with first nations.

Hon. R. Coleman: No, it doesn't have any restrictions to other…. Somebody else with timber could come to B.C. Timber Sales, as well, and ask if they would want to enter into a relationship.

The reason this was designed, obviously, was because of the concern over the forest and range opportunities and the movement of wood and the First Nations Forestry Council saying: "We'd like to have a different relationship and some other opportunities for our folks to be able to gain some expertise that may be available within government, particularly B.C. Timber Sales." But it doesn't stop B.C. Timber Sales from also working with other groups.

B. Simpson: The minister raised the issue of forest range opportunities, but forest range opportunities have nothing to do with B.C. Timber Sales. That's an allocation of cut, independent of what B.C. Timber Sales has.

Is the minister suggesting that what a first nation can do is come to B.C. Timber Sales and treat them like a consulting company, to assist them to build some capacity to be able to do work in their forest and range agreements? Is that what's suggested here — that there's effectively a contractual arrangement a first nation can make with B.C. Timber Sales to get some

Hon. R. Coleman: That's precisely correct. It would allow them to come to B.C. Timber Sales and say: "We have a forest and range opportunity of" — well, let's use the round number — "50,000 cubic metres a year for each of the next five years. We don't have the capacity at our end to be able to, basically, plan it and get it out. We wonder if you would enter into an agreement with us for costs to be able to accomplish that — to move the wood or that sort of thing with regards to the wood that we may want to sell or design the cutblocks for." That sort of thing.

This allows B.C. Timber Sales to actually expend money for that prescribed purpose but at the same time also recover it, because there's a cost and a revenue impact here. Basically, they could charge for the service and recover it from the sale, or whatever the case may be. So that's what supports that, and all of it is subject to Treasury Board oversight.

B. Simpson: If I understand this correctly, in many forest districts, B.C. Timber Sales got first pass on the 20 percent takeback plus whatever was in the small business program. In many forest districts there was a bit of a tussle, if you will, around extracting from some of that takeback opportunities for woodlots, community forests, forest range opportunities, etc. As the minister is well aware, in some districts — I happen to come from one of them — B.C. Timber Sales' take of the 20 percent takeback made it very restrictive for us getting into other arrangements that were supposed to be part of that.

If I understand this correctly, then is this not simply a way for B.C. Timber Sales to contract with first nations to get access back to wood? As the first nation gets a forest and range agreement, they've got 50,000 cubic metres, they go B.C. Timber Sales and say: "Can you make sure it gets out to the market for us?" In effect, then, B.C. Timber Sales is managing that wood, and what…? The first nation simply gets a cheque cut, but B.C. Timber Sales is the one that's now doing the work? Is that how this is going to work?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, it should be clear that it isn't mandatory for anybody to do this. Second, what it is, is that the first nations have said: "We need a vehicle, which may include B.C. Timber Sales, that would be able to do something."

Now, what the member describes could be one of the outcomes. The other outcome could be that they come and say: "We want a mutually beneficial contract. We are not experts at the planning of the land, but we certainly can cut the timber, so we would like the employment for our folks for the cutting and the hauling of the timber."

It may be a case where they feel that they want to build another relationship and want some advice with regards to how they build the relationship to maybe put some together to have enough volume to do a small mill — that sort of thing. Those types of pieces of advice would obviously be available. That's not necessarily…. It doesn't have to come from here. It can come from other consultants.

What they were looking for is, is there a vehicle that you could create that would allow this to happen so that they could, you know, achieve capacity over time? Initially, they might start out by saying: "We want to do the planning, and we'll do the reforestation and the cutting, but we're really not the people who, we think, have the capacity to sell the wood." So they go down that road.

Over time they build relationships, with the help of B.C. Timber Sales, to where they're able to go more marketing direct, or they build long-term contractual relationships. What it is, really, is to give them one more tool to help them build capacity.

B. Simpson: In this joint venture relationship, will the first nations get access to any additional potential wood through B.C. Timber Sales? The term "joint venture" suggests that both sides are benefiting. So can a first nation then supplement the timber or the volume it has in its forest and range agreements with B.C. Timber Sales if they happen to be operating in the same area, or whatever the case may be? Is there an opportunity here for a first nation to supplement their volume?

Hon. R. Coleman: No. This doesn't have anything to do with that. If they wanted to supplement their volume, they could bid on the wood like anybody else.

B. Simpson: With respect to B.C. Timber Sales' part of this, will they be cost recovery or cost plus?

Hon. R. Coleman: Each deal is going to be different. It really is cost recovery, though. It's really to build a relationship that's beneficial to the people who have forest and range opportunities, and first nations. In some cases they may come and want to do a revenue share, which would cover costs, and maybe B.C. Timber Sales could benefit, if they keep the costs down, I suppose.

We haven't done one of these yet. We're just trying to get the authority to do it. I think we'll find out, as each contract evolves individually — because each one has to be separate — how successful we can be.

B. Simpson: I want to be crystal-clear about this because it goes to my next questions. Is the possibility there for B.C. Timber Sales to become a consulting firm for first nations in which they are doing more than cost recovery — that they are actually deriving an income from providing a service to first nations?

The minister has already admitted that it doesn't need to be restricted to first nations. It can go beyond first nations — woodlots, community forests. A lot of the community forests are very tiny, and it's going to be very difficult for them to ramp up and have capacity and absorb all of the costs associated with the planning, the maintenance, the silviculture and everything else.

Can they come to B.C. Timber Sales as well? The minister has already indicated that that's a possibility. So are we actually, by these two small amendments, making it possible for B.C. Timber Sales now to become a forestry consulting company to smaller tenure holders in which they will derive incremental revenue from that, beyond the first nations?

Hon. R. Coleman: No. It's not the intent at all for them to become a consulting company and make money on this. We will set a direction specifically to the company, to B.C. Timber Sales, with regards to where this should be applied.

It's not beyond the realm that maybe a community forest would come in, but I would suspect that we will have a certain amount of capacity available within B.C. Timber Sales to do this. We're not going to go out and build additional staffing and stresses on our people on top of this.

The intent is really to see if we can help with something that we've been asked to help with, quite frankly. We'll see by each individual agreement. It would probably go into the Treasury Board process, and those questions would be asked each time one of these came through. But it is not the intent to have this become a consulting company. It's the intent to be able to have them work with first nations for the benefit of the land base, to move the wood that everybody refers to as a piece of some wood that they'd like to see actually come to market.

B. Simpson: It's actually what everybody refers to as the black hole that they want to see coming into market. No question that it needs to come in there.

In order for me to understand this, who asked for this? It strikes me that there are consulting foresters who work all over British Columbia who provide this service to first nations.

If B.C. Timber Sales is going to be doing it at a cost recovery level, then are they not going to be effectively undercutting consulting foresters — in fact, the minister has one on this round table — who have made a point of taking their business and orienting it specifically and explicitly to assisting first nations to do this?

If I've got the ability as a first nation to go to B.C. Timber Sales and get this nice little service on a cost recovery basis, where they're not having to bear the capital costs or not having to bear rent and all of that stuff and not trying to return some investment to whoever the shareholders are in that company…. Am I not undermining a whole bunch of consulting foresters who have spent a lot of time working on relationships with first nations by giving B.C. Timber Sales the ability to do this work with first nations?

Who asked for this? Is it an area of the province where there aren't consulting foresters?

Hon. R. Coleman: We're not going to push consultants out of the business. That's not the intent here whatsoever. Maybe I described it poorly earlier. My apologies.

The member asks: who asked for this? Well, the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council spoke to me about this. First nations have spoken to me about it as individual communities. The member referred to the black hole of wood. People in industry have actually said: "Is there some way you can facilitate a way that this could move even better?"

We may find, as we come through how we price this in the future, with regards to the wood and with the discussions that are taking place and that are coming forward to the processes that govern, which I talked about earlier, with the committee and Treasury Board and cabinet and what have you with the FROs…. Some of this may disappear, but it was just a request from them in meetings with me that we look at something like this.

I think it's probably the capacity on the sales side as much as anything. The only difference would be that if we're selling it, we can do something with the silviculture liability, which allows them to go do their replanting and create those jobs within the first nation. But there's no intention to go into the "consulting industry."

If there was something that came in with regards to planning or something, more than likely, we wouldn't be using our staff. We would actually point them in the direction of the people in the area who could do that work and work with them, simply because we don't have the capacity to become a consulting company on top of everything else we do.

We are very good at selling wood in a unique way, as we can put it up for sale and bid. We're good at that, and that's something they would like to see — helping them with moving it and then acquiring whatever benefit and jobs and economic opportunities out of that that they can.

B. Simpson: Well, part of the black hole is B.C. Timber Sales sales in certain areas of the province, where we get serious no-bids. And we get difficulty getting wood out the door from B.C. Timber Sales as well. So the black hole isn't just restricted to first nations.

Again, this gets fuzzier for me, not clearer. The minister now says that B.C. Timber Sales, for example, may just point to others. Well, you wouldn't need this act if that were the case, because there's money flowing in and out. You're enabling B.C. Timber Sales to come to Treasury Board and request the ability to flow money in and out for purposes other than just simply B.C. Timber Sales sales.

Let me try a specific example. If band X in an area wants to not continue to pay consulting fees to the consulting foresters that they've had…. They don't have internal capacity; they've used an external capacity. They've got a good gig here now if they can come to B.C. Timber Sales and get B.C. Timber Sales to be involved in the planning and selling of their timber and maybe pick up some of the silviculture obligations, as the minister has pointed out. It's a major cost reduction for them to do that through B.C. Timber Sales.

Isn't that then taking over the role of those consulting foresters? First off, is that possible that I can walk

away from my consulting foresters, go to B.C. Timber Sales and ask B.C. Timber Sales to do this function for me instead of the consulting foresters I had?

First of all, we're not going to get in the way of any contractual obligations that exist between anybody and first nations. This is really about the fact that first nations have said to us: "Is there a way that we could have a relationship with someone like B.C. Timber Sales to pursue some business practices that support government objectives?" Government objectives would be that the FROs would bring economic stability and opportunity to first nations communities where they are. There are 149 of them around the province.

Subject to the approval of Treasury Board, they would have to be closely aligned with the programs and mandates of B.C. Timber Sales as they exist today. Basically, that's what this allows it to do.

This isn't about us becoming the consultant for first nations. It's about us being a vehicle they could use if they want to sell their wood. When I referred to silviculture, sometimes when we, as the member knows…. Cuts come with silviculture liabilities. Part of that relationship could be that the first nations want to take on the reforestation so that they could have the jobs for their community.

I don't see any reason why we couldn't arrange that as part of a sale for them, but we're not going to get into stepping in where consultants are today. We're actually just saying that this is an opportunity to move your wood.

Actually, what may happen is that some consultants will say to first nations: "As we do this and get this done, we now have a vehicle where we can auction your wood versus you running around trying to find somebody to buy each stick of timber. You might be able to put it up for auction and sell it." And that may be a benefit to them.

I guess the best description is us trying to see if we can do something a little different that will assist the first nations with the FROs, if they wish to. They don't have to. I mean, they can go whichever route they want, and some will. But some have also said that because of their capacity, they would like to have a relationship with someone like B.C. Timber Sales, who oftentimes in some of the more remote areas of the province have the synergy on the ground that nobody else has. There's nobody else there.

I mean, they are the organization that has the other cutblocks, other than the major licensees.

B. Simpson: Were the ABCFP and the consulting foresters associated with the ABCFP consulted on this?

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm told by my staff that we consulted with industry, but not that organization directly.

B. Simpson: Again, just a clarification. I get the fact that the minister is talking about what B.C. Timber Sales does on the sales side of it, but I'm confused by the comments around: if the first nations want the silviculture jobs, we can work with B.C. Timber Sales to get them the silviculture jobs.

My understanding on a forest range agreement is that they already have access to the silviculture jobs. They don't need any special relationship with B.C. Timber Sales to have those.

Is the minister talking about incremental silviculture jobs on B.C. Timber Sales lots? If not, I don't understand where silviculture jobs have anything to do with what we're doing in this portion of the bill.

Hon. R. Coleman: You're right. They do have the silviculture liability. But when I was describing this — and I just maybe clarified it a bit with my staff…. If they came in and said: "We want to sell this block, and we don't want the silviculture liability either, so make sure you put it in your price that the silviculture liability is covered, and then you guys take care of that…." That means they could go outside and hire a contractor and replant the trees based on what they got from the wood because it would include that liability in the cost of the auction.

Conversely, they could come in and say: "We want you to sell the wood, but we want to do the silviculture. We would like to be paid for it as a result of the sale. So the price you get out of it for silviculture now comes back to us so we can plant."

That's the nuance there, I guess. That's the best I can describe it for the member. But it really is that this amendment is to enable these guys to pursue some innovative business practices to support government objectives. That's what it is. It's government objectives.

They're not going out to pursue a separate private sector objective. They're going out to pursue government objectives that are closely aligned with the program's mandated objectives, which are to make sure that the purchase and sale and the auctioning of wood support the market pricing system, among other things.

What this is to do is enhance the ability to move wood to market in a relationship with an organization like a first nation that has an agreement with government and that has expressed to us that they're having difficulty getting to the point where they can move the wood. They would like to work with somebody to do it, and one of the groups they identified was B.C. Timber Sales.

B. Simpson: I get that this is trying to address a government objective, which is to address the black hole because of the pressure to get that first nations wood out there. The issue around that is whether or not the first nations have capacity. So you address the capacity issue by making B.C. Timber Sales skill sets available to them. I get that.

But there's a whole bunch of private sector consultants out there who also have a private sector objective, and they're just ramping up, trying to assist and facilitate first nations in getting that wood out to the marketplace. I would see this as a direct conflict to that. That's the point I'm making.

In order for me to understand the Treasury Board component of it…. Since I've used band X, let's go to band Y. They go to B.C. Timber Sales in Terrace, and they have a 20,000-cubic-metre cut this year under their FRO. They say to BCTS: "Let's go to the most simple way we can. We want you to manage that for us. We don't want to have anything to do with it. We just want a cheque at the end of the day."

B.C. Timber Sales then does all the work and so on, puts it out to bid, and they net, after all costs and expenses, $10 a cubic metre. That's $200,000. Do they then just cut the cheque to the first nation for $200,000? And is that why you need the Treasury Board component? It's the in-and-out component of it, where they're absorbing costs that are not theirs — they're technically the first nations' — and then they're having to cut a cheque to first nations for the residual. Is that why Treasury Board is involved in this whole process?

Hon. R. Coleman: Treasury Board is an oversight board for all finances in government. Basically, decisions on each one of these, as it is structured right now, would be that any new expenditures falling under this category will require a supporting regulation but be subject to Treasury Board oversight. That basically means that Treasury Board gets to watch what goes on — right? — and actually has to be reported to.

What this does is allow, basically, crediting of the dollars in and dollars out. The revenue that's collected, for instance, on stumpage today comes into general revenue, and expenses that are paid out to or costs that are due to a Crown go back to the Crown. This also allows, though, for them to apply for expenditures to be able to pay their bills with regards to achieving that revenue. This would also allow for the facilitation of the money to go to B.C. Timber Sales from stumpage to be paid to the first nation, the client. That's why the Treasury Board relationship.

I know that sounded convoluted and complicated. Believe me, sitting on Treasury Board I know that sometimes that's the way it can be. It really is about enabling regulation to be able to do what you're trying to do — receive the revenue into the government, have the revenue come to B.C. Timber Sales for them to take their expenses off, and then send it to the client.

B. Simpson: My apologies to the minister. I think that's what I said. That's what I was asking — if that's what enabling legislation was doing. Effectively, what they are doing is incurring costs on behalf of another entity — not their costs, which is under their current mandate just now. In this case, they'll incur the costs on behalf of the first nations or the woodlot or the community forester or whoever comes to them.

They will then accrue revenue, as well, as a result of that, which is not their own and which at some point they have to cut a cheque to. You have to have a reason for them cutting a cheque out, and it has to be related to that activity. Again, it still strikes me that they are replacing what consulting foresters do all over this province. I'm going to be curious, when I talk to some of my consulting forester friends who specialize in first nations, what they think about this bill, considering they weren't consulted with, as a result of the minister's own admission today.

How will B.C. Timber Sales report out on this, when part of the regulation of reporting on this is a separate item in their quarterly and annual reports?

Hon. R. Coleman: Let's be clear. It's not mandatory that every time we do a section of a bill, we consult with the world. In actual fact we don't, because you would never get any legislation done.

The reality is that they have their financial reporting requirements, as the member knows. They have their financial statements. They are subject to estimates of the House, and they're also subject to the Treasury Board oversight on each one of these. That's additional reporting that's put on them.

So the record is really clear, there is no intention and no direction intended to come from government to B.C. Timber Sales to do this for woodlots or community forests or anybody else. The intent is to be able to have the legislation so that we can deal with an issue with regards to what was asked of us by the first nations. But in writing it we've written it so that it doesn't just prejudice against one opportunity over another, because it may not just be an FRO. There may be a first nation that has a non-replaceable forest licence who also wants, in conjunction with their FRO, to do some work.

We've left some flexibility in there for that, but the reality is that this is really focused on the issue that the member and I have talked about on other occasions.

It's not the intention to go out there and take over the consulting forestry jobs of British Columbia. It's to have a vehicle for them to be able to sell their wood through, which they don't have today. But they have that opportunity to do it so they can move the wood and get some advice from B.C. Timber Sales while they're doing it.

B. Simpson: Well, I know it's not mandatory that you consult with anybody on any piece of legislation. There's a difference between mandatory and what's appropriate and what's right. In fact, this bill is not the full bill that it was intended to be, because the range portions had to come out because of poor consultation with the range folks and the B.C. Cattlemen's Association. Because of bad consultation, that piece is not in this legislation just now.

It should be mandatory, if the government is going to infringe on what a business opportunity is in the private sector…. If they're going to replace that with a possible replacement within the public sector, which does not bear the same costs, and particularly this government, which has been going around and farming out all kinds of work…. PricewaterhouseCoopers does all kinds of work, at a fee-for-service, that used to be done within the Ministry of Forests.

So I think in that case, it may not be mandatory, but it sure would be nice if we knew that the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals and their consulting foresters had been consulted on this.

But my question was more explicit than that. B.C. Timber Sales reports out on a whole bunch of categories of work and services that they do. Their annual report is very specific, and we had a discussion in last estimates about breaking out some of that even more so that silviculture obligations and various other things were transparent.

Given that this is now a new effective function or at least a licence to do something different, and it has cost implications, would it not be appropriate to have them report that out? So my question is: will they be reporting out this particular part of their function so that people can track how much volume from first nations is moving through B.C. Timber Sales — what kinds of activities B.C. Timber Sales is doing on behalf of these?

You know, the minister has talked a lot in the debates over the last couple of years about intention, but legislation sets up possibilities that go beyond what the intent of the government of the day is. So over time this could evolve, and it could be a service to a whole bunch of people.

In the report, in the regulations and in the guidelines governing B.C. Timber Sales, will they be required to report out explicitly about this activity?

Hon. R. Coleman: We will look at that as part of the reporting-out. I can't comment on it today. This is an amendment to a particular section of the act, and maybe when BCTS comes through estimates, we could canvass what we think is an appropriate reporting mechanism for the member.

We should also recognize, though, that first nations hire forest consultants who will actually look at this as an opportunity for some place for their clients to go and do some additional relationship with regards to the movement of wood. So I don't think this is a negative for forest consultants and professional foresters at all.

The ones I've spoken to over the years tell me that they think there needs to be a vehicle for some of the first nations to move this wood as well. They would do that on behalf of their clients working with B.C. Timber Sales, so this is just the vehicle.

Really, what this is, is trying to let B.C. Timber Sales be a vehicle for the sale of wood, which they're not allowed to be a vehicle for today under the legislation.

B. Simpson: I'm all for first nations being able to move their wood. It's whether or not the due diligence has been done — that this is a good vehicle to do that — because as the minister should be aware, consulting foresters have been hit very hard with the degree of corporate concentration that's gone on and the collapse of the industry down to a few licensees.

If this ends up being punitive towards them, then they won't be that happy. So what I'm trying to make sure of is that we've done the due diligence and that this isn't going to be a further insult to that group, many of whom have already gotten out of the business or have had to find other means of employment.

Again, with respect to B.C. Timber Sales reporting out on that, I will canvass that in estimates debate. One final question on this with respect to the Treasury Board approval process, because these are going to be individual decisions that are made. What does that look like? Is it a blanket kind of approval? Do you have to get approval on a case-by-case basis through a process? If you have to get it case by case, what kind of time frame are we looking at for this to go through the due process with Treasury Board?

Hon. R. Coleman: The basic concept gets put into reg, which enables us to do this, so then they can move on it. If they get someone that comes in, they would advise the chair of Treasury Board: "Here it is; this is what the deal is." That really isn't an onerous process. Basically, if it's under a certain value, the chair of Treasury Board can approve it. Then it's approved afterwards by Treasury Board in a supplementary report, basically, to Treasury Board. It's not something, in my experience, that I think would be particularly long.

B. Simpson: I just want to clarify section 12 with respect to the news release and some of the minister's comments in second reading. This is the part that's supposed to ensure that "forest licensees consistently report to government in a timely manner all cost information necessary to support the market pricing system." Is it correct that that's what this section is supposed to be doing?

Hon. R. Coleman: Section 136 requires a person who harvests, buys or sells manufactured timber products to report specified information to the ministry — right? In subsections (1.1) and (2) the reference to "the regional manager" as the receiver of information is being updated to "a person designated by the minister" so that we can bring the information quickly into a more central body.

The change is being made to reflect today's electronic submission of data. I think that at one time people reported everything in. Now they should be able to go on line and fire it in to a central place so that we get our information more quickly.

The amendment to subsection (1.2) ensures that the market pricing system is fully supported by updating the list of information required to be reported to include the cost of transportation of harvested timber and the cost of forest management administration. In addition, the description of the type of sales information that must be reported is broadened.

Basically, this amendment just improves our stumpage reporting requirements by providing greater certainty to the Crown, and we'll be able to obtain pricing information necessary to support the softwood

lumber agreement. The amendment would also allow the ministry to adapt new initiatives — e.g., bioenergy, pricing methodologies and those sorts of things.

What we do with the market pricing system…. It's a living document. It's a living process. We update it. Basically, this is to change it so that it'll be modernized for quicker processing of information by allowing us to not have to always send it to the regional manager but maybe to a central body that's designated by the minister.

Whenever we do any changes to the market pricing system, of course, we also go and do consultation with the United States to make sure that they understand what we're doing so it doesn't attract a challenge with regards to how we're collecting our data.

B. Simpson: I'll take that as a nice, long explanatory yes — that that's what it applies to.

Some questions around that. The minister made the comment even stronger than what's in the explanatory notes, because this amendment changes from having to go to the regional manager to the ability to go to someone as designated by the minister. The minister actually used the term "central body." Does this enable the minister to set up an entity like PricewaterhouseCoopers to do this data collection and to drive the market pricing system independent of B.C. Forest Service?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, it's not, hon. Member. This is just to align us with current practices, because that information is now coming in to the ministry, and it's being managed. This basically aligns it with current practices, because in some areas we're already doing this.

B. Simpson: I just want to go back to the minister's comments before about intent. Now the bill just simply says "to a person designated by the minister." Is there a constraint on a person designated by the minister that it has to be within the ministry, or could at some time — because it's not going through the regional managers; it's not going through the Ministry of Forests' functionary in the region — the minister, or a minister, decide that the person designated is a third party outside the ministry that's going to drive the market pricing system for them as a separate entity?

Hon. R. Coleman: In theory, yes. I guess the person designated by the minister, I'm told, could be anybody. That's not the intent, and it's certainly not the plan with regards to what this is.

This is for us to be able to be concurrent to current practices, to align this so the information coming into revenue branch, which is the body that receives all of this, can come directly to revenue branch so that they can do the calculations for the market pricing system.

B. Simpson: I'm happy the minister clarified that it may not be the intent but that it's possible. As we've seen in the Ministry of Small Business, we have farmed out what used to be government functions. We collect now through a third party. So it's quite conceivable that at some point, if you think that there are efficiencies to be gained, that this no longer becomes a ministry service. It becomes a service to a third party.

We'll canvass that in estimates by how much money is flowing through PricewaterhouseCoopers these days that used to be line functions of the Ministry of Forests. We'll be looking at whether or not there are actually efficiencies there to be gained.

Let me just clarify. Does this section of the act apply, as stated, to B.C. Timber Sales with respect to all of the things that have to be reported for establishing the market pricing system? Does this apply to B.C. Timber Sales as a licensee?

Hon. R. Coleman: The timber sales licensees have to report to B.C. Timber Sales, who have to report it to revenue branch. I want to try and comfort the member on this.

There's a comfort with the United States with our revenue branch and the relationship built on the market pricing system that I wouldn't tinker with. Any change that would ever be to where this information was collected and processed outside the ministry would be, first of all, subject to, I think, a significant discussion with the partners to the softwood lumber agreement prior to anybody ever considering doing anything other than what we're doing.

We're staying with the revenue branch. The revenue branch will do this. We just want the ability for the information to come directly to them so that they can accrue the information in a more efficient manner to be able to be stronger on their calculations for what they need to do.

B. Simpson: It's my job, as the minister well knows, to be a part-time conspiracy theorist on behalf of the people of British Columbia.

B. Simpson: Well, hopefully, it's only part-time — part-time working with my constituents in helping them do their stuff.

We could argue the point of whether or not this would make people at the softwood lumber table comfortable or not comfortable. One of the things they're not comfortable with is administrative changes or political interference in the market pricing system. Putting it out to a party that's independent of government, a private sector third party, might actually give them comfort. It would be interesting to see what their response to that is.

I just wanted to make sure that I understood that that possibility does exist. We've seen this government move down that path. We have taken a lot of things that used to be government functions and put them out to third parties — some to the benefit of British Columbians, some not.

I want to be clear about the B.C. Timber Sales piece. The reason I ask it is that the minister should be well aware that part of the problem with the market pricing

system is that people don't believe that B.C. Timber Sales books all their true costs. I'm curious as to whether there are any discussions about this whole list of costs being booked by B.C. Timber Sales so that B.C. Timber Sales is actually bearing the same and the true costs of every other licensee that's out there. That's a complaint about B.C. Timber Sales — that they don't have to book all the costs, as every other licensee does.

Hon. R. Coleman: The cost data from B.C. Timber Sales that would come in would be what their cost of road construction is and that sort of thing that they do. That data would come in, and the person who buys it has to submit data with regards to their cost of harvest and silviculture and all the rest of it — whatever is part of that equation. So they all have to submit data. It's all brought into the revenue branch and the economic and trade branch — two branches of government, one in Finance and one in the Ministry of Forests — that then collate this information and put it into the formula that is the market pricing system.

B. Simpson: Again, I think that's an area — it's not addressed in this bill — that is causing people some problems and complaints, because they don't believe those costs line up. For example, forest-managed administration is a cost that's not accounted for, necessarily, in B.C. Timber Sales pricing that is having to be reported by the licensees. So they see that as a differential.

Let me go to section (c) of this bill where it says: "'or products derived from timber' after 'related to timber.'" Is "products derived from timber" the ability to open the way that we cost our system for things like carbon or chemicals or energy? The minister mentioned energy as a possibility.

Is it the thought that if you do it in this general term — "products derived from timber" — there's this whole range of emerging products now that you want to capture under this and drive it back into your pricing system?

Hon. R. Coleman: This just widens the net to the information we're going to collect. It doesn't necessarily go to what the member describes. It widens the net, because some people could say: "We don't have to provide you information because of products we derive from timber." We're saying that we actually want all the information so that we can have the best amount of data possible for us to be able to process it.

B. Simpson: That's precisely what I'm trying to understand. What is that net capturing?

As this industry evolves, there are going to be a lot of derivative benefits from the forests that people are rightly questioning whether or not a forest licence holder, who is supposed to be getting sawlogs to create lumber products, should actually start to derive those benefits. If it's not in their cost arrangement, you could actually have somebody who is logging, harvesting, making minimal timber and actual lumber products from it and maximal residual products from it — using it for pellets, using it for energy, using it to derive chemicals and all kinds of things.

Are you casting the net wide enough that at some point, if you see that that's what is actually happening, you're able to add that into your cost system? It does drive back to how you would determine your stumpage in any given quarter. So that's what I'm trying to get at. Is the net that wide?

Hon. R. Coleman: This is not a new change to how business is currently conducted. This is something that allows us to do what we're already doing. It's a bit of enabling. I don't think there's any question that the MPS is always going to be an evolving system. As the member knows, we may find a higher value for wood than sawlogs in the future. As the member knows, we're going to end up with a lot less sawlogs in some areas of the province, and that other standing timber is going to have an effect on the pricing.

I think what this allows us is maybe enough flexibility in developing future regulations as we see how the market changes so that we can adapt. It doesn't affect how we're currently doing business in the near and the long term, but it does give us enough to be able to cast the net a little bit wider by regulation, if we see that we need to have additional information with regards to how the products out of forestry are changing.

I think they're going to change. I think a number of them are going to change — like pellets, as the member mentioned; bioenergy; biofuels; and other things that could come out of our forests. That will affect, over time, how we describe our whole system of pricing, frankly. In the next round with the United States, we'll probably engage in a whole different discussion of how we look at the forests in B.C. with regards to that relationship on the softwood lumber deal. Quite frankly, we know that there's going to be a change in the cut, and those things will all have to be dealt with as we go forward.

B. Simpson: Again, I beg the minister's indulgence, because this is an important transition that we are making here. We're talking about the legislation, not the regulation. We don't get to debate regulation, as the minister has pointed out to me on a few occasions.

This part of the act is talking about information that needs to be reported. In fact, a portion of this next piece is that if you fail to report as required under this section, you can get a fine of $100,000 or imprisonment for no more than a year or both. So it's a very serious part of the Forest Act.

The section that we're changing here, subsection 1.2(f), where we're adding "or products derived from timber," actually specifically says that what must be reported is "sales information of a kind that is usually contained in an invoice related to timber." It's a very explicit statement: "that is usually contained in an invoice." We're going to say not just "related to timber" now but "or products derived from timber."

Now many mills are putting pellet plants on site; mills are putting co-gen plants on site. Will they have to start giving, or do they already give, invoices to the government from the sale of their pellets and from any kind of money that they get from B.C. Hydro for putting power onto the grid from their co-gen?

Hon. R. Coleman: Right now we send out surveys for information. The survey goes out to the forest companies, and they fill that out and send it back to us. The information that's collected includes, right now, some products derived by timber, if you were looking at the definition.

Under section (f), "sales information of a kind that is usually contained in an invoice related to timber" is where it used to stop — right? But the surveys actually ask for more information. So this is saying "or products derived from timber," because we're asking for the information now. We want to make sure that there's no argument about asking for that information.

Now, in the future the stuff that the member described…. Right now there's nobody really selling into the grid, so that's really not an issue. Bioenergy is in its infancy, very much so in B.C. compared to other jurisdictions around the world anyway, and those things will be adapted as time goes on. But this is to really deal with what is the current practice as a collection of information.

Some people could say: "Well, the law says to stop at the timber." We're saying, "No, it should also include products derived from the timber," because how are you going to determine what the value of the stumpage is in the future if you don't have that information?

B. Simpson: We're now into the Forest and Range Practices Act and the amendments here through to when we go to the Wildfire Act.

With respect to section 15, I just want clarification. What this is doing is making a small adjustment in subsections (1) and (2). Part (b) of that repeals section 3(3). That subsection says that the previous subsection does not apply to a timber sale licence for timber harvested under the Park Act.

By repealing this section, are we requiring, then, that forest stewardships plans be approved for work done under a timber sale licence for timber harvested under the Park Act? Are we adding now another requirement for a forest stewardship plan?

Hon. R. Coleman: Now I'm joined by Marg Shamlock. She's the legislation and policy forester with the integrated resources section of the ministry.

No, that doesn't. Basically, this section specifies that when a forest stewardship plan is required…. This one actually provides an exemption to preparing a forest stewardship plan on a timber sale licence for timber harvested under the Park Act. This exemption is actually being repealed because a timber sale licence is no longer used to harvest timber under the Park Act. It's just not done anymore, so it's being repealed.

B. Simpson: Again, my understanding of this section is that we're switching out the whole section in order to add in some "ifs," by the looks of it. I'm just curious here. Do we have a sense of what proportion of the land base actually operates now under these exemptions? Is it a fairly large proportion? Is it an occasional occurrence? What is the nature of the land base involved here?

Hon. R. Coleman: This removes an automatic forest stewardship plan exemption for plan holders harvesting timber damaged or destroyed by fire, insects or disease outside an area of their plan. The amendment is necessary to ensure that harvesting outside of the forest stewardship plan area for damaged or destroyed timber is limited to small, dispersed patches. This amendment will prevent large areas from being harvested without reforestation obligations.

Under section 4.2, it's also being amended to provide the minister the ability to exempt a person from preparing a forest stewardship plan for the reasons specified by regulation. The amendment provides for greater flexibility in the forest stewardship plan exemptions.

What it really addresses, from the standpoint of the minister — and I know it's probably a concern in the member's area as well — is the reforestation concerns associated with what people are calling chicklet logging. Without this amendment, licensees will continue to salvage significant volumes of mountain pine beetle wood made up of small adjacent patches without a forest stewardship plan.

With no forest stewardship plan requirements, a licensee is not obligated to conduct public consultation and a plan for reforestation. That's what we're trying to catch here. We're catching it in there so they can't continue to do it. We can actually put the reforestation liabilities back on them and have the plans adapt accordingly.

B. Simpson: I appreciate that explanation. It's quite helpful. I didn't understand what we were doing here, and the explanatory notes are not that great.

What the minister calls chicklet harvesting…. Actually, it's the first I've heard it, but I understand what he's talking about, and the concerns. Does this also impact small-scale salvage operators? Small-scale salvage operators don't operate under a forest stewardship plan. They often are the ones who are operating in these exempt circumstances. They're often chasing the bug or doing repair work or whatever the case may be.

B. Simpson: This is a general query, because we see this in lots of legislation.

In (f) where it states "other prescribed circumstances," is the prescription in regulation? Is the minister free to prescribe the circumstances, or does regulation prescribe what the circumstances are?

Hon. R. Coleman: That's just a standard clause that's in most legislation, with regards to flexibility in regulation.

B. Simpson: That's what I'm trying to understand, because it is a standard clause. When it has that, though, are the circumstances prescribed by regulation? Or is the minister free, because of that clause, to prescribe the regulation that he or she wants to see on the land base?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, I don't get that much power. I have to prescribe it specifically in regulation. It would have to go, obviously, through cabinet.

B. Simpson: Section 5 is what talks about the content of a forest stewardship plan. What this does is add a subsection, (1.2). It refers to "objectives set by government or other objectives referred to" in the previous subsection "that are in effect when…."

If the minister could, I'd like an explanation of what this is really doing and what it's addressing, because it's certainly not clear to me either from the explanatory note or from trying to juxtapose the subsection that's being added with section 5 in total.

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm going to try and do this. This one is pretty technical.

The addition of section 5(1.2) identifies that the objectives in effect when a cutting or road permit is issued, a timber sale licence is advertised, a declared area is reported or a transitional section 196 area is identified in a forest stewardship plan are the objectives that apply to the permit, licence or area.

The amendment ensures that there is operational continuity and protection of the plan holder's economic investment from changes in objectives for the areas that have a cutting or road permit issued, a timber sale licence advertised, a declared area reported or a transitional section 196(1) area identified in the forest stewardship plan.

That is the plain-language explanation that I have for this section for the member.

B. Simpson: Ouch. I need my afternoon coffee for this one. Let me see if I can try and ask some questions to help me understand it.

As we're all aware, there is some pressure through various entities to add objectives to the Forest and Range Practices Act. There is a desire to add objectives for fire and forest health. There was a discussion about adding safety as an objective and so on.

I know that part of the concern in the industry was that if I've already got a preapproved forest stewardship plan, I have work in progress, a cutting plan in progress, roads on the go and everything else. And then the government has the ability to go and add another objective. Now I've got to go and redo all of that work with this new, additional objective.

Is the intent of this to stabilize that and say: "Look, if you've already got work in progress and there's another objective that's going to apply, you do the work-in-progress as if the previous objective is applied"? You're not going to be punished and have to go back and, as the minister said, bear incremental costs because of additional objectives being added. Is that what this section is attempting to do or doing?

Hon. R. Coleman: Yeah, it does protect the previous objectives so they apply, and it protects the work-in-progress. Just so the member knows, we repealed section 7, where this used to sit. This is basically finding a home for something in legislation that existed somewhere else. We repealed one section and put it into this one.

B. Simpson: We'll go to 19, but section 7 is the repealed section that the previous section 17 was replacing, so that helps.

Section 6(2) of the Forest and Range Practices Act. If I understand it correctly, what this is doing is explicitly capping the number of years that a forest stewardship plan can be in existence. The previous one suggested that you could roll it over for a period not exceeding five years, which gave the possibility that you could just keeping rolling it over for five years.

This one, if I understand it correctly, says it's five years to a maximum of ten, so you can only roll it over once. Am I understanding correctly what this section is doing?

B. Simpson: The question I have on this is that this doesn't suggest…. Again, I'm not as versed in this bill as the minister's staff is. It's very difficult to get through all the bills associated with the forest industry. But this doesn't suggest how the approval process is done. I know we're going to get into that in the next section.

"May grant one extension…." Is it possible for the minister just to simply say that what we're really doing for all of these five-year forest stewardship plans that are approved with this and with the subsequent sections is approving them so that they're ten-year plans? Between this and the subsequent sections we're going to go through, isn't that what we're setting the ground for?

Hon. R. Coleman: This basically allows us — actually gives us — more of an ability to say no to the extension than yes. Yes is already there. You can give the extension. But it does allow us, by regulation, to set down clear roles as to what you have to accomplish in order to achieve an approval for an extension. It actually sets the message very clearly to the people running a forest stewardship plan whether they have a chance of getting an extension, which should reduce a bit of administrative stuff.

If they can achieve that, they probably won't even come in and ask for an extension. But it does tell people, if they want the extension, what they have to meet to get it. This limits the extension opportunity to once during the term of the plan as well. It does that under section 6(2).

B. Simpson: I thought we would go forward to 20, to come back to the minister's point, because the section that we were on really is the section it caps. If I understand correctly, then, section 7.1 — we've repealed 7, and we're now adding 7.1 — is where the groundwork is laid for how a renewal is going to occur or how an amendment is approved, which is what the minister had moved on to. That's why I decided to move here.

I guess I don't understand what the minister's saying, because a lot of what's in section 7.1 already existed in here. It seems to me that what we're doing is separating some things out between woodlot forest stewardship plans versus forest stewardship plans, and so on. We're tidying some things up to give, I would suggest, the woodlot owners a little bit of comfort that they're not caught under the larger FSP process. That's my own gut instinct.

I don't see anywhere in here where it's making it any more restrictive or where the ground is being laid to signal that you're not going to get your plan approved. I wonder if the minister could give me some more explicit examples of where the new legislation is going to make it more difficult or more clear than what's already existing.

Hon. R. Coleman: The section we passed a minute ago says: "…not exceeding 5 years in the circumstances specified by regulation." That's where that would get clarified specifically for the member.

This new section provides for the approval of a forest stewardship plan or amendment. This section was previously part of section 16 of the act, "Approval of forest stewardship plan, woodlot licence plan or amendment," which set out the approval process for both forest stewardship plans or woodlot plans and amendments.

The member is right. The approval test for a stewardship plan and woodlot licence plans or amendments has been placed into two separate provisions. Separating the forest stewardship plan and the woodlot licence plan into separate sections will increase the clarity of the act, and there have been no changes made to the requirements at all.

B. Simpson: Where in this is the increase in public consultation that the minister spoke about in his opening comments and that is in the news release? The news release states that updating rules for forest stewardship plans, requiring entire plans to undergo a public review and government approval every five years….

The minister's comments state, in his opening comments in second reading, that the amendments increase the opportunity for the public to review and give input. So where is that? Because it certainly is not in the legislation.

Hon. R. Coleman: This takes me back to two sections. But first of all, the five-year plan is exceeding the circumstances specified by regulations, so we're going to increase the public consultation within that.

Then what we're saying is that when we repealed section 7 and we rerouted the new section 19, it provided that a proposed forest stewardship plan submitted for approval must conform to the act and regulations as they would before the date of submissions. Right now they can come in with just the changes. Now they have to submit the entire plan — resubmit for approval.

This one basically tightens up the section to replace it. That was the first piece — to tighten it up. Then plus the provisions that were changed by repealing section 7, which specified…. It is already there, and we're also going to include some additional public consultation requirements now that we've been able to do that with those sections, within regulation.

B. Simpson: If I understand what the minister is saying, the section we're on just now, section 20, requires that the entire plan be resubmitted prior to the minister approving it. But rather than having any consultation requirements in legislation, we have consultation requirements in regulation.

What is the nature of those consultation requirements? Will all current forest stewardship plans that are currently approved be required to go to full public consultation prior to the minister signing off on those plans for another five years?

B. Simpson: Are those regulations already in existence? Are they already on the books, or are they a proposal?

Hon. R. Coleman: The consultation process is already in regulation, but what we will change, once the act is passed, is to include that now, on reapplication, it's the whole gamut that has to be met versus just the changes.

B. Simpson: With respect to amendments to forest stewardship plans within the five-year period, are those subject to public consultation?

Hon. R. Coleman: If it's a minor amendment that doesn't require the minister's approval, no. If it's a major amendment that requires the minister's approval, yes.

B. Simpson: What's the public notification requirement for that? That's part of the problem that people have with forest stewardship plans. The actual activity on the ground is effectively preapproved under the forest stewardship plan, with no requirement for public notification unless you've registered yourself as wanting notification if they're going to operate in a given area.

What's the public notification requirement for an amendment that then meets the criteria that it has to go to public consultation?

Hon. R. Coleman: There's no change to that process. It's the same as it exists today.

B. Simpson: I understand that. What I'm trying to understand, from the perspective of more public consultation, which is what the claim is by both the minister and the news release…. There are lots of people who are struggling with these forest stewardship plans — struggling to understand them and struggling to have an understanding of how they influence them. What I'm trying to get, for the public record, is how are…?

We're just in the forest stewardship plan process. We just finished approving them all through last year. Now, I would expect that the next phase we're going to be in will be amendments to those forest stewardship plans, and I don't think the public really knows where to get that information.

Is there a website on the ministry's website that's a single point of reference for forest stewardship plans — the status of those forest stewardship plans, which ones are coming up for renewal, which ones have major amendments in place, etc.? What's the public interface here that we as opposition members or government members can point people to and say: "Go to that website and track the forest stewardship plan in your area or your region or whatever the case may be"?

Hon. R. Coleman: The short answer to the member's question is that the single point of entry isn't there yet. It is being worked on through the provincial Forest and Range Practices Act implementation team. I don't have a time line as to when that might be available.

Any major change has to be advertised. Notifications have to go out according to the regulation as to how they are done today, and that will continue. On minor amendments, which really could be something as easy as language, we're not going to go out to…. That doesn't attract that same process.

The Chair: Member, before we go on to section 21, at the call of the Chair, I'm going to call a four-minute recess till 4:25, if that meets with your approval.

B. Simpson: Before I move on to section 21, I want clarification on something that the minister just said in the final section there. We were talking about public consultation and how this bill improves public consultation. I want it to be clear, because the minister stated that public consultation requirements are in regulations and that they're already there.

If the public consultation regulations aren't changing, how does this, then, improve public consultation? Just so I'm clear, because that's one of the questions that I've been asked about the bill.

Hon. R. Coleman: The way it was, you only had to consult on changes. Now when they do it, they have to consult on the whole plan all over again.

On section 8. If I understand it correctly, this section is actually adding…. Again, it may be somewhere else in the bill that this is already in, and it's just moving it, but it seems to be adding the ability for government to explicitly establish other objectives. If I understand it correctly, there's a period in which these objectives can be established, or not.

Maybe I need an explanation from the minister as to what this is doing and whether or not it's just the fact that the government now is able to actually add, clarifying what applies and what doesn't apply if new objectives are added by government.

Hon. R. Coleman: This is housekeeping. This used to be in the act in cross-references to sections. You would say that "a longer period specified" is an enacted reference to section 7(1.1)(a)(i). Now it is actually written in this section.

B. Simpson: Again, just a straightforward question. Is this a housekeeping one, because this is in here, or is this a consequential change here for these emergent cases?

Hon. R. Coleman: It's both, actually. It's housekeeping on the reference to section 16. That exists.

The difference, though, is that if we say we have an emergency…. Let's say we've had a forest fire and we say: "Get out on the land and deal with the problem." We also now can say: "But within this prescribed period of time, you have to come back to us with a plan." It allows us to get on the land for emergency purposes. But at the same time, you need a plan for that land or the woodlot or whatever the case may be, and you have a prescribed period of time that you have to get back to us with that plan.

B. Simpson: Again, just with respect to the sort of size of the land base we're talking about here, are there no restrictions on that? If you've got an emergent situation, you want people out on the land base. If it's covered under their forest stewardship plan, rather than amend it, they get on the land base, and then they submit to you afterwards, regardless of the size. Or are there restrictions on what the minister can use this to do?

Hon. R. Coleman: There is no restriction on size, but the reality is that these events are usually not large enough that they would take in an entire TSA, for instance. In that case we would obviously have to have the prescribed period to make sense. The intent is to be able to get out there and deal with the issue relative to the reality. Our experience is that these are not big in size, but they need immediate attention, and that allows us to do that and then get a plan in place within a prescribed period.

B. Simpson: Then just a final question on (3.2) under this section, where a woodlot, a licence plan "…that is expired may be amended as if unexpired…?"

Okay. On section 26 again, there's a section that already exists, and we're substituting different language. What I want to understand here is the amendment of an expired plan as if it was unexpired. What are the circumstances under which we would amend a plan after it has actually expired?

Hon. R. Coleman: Just so we're clear to the member opposite, we're on…. I'm flipping over to the last piece of section 26, just so I'm clear.

There are a couple of circumstances where that could occur. You could have a situation where the plan holder could have submitted the approval for their new plan, and the cycle is such that we haven't got the approval done, but we're going into a logging season, and they have actually got a management area already established. We actually amend the expired portion so the work can get done while the plan gets approved.

The second one would be if they had a forest development unit that was coming to expire, and there was a need to extend it so that we could address the forest health issue they've come across in the areas of their plan that need to be addressed with regards to an infestation or something. That's the flexibility that that basically gives. It adds the ability to amend an expired forest stewardship or woodlot licence plan. This amendment provides flexibility to the plan holder in how they manage results and strategies at the time of the plan renewal.

There are going to be circumstances, as the plan is coming through for renewal, where certain work has to be completed because it's work that's already been approved. But it's part of the ongoing process, and that just gives the flexibility to manage that.

B. Simpson: This goes again to the whole expiry of forest stewardship plans or, in this case, it adds a woodlot licence plan. The plan "may be amended as if unexpired if the amendment is in respect of stocking standards set out in the plan." I wonder if the minister could explain what the intent of this is.

Hon. R. Coleman: This new section adds the ability to amend expired forest stewardship plans or woodlot licence plans for the purpose of stocking standards. It provides the flexibility to the plan holder on how they manage the stocking standards over the 20-year time frame that it may take to achieve full free-growing obligation.

B. Simpson: I appreciate the minister clarifying that it is a new one, because I was trying to find out whether or not it was in there already.

Now, as the minister is aware, the accruing silviculture obligation in the mountain pine beetle areas and the effect of climate change on the land base are making silviculture obligations throughout the province riskier.

There was a substantive debate, as I understand it, about stocking standards in the drafting of these first four stewardship plans. There was dialogue back and forth through the chief forester's office. There were suggestions by the chief forester's office on how to apply the stocking standards. In fact, we found that over the years we've lost a lot of silviculture experts who actually understood what the stocking standard implications were to put into these plans.

I guess I find it hard to believe that this clause will have somebody go back and improve their stocking standards retroactively. This can only be seen to be a way to downgrade or to adjust stocking standards that were in a plan so that you've got a better chance to reach your free-growing status.

Again, I'll put my conspiracy theorist hat on. This is potentially a way for some of the negotiations that are going on about downgrading free-growing requirements — fewer stems per hectare, less robust plantations, and so on…. What we're doing is giving room that we can retroactively apply to expired forest stewardship plans.

What is the intent here of explicitly saying that we can change stocking standards after a plan has expired? Maybe the minister can give me an example that makes me take my conspiracy theorist hat off.

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, let's try and deal with the conspiracy theory. This isn't retroactive. It's not saying to somebody: "You don't have to meet your responsibilities." This is effective when the legislation comes in and goes forward. It's not retroactive.

It does allow us to work with how the managing of stocking standards takes place. Our experience is…. I actually happen to have somewhat of an expert in my ministry on silviculture sitting to my left here, evidently. What we do find…. Our history is that it's usually on non-productive ground where we run into the issues and where we may have to adjust the silviculture stocking standards because the trees won't grow in a specific place because of the soils, or whatever the case may be. It is not a lowering of any standards whatsoever.

B. Simpson: I'm glad we've got somebody in the room…. My only experience is as a planter. I don't think that qualifies me as an expert other than on the pain of planting. I think it's one of the most onerous jobs I've ever had in my life.

But I do want to understand the first statement the minister made that this is not retroactive. This is talking about amending an expired forest stewardship plan.

You've said in your forest stewardship plan that you were going to harvest in a certain way and plant in a certain way that met certain stocking standards. If you left that alone, then the requirement would be that on that land base…. One would suspect that you'd gone out and looked at the land base. You had a silviculture prescription that met the land base requirements and the chief forester's requirements, and you put a set of standards in there that you felt you could reach free-growing by applying that stocking standard in that particular circumstance.

If everything works according to plan, then you don't have to touch it. You get your free-growing stand back, you meet the requirements, and it comes off your books. If it doesn't work, then there's either a problem with the original plan…. Something changed in the climate or the circumstances. Your species didn't work or whatever the case may be.

Therefore, you've now got a problem where you have an expired forest stewardship plan that constrained you to a certain set of standards that you're supposed to meet. You can now not meet those standards on the land base. It strikes me that what this is allowing you to do is to then reset the standards in the forest stewardship plan so that you're not liable to those standards but liable to a set of amended standards.

If that's the case, then that's retroactively applying today's standards to that forest stewardship plan. I wonder if the minister can just clarify if I'm understanding that correctly.

Hon. R. Coleman: For instance, you have a plan coming up for renewal that is being expired, and you have…. I think this is actually pretty adaptable and good news. You have been told, or you've decided that, in a plan you started five years ago, you were planning a specific species in a specific location in a certain way.

Then you find out it's not working. It may be as a result of climate change. It could be a result of what's happened on the land base. More than likely, it's something along the lines of climate change, where we have a new species selection that will actually grow better that wasn't in the previous plan.

We can, when we amend the plan, say: "Well, you've got to go back and plant a species that works, and this is a species that works." So as we amend the plan, we can deal with the flexibility on that stocking standard that it takes to achieve that free-growing obligation.

I think — and I think the member agrees with me — that we're going to find that some trees and even certain mixes of trees that we thought would grow at a certain elevation are changing even today. This makes sure that when we go to renew a plan as it expires, we're able to adapt and be flexible with regards to those, because we may need to change the plan to actually identify the correct species.

B. Simpson: Again, the division of responsibilities in this House is that the member gets to paint the positive picture and I get to ask the what-ifs. We canvassed this in estimates. There is growing concern about the silviculture liability that's accruing for companies operating in the mountain pine beetle–impacted areas.

One of the easiest ways for them to get those tens of millions of dollars of accruing liability off their books is to somehow negotiate with the government to downgrade the stocking standards that they're required to meet for their free-growing status. It's an option that's available to them. I've had the discussion with the Council of Forest Industries. I know it's an option they're exploring. So that's one way of dealing with it.

In order to get to that part of it, rather than dispute which way this works…. Would this then be considered a substantial amendment to the forest stewardship plan, and would it be subjected, then, to public consultation?

B. Simpson: We're almost there; section 33. We'll now switch acts and switch the minister's assistants, I guess, accordingly. I'll ask my question while the minister's staff person comes in.

We've now switched to the Wildfire Act, and there's one section being changed. Again, it has to do with rules with respect to open burning. I wonder if the minister can clarify how this meets the statement in the news release, that local governments "who want to ensure the highest standards for fire protection" in their areas get that protection through this change. How does this change improve the circumstances in local governments with respect to the highest standards for fire protection?

Hon. R. Coleman: I think the easiest thing might be for me just to read an explanatory note to the member, but this issue was identified as a high priority by both the Union of British Columbia Municipalities and the ministry. If not resolved, there will be capacity and cost implications for the local governments, particularly regional districts.

Section 4 specifies that section 5 on "Non-industrial use of open fires" and section 6 on "Industrial activities" of the act do not apply within the city of Vancouver or in municipalities. In addition, sections 5 and 6 of the act do not apply within the boundaries of a local government that has bylaws relating to "the lighting, fueling or use of open fires."

The rationale for this section is that persons living in an area specified above have a duty to report fires within that area to the local fire service. The local fire service is obligated to manage fires within its specified area and will be assisted by the province only if requested to do so by the city, the municipality or the other local government.

The amendment to section 4 of the Wildfire Act will clarify that local government bylaws supersede the act only when the bylaw meets prescribed criteria. Without this amendment, the Wildfire Act does not apply to a regional district, improvement district, water improvement district or other prescribed organizations with a fire-related bylaw to an area — for example, an electoral area within its boundaries. This actually creates a regulatory vacuum for those areas not covered by a bylaw or the Wildlife Act.

The amendment provides that the rules respecting open fires apply to privately managed forest land, except in prescribed circumstances. So this proposal is cost-neutral from the government's perspective, but it's certainly something that the UBCM and regional districts have asked us to deal with in the clarification.

B. Simpson: With respect to areas — because the minister talked about bylaws that meet certain requirements — what's the status in the province? Are people going to have to go back and then rewrite bylaws in order to meet the ministry's requirements for this to apply to them?

Hon. R. Coleman: No, they don't have to do that. Only if they decided they actually wanted their bylaws to supersede the Wildfire Act and they were going to create a bylaw that was more prescriptive than we are, would they have to go change their bylaws. Otherwise, they can accept the Wildfire Act as being the applicable act, and our rules would then become the rules.

B. Simpson: The final question on this section has to do with the question of liability.

How does this impact liability for local governments or regional districts that are undertaking fuel management activities, where the fire is actually being set for field management purposes, if that fire gets away, and so on?

There have been questions raised with me as to…. The Wildfire Act, in general, passes to licensees liability that previously rested still with the government. It initially did that. There's been some concern expressed to me by some local government members that, embedded in here somewhere, we are now passing liability to local governments because they're now starting to do some of the wildfire interface fuel management work.

Hon. R. Coleman: It doesn't change the liability as it sits today. Only if a local government chose to write a bylaw that said that they wanted to assume the liability, different than what it is today, would it change anything.

B. Simpson: Just a quick question on this one. This has to do with the Forest Practices Board. Just on section 34(1)(b) — because we've repealed that whole section 68 — is the addition of "the board must deal with complaints from the public respecting prescribed matters that relate to this Act"…? Is that new — that the board can do complaints under this particular act? Or is that just a restatement of something that's somewhere else?

Hon. R. Coleman: In this provision, the Forest Practices Board has to carry out independent audits and may carry out special investigations. The purpose of these audits and investigations specified are limited within the section.

The purpose of the amendment is to correct an oversight. That oversight was… It was always the intention for the board to be able to receive complaints, but this corrects it and allows them to receive the complaints.

B. Simpson: Thanks for that clarification. In this case, under the Wildfire Act, before the board could not….

B. Simpson: They could if they were allowed to, but the act didn't really stipulate that they could deal with complaints. Now that they can…. And it's just a general application to the Wildfire Act. It's not explicit to the other sections, which are about municipal governments. This is just a general application. Is that correct?

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Bill 8, Forests and Range Statutes Amendment Act, 2008, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call Bill 7, Local Government Statutes Amendment Act, 2008.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 7; S. Hammell in the chair.

Hon. I. Chong: Before we begin, I would like to introduce staff who are with me today. I have, to my far right, Nicola Marotz. Beside her is Marijke Edmondson and to my left is Meagan Gergley.

C. Wyse: This proposed change in the amendment act — would it be clear that it removes and makes it easier for a non-resident property elector to vote in the various municipal elections?

Hon. I. Chong: What this will do is it will simplify the elector registration requirements for voting day. The purpose, of course, is to eliminate the requirement for non-resident property electors to produce a certificate issued by the local government if registering to vote on an election day. It is some streamlining that we're also taking care of.

C. Wyse: There are a number of organizations that would have the opinion that rather than making it easier for the non-resident property elector to vote, in actual fact this particular section of having non-resident voters would be eliminated. I would be interested to hear from the minister her rationale for making it easier as compared to organizations that in fact would like the non-resident to be eliminated completely.

Hon. I. Chong: I just want to be clear that this does not reduce proof of eligibility. It will still be a requirement that non-resident property owners do have to produce a proof of eligibility.

What is occurring at present is that this will be required on voting day as opposed to being permitted to provide that proof in advance. Rather than perhaps a non-resident elector providing that proof in advance, and then they would also be required to provide it on voting day…. It is reducing that one extra step. Once you provide the proof of eligibility, it should be all right when you go to vote on voting day.

C. Wyse: I wish to ensure that I understand section 4 correctly. Is the intent of section 4 to clearly state, then, that no copy of the list will be available and that the individual or representative would not be able to take a copy of the list away with them? I would like to know the rationale from the minister on why that limitation has been put into place, should my understanding be correct.

Hon. I. Chong: I want to assure the member that indeed a copy can still be viewed, but it would not be available to be taken away. However, candidates are still able to take their list.

You know, the objective here, of course, is to ensure and enhance the privacy protection of electors' personal information by reducing the possibility of large-scale distribution. Candidates will still be able to have this list. Others will have to view that list and avail themselves of it at the time they're viewing it.

C. Wyse: My apologies to the minister. Likely the fault rests with me. I think I lost a bit of the explanation. Is the candidate allowed to take a list away with them?

C. Wyse: On section 7, the new proposed No. 8. I thought it would be fair to the minister to just draw attention where I'll have no concerns about section 7 and the new proposed No. 8, but I will have some other points later on that I will be raising around changes to the act and how the information may be used.

C. Wyse: I would ask the intent of sections 9, 10 and 11. I believe they're all interconnected, if I understand the bill correctly. If she wouldn't mind taking a moment of her time to explain that to me, I think it would help us maybe roll through these next three.

Hon. I. Chong: I'll try to make it simple enough with the three sections so that we can be succinct in the areas that he wishes to canvass.

While section 9 defines who would be qualified or considered to be a campaign organizer, section 10 then goes on to also define what acts or actions are undertaken, which then supports the definition of a campaign organizer. It then allows for section 11 to apply the campaign finance rules to those having been identified, by way of section 9, in terms of who they are by way of section 10, as to the activities that take place so that section 11 can therefore be applied.

Generally, when applying section 11, there is a requirement that once the satisfactions of sections 9 and 10 are taken and these campaign finance rules are applied, there will be a requirement, for example, for a financial agent to be named and in place.

C. Wyse: Now that we're beginning to get an understanding of where the intent of the bill is going, in section 12, would the minister confirm that my understanding would be accurate — that this area simply is to find out where the information will be provided, rather than it just being by candidates, but to make any other representatives that are working around the campaigns, where they would not necessarily have done that in the past…?

Hon. I. Chong: The short answer to his question is yes. Just for clarification, I guess, section 11 will require candidates, elector organizations and campaign organizers to provide campaign identification and contact information to the chief election officer. I hope that provides him with a more fulsome answer.

C. Wyse: On section 14. What is the intent of 14 with regards to the accepting of contributions? I would like for the minister to explain what is covered or restricted under No. 14. There may be some areas which I don't believe are covered that I would like to pursue with the minister, so I'd like her clarification on what this section is about.

Hon. I. Chong: This section will extend the requirement to campaign organizers. Currently, as the member is aware — or if not, for clarification — candidates and elector organizations are captured by the campaign finance rules. This will also extend to the campaign organizers. Those rules would apply to them as well.

I'm not sure if the member is looking at this section and reading it as to the types of expenses that may be incurred. This is not about the expenditures. It is about the disclosure and the requirement to disclose and follow the campaign finance rules.

Does this section put any limits on the amount of anonymous donations in total that may be accepted by a candidate or its organization?

Hon. I. Chong: As I've indicated, this section is not with regards to those changes he's referenced. This is about ensuring that the campaign finance rules that currently apply to candidates and to elector organizations will also apply to campaign organizers. What is currently in place for candidates and for elector organizations and, in particular, for the example he cites…. Those are the rules surrounding disclosure for, as I say, candidates and elector organizations. Those rules would still apply to campaign organizers.

C. Wyse: There aren't any restrictions, then, that would apply here to the total amount of contributions that could anonymously be donated to the organization?

Hon. I. Chong: As I've indicated, the rules that currently exist in that regard will continue to exist. What we are doing is ensuring that, currently, the campaign financial controls that are in place will extend to the new definition of those who are considered campaign organizers.

C. Wyse: There are concerns that were raised during debate at second reading about the amount of funds and having control over them and over clarity of them, possibly from the different types of organizations that may be making contributions.

I know that my colleagues also have some questions around this item, and there are some proposed amendments, I believe, that we would like to put in front of the House for possible additions. I will turn it over to my colleague.

G. Robertson: On section 14. The concerns on the opposition side that extend out into the communities we represent, and in particular into Vancouver and the constituency I represent, specifically regarding section 14, are that this is a reasonable section to include in the bill but is incomplete.

There are real concerns about the sources of these donations that the financial agent accepts. Looking back at the 2005 municipal election, particularly in Vancouver, the figure of about $4 million is what is out there as having been spent by the various political parties to elect a mayor, city council and the school and park board. That is a minimum of $30 per vote cast in that municipal election, which is at least six times the amount spent per vote in the 2005 B.C. provincial election. That only accounts for the spending that we actually know about through the poorly regulated municipal elections. It's very likely that there could have been another million dollars in campaign donations that were never reported.

Given that scale of spending on a municipal campaign — Vancouver is an extreme example of absurd levels of campaign spending — we have to look to the sources. This bill offers an excellent opportunity to reform campaign finance in a meaningful way, and that can only be done by addressing the glaring issues around disclosure and sources of funding.

If we look at this 2005 municipal election in Vancouver, over 80 percent of the funding that went into that election through contributions came from corporate and union sources. A large number of jurisdictions across this country, and in many others, have acted to reform campaign finance and eliminate corporate and union donations as sources for campaign contributions.

Within this section, with the financial agent bearing responsibility, but there being no inclusion of reforms to the sources…. Again, it might only exacerbate the problems for the financial agent and continue to put our municipal elections, and their campaigns, in a challenging light in terms of the impact that very high levels of campaign contributions impact those elections and campaigns.

If we look at that municipal campaign in Vancouver at $30 per vote spent on campaigns, the provincial election in 2005 was less than $5 per vote in campaign spending. Again, the omissions are significant. Vancouver's campaign disclosure rules only require the reporting of donations made during the election period. Again, we have varying definitions of what that election period is in the municipal campaigns, and we have no limits effectively on the donations that happen within these municipal campaigns.

B.C. is a great exception. In most other provinces in Canada the rules that do apply federally and provincially also apply to local politics. Again, here's an opportunity, with the bill in front of us, to reform campaign finance at a municipal level, to bring it up into the same league as other provinces have done and really, meaningfully address the issues of donation limits, campaign spending limits, full disclosure and the restrictions against contributions from corporations and labour unions.

The loopholes within this bill — and section 14 does nothing to address this — for these unlimited donations, and from sources that only exacerbate the situation municipally, need to be closed. At this point they're loopholes that you could drive a truck through, and citizens in Vancouver have been very outspoken. Not only citizens but many organizations, including elected officials, have spoken out to reform campaign finance.

Hon. I. Chong: I first of all want to clarify — and I had attempted to do so at second reading but will do so again now — that the legislative changes that we brought forward for local government elections were changes that are intended to provide for specific, targeted changes regarding transparency and regarding disclosure around campaigns and to address some very specific issues and requests from local governments.

I can appreciate that in an election year, especially six, seven months from now — in particular, perhaps because the member is seeking office — that there is an intention to have a rewrite of local election legislation, a broader change. However, that is perhaps not the best time to make changes that are as broad as has been suggested.

Those broader changes would, in fact, require extensive policy discussions not only with UBCM but, I also believe, with other local governments as well as,

potentially, the public at large. Firstly and foremost, that's what we're referring to here.

In addition, in his moving of his amendment, he made reference to local elections, comparing them to federal and provincial elections. I would say that the rules are certainly very different. They need to be different, because provincially we have an Elections B.C. office and federally an Elections Canada office. I believe the member should know that for local government elections, every municipality has their own election officers.

Those are matters that, if changes were to be made, need to be made with the fullest and broadest consultation with local governments, and as I say, possibly and more probably, with the public at large. I just want to provide that information to the member.

Certainly, I will not be supporting his amendment. If he would just like to have us vote on his amendment, I think we can do that and carry on with the rest of the bill.

C. Wyse: With all due respect to the minister, who I hold in the highest regard, the legislation we have in front of us is meant to provide clarity, openness and transparency in elections. The legislation makes some steps well down that road. However, as my colleague has pointed out, it stops short.

What has happened here in British Columbia, throughout many, many parts, is that the involvement in municipal elections has changed greatly. The involvement of organizations and the funding that is put into municipal elections has changed substantially. This is the time, in my mind, to put in amendments that clearly clarify the intent later on in the legislation, which defines quite nicely — and I will come back to it when we get to section 17 — how the individual donors anonymously make contributions.

However, the act is silent upon the cumulative sum of money that is collected by the total organization and, therefore, provides the opportunity for large, large sums of money to be donated anonymously to any campaign, whoever that may be. So the transparency of it is lost.

The first part of the amendment is meant to put a cap on the overall total amount of money given to any organization, similar to what it does with individual donations, so that when that total is reached, then, as with individual donations, sums of money donated anonymously to the total organization are turned over to the local government.

They're removed from the possibility of being used in influencing the direction of the campaign — a very, very significant and important amendment improvement to this legislation.

The second part of the legislation defines and limits organizations as a total that may not make donations to a campaign. They remove the capabilities of corporations and unions, which in law are possibly defined as though they are individuals and persons. Most British Columbians would look upon that as being a legal definition. They're an innate organization through which monies are collected for a variety of other uses but not necessarily those for being involved in election campaigns.

Again, with all due respect to the minister, these are two amendments that in my judgment do not require further review. What they do require is to take advantage of the opportunity that is here in front of us to expand and improve upon the legislation. Therefore, I speak in favour of the amendment.

M. Farnworth: My question to the minister is…. She said in her comments, in her remarks, that this amendment required a significant period of consultation, that it was important to have consultation, that it was quite broad. The issue of campaign financing and local issues has been raised certainly since the 2005 election, and it's been raised in estimates.

I'm wondering: can the minister advise if she has looked at the broader issue of campaign financing? If not, why not? Given the fact that this is not something that appears today but rather has been raised certainly since the 2005 election…. It really is not something that is here just because we've got an election in November. The minister was, in fact, warned about this in 2006, 2007.

Hon. I. Chong: I appreciate the spirit with which the member has offered his comments and the fact that he raised these issues during estimates debate. I know that, having himself been a former Municipal Affairs Minister, he is also aware of the obligation to consult with the UBCM and the broader local government community. The survey that we had sent out after the 2005 civic elections did not come back in such a way that the broader local government community felt that changes were needed in this way.

Certainly, I can appreciate that in the larger urban areas, it's a matter that has become contentious. But we are seeking to ensure that the rules are applied around the province in a consistent manner, with flexibility where warranted.

In the area of allowing for anonymous donations, I can tell you that the $50 limit on anonymous donations was established in 1993 and is actually equal to the limit in provincial elections. For the past 15 years that has not been indicated and has not been identified as a problem. If that were to change after these current elections in November of 2008 and the survey results indicate that, then certainly we, or a future government, would be in a position to consider further legislative changes for 2011.

I do want to again stress that these are targeted legislative changes based on a survey that had been sent out, that this is the process and the method by which legislative changes to the local government elections have taken place in the past and that the UBCM was confident and comfortable with these changes. That's not to say that they wouldn't be prepared to undertake more significant changes in a future year.

The issue of the survey was raised when the minister first raised it back in 2006. At that time, the minister

was told: "Look, this is not the only way you gather input." I mean, you don't sit back and be reactive. It is being proactive.

Sending out a survey to people who've just won an election or who've been a candidate…. Or in the case of the returning officer, they would then have to look at complaints. Unlike the federal and the provincial, there is not an independent process. There is an admission there. There's a recognition that the clerk, or whoever the agent is within that local government hall, is in a bit of a bind because they're being asked to rule, in some cases, about the campaign activities of their boss, either the existing one or the new one.

I think that if the minister is concerned about good public policy, particularly on something as sensitive as local government election financing, it's not something that just comes off a survey as the reason that we do things, particularly when the minister has been made aware of the issue and the question of the survey was raised.

My concern is that what we're seeing is an amendment. It's great that we're seeing improvements, but the reality is that there's a lot more room to be proactive, having had the opportunity for two years now to have consulted on a much broader basis, to have said that it is a priority for the government that we take this issue seriously. A lot of the issue was not raised at the local level itself. It was raised after the election.

Again, my question is to the minister, and then I'll sit down. Does the minister not recognize that you need to have more than just a survey sent out from her ministry? Just because it comes back saying that it's not an issue doesn't mean it's not an issue, because it was an issue and it is an issue. Relying on just that survey, I think, is the wrong approach to take.

The minister needs to recognize that you need to consult much more widely. Just because a survey comes back and says it's not an issue, in fact it is an issue, can be an issue, should be an issue. The minister has had two years to identify it and to have consulted more widely.

Hon. I. Chong: I just want to offer some comments on the survey so that the member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and the members of this House don't think that it was in any way selective. It was a document that was sent out to the chief election officers in every municipality and regional district. It was also sent out to or asked all candidates who wished to respond. But every election officer in every municipality and regional district…. These are the people who are running these local government elections.

We are dealing with these legislative changes to respond to those issues that were identified, as I said, from submissions and requests from UBCM; from the local government management associations, their elections committee; from individual local governments; and from the general public.

What we found was that while I understand, especially from members from the lower mainland area, that it may be an area that is highly preoccupying their agendas, that is not the case around the rest of the province. I also take to heart that if we are to make these changes, we should have a consultation that is more full — more widely based, as he suggested — which is one of the reasons why they should not be made in an election year. They should have had a full vetting prior to this.

While the member raises the point that he brought these issues to my attention in 2006 and 2007, I can tell him that if it were so important for changes to be made, then I would have expected them to appear on the UBCM resolutions in 2006 and 2007, and they did not.

I do understand, as well, and the member may recall, that in 1999 a discussion paper on campaign spending limits was released by the then Municipal Affairs Minister, who, I believe, was the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. The attempt at that time was also, perhaps as a result of a recent election, to solicit public input on the issue. At that time, there was not a lot of interest from local governments, from UBCM or from the public to make changes to that.

While I can appreciate that there may be interest in some communities, I cannot say that there is interest in a majority of communities around the province on this. If there were, I think the first place we should see that take place after the November 2008 municipal elections is in a resolution brought forward to the floor of the 2009 UBCM. Then we would once again see, as we did in 1999, whether or not the local governments around the province would agree to this. This is not about one part of the province.

M. Farnworth: I'm not going to let that comment go without a response from the minister. In other words, what the minister is saying is that unless there's a resolution passed by UBCM, she's doing nothing. That's what you said, Minister.

In essence, to sum it down…. Correct me if I'm wrong, then. What I just heard from the minister was that unless, after the 2008 election this fall, there's a resolution or a survey that comes back from UBCM saying that the issue of campaign financing is a priority, then nothing is going to be done. That's basically what the minister said.

Hon. I. Chong: With respect, what I had indicated to the member was that if it were such a priority, I would have expected that the matter would have been raised in a resolution at UBCM so that the broader local government community would in fact have had an opportunity to discuss and debate that, because it affects every local government.

That is what I am trying to convey to the member, because I know that they attempted to do this. If the member doesn't recollect his administration back in the 1990s, they did attempt to do this in 1999. There was a paper on campaign spending limits that went out, and it came back that there was not that interest. Again, the broader consultation took place, as the member just indicated in his comments and as he has indicated

should take place. That was attempted in 1999, and it didn't result in any changes to that.

What I am saying is that if we have reached the point where we need to look at this again, I would have expected the broader local government community to have an opportunity to at least begin that debate right after the last election, in '06 and '07. That was not brought forward. When we did ask the UBCM what issues they thought could be brought forward for changes to the local government elections, they indicated these specific, targeted changes in terms of disclosure.

Again, I'm not saying that these potential changes may never happen in the future. I'm sure that if it warrants a change, that will take place. What I am saying is that in this bill, in Bill 7, I have not brought in those changes. If we wish to vote on the amendment, we can do so.

M. Farnworth: One final question to the minister. Did the city of Coquitlam respond to the survey, saying that they had concerns about the campaign financing section of the act?

Hon. I. Chong: What I can provide to the member — I don't have the information available, and staff don't have this here — is information, generally, if that was a matter that was raised, whether it was from a local government official or whether it was from a candidate.

But specifically, I could not provide him with the information on whether a specific candidate or local government did bring that forward to our attention. That would have issues regarding privacy that we would have to deal with.

Hon. I. Chong: Well, because I don't know if a specific candidate may have raised it, and that information would have been severed. I can advise the member, generally, if in fact that matter was raised, and we can provide that to him at a subsequent date.

M. Farnworth: Just to clarify for the minister, I didn't mention candidate. I specifically said the city of Coquitlam.

Hon. I. Chong: I just wanted to be very clear to ensure that the information that he specifically requests will be specifically provided.

When the survey is sent out to candidates, they are sent out in one category, and we receive those back. The surveys that are sent out to local governments, municipalities and regional districts are sent out in another, I guess, batch so that we don't have duplications. When they are sent out to the municipalities and regional districts, they are sent out to the local elections officer or officers because there can be more than one who may wish to respond back.

So what we will have is information from the local government officials from a particular municipality or regional district, but that is not to say that that represents the local government per se, and I'm sure the member understands that.

We can find out, if that is specifically what he is requesting, again bearing in mind that the survey does not necessarily reflect the wishes of the council but may, in fact, reflect what the local government official or officials have provided back.

M. Farnworth: I look forward to getting the information from the minister. But that comes back to making my point on relying on the surveys and the UBCM. You're dealing with an official who has to answer. It's not like an independent officer at the federal or provincial level. This person answers to the council who are….

You know, the issue of the financing may or may not involve the people who were elected on the campaign. Therefore, they're in a bit of a box.

Just because it may not register in the survey, that doesn't mean it's not an issue. I think that that's one of the…. The reason I raised Coquitlam was because they were the example of where you had the problem take place.

It is indicative of what's happened since this was last attempted to be dealt with, in 1999. It's now ten years later, and what was done in 2005…. In 2005 it was an isolated thing, and there's not a problem. But if allowed to go unchecked, it becomes a problem in 2008. If not checked in 2008, it becomes a bigger problem in 2011.

The issue of campaign financing…. Just because it's not necessarily identified in the local government survey does not mean it's not an issue. That's the point I'm trying to make with the minister. When we identify these issues, quite often they are isolated. That's how loopholes are usually discovered. It's not a broad thing. It's a narrow thing.

That's what I'm asking the minister to pay attention to and to try and rectify. That's what we want to make sure this legislation does, but also in future in going forward. Today's loophole becomes tomorrow's practice if it's not dealt with.

Hon. I. Chong: I would also remind the member that while he makes reference to the local government officials who are not elected, there were UBCM who were consulted. They are, in fact, elected persons, so they are clearly aware of the matter.

I think really the point to be made here is that I think both of us would agree that a wider, broader public consultation is necessary on this issue. That hasn't taken place. Perhaps the member wished it had taken place before now, but it has not.

With respect, because that has not taken place, it would not be appropriate to include changes as suggested by the amendment in this legislative bill currently.

C. Wyse: In the information that had been shared here, the survey for coming up with the amendment

seems to be relatively narrow. The electoral officer who provided the information…. Is this the same individual who has declared that they are neutral, they are there to ensure that the election campaign has been followed according to the rules — and doesn't make judgments upon how the rules may or may not have worked or may have had omissions contained in them? Is that the same individual who filled out the survey upon which this legislation that we're talking about was based?

Hon. I. Chong: Yes, the local government election official is the individual who fills out the survey. They are asked specifically to identify problems and failings of the legislation. These are the items that were brought forward. If they felt that the legislation did not provide for more transparency — which is what we are saying — or if they wanted changes to allow for more flexibility in the advance voting or the mail-in balloting, this is what we heard as to how the legislation can be improved — upon which we, therefore, have responded by bringing in the sections in Bill 7.

C. Wyse: Again, with due respect, these individuals are like a Chief Electoral Officer. They would be looking at the neutrality of the enactment of the existing legislation rather than dealing with the issues of the openness, transparency and accountability aspects of it. Those are judgments.

The amendment that is here, with all due respect, is meant to put clarity into the actual act so that the openness, transparency and accountability are defined. It falls within the same realm and intention as the upcoming section 15, which deals with individuals and making anonymous contributions. These amendments, in actual fact, put the responsibility upon the organization as a whole to have that same transparency and put the same responsibility upon them that 15 will do upon individuals.

I would be interested to hear what her response is now that we have clarified the neutrality of the individual upon which the surveyor has been based.

Hon. I. Chong: My understanding from the member's comments is that he understands and appreciates the election officers in the local governments there. He's expressing, I guess, their limitation, because they are dealing strictly with the legislation before them. They don't necessarily offer advice on other, broader changes, which I would agree with him is correct. It's one of the reasons why I indicated to the member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain that yes, certainly, I would agree that broader public consultation therefore would be necessary as opposed to suggestions strictly from the local government officials.

Given that that broader public consultation has not taken place…. Now is not the time to bring it in legislation — not currently as proposed and certainly not by way of an amendment — because that broader public consultation has not yet occurred.

G. Gentner: Relative to the minister's comment that there has been public consultation, I'd expect that the full consultation was made with the UBCM. Is that correct?

Hon. I. Chong: For these specific changes that have been brought forward in Bill 7, these targeted changes were made in consultation with UBCM.

Hon. I. Chong: As with other changes that are made from time to time, whether in the Community Charter or in other pieces of local government legislation, we deal with UBCM as representatives, and they do provide us input. The duty to consult with UBCM is a requirement in the Community Charter, and we have done so.

G. Gentner: My question to the minister is: what is the cap now on anonymous contributions for provincial candidates such as yourself or other members of the Legislature? Obviously, the minister must have looked at the standards that are being employed by this House as a good example.

Hon. I. Chong: If the member was not available at the time I mentioned it, there is a $50 limit on anonymous donations, and that was established in 1993.

G. Gentner: So my question to the minister is: why are we making different rules in this bill relative to municipal government as opposed to the province?

Hon. I. Chong: I'm not sure if I heard the member's question correctly. He was asking, I think, if I'm changing rules, and I'm not changing any rules. The $50 limit on anonymous contributions that was established in 1993 remains. Just to note that the provincial limit on anonymous contributions is also $50, so I'm not making any changes.

The section change is simply to ensure that since we are now including campaign organizers in a requirement to disclose, they will also be subject to the same rules as candidate and elector organizations currently where a $50 limit on anonymous contributions is in place. We're not changing anything. We're in fact capturing and ensuring that the rules are consistent with the now new campaign organizer definition.

C. Wyse: Once more, in the usual kind fashion that the minister has always extended towards me…. This bill here — will we mirror it with the Vancouver charter, and will we have the same amendments that are proposed here also being reflected later in the bill around the Vancouver charter and how it is affected?

C. Wyse: In the same courtesy that the minister has always extended me, we will have similar questions on this item when we get to that part of the bill where we know that the local government has made statements on it and that there have been local groups, likewise, that have sent in information around this particular topic.

I think at this moment in time, from my colleagues on this side of the bench…. The minister very graciously has answered our questions, and we would be in a position to vote in favour of the amendment that's on the floor.

C. Wyse: Does 15 restrict the number of anonymous contributions that an individual may make to any campaign on a singular basis, and does that limitation apply to all elections that may be conducted in British Columbia?

Hon. I. Chong: The anonymous contribution limit is $50 per campaign. Again, I would reiterate that section 15 is merely applying the existing restrictions on anonymous and indirect campaign contributions that were previously applied to candidates and electoral organizations to the new category of campaign organizer.

I wonder if I could just remind the members, particularly those who are in the vicinity of the minister, that it is very difficult for both the minister and the Chair to hear when other conversations are going on.

C. Wyse: I believe I did understand the point that the minister is making, but I am just trying to see where the rationale is. Now it's applied to these organizations. What happens to the contributions over the limit of $50 — let's say $51 — that are made anonymously, and does that only apply to the individual rather than the collective group?

Hon. I. Chong: The member may recollect, because he once also served in municipal office, as I did. A refresher course is that any anonymous contribution over $50 — so $51, $52, $55, $60 or whatever it may be — is required to be turned over to the local government. That still applies.

As I say, section 15 merely extends what is currently in place for candidates and electoral organizations in terms of disclosure and in terms of campaign finance rules. It merely now extends to this new category, this new definition I expressed earlier in the campaign organizer.

If that's not what the members wish, then I guess they can vote against it. But I would expect that this is to be consistent with now capturing this new category.

C. Wyse: I really think it depends on where the minister is in her discussion in the debate on clarifying where these anonymous donations do go. I was having trouble moving from the previous section and how it didn't apply in that area. Now when we get into individuals, it applies very clearly and has in actual fact been in practice for quite a long period of time.

I was just trying to get that clarity on why we didn't get the support earlier for trying to take something that had been a practice in local government — anonymous donations for the individual — for such a long period of time and then didn't apply it across to the organizations. Now the minister has clarified that for me. She did a marvellous job, I would say, in helping me understand this.

C. Wyse: On section 16, is this once more the same as 15? We're now expanding out the definitions and making sure that it is applying to the various organizations, and it's just more of an enabling aspect of it.

Hon. I. Chong: Yes, that's the case. Maybe I could advise the member that section 17, as well, will provide for that. If he would like to move both sections, we can do so.

C. Wyse: It's only 16 that I'm willing to vote on. I have amendments for 17.

C. Wyse: Chair, I see the hour. With your guidance, what would you like me to do here? Move a motion that we…

C. Wyse: …rise and report progress? I would so move that and ask leave to sit again.

Committee of the Whole (Section B), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

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

C. Puchmayr: Actually, could we start with the introductions of who's with you and if you have other staff that are in the gallery as well, please?

Hon. O. Ilich: I am pleased to rise to introduce estimates for the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services. I'd like to introduce the ministry representatives who are with me today and to thank them, in advance, for their contribution.

Today I have with me Paul Straszak, who's the Associate Deputy Minister of Labour; Jim Soles, who's the Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour, labour programs; John Blakely, the executive director of labour policy and legislation; Pat Cullinane, the director of the employment standards branch; Terry Bogyo and Donna Freeman from WorkSafe B.C.; and Tara Faganello, the executive financial officer. We're going to have more people coming in as we do some changes.

I am happy to be here today to answer questions about the budget estimates for the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services.

C. Puchmayr: I would just like to make my opening comments. Certainly, thank you to all the staff that has shown support to this estimates process.

It's been a bit of a transition year. I see, in some of the initiatives that that have been introduced…. I know that the opposition has introduced some initiatives with regards to farmworker safety, the protection of farmworkers and the transportation of farmworkers — and all workers — in British Columbia. We have seen some movement on that front. I don't think we're there yet. There still needs to be a lot to do.

I believe, when it comes to inspections, that some of the research we've done shows that we're back to about 1997. That's troubling when you look at the increase in workers, and you're looking at sort of the metamorphosis of the seasonal farming into the hothouse farming and the greenhouse farming.

What I would like to explore is to have some look at that, to look at some statistics with regards to inspections, to identify the number of farms that we actually have as registered farms now in British Columbia, and to see where we need to go with ensuring that all workers in British Columbia, including in the hand-harvest sector, are treated with dignity and respect.

I will also be putting a question to the minister with regards to trying to get a sense as to whether the government plans on going forward with our request to raise the minimum wage and to certainly look at bringing some of the provisions back into eliminating the hand-harvest sector and going back into a model that has a minimum wage plus also a piece rate, whichever is greater.

What we're seeing, from talking to people in the field, is that often with modernization, with mechanization, where people are using harvesting machinery for a lot of the harvest, the hand-harvesters that go in after the machinery are sometimes making considerably less than minimum wage. I don't believe that's a

fair way of addressing an issue in a situation where we're seeing shortages in that sector.

The other thing…. I want to sort of explore the estimates with regards to foreign workers and where that plays into the ministry. What kind of scrutiny does the ministry have that's maybe not quite specific to the overall application of employment standards and working conditions but…?

Where is the ministry going with respect to putting a focus on how we ensure that foreign workers who are coming into this country aren't being exploited by their employers, that foreign workers understand what their rights are in British Columbia and have the ability to lay a complaint against an employer on unfair labour practices, and also have the ability to look at ensuring that labour contractors are legitimate and are not abusing the rules of this country by virtue of using abusive rules in their own country when it comes to dispatching foreign workers into Canada?

Those are issues that are really starting to manifest in British Columbia. I think we need to make sure that the Ministry of Labour is looking at that and ensuring that people who are coming here to assist in this work shortage, or alleged farmworkers shortage, are being respected and that they have dignity and all the provisions of law that any other worker in British Columbia would have access to.

So those are my comments. I don't know if the minister wishes to respond, or if I should just go into…. I'll put the question to her — if she wants me to continue or wishes to respond to those comments.

Hon. O. Ilich: I think it would be better if we continue with specific questions that the members opposite might have.

C. Puchmayr: Employment standards for vulnerable workers — workers that have difficulty with the language, for instance. I have some of the self-help kits here. I know there are better links to the language, being able to manoeuvre through — at least there were the last time I looked — where people with English not as a first language, or English not as a language sometimes, have difficulty in using the kiosk system or the self-help system.

Does the minister have some information with respect to how that is being streamlined or how that is being addressed, or does the ministry even think that that is problematic?

Hon. O. Ilich: I can advise the member opposite that various categories of employees have automatically been exempted from the requirements to use the self-help kit, including children, agricultural workers, domestics, garment and textile workers, where issues relate to a leave entitlement or if the employee has a significant language barrier.

C. Puchmayr: How would a worker who doesn't speak English know what to access? I know at one time it was mandatory that the employment standards regulations were posted at every place of employment. That was eliminated when your government took power.

I'm wondering. How does a new employee working on a farm know what is available to them with respect to a possible dispute of a possible violation of a working condition?

Hon. O. Ilich: I can advise the member that translated materials are currently available in print and on the Web in Punjabi, Spanish, French, Chinese and Filipino. The guide to the Employment Standards Act is available, and also fact sheets which relate to or have information on annual vacations, complaint resolution, first job entry-level wage rates, hours of work and overtime rules, minimum wage and termination. Foreign worker fact sheets have been produced and are currently being translated.

We also have training sessions. There were ten last year with the Progressive Intercultural Society, and we provide language in Amharic, Cantonese, Danish, French, Italian, Malay, Mandarin, Punjabi, sign language, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya and Vietnamese.

C. Puchmayr: Could you explain what the Progressive Intercultural Society is?

Hon. O. Ilich: It is, in fact, a multicultural service agency that provides services to the multicultural community, especially in Surrey and especially around farmworkers.

C. Puchmayr: I'm trying to get at how a farmworker from another country employed on a farm has access to what we all have access to, which is the right to know what the laws of the province are.

You're saying this group works out of Surrey in the farmworker community. What about the rest of the province?

Hon. O. Ilich: The Progressive Intercultural Society in fact works in and all around the Fraser Valley. There were a lot of education services offered last year. Over 3,000 employees were directly met with and told what they could expect from the ministry.

C. Puchmayr: As I alluded to previously, at one time it was mandatory to keep those documents on site. There was a work site on a farm in Maple Ridge where the Mexican workers were living in construction trailers. They were cooking outside. Their washroom facilities were outside. It had holes in the walls that the wind was blowing through and the rain. They had no access to a computer or any other documents.

What has the ministry done to ensure that those workers coming into the country are somehow identified, and not just a few of them? How can we make sure that all workers who come into the province are identified with the ability to engage in any type of a dispute against an employer, including living and working conditions?

Hon. O. Ilich: The overall responsibility for the farmworker program from Mexico is, of course, Service Canada. Service Canada deals with our government and the Mexican consulate to make sure that the farmworkers are properly treated.

As a matter of fact, there's an organization called the western agricultural labour initiative, which is helping farmers and helping the labourers — helping to supply the farmers with labour and to make sure that the farm labourers actually know what their rights are.

The housing is subject to inspection once a year. So if a housing standard is not up to standard, then that farmer actually doesn't get supplied with any labour.

C. Puchmayr: Is this a new policy, that the housing is inspected once a year, and if so, when was it implemented?

Hon. O. Ilich: Actually, the first year that we had workers coming from Mexico was 2004, and the program has been evolving since then.

Service Canada and the Mexican consulate agree on what the standards and conditions are, what the rates of pay are and what the employment standards branch…. Obviously, they're subject to all of the same rules and regulations from the employment standards branch and WorkSafe that any other worker in British Columbia is. I know that, now, the housing is being inspected by either a municipal inspector or a home inspector, and that is controlled under that agreement with Mexico.

C. Puchmayr: The case that I mentioned was 2006. Obviously, there was no inspection, or I don't think anyone would have been forced to live in those deplorable conditions.

Is there a pre-inspection, and how does that work? I should also add that the western agricultural labour initiative…. That's an industry initiative. It's not a worker initiative. So is there a pre-inspection, and then there's a write-off, a sign-off? Where is all of that information registered?

Hon. O. Ilich: The terms of the agreement between Mexico and Canada require that there be an inspection of the accommodation before workers will be supplied.

C. Puchmayr: Doesn't sound like much of an inspection. The employment standards branch…. How many employment standards branch inspectors are there currently? Maybe to save some time, how many employment branch inspectors are there currently, and how many would be specifically dealing with farm inspections?

Hon. O. Ilich: We have 58 employment standards inspectors right now working in the province. Six of those are dedicated entirely to the agricultural sector. They inspect for employment standards.

Now, housing is not part of the employment standards. However, housing is inspected as part of the agreement under the seasonal agricultural workers program. While it's true that it is an industry organization that is doing that, it is part of the condition of the agreement between Mexico and Canada.

C. Puchmayr: Is there — considering how few inspectors are relegated to the agricultural sector — a directive or a memo to them, that if they see living conditions that are obviously, even to the layperson, deplorable…? Is there some direction to them to trigger, possibly, a proper inspection of those places of employment?

Hon. O. Ilich: Actually, we don't enter private residences. I can tell the member…. He has gone and inspected some foreign worker housing. I, too, went and visited farms and went to see foreign worker housing, and I saw some absolutely great housing. I met with farmworkers who were very, very happy — Mexican farmworkers — and the farmers were happy too, because they were productive, they worked in a great industry and they had terrific housing.

I looked at the housing. I went through the housing, and I didn't see anything substandard, so you may be going to a different place. But it is inspected now. It's inspected before the workers arrive, and it's inspected on an annual basis.

C. Puchmayr: I don't disagree that there are probably some decent living accommodations out there, but I'm sure the minister will agree that we have to ensure that for those farms that don't provide that type of living condition, there is something there to ensure that those workers are living in some quality working and living conditions.

Can the minister also answer: how many farms are there in British Columbia right now?

Hon. O. Ilich: According to the 2006 census, there were 19,844 farms in British Columbia. That included family farms that have no employees and others that do employ farmworkers as well.

C. Puchmayr: I think family farms do have employees — they would be the family — so they would be governed by the employment standards regs as well. That's a significant number of farms, over 19,000, and six employment standards branch inspectors are focusing on 19,000 farms.

Can the ministry please answer how many employment standards branch site visits there were in the last fiscal? And were there any penalties that arose from those site visits? Maybe break them down. I think there are the basic categories that they have: failure of employment, failure of vacation pay, working conditions over time.

Hon. O. Ilich: I'll just go over some of the statistics with you because I think it might be helpful. In 2007 we received 38 complaints; we conducted 100 site visits; we did 52 roadside checks; we attended at another 12 roadside checks; we conducted 22 audits; we recovered

$39,000 worth of wages; we had 99 farm labour contractors licensed; and we conducted ten information sessions that I talked about previously.

There were determinations issued: finding of contravention, 82; penalties issued, valued $121,000. The total penalties were 86.

C. Puchmayr: You had 100 site inspections. Does that include the 38 complaints? If so, on the 100 site inspections — or 138, if that's the case — how many orders were written on those?

Hon. O. Ilich: The complaints received and the site visits conducted are not inclusive. So 38 complaints were received, and 100 site visits were conducted. The number of what you're calling orders, actually, are contraventions. There were 21 contraventions found that were core issues. Then non-core issues: 53 contraventions found and, also, penalties issued. There were 86 penalties in total.

C. Puchmayr: So out of the 19,000 farms, there were only 100 inspections. Does the minister feel that there is an adequate number of inspectors to deal fairly with all the farms in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, we've interviewed or talked to over 3,000 employees. The reason for that is site visits. When you go and visit a farm labour contractor — and there are 100 of those that were dealt with last year — those farmworkers could move from farm to farm, so the impact could be a lot bigger.

C. Puchmayr: Yes, my question was specifically to site visits, and I'm assuming those are site visits that are unannounced. I know that at one time there was a memo between the Agriculture Minister and the Labour Minister asking to not have inspections during the summer because it disrupted the harvest, which I thought was very peculiar — that two ministries would be communicating that way, and we do have a memo to that effect in the previous government.

So are these site visits announced? Are they unannounced? Are people warned that the inspector is coming?

C. Puchmayr: We had a breakdown last year that showed that a significant number of the visits on farms were being done during a time when there wasn't harvesting going on, in the fall months. I think the information was given that they would try to be more inclusive of the actual harvesting time and that this wouldn't preclude visits on the sites. I'm certainly hoping that that's the direction the ministry is going in today.

Could you comment on that? When you're talking about only 100 out of 19,000 at the very least, are you trying to get on to those sites during a time when workers are there, where there's a potential for an abuse of that worker?

Hon. O. Ilich: Yeah, I can tell the member that during last year, 21 of those site visits were in the April-to-January period. From July to September we did 70 of them, and from October to December there were nine. In April to June, on those 21 visits, we talked to 769 employees. In the July-to-September period, on those 70 visits, 2,162 employees were talked to. From October to December it was 123.

C. Puchmayr: I'd like to address and just spin off a bit into child labour. I know that at one time we had some fairly strict rules governing children as young as 12 potentially working in most industries in British Columbia. I think I put some questions to the minister last year with respect to the concerns.

Is the ministry anticipating anything to deal with implementing greater safeguards in monitoring where those young people are working and in ensuring that there is a part of her ministry devoted to ensuring the safety of children as young as 12 working in the workforce?

Hon. O. Ilich: Young people who work have absolutely the same protections under the Employment Standards Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act as any other worker.

The regulations are clear, and they set consistent standards for workplaces that employ young people less than 15 years of age. Children under 12 require a permit issued by the director of employment standards in order to work. Last year there were only 14 of those. Children aged 12 to 14 may work with their parents' permission, subject to the standards set in the regulation. We have created a guide for parents that points out some of the factors and issues to consider in the process of employment of their child.

C. Puchmayr: What does that guide say with respect to inspecting potential hazards where that person's child may be working?

Hon. O. Ilich: The guide actually asks some questions and makes some suggestions as to what the parents should do. One of the suggestions, for instance, is that the workplace should be visited. That particular guide is downloadable off the site, and we can get you a copy if you'd like to have that.

C. Puchmayr: Thank you to the minister for that. I'm trying to understand how a single parent, who may not be conversant in ergonomics or in anything mechanical…. How would that parent be able to come on to a worksite and make an intelligent analysis of the safety of a specific piece of machinery that a child might be required to operate?

Hon. O. Ilich: We're going from employment standards to WorkSafe, so I'll just talk to you a little bit about what WorkSafe does.

WorkSafe works with the employer and the worker stakeholders to raise awareness about young workers' health and safety by presenting educational presentations in schools, creating a youth worker curriculum for grades K-to-12 and producing safety videos targeted to this audience. WorkSafe enforces the OH-and-S regulations that apply to employers and workers alike and is generally involved with making sure that there's adequate training and supervision of all workers regardless of age.

C. Puchmayr: Certainly this is an issue that does cross over, because it was the changes to the Employment Standards Act that set up the hazards that now exist in the workplace. Certainly the scrutiny or the government involvement in ensuring that a place of employment was safe for a young person to work in has been eliminated, and it's been replaced — from someone with a degree in ergonomics to a parent — with one parent signing a note saying: it's okay for my child to work there.

The minister should understand that things have changed significantly when it comes to the protection of children as young as 12 working in British Columbia. I understand the permit system, and some of those are in the movie industry. The permit system used to exist for children 15 and under and no longer does.

My concern is that…. Before we open a newspaper and read that a 12-year-old child was killed on the job, which would have been preventable under old legislation, I would like to put it to the minister to take this matter seriously and look at where we can put safeguards in place so that young children are not working in hazardous environments.

Hon. O. Ilich: Government focused its attention on raising employers' and parents' awareness of the key issues and questions that should be asked to ensure the safety of the young people. As I previously said, WorkSafe has focused on a young worker program in the K-to-12 area, in the schools. There are penalties for employers, who are legally required to get parental consent or permission before employment starts, and we have created an information guide.

I would like to ask the member if we could perhaps focus a little bit more on the budget of what we're doing here and not some of the worker issues. I understand that it may relate to the budget, but that's what we're here to talk about.

C. Puchmayr: Well, I'll focus my question, then. In the supplement estimates ending March 31, 2009, is there any monetary direction…? Has any money been allocated to look at the issue of young children in the workplace to ensure that their safety is paramount?

Hon. O. Ilich: We take the Employment Standards Act very seriously. Whether it's farmworkers or children working, we try to make sure that we apply the standards and that workers are protected. So it is the status quo, but we believe that there's adequate provision right now for doing the job that we have to do.

C. Puchmayr: I take that as: there will be no initiatives put forward to ensure greater safety for young people in the workplace.

I'll move on to an issue that should be of importance, and that's the shortage of workers in the agricultural sector. I'd like to sort of canvass again the direction of the ministry with regards to employment standards regulations in the hand-harvest sector, and I want to parallel that with foreign workers that come into a country that actually are guaranteed a minimum wage.

How does that create an equal playing field or a balance for British Columbia agricultural workers — when they're actually receiving less pay than foreign workers that come into British Columbia by a labour contract?

Hon. O. Ilich: I think that the member opposite is talking about the fact that the Mexican farmworkers are paid according to an agreement that we have with Mexico. In fact, that's a little bit less than what the average agricultural worker domestically makes. The average wage for a domestic worker right now is $14 — or over $14, actually. Agricultural workers have seen the largest year-over-year increase of any sector, 2007 to 2006.

The Mexican workers participating in the seasonal agricultural worker program are paid in accordance with an agreement that sets their rates, but it also means that you have to provide housing. You have to provide their transportation back and forth to Mexico and also pay for their visas and other things that come up during their employment. Medical, as well, has to be paid for.

The farmers I talked to seemed to think that the $14 was higher than what they were paying for people that were here. They were getting people from Mexico because, quite frankly, they couldn't find enough farmworkers here in British Columbia.

C. Puchmayr: I think the record should show that the $14 rate that the member talks about is actually a piece rate. It's a hand-harvest rate, and as I alluded to earlier, sometimes those workers aren't getting $14 an hour. Sometimes they're getting less than minimum wage or even less than the training wage when there isn't the product out there to pick to be able to make that kind of money.

So one segment of workers has a guaranteed wage and the other…. My instructions were that the Mexican farmworker has a combination of the two. They have a minimum wage that's negotiated, and they also have the benefit of the hand-harvest rate — whichever is greater. So that changes it a little bit differently. I think that the facts are not quite as accurate as the minister has stated.

With regards to the foreign workers, I believe there are three agreements. There's the Philippine agreement. There's the Mexican agreement. I think that the Filipino minister was out here and signed an agreement with one of the ministers with regards to bringing workers in from the Philippines.

I'd like to just ask a question on that agreement. Understanding that B.C. law doesn't permit for a labour contractor to charge a worker for that service, they can charge the farmer to provide that worker.

How do we ensure that the actual contractor that's in the Philippines sending that worker to a B.C. contractor isn't exploiting that worker through another agreement that may be signed in the Philippines? This is information that was brought to my attention as a concern from one of the Philippine newspapers.

Hon. O. Ilich: We're in the fortunate position that we have almost full employment. We have such a low unemployment rate at the moment that we are in fact importing people from other countries. When we do import those people from other countries, we are doing that subject to an agreement that is signed between the federal government in Ottawa and the other foreign government.

That's what is governing the agreement that we have with Mexico, and it's also governing the agreement that we have just recently signed with the Philippines. We expect that the government of the Philippines is supplying labour in accordance with their laws. The Ministry of Economic Development has, in fact, got the lead on that.

But as I just said earlier, when I visited with Mexican farmworkers, they were very happy. They seem well treated, and their employers are very happy to have them because they're having such a hard time finding labour.

If we want to continue to have economic growth, we're going to have to rely on farmworkers and foreign workers in other sectors. We know, and I think that the employers know, that they have to treat them well or they'll go home.

So I don't know where the horror stories are that the member is talking about, because we certainly aren't hearing them. We act on complaints, because the Employment Standards Act, the Labour Relations Code and the Workers Compensation Act that we have in British Columbia apply to everybody that works in British Columbia.

C. Puchmayr: My concern is precisely with the fact that foreign workers don't know how to access or how to advocate for themselves or necessarily have someone to advocate for them.

I respect that the minister has attended some of the farms, but I'm sure she hasn't attended all 19,000 of them. I've actually seen her in the House quite often — almost daily.

There are some concerns out there with foreign workers. There have been some papers written on intimidation of foreign workers. The very fact that a worker can be sent back…. A worker can't necessarily leave an abusive employment relationship and go into another one without leaving the country.

So there are concerns. I think it's incumbent on us, as people that uphold the constitution of this country and uphold the rights of citizens in British Columbia, that we make sure that we have all the safeguards in place so that foreign workers that come here have the same access to a disputes resolution, without discrimination, that other Canadian workers have access to.

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, as I said a few minutes ago, we are in the enviable position where we do have almost full employment in British Columbia, and we are going to be relying on foreign workers. That's why you see these agreements taking place.

We know that we have to deal fairly with workers, or they will go home. It is the employer, after all, who is required to provide the ticket back and forth. So if the employee wants to leave, if he's not being treated well, then he's going to leave.

We have upgraded our complaints forms in our computer system to enable us to identify and track complaints involving foreign workers. We have created a new fact sheet that outlines the key issues relating to foreign workers that have arisen. We are making sure that foreign workers are apprised of their rights when they arrive in the country, and we are in fact making all that information available in the languages that I talked about previously.

We want to make sure that people working in the province are treated fairly. We have, as I said, the Employment Standards Act that applies to all workers, as well as the Workers Compensation Act. So far, we’ve investigated the abuses we've heard about, and there have been fines issued.

If we are known as a place that is not very friendly to foreign workers, we won't be getting any more. We understand that we need all the workers that we can get at the moment.

C. Puchmayr: Well, it's good to know that they've developed a program to track complaints from foreign workers. Could the minister please share with us the volume of complaints last year by foreign workers and what actions were taken?

Hon. O. Ilich: I can advise the member opposite that last year we had two complaints. That's why we are now making sure that our complaints forms in our computer system distinguish between foreign workers and domestic workers.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister share with us, then, how many foreign workers were working on farms in British Columbia last year?

C. Puchmayr: So 2,100 foreign agricultural workers. My concern goes back, again, to where this started

from — the lack of access to advocacy or the lack of access even to the basic understanding of how to get to a document that shows a worker what their rights are in British Columbia.

So the two complaints. Certainly, to the minister, it may seem that all foreign workers are very happy in British Columbia. The two complaints would really concern me, especially considering that previously an entire crew went on strike to be sent back home, wanted to be sent back home because of their deplorable working conditions.

Does the minister not think that maybe there are some serious issues of agricultural farmworkers in British Columbia? After the answer I'll turn the questions over to my colleague for a few minutes while I step out.

The Chair: I just want to remind members first. Please make sure that your questions are actually related to Vote 38 funding and the operations of the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services.

Hon. O. Ilich: We had two complaints last year. We know that those two complaints were from foreign workers because they were self-identified.

In fact, the system right now, because the program is relatively new, does not allow us to distinguish between temporary foreign workers and farmworkers that live in British Columbia. What we're trying to do…. That's why we're creating and upgrading the computer system, so that we can track that.

I can tell the member that we take all complaints, from whatever area, to the employment standards branch very seriously. We do inspect them. We continue to work with the intercultural agency to be sure that people are aware of their rights, and we continue to do education.

R. Chouhan: Could you please advise us. Those two complaints that you talked about, where did they originate? What was the name of the farm?

Hon. O. Ilich: We had two complaints from foreign workers. They were not farmworkers. There were 38 complaints last year from farmworkers, some of whom could have been foreign workers.

R. Chouhan: So 38 complaints from farmworkers who were there. Could you please identify where they came from, which farm?

Hon. O. Ilich: We can give you a list. We do not have that information with us right now, but we can provide that information to you within the next couple of weeks.

R. Chouhan: Could you also please advise us what the outcome was of those complaints, how they were resolved?

Hon. O. Ilich: There were 38 complaints last year. We can provide you with that information. I can tell you that we recovered wages of $39,083, and that also includes site visits conducted. There was $121,000 in penalties handed out last year to farm labour contractors and others, farmers employed in the agricultural sector.

R. Chouhan: Were the names of those who were found in violation publicized in any media, especially in the ethnic media, so that people could know that?

R. Chouhan: Minister, earlier you said that there were 2,100 foreign workers in the agricultural industry who are here. What is the total workforce in the agriculture industry, including foreign workers, people working on piece rate and also people who work year-round on an hourly rate?

Hon. O. Ilich: According to the labour force survey, there are about 22,000 people in total working in the agricultural sector in British Columbia.

R. Chouhan: Could you please confirm how many of these 22,000 farmworkers were getting $14 an hour or more, according to your information?

Hon. O. Ilich: We don't collect that information. We get that from Statistics Canada, and Statistics Canada tells us that $14.41 is the average for farmworkers in British Columbia.

R. Chouhan: Let me ask you other questions about that accident which took place last year. Three farmworkers got killed, and 14 were injured. You could also say it's a WorkSafe B.C.–related issue.

What kind of compensation is in place for people who lose their lives in accidents like that, or who are seriously injured? The information that we received through the media and from WorkSafe B.C. is that they're getting about a couple of hundred dollars a month. Is there any other compensation available for those farmworkers who lost their lives and who were seriously injured?

Hon. O. Ilich: Actually, who we have here right now are the employment standards branch people. The WorkSafe people are not here at the moment or are not behind me. Some of those issues are still not resolved. If we could defer that question until a little bit later, that would be appreciated.

C. Puchmayr: Some statistics came out from StatsCan last week, maybe a couple of weeks ago. They showed that B.C.'s actual wages in the private sector haven't gone up since 1997. They've remained very flat.

We know what's happened with the cost of living, the cost of shelter, the cost of medical premiums, the cost of prescription drugs and the cost of tuition skyrocketing. I'm asking the minister that in the supplement estimates, is there any money allocated to looking into taking a study at the raising of the minimum wage?

Hon. O. Ilich: Actually, monitoring wages and wage rates in the province is something that we always do and that we continually do to make sure that we get the information. We have people dedicated to that.

I can tell the member, and this is from StatsCan and B.C. statistics, that in January of 2008 British Columbians earned an average of $21.31 an hour. The average rate for B.C. youth was $12.75 an hour in January of 2008, which is more than one and a half times the minimum wage. The annual average unemployment rate in British Columbia was 4.2 percent, and in January that dropped to 4.1 percent. We have fewer than 63,000 people now working at minimum wage, out of a total of 1.8 million workers.

We do collect those statistics, and we keep them. And we do have money in our budget to make sure that we stay current with the statistics on that.

C. Puchmayr: So should I read into that that employment standards branch is entertaining raising the minimum wage? I know the minister is on record saying that she opposes the $6 training wage, and she can correct me if I'm wrong.

Is the minister, then, saying that if they're monitoring this on an ongoing basis…. We've seen an absolute spike in the cost of living, the specific cost of living of just putting shelter over your head, and the numbers of working poor, people that are working full-time and living below the rate of poverty. Does that meet the trigger for the minister to look at raising the minimum wage?

Hon. O. Ilich: We now have fewer than 63,000 people that are making minimum wage, as I said, out of a total of 1.8 million people that are working in British Columbia. Most of these employees are, in fact, young people who are living at home with their parents and attending school.

We are committed and we remain committed to a strong and vibrant economy and employment opportunities for young people and for unskilled workers to make sure that they have entry into the labour market. But minimum wage is only one of the tools that we have.

What we have done is introduce wide measures to improve the standard of living for lower-income British Columbians, including reducing taxes by up to 70 percent and, in fact, eliminating taxes for up to 250,000 British Columbians and lower-income earners. We've also lowered the MSP premiums. For those who are actually working, there is a rental assistance program that is available now that will provide up to $500 in rental assistance for people who qualify.

Our focus has been on making sure that there have been jobs in the economy and then providing assistance for those people who need it.

C. Puchmayr: Well, many businesses and even some chambers of commerce have commented on the minimum wage and have agreed that it should go up.

The minister lays out some programs, including subsidized housing, and I believe it's for working families with children. Wouldn't it be more appropriate if the government looked at increasing the minimum wage, as opposed to having to put in subsidies so that people aren't living in poverty? Yet even with all of these provisions that are implemented, a lot of young people are working numerous jobs, and not only young people. Now we're seeing older people. We're seeing seniors that are out in the workforce looking for work because they can no longer afford the high shelter costs.

Wouldn't that in itself…? Rather than create subsidies, wouldn't it be better to ensure that they're receiving a fair wage so that they're able to have some direction in their own life?

Hon. O. Ilich: Our strategy in this province in the last number of years has been to create jobs. That's what we've done. The average wage for youth, as I said a few minutes ago, is $12.74. That's what it was last month, which is one and a half times the minimum wage. There are 63,000 people in the province that make minimum wage, as I said, out of a total of 1.8 million workers. Those studies that we have seen show that those workers who are on minimum wage tend to stay there for less than a year.

We're committed to supporting a strong and vibrant economy with plenty of employment opportunities and training programs for people who are young and entering the workforce or who are unskilled, and providing a system of supports for people that need it.

C. Puchmayr: On the issue of providing skills, we're seeing the minister talk about the increase in people working in British Columbia. Yet when it comes to training, we have a lot of people that are registered for training and for apprenticeship training, but we don't have them coming out the back end. So again, the changes in government policy inflate a number upfront, but the real result is: who is actually getting trained out the back end, and how long is it taking them to get those skills?

The minister was the one who put this forward — if she doesn't wish to answer this or if she feels it's in the domain of a different ministry, I can leave that — that there are all these opportunities. The statistics show that there are fewer opportunities, yet there are some inflated numbers that show a whole bunch of people registered for training that used to fall off the lists after six months, and now they're just staying on the lists for a long period of time.

It's giving this artificial sense that we have a lot of people training, and yet the end results are very bleak considering how many people the minister states are now working. There aren't that many people that are achieving the skills that are required to keep this economy going and to train future British Columbians to have those skills.

Hon. O. Ilich: You know, one of the things that we do when we're keeping current on what is going on in other jurisdictions is take a look at the effect of raising minimum wages. We have a number of studies that were done across the country, the most recent one being in Ontario, which said that every time you raise the minimum wage, you start to lose workers out of the system because obviously you're increasing the cost to employers. I think that the members of the opposition, in fact, recognize that as well when they suggested that if there was an increase in the minimum wage, then there should be a tax decrease for small businesses.

So every time you do raise the minimum wage, you do lose jobs. We want to make sure that we're not doing anything counterproductive and that young people still get an opportunity to work and learn valuable skills.

Our government has increased opportunities for university educations. We've created 25,000 new spots. The training programs that are actually housed in the Ministry of Economic Development…. Perhaps you could ask them about that, because my understanding there is that they've increased significantly as well.

C. Puchmayr: I think that might be the Ministry of Advanced Education, as opposed to Economic Development. But I certainly look forward to exploring that with the ministry that's in charge of training, because the real numbers are the real numbers, and the times it's taking people to get a full certification are extended.

At one time, at the end of the first year of apprenticeship, there was the automatic classroom component. Now some young people have six and seven years on the job, enough hours to be qualified years ago, and they don't have a technical qualification yet.

Again, that means that it's taking longer to train our young people. That means those skills aren't available to us. Now we're searching for other provinces that have a better apprenticeship system, and we're going there and trying to get workers to come into British Columbia. I don't think that's a fair address to that.

I'll be more than happy to address the training aspect with another ministry. But on the actual wage itself, does the minister agree, at the very least, that the $6-an-hour training wage should be eliminated?

Hon. O. Ilich: The first-job wage of $6 an hour still applies to the first 500 hours of paid employment with one or more employers. Entry-level employees are required to retain and track their wage statements to establish their eligibility for the higher wage rate of $8 an hour. Once they've worked for 500 hours, they go to the higher threshold.

I can tell the member that there are 12,000 employees still on that training wage, but by virtue of the fact that they can't be on there for very long, they get quickly moved up.

C. Puchmayr: My question is: does the minister believe that the $6-an-hour training wage should be eliminated?

Hon. O. Ilich: The first-job wage rate was introduced in 2001 to encourage employers to hire workers who lacked previous job experience. It's just one tool, which we still have on the books and which is still used, to give people who are new to the paid labour market an opportunity to gain some valuable experience.

It is still something that is on the books, and it is still being used. People are getting experience, and young workers are getting a chance to learn skills, through that program.

C. Puchmayr: Does the minister no longer believe that it should be eliminated?

Hon. O. Ilich: I believe that what I've told the member opposite is government policy at the moment.

I want to talk a little bit about the number of hours that young people are working, in your supplemental estimates.

Is there an analysis that is being done with respect to how the changes to the Employment Standards Act, with respect to part-time employment, actually are an incentive to some employers to hire two part-time workers rather than one full-time worker — the ability to work employees long hours over eight hours without paying overtime? Has the ministry looked at the seriousness of that, and is there some direction towards trying to address that situation in the Employment Standards Act?

Hon. O. Ilich: We amended the Employment Standards Act in 2002 to ensure that employment standards continue to be progressive, balanced and fair-minded. There are a number of sectors where overtime does not apply, if that's what the member is asking. For instance, professors, teachers, politicians, high-tech workers…. There are a lot of people that do not want to have the restrictions of an outdated Employment Standards Act. So we did that in order to reduce and simplify regulatory burden.

There are sectors that have revitalized, and they're happy that we've done that. But there are increased penalties commensurate with those changes for employers who violate the act.

C. Puchmayr: I'm certainly not trying to explore what contractual law with respect to salaried employees is. Maybe we can touch on supervisory employees, because that's a concern as well. What I'm speaking of

specifically here is a young worker who comes into a restaurant after school at 5:30 in the afternoon and can be required to work all night — 11 hours — and doesn't receive overtime pay. If the 11 hours doesn't aggregate to a 40-hour workweek, they don't have to be paid overtime. Is the minister aware of that?

Hon. O. Ilich: If you're working over eight hours, you are entitled to overtime pay unless you are specifically excluded from the act — such as teachers, professors and high-tech workers, or others that have negotiated exclusion from the act.

C. Puchmayr: How would a young worker know that, if there's no documentation or no mandatory posting of the Employment Standards Act in the place of employment?

Hon. O. Ilich: We provide education through the school system to make sure that children understand what the working system is about and what the employment standards regulations are about. Information is distributed to schools, where teachers can hand that out. We try to make sure that young people entering the workforce are aware of their rights.

C. Puchmayr: How many inspections of non-agricultural entities were there last year under the employment standards department?

Hon. O. Ilich: Last year we responded to almost 6,400 complaints. We don't go out without notice to employment sites and do inspections. We respond to complaints.

C. Puchmayr: Were they actual complaints that were filed to the minister, or were they just hits on the self-help website?

Hon. O. Ilich: Those were actual complaints received, and we closed 6,600 complaints last year. I can give you a breakdown of how that worked out. In fact, we can give you this information on the complete breakdown.

C. Puchmayr: You responded to 6,400, and you closed 6,600? Where were the other 200? Carryovers? What were the complaints? These are complaints with the self-help program, and it's really rare that you now have an actual officer dealing with the complaint. What I'm gathering is that these are complaints that drew complaint materials from the database. Am I correct?

Hon. O. Ilich: There were 58,858 downloads last year of the self-help kits, which generated 6,300 complaints.

C. Puchmayr: Okay. So are you then…. Am I on the right track here? What I'm saying is that these complaints were people that actually pulled complaint material off of the website but didn't actually follow through all the way with the complaint. Maybe you could give us a breakdown of how many of those actually went to a disputes officer of the employment standards branch to have them investigate the complaint.

Hon. O. Ilich: The 6,383 were actual complaints dealt with by an officer. The 58,858 were downloads of the self-help kits.

C. Puchmayr: Out of the 6,383, how many of those resulted in an order or a penalty? What was the total in penalties that was assessed to an employer through those 6,383 complaints?

Hon. O. Ilich: The complaints resulted in 623 penalties issued. The dollar value was $439,091, and the penalty revenue was $220,712.

C. Puchmayr: So out of those…. Ten percent of those complaints actually went as far as a penalty. Were any of them abandoned by the complainant?

Hon. O. Ilich: Actually, the system that we have right now starts with education. So 841 of those 6,300 were closed at assessment, 2,009 were closed at the education stage, 1,825 were closed at mediation, 115 were closed at adjudication, and 833 were closed at investigation.

Then you already have those numbers where there were penalties determined — 623. The dollar value of the amount of penalties is $220,000, and I think the dollars collected were $439,000.

C. Puchmayr: We're talking about complaints through the nine…. Is it nine offices now?

Hon. O. Ilich: Those complaints that came in were through the nine offices, and about 30 percent of them initially came in through the Internet.

C. Puchmayr: Can the minister share with me the volume of complaints last year? I still have the figure from the year before.

Hon. O. Ilich: I'll just go through the numbers with you. In 2002-03 we had 6,093 complaints. In '03-04 we had 4,944 complaints. In '04-05 we had 5,039 complaints. In '05-06 we had 5,384 complaints and in '06-07, 6,540 complaints. As I just said, we've just prorated that number to March 31 for this year — 6,383 complaints.

C. Puchmayr: Is it a policy that employment standards inspectors don't do spot visits?

Hon. O. Ilich: We don't do unannounced spot visits unless there is a complaint that we're acting upon and investigating.

C. Puchmayr: I know there are a lot of very admirable businesses out there, but there are also the odd

ones that don't understand the act very well. There are a lot of new businesses that don't understand what the rules are. If you have a business that maybe has received a significant amount of complaints, would that not possibly warrant an unannounced visit to that business?

Hon. O. Ilich: We, in fact, may do an audit if there are a number of complaints. I think the member should also understand that with the high employment that we have right now, employees that are not treated well do have the option to leave, and that is what's happening.

When I take a look at what's going on in the marketplace, most employers are having a hard time finding enough employees. We've just talked about that a few minutes ago with the temporary foreign worker program, which is flourishing because we haven't got enough workers to do all the work we have on hand. I think that employers who are not treating their employees properly do so at their peril because they won't have many workers working for them.

The Chair: Member, if I may, we'll take a five-minute comfort break. I've been requested to take it, so we'll recess for five minutes and come right back.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister repeat her last question, please? I made some notes, but I didn't quite get it accurate with respect to your last answer.

C. Puchmayr: Yeah, your last answer, but I think you went into a little more detail about how great it was and that otherwise people would be looking for other work. I just didn't quite catch all of that. I'd like to hear it again.

The Chair: I was paying some attention to both, and the minister was talking about people seeking work and seeming to find ample work.

Hon. O. Ilich: I think I was doing a bit of editorializing and saying that if employers don't treat their employees well in a time of practically full employment, those employees would have the option, in most cases, of leaving. I think that for the most part — when I've talked to employers, and having been one myself — if you don't treat your employees well, you do so at your peril, because they will leave you and you are not then capable of doing your business.

C. Puchmayr: One of the dilemmas of young people now is the fact that they're working a lot of part-time jobs — some at two or three part-time jobs — and they're juggling that with different employers. In some cases, employers aren't as accommodating. So there's a lot of pressure on young people to try to meet the obligations of the different employers.

Wouldn't the minister agree that, in essence, that does create some of the shortage of workers? If two or three workers are vying for that same time slot from that one employee, that employee can't go to all three jobs. That is creating some concern out there as well.

Wouldn't it be in the best interests of everybody if the ministry looked at changing the Employment Standards Act so that there isn't this incentive to hire part-time and there's more of an incentive to hire full-time?

Hon. O. Ilich: Last year the province created 78,000 new jobs. In January alone there were 12,800 new jobs. Most of those, in fact, were full-time jobs.

What we do know from Statistics Canada is that when people work part-time, they are in fact choosing to work part-time. What we're interested in is making sure that we continue to have flexibility in the workplace so that the economy continues to grow and so that people do have jobs. I would think that if somebody wants to work two jobs, they can do so by choice.

C. Puchmayr: Well, that's certainly not always the case out there. I personally know young people that would really enjoy full-time employment as opposed to having to juggle other jobs, but I will move on.

I've got one more issue I want to explore with respect to employment standards. This might have some crossover. It probably will have a bit of crossover. Then we can go into WorkSafe after that. If you just feel comfortable answering the questions that you have staff around you to deal with, that's fine. We can get the rest of it through employment standards.

The recommendations were put forward to change the act with respect to farmworkers to reimplement some of the standards that I believe most of Canada, if not all of Canada — at least the provinces — has for farmworkers.

Is the ministry, through the service plan, looking at addressing those issues with domestics, with farmworkers that are British Columbia farmworkers, so that they have some rights that were stripped away from them when the Employment Standards Act was changed?

Hon. O. Ilich: The farmworkers are, in fact, covered by the Employment Standards Act and also the Workers Compensation Act. We have increased the number of staff that are dedicated to the agricultural sector.

I think the member is referring to the fact that they are not covered for overtime pay, but vacation pay is included in their minimum wage rates, and there are minimum wage rates. But they were a part of the group that asked to be excluded from the Employment Standards Act around overtime pay.

There's also the hand-harvest rate, which is not minimum wage rate, so it doesn't have a provision for

My question is: through her ministry, are there moneys allocated to look at an analysis of the standards of farmworkers prior to the drastic changes to the Employment Standards Act and at the plight of the farmworkers today, post changes to the Employment Standards Act? Would the minister be prepared to engage in that analysis, or is there money in the service plan to do such?

Hon. O. Ilich: With reference to the piece rate for farmworkers, it's something that has been done that way for selected crops since 1981. The piece rate that is used has been going up and, in fact, does include vacation pay. It does not include overtime pay because farmworkers actually asked to be excluded, and the farming industry asked to be excluded, from that particular part of the act.

As we've already said, there are other sectors that are excluded from that part of the act, such as high-tech workers, teachers, professors, real estate agents and others who work longer hours. That's something that we've done, but they're still regulated by the Employment Standards Act and still covered by WorkSafe.

What we have done this year is given the farm and ranch health association quite a bit of money through WorkSafe — there's been an increase over last year — for them to provide health and safety education and consultation to workers and employers in the agricultural industry. We believe that it has resulted in a positive impact in the reduction of workplace injuries and disease in B.C. agricultural worksites.

We have focused a lot of attention in the last while on farmworkers. There are now six dedicated employment standards inspectors. There are spot checks done there. WorkSafe has also hired, and is hiring even more, new inspectors to look at the WorkSafe rules and regulations.

C. Puchmayr: Just tracking some of the changes, '91 to 2001, the act was modernized to make it more accessible. It included domestic workers, farmworkers and live-in support workers. It instituted minimum standards for bereavement and family jury leave. It ensured that 65 percent of employees had to approve for any type of a compressed workweek on a jobsite. It established an independent tribunal to hear appeals. It provided for interest to be paid on wages that were owed. It included escalating levels of fines for repeat offenders.

It made further balanced changes to the act that reflected unique labour situations in high-tech, silviculture and film. It raised the minimum wage six times by November 2000 to $7.60 an hour, making it the highest in Canada, and further increased it to $8 an hour in November 2001. It increased the period of time for parental leave from 12 to 35 weeks. I wonder how many employees voted to take that away.

Since then, 2001 to 2005, employers were given more flexibility in scheduling, including allowing workers to be called in for two-hour shifts. It allowed employers to negotiate workdays longer than eight hours. It put the burden of proof on workers, making the process entirely complaint-driven, only providing workers with self-help kits and occasionally with a person in the employment standards branch. I can't see how workers were coming out there and saying, "Please do this to us," because that just isn't comprehensible.

What I'm gathering from my questions to the minister is that there is nothing in the service plan that is going to look at before-and-after to address this situation that was created — and if there is anything in the service plan that will work towards legislation to bring back safeguards to vulnerable workers in those industries.

Hon. O. Ilich: I know that the members opposite don't like to hear this, but in 2001 when we were first elected, there were people who were actually leaving this province in search of jobs in other jurisdictions.

We had a situation where we needed to do a number of things to make sure that there was flexibility and simplification of workplace rules so that people could work again. We encouraged employment at that stage. The rules that we brought in were to simplify workplace rules and also, at the same time, to protect workers and to increase the fines for people who were violating the rules.

It has had a dramatic effect. In the last number of years there have been 400,000 new jobs added to the economy. We’re proud of the fact that the economy is working now and that we have the lowest unemployment rate we've had in the last 30 years.

C. Puchmayr: I always hear this comment about all these people leaving British Columbia during that era. Since the Liberal government has been in power, we've had a record number of corporate offices leaving British Columbia and going to Alberta — a record number.

Also during the era, the one modern term in the last 50 years that my constituency changed to the Liberals, we lost a significant brewer. Over 200 direct jobs and many indirect jobs moved to Alberta under the Liberal government. We lost hundreds of jobs, direct and indirect, in the closure of a hospital in my community.

Since I've been a member of the opposition, we have seen hundreds and thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the forestry industry leaving British Columbia. Raw logs are going across the border and being processed in the United States. Those are value-added jobs.

We're creating some McJobs because the jobs that are being created now aren't high-end jobs, and we're losing those jobs that really sustain and build a community. The minister wants to talk about these jobs leaving in the '90s. I don't see it. I've seen more jobs leaving British Columbia now. These are good-paying jobs that are leaving British Columbia, going south of the border and back east.

I know young people that have gone to Alberta to get their Red Seal technical qualifications, because it's easier. Alberta came here and used our model. They took our model. In the '90s they looked at B.C.'s apprenticeship model and said: "This is a good model. We're going to implement that in our province." Now we have people that are leaving and going to get their trades in another province. I don't think that's fair to anybody.

I'm taking, by the minister's comments, that there is nothing allocated in the service plan to deal with the unfairness that was created to workers in those vulnerable jobs. I will take that as the answer, and I would like to move on now to WorkSafe B.C.

We'll move on to the Workers Compensation Board/WorkSafe B.C. Some of the concerns that I have…. I'm going to flush out the service plan with respect to the direction that WorkSafe and Workers Compensation Board have gone in, some of the hardships being created by the fact that some people no longer receive very much in the form of wage loss — they certainly don't receive a lot after a short rehabilitation period — and the hardships that is causing on families in British Columbia of workers who, to me, are the soldiers of industry, the soldiers of the economy.

They're the people that go on the front line, whether they're white-collar or blue-collar. They're the ones that generate the revenue, and they're the ones that work in the small businesses. They work in the large corporations, in the mining sector, in the logging sector and in the goods movement sector.

We have seen an incredible change in how those people are dealt with once those soldiers of our industry are injured on the job. My first question: with the changes in how workers are compensated for injuries, is the minister aware of how severe some of those hardships are to families in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: I'd like to just respond to that question by saying that we are now putting out over a billion dollars in payments to injured workers per year, and I want to emphasize that the benefits paid to injured workers remain among the best in the country. We're comparable or better than other jurisdictions. Also, more people now are going back to work after they've been rehabilitated, because we do have a strong economy. Quite frankly, I couldn't leave alone the question or, I guess, the editorial comment previously.

The unemployment rate in 2001 was well over double what it is now, and 400,000 jobs have been created. Youth unemployment was at 14 percent in 2001; it's down to about 7 percent right now. It's simply not true that more workers are losing their jobs now than before. There are more jobs created, and the unemployment rate is the lowest that it's been in 30 years.

C. Puchmayr: Thank you to the minister for that. I did want to make another comment previously, and I didn't, so I thank the minister for opening that up for me right now. I think it should be on record, if the minister is on record for making the comments about the unemployment rate then and now.

This is a trend that goes right across Canada. It's a trend that was going right across North America, but we're starting to see it change a bit south of the border now, which is troubling. This isn't some magic wand that was used by this government to change the unemployment rate. This is a trend that is happening right across Canada.

I recall that when I was on city council, I was on the youth advisory committee. It was about 12 years ago, and there was a report that came out that showed the trend. It showed that baby-boomers were going to retire. It showed that the unemployment rate was going down. I think that at one time, youth unemployment was even higher than that; it was about 25 percent.

Those statistics have been tracked for quite some time now. This isn't something magical that happened just because the Liberal government was in power. This is something that was happening across the country, and it was happening across North America.

Certainly, our concern now is with the credit crunch in the United States and with some of the industrial sectors slowing down. Canada always seems to follow suit. You know, governing in an era where there's prosperity is fairly easy to do. How you govern when the global economy changes — that's the real test of a government. I'll be waiting with bated breath to see how that plays itself out.

The issue with WorkSafe, I think, is real. Apart from how much is paid out and how much the investments are bringing in, there were some significant changes in how people receive benefits now and how people received benefits before, and those are starting to cause a hardship.

My question to the minister is: in the service plan, is there money allocated to look at what changes need to be made to ensure that workers who get hurt on the job have some dignity and some ability to continue on with a pension for loss of wages, and that they're able to live without risking the loss of their investments or their homes? The minister must agree that the changes that were made are drastic and are causing hardships.

Hon. O. Ilich: In 1999 there was a Royal Commission on Workers Compensation, and then there was a further review done in 2002 — Alan Winter's Core Services Review of the Workers Compensation Board — that examined the full range of worker compensation issues in a lot of depth and detail.

We accepted and implemented many of the recommendations that were in those two reports. At the moment, we don't see a need to conduct another full-scale review of all aspects of the workers compensation system.

I'd like to reiterate that the compensation paid out now is the highest it's ever been, and we're getting workers back to work more quickly because there are, in fact, jobs available.

With respect to the member on the earlier comments, we have 400,000 new jobs created. Those jobs are there, not because workers are leaving the workforce. Youth unemployment is not down because workers are leaving the workforce. In fact, there are more jobs available by 400,000 — any way you measure it.

Our unemployment rate is also lower than it is in other parts of the country. That was the reverse before, and now we're well ahead in the west. In British Columbia, our unemployment rate is lower than the rest of Canada, which was not the case in the previous years.

C. Puchmayr: With the averaging that is now applied to someone that's injured on the job that may have just begun working or someone that has taken time off for maternity leave, has gone back into the workforce and has not worked for very many weeks and sustains a serious injury…. Does the minister not agree that that imposes a significant hardship on someone that could be getting very little income for a very serious injury?

Hon. O. Ilich: The fact is that the Workers Compensation Act provides for a wage replacement scheme. So if a worker has low wages, right now WorkSafe will replace those wages; 90 percent of those wages will be replaced. If a worker is working for only six weeks and is injured, that wage replacement will go on until they would normally have retired. In some cases, that could go on for very many years, but it's a wage replacement scheme that will give them 90 percent of what they were earning.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister discuss the issue with the reduction or the elimination of pensions after 65? Especially in view of the fact that last year the minister introduced…. I guess it wasn't the Minister of Labour. It was the Attorney General that introduced the bill that allowed people to work beyond age 65. So making WorkSafe exempt from that legislation: how does that apply with somebody that is now working beyond 65? Are they now not covered or do they not get a wage-loss pension beyond the age of 65?

Hon. O. Ilich: The existing system continues to reflect the situation for most workers who are expected to continue to work and perhaps retire by the age of 65. However, workers that continue work, and would have continued work, will continue to be covered. So the current system is flexible enough to accommodate workers who choose to work past the age of 65.

C. Puchmayr: So a worker that is beyond the age of 65 sustains a serious injury that prevents that worker from going back to work. What is the compensation to that worker?

Hon. O. Ilich: If somebody was 75 and they were continuing to work and they injured themselves, they would be covered for a further two years at 90 percent of their net earnings.

C. Puchmayr: So if someone is 66 and they sustain an injury that prevents them from ever returning to work, how long will they be receiving benefits from WorkSafe?

Hon. O. Ilich: If somebody post-65 is injured, first of all they will continue to be paid for at least two years at 90 percent of their net. Their medical costs will go on forever, their rehabilitation costs will go on forever, in-home care will be provided as long as they need it, and independence and home maintenance allowances will be provided.

Those health care benefits can continue for life. Those other benefits can continue for as long as the worker lives — as well as personal care allowances and other health care benefits.

C. Puchmayr: Is the minister then saying that those benefits that she mentioned are automatic? Or are they subject to review?

Hon. O. Ilich: WorkSafe makes that decision based on policy and by WorkSafe physicians.

C. Puchmayr: In 2002, under the old legislation, 927 loss-of-earnings pensions were awarded. In 2006 only 39 pensions were awarded. That's a 95.8 percent decrease. What is the 2007 figure?

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, in 2001 there were 963 loss-of-earnings pensions awarded, and in 2006 there were 659 loss-of-earnings pensions awarded. I'm not sure where the member is getting the information that he has, but the loss-of-earnings pensions have remained fairly consistent. When there has been a drop, it's because there are a lot more jobs available in the economy now.

C. Puchmayr: Well, we're talking about people that aren't able in some cases to return to work. The value of injured workers' pensions has declined, and the average value of loss-of-earnings awards under the old legislation was $198,000. Then in 2006, under the new legislation, it was $100,000. That's a pretty significant decrease in what's being paid to injured workers.

Does the minister not find that that is legislation that is creating a hardship on injured workers? Is there anything in the service plan that will address that serious deficiency?

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, we have a question for the member opposite. We're not quite sure where he's

getting his numbers and what those numbers are referring to, as we don't have the same numbers. So could you perhaps ask us again and clarify what it is that you might be asking?

C. Puchmayr: Some day I hope to be sitting on that side and having the privilege of answering questions. And I hope that's soon.

My question to the minister…. With respect to the historic compromise — that is, how the Workers Compensation Board, or the workers compensation system, was developed — where, in lieu of suing an employer, there was a board that was established that would pay fair compensation for workers that were injured in the line of their employment.

There have been a couple of court cases already where people have actually gone beyond…. They've done what the historic compromise was supposed to prevent, and that's someone going to court and challenging the accuracy or the legitimacy of the policies that are put in by the board. There are two court cases.

I believe one was a worker that was suffering from mesothelioma. His condition was ruled as…. He was given a new case number, and therefore, he wasn't able to collect the benefits for the increase in his disability after age 65.

Is the minister aware of that case? I did flag that last year, and I was going to get a response back with respect to what the ministry has done to ensure that people aren't having to go to court to challenge an unfair policy of a board.

Hon. O. Ilich: I think the case that the member is referring to is the Cowburn case, which is highlighted in the annual report of WorkSafe from last year.

From time to time, once a determination has been made at the board — and it also goes off to WCAT, the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal — and if a worker still isn't satisfied, they do have the option for judicial review. In the particular case of Cowburn, which was ruled upon in 2006, it did lead to a reinterpretation and policy changes in the Workers Compensation Board policy.

There was a resulting $185 million increase in the actuarial costs, of costs paid out to workers. So when we take a look at that, we say that the system is working. It does allow for those sorts of changes to happen, and there is an appeal procedure for workers if they feel that they're not being fairly dealt with.

C. Puchmayr: First of all — just to clarify the steps of law when it pertains to workers compensation law — any tribunal that has the authority or the power to bring in regulations can do so as long as the regulations aren't a breach of common law. So it isn't that every worker can go to the Supreme Court and take a challenge to the court. There are very few workers that can afford to go to the Supreme Court. The idea is to have a system in place so that workers don't have to exercise that.

Some complaints may not get leave to go to the Supreme Court because the board has the ability to engage in that judicial system on its own. It's only when there's an error in law or they have overstepped their bounds that a superior court will intervene. That's what happened in this case.

The policy now…. How is it communicated to people, or what protections are in place to ensure that workers understand — especially older workers that are breathing their last breath, trying to fight a system? What's in place to ensure that they're living the last days of their lives with mesothelioma and that they're doing so without having to challenge the board?

Hon. O. Ilich: We do have a system that has some workers advisers. Workers advisers last year assisted 4,655 people through the system. They operate in nine offices in Richmond, Abbotsford, Campbell River, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Nelson, Prince George and Victoria.

We have 54 full-time employees in the Ministry of Labour, actually, that assist people with the intricacies of the WorkSafe system. They don't work for WorkSafe; they work for us in government. So we believe that we do give assistance to workers who need assistance to work their way through the system there.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister share with us how many people died on the job last year in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: Last year 139 people died as a result of work-related injuries, and 71 of those were occupational health diseases.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister share with us how many of those workers fall in the young worker category?

C. Puchmayr: How many injury claims were filed last year, and how many were accepted?

Hon. O. Ilich: In 2006, which is the last year that we have data for right now, 173,014 claims were reported and 131,118 were accepted.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister break down the asbestos claims for me, please. Also, to try to expedite it a little bit, what projections are being made for increases in claims of asbestos-related injury and disease?

Hon. O. Ilich: Last year, of the 139 people who died, 71 died of occupational diseases. Eighty-five percent of those were asbestos-related diseases.

C. Puchmayr: And then the second part of that: what projections are being made or what tracking is being done with respect to asbestos exposure?

Hon. O. Ilich: The numbers are expected to rise, but WorkSafe indicate that they are being proactive about this. They are contacting physicians and they're working with the Cancer Agency to make sure that when these cases do come up, the employee is contacted to make sure that their entitlements are protected.

C. Puchmayr: I was recently in Trail visiting with workers that worked in the smelter that were debilitated, some dying, with asbestos-related cancer. One of the things that struck me was how many of them really weren't aware that they may even have the exposure levels that were that serious that their lives were going to be shortened. It's usually once they start getting shorter breath that they go and have an X-ray.

Does the ministry have a program linked to their service plan that maybe is more proactive, not to the Cancer Agency and to the doctors but specifically identifying workers that may have been exposed to asbestos and may be having…? I understand that it's such a serious malady that it doesn't have a cure, but maybe there can be a better quality of life if that's diagnosed earlier. Is there such a program in place?

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, WorkSafe does have programs in place that are designed to educate the public as to what the possibilities could be, especially around asbestos. There are public outreach campaigns, and these go on all year long. For instance, they have one around the Day of Mourning, where they make sure that people are aware that they could have a disease, to make sure that workers are aware of how they can protect themselves and of what their rights might be.

C. Puchmayr: Because this is such a serious matter and it's one that we're going to see an increase in, according to statistics across the country, would the ministry look at maybe freeing up some funds from the service plan to actually do some outreach?

One of the recommendations that I'll make…. Many places of employment have asbestos in them that has been contained and sealed. Over the years — as personnel and managers change and as employees move in and out of certain departments — sometimes that's lost. Is there a more proactive, site-specific plan? If not, would the minister look at such a plan to identify and highlight the actual potential of asbestos on jobsites and workplaces in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: In fact, we do have education around the dangers of asbestos. Employers and owners of buildings, etc., are responsible for their buildings. The employer advisers make sure that people know what their responsibilities are, and so do the employee advisers. Asbestos, the presence of asbestos, is now known to be something that could be a hazard, and we are doing what we can to make sure that the public — the employer community and the employee community, especially — is educated about that.

C. Puchmayr: I'm aware that there is some onus on the employer. I'm asking: will the minister look at how serious this problem is and elevate it to such a degree that WorkSafe is more proactive in going out, identifying those sites and implementing a regular monitoring of those?

Sometimes there is sealed, contained asbestos, but those containers and those seals sometimes are exposed through renovations or through a hit with the boom of a forklift. Will the minister engage in looking at something more proactive, maybe something that is even leading in Canada, to ensure that no worker is exposed to asbestos in the future?

Hon. O. Ilich: WorkSafe does regular inspections of workplaces to identify hazards. In the particular case when something is known to be a very high hazard, they make sure that they not only inspect but deal with it appropriately as soon as possible.

C. Puchmayr: To the minister: I have a statistic here, an estimate, which states that 300 B.C. construction workers will die from asbestos-related diseases each year for the next five years, for a maximum of 1,500 deaths.

Can the minister explain why her statistic is so low, when this is actually significantly higher than the 80-some-odd industrial diseases that the minister alluded to previously? Is there another statistic strictly dealing with asbestos, which may not be showing up on the WorkSafe files or projections?

Hon. O. Ilich: WorkSafe is concerned that those cases might be underreported. They currently have a project, which they're working on in conjunction with the Cancer Agency and with UBC, to identify workers and to make sure that they do get those workers. They do want to identify those workers, and they do want to make sure that those workers are aware of their rights.

C. Puchmayr: I'm just looking at some of the reports and some of the newspaper articles relating to this matter. "Asbestos Exposure Will Kill 300 Workers a Year," The Vancouver Sun, February 8. "Health Canada Assessing Risk of Chrysotile Asbestos." The Canadian Cancer Society called for a complete ban. Then there's the press release from the B.C. and Yukon building trades that states that 1,500 over the next five years….

How can WorkSafe B.C., which is factoring in claim costs and future exposure to claims…? How can your statistic be 79 or 80-somewhat, when these statistics are showing 300? That seems like a serious error in statistics.

Hon. O. Ilich: The number that I gave you was a 2006 number. Those were the cases that were dealt with in 2006. WorkSafe knows that in fact there may be more cases out there. That's why they are participating with UBC and with the Cancer Agency and why they've done some education with physicians to make sure that they are catching the people suffering from this.

In some cases, people may be suffering from this, and they're not actually caught by WorkSafe. They're not workers, so that's another situation. WorkSafe is very concerned about this and is participating in the Home Show to make sure that even homeowners are aware that if there's asbestos in their home, they should do something about it. That would be somebody who might develop the disease and who certainly isn't working. That's where there might be a discrepancy in the numbers.

WorkSafe is working hard to make sure they do catch those people who legitimately have contracted this disease through their work. They are concerned that they get everybody that is entitled to compensation.

C. Puchmayr: That's certainly an alarming difference in the statistic, in the numbers. That's why my question to the minister is: will she look at being more proactive, or even being the most proactive in Canada, on identifying, on advertising, on ensuring that these 220 people that are dying and not getting compensation…? Somehow we have to capture that. Also, we need to ensure that we eliminate the risk on the jobsite. That's what I'd like to put to the minister.

The other thing…. I will maybe put that question. I had already put that question to her, but I'll put that again, and I'll add another one, and she can answer them in any order.

The Canadian Cancer Society has done a lot of good work on this issue of asbestos, and they have also asked for calls to completely ban asbestos.

My question to the minister is: through the service plan, is there work being engaged in now by the Ministry of Labour to look at completely banning the use of asbestos in British Columbia? It is still being used in British Columbia. Some siding products apparently still use it. Some roofing products still use it, and some paving material has it in there.

Two questions, the latter one being: will the minister support looking at a complete ban of the use of asbestos in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: That disease has a long latency period, and the cases that are coming to light now are from 30, 40 years ago in some cases, when there weren't as many restrictions and as much knowledge about what asbestos could do.

WorkSafe has rules and regulations now about the safe handling of materials that are considered to be unsafe or hazardous, and we know a lot more now about the use of those materials. As I said, WorkSafe has very strict rules now about how you go about using those materials.

We may see more cases of mesothelioma, and we are doing the best that we can to get out there and make sure that people who have got those diseases that are the result of workplace activities are covered and are compensated.

C. Puchmayr: How does the minister propose to do that when so many of them appear to be falling through the cracks?

Hon. O. Ilich: WorkSafe is working with physicians, with the Cancer Agency, with UBC to identify those people that they can. They are concerned about making sure that they do reach people. They're working with industry associations and others to make sure that the message gets out.

C. Puchmayr: That sounds great, but the statistics are showing that there is still almost double what is being diagnosed who are not being diagnosed. So my question is: how is that being communicated to physicians? What directive has the ministry given to physicians to highlight this issue and to ensure that it's being properly dealt with?

Other than what's already available through the regs for industry, what is being done to ensure that there is an eradication of the asbestos on those jobsites or on those places of employment? Will the minister go as far as proposing legislation that bans the use of asbestos in British Columbia?

Hon. O. Ilich: By law, every case of mesothelioma is reported to the Cancer Agency — well, it must be reported to the agency — and every physician that reports such a case is sent a letter asking them to explore with their patient whether or not this is the result of a workplace situation.

C. Puchmayr: Will the minister commit to, at the very least, having her ministry look at the impacts and the benefits of a complete ban of the use of asbestos in the workplace?

Hon. O. Ilich: The cases that we have now and that we know about going forward, as I said, are old cases. There's very little legal use now of hazardous material. What we continue to do is make sure that the people that may have been exposed in the past get looked after and get identified.

There's a lot of asbestos — or there may be asbestos — in older buildings which has not yet been identified. But when there are situations like demolition and they have to do hazardous materials assessment, it's properly dealt with at that time.

It's very difficult to eradicate something that has been in use for many, many years that we now find is hazardous. What we're trying to do is make sure that people don't come into contact with something that has been in the environment for some time.

C. Puchmayr: Actually, it is through regulation that employers have to identify the hazards in the workplace, and asbestos is a hazard in the workplace.

I worked with asbestos, or was exposed to it, some 30 years ago now, and it was WorkSafe that took it

seriously 30 years ago when it was reported to the employer that there was exposed asbestos. The worksite was closed down. There were people brought in with special permits and special suits to handle dealing with the containment and the removal of the asbestos. That's 30 years ago. That was already in place. What's in place today?

My concern is that there are places of employment…. The areas of asbestos should be identified, and there needs to be a better monitoring system to ensure that everybody is aware that there is asbestos in that place of employment. A new worker today, a 12-year-old worker, could be exposed to asbestos in an older building.

You may not have to worry about paying a claim for that worker for another 20 to 30 years, but nevertheless, what exists today existed 30 years ago. I have a concern with that. That's why I'm putting to the minister that there needs to be a better way of identifying and a better way of inspecting, on a regular basis, areas that have asbestos, with the end result being to look towards a complete ban of asbestos and asbestos products in British Columbia.

Would the minister not agree that in view of the fact that this has been identified as a hazard and that it's been dealt with in a quite progressive manner 30 years ago, we're still having incidents today of people dying that were exposed 20 and 30 years ago? That would lead me to believe that there needs to be more. Would the minister agree?

Hon. O. Ilich: I would agree that asbestos is a dangerous material; it's a hazardous material. I think that our understanding of what asbestos does has changed over the years. Where it is identified, employers are required to remove it or contain it or to deal with it in a safe manner. Where we have identified workers that have come in contact with asbestos, we're making sure that they are aware, also, of the risks that they may have been exposed to so that if something does develop, they are aware of their rights.

C. Puchmayr: I guess I must have fallen through the cracks, because I did work with and around asbestos many years ago and no one has ever contacted me to say…. Even though WorkSafe had come on the site, or Workers Compensation Board, and condemned the site until it was dealt with…. There certainly isn't a historic follow-up to that.

I would just like to see a greater way of communicating that out to workers in British Columbia. I think that the labour organizations — the unions — do a good job. They have some good safety committees out there that are able to identify those hazards and risks and that can work jointly with the employer to ensure that there's some mitigation to that.

There are a lot of places where the employee isn't aware of what they're exposed to, and they don't have somebody advocating for them. That is really troubling to me, especially with the advent of young workers in British Columbia. I firmly believe that we need to do more. We need to go further, and we need to look at even doing an analysis.

Would the minister commit to doing an analysis — maybe looking at what other provinces are doing? I know there may be difficulty in Quebec. There's still a significant asbestos mining operation in Quebec.

I should add that in the area where asbestos is mined in Quebec, they found high cases of exposure to family members, the children and even to wild animals. Wild animals in the forest are being identified with asbestosis. They have asbestos cutting at their lung tissue. It's something that is so serious, and it is so preventable. It just takes some initiative for someone to say: "Enough people have died of this."

I don't want the minister to stand up and say: "Yes, I agree. Let's ban it." What I would like to hear from the minister is that they would really, seriously look at what the impacts of a complete ban on asbestos would be for British Columbia.

Hon. O. Ilich: We will commit to looking at what other provinces are doing around the situation of the asbestos. We do know it is a hazardous material. We do know that people have contracted diseases because of it.

WorkSafe is doing what they can to catch those people that have been exposed to it and have become sick as a result of that so that they do receive their compensation. If there are people falling through the cracks…. That's what they're trying to avoid. That's why they are doing the outreach. So we should get that information to them and see what more can be done to make sure that people are not falling behind.

C. Puchmayr: Will the minister keep us informed as to the progress of that initiative? I'll take her nod as…. Is that acceptable in here? I heard a nod.

C. Puchmayr: I think we have just about a few minutes left before Standing Order…. What number is that one? I should know that one. So what I'd like to do is… When we ended with employment standards, there was a farm worker issue.

C. Puchmayr: I move that the committee rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 22

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	Ralston	B. Simpson
Cubberley	Hammell	Thorne
Simons	Puchmayr	Gentner
Horgan	Dix	Trevena
Robertson	Karagianis	Austin
Chouhan	Wyse	Macdonald
	Conroy

	NAYS — 38

Falcon	Reid	Coell
Ilich	Chong	Christensen
Les	Richmond	Bell
Krueger	van Dongen	Roddick
Hayer	Lee	Jarvis
Nuraney	Horning	Cantelon
Thorpe	Hagen	Oppal
de Jong	Bond	Penner
Coleman	Hogg	Sultan
Bennett	Lekstrom	Mayencourt
Polak	Hawes	Yap
Bloy	MacKay	Black
McIntyre		Rustad