Hansard — Monday, April 7, 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		10959

Point of Privilege (Speaker's Ruling)		10960

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		10960
	Electoral Districts Act (Bill 19)
	Hon. W. Oppal

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		10960
	50th anniversary of Ripple Rock explosion
	C. Trevena
	Vaisakhi
	D. Hayer
	Leonard Antoine
	D. Routley
	Water rescue awards
	R. Lee
	Reading initiative at Ecole Marigold
	D. Cubberley
	Proposed elementary school in Burnaby
	H. Bloy

Oral Questions		10962
	Funding for Royal Columbian Hospital
	C. James
	Hon. G. Abbott
	C. Puchmayr
	Surgical services at Kelowna General Hospital
	A. Dix
	Hon. G. Abbott
	Agricultural land reserve regulations
	L. Krog
	Hon. P. Bell
	Investigation into ICBC vehicle sales
	H. Bains
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Sale of school lands
	D. Cubberley
	Hon. S. Bond
	J. Brar
	D. Routley

Petitions		10967
	J. Horgan

Tabling Documents		10967
	Office of the provincial health officer, annual report, An Ounce of Prevention Revisited: A Review of Health Promotion and Selected Outcomes for Children and Youth in B.C. Schools

Committee of the Whole House		10967
	Labour and Citizens' Services Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 13) (continued)
	K. Conroy
	Hon. O. Ilich
	L. Krog

Report and Third Reading of Bills		10970
	Labour and Citizens' Services Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 13)

Committee of the Whole House		10970
	Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008 (Bill 15)
	J. Horgan
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	J. Kwan
	S. Simpson

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		10994
	Estimates: Ministry of Advanced Education and Minister Responsible for Research and Technology (continued)
	Hon. M. Coell
	R. Fleming
	B. Simpson
	C. Wyse
	S. Fraser
	C. Trevena
	B. Ralston

C. James: I have an announcement rather than an introduction at this point, if I may. One of the members of the press gallery is particularly grumpy today. Now, everyone might say that the press gallery is always grumpy.

C. James: I was going to add that. There's one member who's particularly grumpy today because he's struggling with a change in his life. I think all of us in this House would like to say a very happy 40th birthday to Sean Leslie.

Hon. G. Campbell: With the Leader of the Opposition, let me just inform the House that I still think of Sean as Sean "the Kid" Leslie.

D. Cubberley: If I could, I'd like to introduce a couple of guests who are joining us today on the occasion of a rally that was held earlier this morning on the steps of the Legislature regarding the sale of surplus school lands.

There were many people in that rally, but a couple of guests, I believe, have joined us for deliberations here today. They are Irene Lanzinger, president of the British Columbia Teachers Federation, representing the 41,000 teachers in the province. Joining with her, I believe, is Sylvia Bishop, who is an assistant director in the communications and campaigns department. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'm pleased to be joined in the House today by three constituents. Peggy Alca, who is here, is a leader in the PAC at Lord Kitchener Elementary School, and she is joined today by two of her children, Milton and Emery. Will the House please make them very welcome.

J. Horgan: I, too, have constituents in the precincts today that were here on the steps of the Legislature this morning concerned about schools in their community. From the Cowichan Valley, joining us today are Heatherann Macintosh, Naomi Barclay, Rayna Hyde-Lay, Caroline Kirman and two youngsters who are looking forward to single-track French immersion in the Cowichan Valley, Adam Hyde-Lay and Sam Mellemstrand. Would the House please make them all very, very welcome.

R. Sultan: In the precinct today we have 20 grade 5 students and four adults, including their teacher M. Thierry Tacail, of Ecole Française Internationale de Vancouver. The French International School of Vancouver is affiliated with a network of 410 French schools around the world. Would the House please welcome them by saying bonjour.

N. Simons: It gives me pleasure to welcome to the House today seven participants in the Powell River youth ambassador program. They are Maria Bryson, Kaylah Coopman, Nicole Whitley, Kristie Egan, Michelle Hamoline, Heather Gamborski and Isabel Villeneuve. Joining them are Kim Miller, the manager of the chamber of commerce in Powell River; Maggie Hathaway, my constituency assistant; and Randi-Lynn Egan. Would the House please make them welcome.

J. Yap: The Yaps are in town. I'm very happy to welcome to the legislative precincts some family visiting from far away. I have visiting us in Richmond and today in Victoria my cousin Kenneth Yap. He's actually in the public gallery as we speak, and he's here visiting with his family. That is his wife Joanna Yap and Rupert Yap and another son Toby Yap from Braintree, which is in Essex county in southern England. They tell me they have visited the mother Parliament in Westminster but would like to see how we do things here in one of the former colonies.

Also with them — not in the public gallery but taking in the sights with family — is the most important person in my life, my partner for life, my spouse, my wife Suzanne Yap. Would the House make all of them very welcome.

D. Routley: Also joining us in the House for the purposes of joining the demonstration outside are some very dear friends of mine: Duncan Brown, chairperson of the Community Alliance for Public Education; Eden Haythornthwaite, a local school trustee in district 79; Alastair Haythornthwaite, her husband; and one of my very dearest friends, David Halme, who is the president of the Lake Cowichan Teachers Association.

I think all of us have friends who have known us all the way along, and as our circumstance and context change, they keep us with two feet on the ground and remembering what our purpose is. That's David for me. I want to appreciate him and all those people.

Hon. W. Oppal: In the House this afternoon are John Hunter, QC, president of the Law Society of British Columbia, and Tim McGee, chief executive officer of the Law Society. I wonder if the House could make them welcome.

G. Robertson: Joining us today in the House is one of my constituents from the sunny shores of False Creek, Kathleen MacKinnon, a lifelong and steadfast advocate for public education who's here today with the BCTF to support our public schools and the lands that they are on.

B. Bennett: I'd like to introduce a new coalition of groups here in B.C., and they happen to be with us this

afternoon here in the House. It's the B.C. Wildlife Coalition. It's made up of the B.C. Trappers Association, the B.C. Guide Outfitters Association and the B.C. Wildlife Federation.

In the gallery today we have Alison Beal with the B.C. Trappers. Darren DeLuca is with the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C., and Dixie Hammett is the president of the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. We've got Mel Arnold, who's with the B.C. Wildlife Federation; he's the vice-president. We've got Mike Morris, who's with the B.C. Trappers; Patti MacAhonic, who is the B.C. Wildlife Federation executive director; Rod Wiebe, who is another vice-president of the B.C. Wildlife Federation; Scott Ellis, who is with the Guide Outfitters Association; and Wilf Pfleiderer, who is the president of the B.C. Wildlife Association.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, on April 1 the member for Cariboo South sought to raise a matter of privilege alleging that the Minister of Small Business and Revenue had misled the House during estimates debate in Committee of Supply. On April 3 the minister made a statement in response.

It should be noted at the outset that an allegation that a member has deliberately misled the House is a serious accusation and ought not to be made lightly. The member for Cariboo South did not accuse the minister of deliberately misleading the House but rather chose to use the charge of misleading the House.

In considering a similar situation on May 5, 1998, Speaker Brewin quoted the following passage from Joseph Maingot, QC, in Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, second edition, at page 241: "To allege that a member has misled the House is a matter of order rather than privilege and is not unparliamentary, whether or not it is qualified by the adjective 'unintentionally' or 'inadvertently.' To allege that a member has deliberately misled the House is also a matter of order and is indeed unparliamentary. However, deliberately misleading statements may be treated as contempt."

I have reviewed the Hansard transcripts quoted by both members. It is clear that they disagree as to the facts that they were debating — a disagreement, in essence, of debate.

There is no evidence before me that would indicate that the minister deliberately misled the House. Accordingly, I cannot find a prima facie case of breach of privilege that has been made out.

Hon. W. Oppal presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Electoral Districts Act.

Hon. W. Oppal: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm pleased to introduce Bill 19, the Electoral Districts Act. This bill enacts the new electoral districts for the province of British Columbia. It would create an electoral map of 85 districts.

The bill implements Motion 39 of the Legislative Assembly. Specifically, it would enact a majority of the recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission except as modified by appendix P of the commission's report. The commission's final report recommended 83 electoral districts for the province. This includes a reduction of one district each in the north and the Cariboo-Thompson regions.

Appendix P of the commission's report contained alternative scenarios for the north and the Cariboo-Thompson regions of the province. Under these scenarios those two regions would maintain their existing number of electoral districts rather than have them reduced. This is what the bill would enact.

The bill contains two schedules. The first lists all the 85 districts in alphabetical order. The second schedule provides for the areas and boundaries of those districts. In the past years the boundaries were described using lengthy verbal narratives known as metes and bounds. New advances in digital mapping technology have made physical land surveying unnecessary for this purpose. The commission took advantage of these methods, and therefore, in the circumstances, the schedule defined these boundaries as published by the commission on two official disks. The disks are now on file with the province's Chief Electoral Officer.

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 19, Electoral Districts 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.

C. Trevena: Anniversaries are a good chance to celebrate and honour those involved. Campbell River marked the 50th anniversary of the explosion of Ripple Rock on Saturday and did just that. The city celebrated, and those involved in the explosion were honoured.

The twin peaks of Ripple Rock stood just three metres below the surface at Seymour Narrows, just north of Campbell River, described by Captain Vancouver as one of the vilest stretches of water in the world. Ripple Rock damaged or sank more than 120 vessels and claimed the lives of 114 people.

Attempts to destroy the shipping hazard from above were tried in the 1940s, but it took another 15 years to develop the plan and the successful explosion from underneath. It was a feat of engineering described by one person as the world's biggest root canal, effecting the largest peacetime non-nuclear explosion.

Some of those involved in the events were in Campbell River to mark the 50th anniversary. They had the opportunity to see a re-creation of the explosion from a barge off Robert Osler park — another feat of engineering, because people said it did look like the blast of 50 years ago. No fancy fireworks but an orchestrated explosion of greys and blacks, which looked something like a maple leaf and was very quick.

The day continued with the screening of a documentary and the unveiling of an information sign about Ripple Rock at the Seymour Narrows lookout. Then there was a lecture at the museum, also celebrating its 50th birthday, and the telling of the story for children through puppets. For those who wanted a sense of the place, there were commercial boat tours to the site and a guided four-hour hike along the Ripple Rock hiking trail.

It was a worthy event to celebrate. The significance of the removal of Ripple Rock is huge. Without that, much of the shipping and most definitely the cruise ships would not be sailing through the passage, and that has an impact not just for the North Islanders but for the province as a whole.

It was also an engineering feat which brought the country together. It was broadcast nationwide on CBC TV, the first time a live event had been broadcast from coast to coast.

D. Hayer: For four weeks South Asians throughout the world will celebrate Vaisakhi, the time of harvest, time to appreciate the fruits of labour, and time to recognize the rewards of effort and accomplishment.

Vaisakhi is a time of the year which marks cultural and spiritual importance to many South Asians living around the world. I spent the past weekend visiting with the students of Kwantlen Park School, and I was most impressed by their presentation of Vaisakhi Mela 2008.

I am looking forward to the Vaisakhi gala, which is being held in Surrey on Wednesday, April 9, at the Bombay banquet hall in the Surrey convention centre. Vaisakhi is an important event, and many communities across British Columbia and throughout the world will hold Vaisakhi celebrations.

These celebrations are not new to our province. One of the biggest celebrations of Vaisakhi in North America will be the one put on by the Khalsa Diwan Society in Vancouver, established 101 years ago. This event will be held on Saturday, April 19, and will be attended by thousands upon thousands from every race, every ethnic group, and from our incredibly diverse communities.

That is what makes this festival so important. It brings together everyone regardless of their race, colour and creed. It truly is an international festival in which everyone can and does participate. Vaisakhi is not a recognition of an event that happened half a world away. It is a gathering of British Columbians and of all people, regardless of their race or ethnic background. It is the melding of ethnic diversity that is astounding and perhaps unique in the world.

I urge everyone in this House to join the festivities, particularly your community Vaisakhi festival, that celebrate the incredible diversity of our different cultures, freedom, democracy, respect, harmony and peace, which makes our province the best place on earth.

D. Routley: Growing up in the Cowichan Valley, I came to know a great many first nations people — friends in school. It was playing road hockey that I would meet their parents and their grandparents, but it was when my family was in great upheaval that I became aware of the gentle touch and the guidance of the elders. So it's with a great sorrow today that I rise to speak of the passing of a graceful and wonderful man named Leonard Antoine.

Leonard Antoine was born September 20, 1928, and he passed away April 3, 2008. In between these dates, which give us context to his beginning and his end, is a dash. That dash is where all the meaning is in all of our lives. In Leonard's life that dash meant grace, dignity, service, commitment and humour.

We will always remember Leonard walking through town. He would tell us that he walked because he'd run into more people, and that way he could talk to more people. That was Leonard. We know there are less than two dozen fluent speakers of the Hul'qumi'num language, and Leonard was one of them. Seventy percent of Cowichan Tribes people are 26 years or younger, and they all looked to people like Leonard. They all looked for that grace as he attempted to save the language, as he passed the lessons of snuw uy'ulh — original teachings — to the young people. So many young people saved by the influence of men like Leonard Antoine.

We all look at him, and we know that he was humble, but he was proud. Leonard Antoine was as we should be — humble but proud.

R. Lee: On March 29, I had the privilege to attend the 96th honour and rescue awards ceremony with His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor Steven Point, recognizing committed Lifesaving Society volunteers and heroic individuals who have put their lives on the line during water rescues in British Columbia.

Michael Anderson, Brent Blackmore, Shane Nicol and Glen Watts were acknowledged with the silver medal for bravery for their rescue efforts in January at the Millstone River in Nanaimo. Other silver medals for bravery were awarded to Jon Bula, Troy Dalton, Richard Juryh and Graham Tutti for rescue actions in a

kayak incident at Porteau Cove; to Sean Deakin for his heroic attempt to pull a man out of the water in Cameron Lake and to William McKinnon for helping Sean; to Donald Gough for saving the life of a man whose car went into the Similkameen River; to Blair Haaf and Larry Rivard for saving a woman from her sinking vehicle in Okanagan Lake; and to 11-year-old Kyle Jenkins for saving his schoolmate's life at the Hyde Creek Recreation Centre in Port Coquitlam.

The prestigious George A. Brown Memorial Medal was awarded to nine-year-old Andrew Choi, who saved his three-year-old brother from drowning in Whistler last September. Young Andrew also received a bravery medal from the Governor General.

The Governor's gold medal for the most heroic rescue of the year was presented to a Burnaby resident, 14-year-old Caleb Gillett, who pulled an unconscious non-swimmer out of the bottom of a Burnaby apartment pool last June.

Would the House please join me in recognizing the contributions of the volunteers and staff of the Lifesaving Society and all these brave British Columbians.

D. Cubberley: Every month in British Columbia is education month as schools, families, teachers and kids seek to impart and acquire the tools for lifelong learning. Recently, I learned of a novel approach to this noble calling at my neighbourhood school, Ecole Marigold, that celebrates learning by building improved literacy. The tool — the Marvelous Marmot Millionary Reading Club — is a collective effort to read a million pages this school year. That means every student and staffer has to read at least ten pages every day.

Marigold's first goal was to read 100,000 pages as a school by October 31, a goal it easily met, in order to celebrate the possibility of success.

There is, of course, another agenda here, which is to bolster the habit of daily reading as a way of rooting the Reading Power program that teachers are using to improve comprehension. Reading Power, a program developed by Lower Mainland educator Adrienne Gear, helps students become fluent decoders and teaches them to develop an awareness of their thinking while they read, in turn deepening their experience.

The five reading powers — connect, question, visualize, infer and transform — enable readers to extract the meanings embedded in words, introduce sequentially the power to liberate learners to comprehend and to draw their own conclusions.

The brainchild of Mrs. Colleen Pommelet, a grades 3 and 4 teacher who is also a teacher-librarian, the Millionary Reading Club brings fun and celebration to a serious subject. By being inclusive, creating an atmosphere of fun and engagement, offering possibilities of tailoring to individual and grade-level needs, giving recognition and rewards for group effort and imparting powers and skills that contribute to confidence and competence, the Ecole Marigold initiative is an inspiring example of growth and behavioral change in a community of young learners.

H. Bloy: It's a great pleasure to rise in the House today. Last Friday after many years of waiting, a new elementary school was announced at Burnaby Mountain. I was honoured to be there to announce this new elementary school for a growing neighbourhood. I was thrilled to be part of Simon Fraser University Community Trust, the university community and the Burnaby board of education working together for the betterment of our children.

We already know that UniverCity is an international showcase for innovation and creative approaches to sustainable planning and new urban development. This new elementary school will be an integral part of that development. I would also like to recognize the foresight of the Burnaby board of education. By keeping a close eye on where enrolment was expanding in their district, they've been able to direct funding to this growing area. It was a powerful partnership, and it has been great to be part of the team that made it happen.

I was joined at the opening by my colleague from Burnaby North; by Gordon Harris, president and CEO of UniverCity trust; by Warren Gill, vice-president, Simon Fraser University; and by Kathy Corrigan, chair of Burnaby board of education. But the most important guests were the five youngsters representing the class of 2010 who will be attending that school when it opens.

You know, since 2001, the province has invested over $65 million in the Burnaby school district to complete seven capital projects. While the design for the new school has not been finalized, we know that it will be green. It is truly an exciting time for education in British Columbia.

C. James: Last week the opposition raised concerns about the crisis at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. We highlighted a letter by Dr. Granger, a surgeon. He said that the hospital was in crisis and patient care was being compromised. What was the response from the Minister of Health? He called Dr. Granger an alarmist.

Well, one of Dr. Granger's patients contacted us. Donna Donald has stage 4 colon cancer. She's been told she has to wait until the end of May to get her surgery.

My question is to the Minister of Health. Does he stand by his words that Dr. Granger is an alarmist, or will he admit that Royal Columbian is in crisis and patients are being put at risk?

Hon. G. Abbott: I like to let the facts speak for themselves. If one looks at the surgeries performed at

Royal Columbian Hospital in 2007, there were, on average, 736 surgeries being performed on a monthly basis at Royal Columbian. This year it's 790 surgeries being performed on a monthly basis.

I received the same e-mail letter as, obviously, the Leader of the Opposition did. I received it at my constituency office, apparently, at 9:30 p.m. on Friday evening. We received it in my office here in Victoria about an hour ago. We're attempting to look further into the case of Ms. Donna Donald to see what exactly the story is there.

But I need to advise the Leader of the Opposition that the urgency of a surgical procedure is not defined by this Legislature or this Health Minister. It is defined by the physician and surgeon that serve the patient.

C. James: The Minister of Health seems to have forgotten someone in all his talk about throwing statistics around. He's forgotten the patients. That's who the health care system is supposed to be here for — the patients. This isn't simply about one patient.

This isn't the first time that we've seen the Minister of Health brush off concerns by doctors. In fact, doctors came to the minister in 2006 from Royal Columbian and said that there was a crisis, and he brushed them all off then. In his letter last week Dr. Granger said: "We are having cancers and urgent elective surgeries cancelled continually for lack of resources."

Now, those aren't simply numbers. Those are patients, and one of those patients is Donna Donald. So my question is to the Premier. Will he tell his Minister of Health to listen to the concerns of doctors at Royal Columbian Hospital and actually make sure they get the resources they deserve to meet the needs of patients?

Hon. G. Abbott: In fact, it's the Leader of the Opposition that's not listening.

There were 736 surgeries per month at Royal Columbian last year and 790 this year, per month, at Royal Columbian Hospital. That is over a 7 percent increase year over year in the number of surgeries being performed at Royal Columbian Hospital. That speaks to me of a great hospital and a great health care system, not a shortage of resources.

Hon. G. Abbott: British Columbia has the best management of cancer in the nation. In fact, British Columbia has one of the best cancer agencies. Whether it's treatment, whether it's prevention or whether it's research, British Columbia leads Canada and in many ways leads the world on cancers. To take this case….

C. James: What does it take to get this Minister of Health to actually listen to the people in the system who are talking about the system being in crisis? Patients, their families, doctors, nurses, health care providers — everyone knows the system is in crisis except the government over there. It takes families having to e-mail the minister's office to try and get him to recognize the crisis that this hospital is in.

Who caused the pressures that we have? The Liberal government caused the pressures. It was the B.C. Liberals who closed and demolished St. Mary's Hospital. That was a surgical hub with 71 acute care beds.

What's the result? Royal Columbian is overcrowded, surgical cancellations are routine, and the doctors are calling it a crisis.

On Friday Dr. Granger's assistant contacted our office. She said that they had to cancel another case, and she left at the end of her day in tears because of the pressures that she's facing because of this government's direction.

These are professionals in the system. They're doing an extraordinary job under very difficult circumstances and getting absolutely no support from this minister, who in fact is just accusing them and calling them names. That's his response to the health care crisis.

C. James: Will the Premier and his government stop picking fights with the professionals in the system, listen to families and do something about the crisis in health care?

Hon. G. Abbott: Again, I know that this opposition leader and the opposition Health critic constantly bemoan the excellent health care system that we have in British Columbia. The fact of the matter is…. And we regret anytime there is a postponement of a surgery because a more urgent or emergent case gets in front of it. We regret that. But the fact of it is that there will be a record number of surgeries done at Royal Columbian Hospital this year, 2008, just as there were in 2007 — a record number of surgeries.

As far as the Canadian cancer issue goes, they don't need to take it from me. The Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada says British Columbia has the best cancer care in the nation. We should be proud of that. We have the best treatment, we have the most timely surgeries, and we have a wonderful cancer care system in this province. All members of this Legislature should be proud of it.

C. Puchmayr: Well, let's have a look at what happened in New Westminster — why the minister takes credit here for increased surgeries at Royal Columbian. He closes a hospital that services 1.6 million people in the region and puts the pressure on Royal Columbian

I've spoken with Donna Donald, and I spoke with her family, and they are appalled. A fourth-stage colon cancer should be dealt with immediately. The cells are now multiplying, and they are posing a greater risk to her organs.

Donna tells me that she is expecting to become a great-grandmother for the first time this fall, and she desperately wants to be there to be a great-grandmother. This is an extremely advanced case of cancer. The minister can stand up here and talk all he wants about the service being provided, but it isn't…. The doctors are speaking out — not only Dr. Granger. Dr. Matishak, Dr. Morton — all the doctors are speaking out. It is a crisis at the Royal Columbian Hospital.

To the Minister of Health: does he believe that eight weeks is an appropriate time to wait for a stage 4 colon cancer?

Hon. G. Abbott: I appreciate the member's question, because it goes to the heart of the matter. Would the member have politicians concluding what the appropriate period was for treatment, or would he like to have physicians and surgeons form those judgments about what the appropriate times are?

Dr. Granger, I am presuming, is vitally concerned with this patient. I presume that he has oriented surgical times appropriately, based on what he believes are the best medical interests of the patient.

But it's ironic. This member talks a lot about reinvestment in Royal Columbian Hospital. It's interesting. In the 1990s this former government made no reinvestments in the health care system.

In terms of cancer care, the biggest step forward we will see in 2008 is the opening of the Abbotsford regional hospital and cancer centre — a $355 million investment promised for ten years, never delivered.

C. Puchmayr: I'm puzzled. He talks about the '90s, and yet it was in 2005 that they closed St. Mary's Hospital, not in the '90s — 2005. He talks about lack of investment, and what does he do? Closes a hospital.

Doctors have been communicating the crisis of surgeries at Royal Columbian Hospital since the demolition of St. Mary's Hospital, and all they get from this Health Minister are accusations that they are alarmists. Is this really what the minister believes — that those hard-working, dedicated professionals are merely alarmists?

Hon. G. Abbott: If the member wants to talk about closing hospitals, I can tell him about the two community hospitals that were closed in the 1990s in my constituency of Shuswap. Enderby Hospital and Armstrong hospital — both closed by an NDP government. These sanctimonious folk across the floor might want to think a little bit about that.

Hon. G. Abbott: Only 17 percent of the patients that went through St. Mary's were from New Westminster. As the member well knows, the Eagle Ridge Hospital was upgraded in order to meet that additional capacity demand. This is a government that annually makes $700 million to $800 million of investments in hospitals across this province. That is a huge departure from the past. The strong economy we have here, the great planning we have here and the great health professionals we have here put us in an opportunity to make those kinds of investments.

A. Dix: My question is to the Minister of Health. Last week 600 Kelowna patients waiting for orthopedic surgery were told their surgeries had been cancelled — perhaps 600 more reasons for the Minister of Health to feel unsuccessful. Their wait times have been extended because this government's for-profit health care scheme in the area collapsed. The head of surgery at Kelowna General Hospital says treating patients this way is "unacceptable." What is Interior Health's solution? Well, keep the operating rooms at Kelowna General Hospital open and play catch-up for the next year for those patients.

If the solution is to perform more surgeries and empty operating rooms in the public system, then why has he been raiding public resources to fund unsuccessful for-profit health care schemes?

Hon. G. Abbott: What a load of nonsense once again from this so-called opposition Health critic. What a load of nonsense. It's typical of the fearmongering that this member does on a constant basis around the province. Fearmongering and calling for more and more spending — that's all he can do. The fact of the matter is…. The member knows it well, and if he doesn't know it well, he should have talked to the Interior Health Authority and got the facts before he shoots off and tries to scare people about their future.

This, in fact, stems from a contractual dispute between the Interior Health Authority and a proponent for minor surgical services in the Okanagan. The unsuccessful proponents sent out a letter to some of their patients saying that they would have surgeries delayed. There is no reason to believe that. I spent much of the weekend with the Interior Health Authority. We discussed this matter. They are going to ensure that every one of those 600 patients gets their surgeries on a timely basis, regardless of the fearmongering of this member.

A. Dix: So 600 surgeries cancelled; 600 surgeries delayed. A health care scheme that costs more money….

A. Dix: The surgeries are delayed. They all got a letter. Those surgeries are delayed. No one is fearmongering. What causes fear is when patients get letters delaying their surgeries; that's what causes fear. Their scheme costs more money. They cancel 600 surgeries, and the Minister of Health declares victory. Presumably, he and his erstwhile friend the Premier will put him in charge of the convention centre next.

My question to him: when will he finally acknowledge that the only threats to the sustainability of public health care in British Columbia are the policies of the Premier and the Minister of Health?

Hon. G. Abbott: One of the things that I will never do, which this member does constantly, is go around the province sowing the seeds of fear in people where it is absolutely not true or not necessary.

This is a member of a party that has no policies. I used to think it stood for something else. Now I think NDP stands for no discernible policies. No discernible policies. Never have they articulated a single policy. All this member can do is go around the province and try to scare people.

Why don't they put out some policies? Why don't we hear what the NDP would like to do with the health care system? Spend, spend, spend or more fear, fear, fear, because they've got no policies. They're ashamed of it, so all they can do is spread fear around the province.

L. Krog: I'm delighted to talk about a little policy here today. As the investigation into the land dealings in Chilliwack continues, British Columbians are concerned that these types of activities could be occurring in other areas of our province. People are worried about the loophole that seems to allow ALR lands to be subdivided into two-acre estates without ever having to go to the Agricultural Land Commission.

So before more food land is lost forever, my question to the Minister of Agriculture is very simple. What is he actually doing to close that loophole?

Hon. P. Bell: If the member opposite would do a little bit of research, he would know that the ALC actually has a full compliance and enforcement regime. They do monitor on an ongoing basis the decisions that have been made and the uses of agricultural land around the province. In fact, we've had an extensive compliance and enforcement regime going on in the Fraser Valley over the last year or so.

So again, no research. If they'd take the time to look at it, they'd understand that there are the appropriate mechanisms in place, and there is a current investigation going, as was announced last Friday by the ALC.

L. Krog: There may be an enforcement regime in place, but it doesn't seem to have stopped what the problem is before British Columbians today, which is the subject of the investigation.

Since 2002 local governments have been able to be delegated the power to make decisions around subdivision applications and non-farm use of land. Without proper controls and oversight, this could lead to increased problems such as those we've seen in Chilliwack.

As all across the province agricultural land is being developed, why should British Columbians trust that farmland will be protected when the government refuses to even look at closing the two-acre loophole?

Hon. P. Bell: The member should pay attention to the rules in the Agricultural Land Commission. He would know that all of the decisions made, if there is a delegation agreement in place — and there are only a few delegation agreements in place — are reviewed and open to the review by the Agricultural Land Commission. They're very committed to making sure that there is only appropriate use of agricultural lands, and there is an active investigation ongoing at this time.

H. Bains: Another late Friday afternoon, another scandal, another resignation from the Premier's inner circle. This government has done everything it can to keep the public in the dark.

My question to the minister responsible for ICBC is quite simple. We now know that there was an ICBC internal investigation completed into the car-wreck resale scandal. Will he release the result of this investigation so that the public can see what was going on,

Hon. J. van Dongen: I want to assure this House that I have continued my due diligence on this matter over the weekend with a two-hour meeting with the chairman of the board on Saturday and a further meeting with the whole board of directors this morning. I can assure the member that all of the internal investigation, the results of that and the work of PricewaterhouseCoopers — the independent external auditors — will be made available to the public.

But I also want to confirm for the member that on Friday, the RCMP confirmed that they were doing an assessment of all of these matters from a criminal perspective. Any release of information has to be subject to the request of the RCMP to make extremely limited comment at this point.

H. Bains: I think the minister's response can be described as this: "We have kept the public in the dark, and we'll continue to keep the public in the dark." The public have had enough of the secrecy. How can we have any confidence in this government when the minister won't even release the terms of reference of the investigation by PricewaterhouseCoopers?

Will the minister tell the public exactly what is being investigated at ICBC and what powers the investigators have, and will he release that basic information now?

Hon. J. van Dongen: I can confirm for the member in this House that all of the results of the investigation done by ICBC were released, starting on March 19. All of the information that they could release, they have released. As I said, there is an ongoing external review being done of that.

I want to assure the member that the board of directors of ICBC, their CEO and this government are of one mind — that we will release all of the information that we can possibly release as quickly as possible, subject to the investigation of the RCMP, subject to the law and subject to matters of freedom-of-information and privacy issues. We are of one mind to continue to do that.

I also want to assure the member that in my own due diligence, I requested a lot of documents from the CEO. They were promptly produced, and I can assure the member that I support the work of the board of directors and the CEO in initiating a prompt investigation — a thorough investigation — when they became aware of these issues.

D. Cubberley: Hundreds of students, parents and teachers are here at the Legislature today calling on this government to stop the sell-off of school lands. Since 2001 this government has closed over 150 public schools, with another 45 schools on the chopping block as we speak. These buildings and green spaces should be a lasting legacy in our communities. Instead, this government is forcing school districts to sell these lands in order to help fund future buildings.

Will the Minister of Education reverse this shortsighted policy and end the liquidation of this community-owned resource?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I can tell you that one thing this side of the House is extremely proud of is that under this government, we have the highest level of funding ever in British Columbia for education. In fact, our record on capital investment is clear. Under this government, since 2001 we've added over $1.3 billion to build new schools in British Columbia.

J. Brar: They have closed 150 schools, and this minister will not take the responsibility for that. Hundreds of students, parents and teachers are here. They're asking to stop the sale of school land, and this minister will not take responsibility for that as well. They're also closing a school called Fleetwood Elementary School in Surrey, the fastest-growing community in the province, and this minister will not take responsibility for that as well. Many parents believe that the school in Surrey is being closed because of the funding cut this ministry has for the school district of Surrey.

My question to the Minister of Education is this. Can the Minister of Education explain to the people of Surrey why her ministry has cut funding in the range of $3.6 million to the Surrey school district when, in fact, the enrolment in Surrey is going up?

Hon. S. Bond: Perhaps the member opposite would like to hear the rest of the story. One would expect that being a Surrey representative, he might know that.

During the last number of years in Surrey we've seen six new schools. In fact, the list doesn't end there.

Hon. S. Bond: I will just quickly finish the list. Not only were there six new schools, there were five replacement schools, 14 additions and two renovations.

D. Routley: On December 27, 1962, the town of Lake Cowichan, their school district, bought for $1 the J.H. Boyd school property from B.C. Forest Products. Now that community, because of this minister's policies, is being forced to offer $765,000 to keep that property public. In 1998, $883 was spent per student in capital spending in our schools. That plummeted to

$231 per student in '02-03. This year it's $545 — still well below what it was ten years ago.

The results of these policies are driving our districts to sell properties, and it's that minister who has made it happen. Will she finally stand up and admit that her funding formula is driving these deficits in our classrooms and forcing our districts to consider selling public property, which our communities object to?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, around the world today, jurisdictions are grappling with declining enrolment and facing the challenges that British Columbia is facing. Let's listen….

Hon. S. Bond: Let's actually listen. Perhaps the member opposite would like to have a conversation with the opposition leader, actually, who was a school trustee. Let's listen to this quote: "There are some schools that have been closed because of dropping enrolment, and you're always going to see that in this province. There were schools that were closed under the New Democrats because of dropping enrolment." That's a quote from the Leader of the Opposition in February of 2005.

Hon. S. Bond: On this side of the House, the government is proud of its record. We will continue to fund education at record levels, and in fact, we will continue to build new schools, where appropriate. We have a record that we can be proud of.

J. Horgan: I have a petition with 370 names of residents of the Cowichan Valley calling on this Legislature to ensure that Ecole Mill Bay, the only single-track French immersion school south of the Cowichan River, remains open.

Hon. G. Abbott: I have the pleasure to table the provincial health officer's annual report, entitled An Ounce of Prevention Revisited: A Review of Health Promotion and Selected Outcomes for Children and Youth in B.C. Schools, that was released this past Friday.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call, in this chamber, continued committee stage debate on Bill 13 and, in Section A, continued debate on the estimates — for the information of members, the continued debates on the Ministry of Advanced Education.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 13; S. Hammell in the chair.

K. Conroy: I want to carry on from where we were last week on Thursday. What I wanted to do at the time on Thursday was make an amendment to add section 8.1 to be read as I provided to the Table on last Thursday. I understand that the amendment is in the orders of the day.

K. Conroy: The reason I put forward this amendment is that there was a glaring omission in this Bill 13 that section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act didn't have any amendment.

I was informed that this would probably be the best place to table this amendment, such that section 13.1 would now clarify that policy advice could only be withheld "if that information would reveal a suggested course of action for acceptance or rejection in making a decision or formulating a policy" and would clarify under section 13.2 that not only would factual material be exempt from severing under this section but also "analysis of factual material," and would also add subsections to clarify the background explanations or analysis and a professional, scientific, technical or investigative opinion or report be put on the list of information the government must disclose.

I was led to believe that this might be a time to table this amendment and that it's one that was actually recommended to the minister by the Information Commissioner. It was actually recommended last April. The minister had an opportunity to put that amendment in the bill when it was introduced last year, and it unfortunately wasn't. Now I see, again, in this bill it was not introduced, and I was hoping that this might be an opportunity to give not only the minister an opportunity to have the ability to support this amendment but also the member for Peace River South, who had expressed great support to this amendment, and hoping that we could, in fact, have this amendment before the House.

Hon. O. Ilich: Just on a point of order. Standing Order 84 governs the proceedings in the Committee of the Whole and states: "In proceedings upon Bills in Committee of the Whole, every clause shall be considered by the Committee in its proper order, with the preamble and the title being considered last."

Section 2: "Any clause may be postponed but shall be taken up before the Bill has been reported to the House." In addition, Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, third edition, page 171, reads as follows: "The function of a committee on a bill is to go through the text of the bill clause by clause and, if necessary, word by word, with a view to accepting the bill as committed or making such amendments in it as may seem likely to render it more generally acceptable."

Page 171 also identifies a list of inadmissible amendments, including any amendments that are beyond the scope of the bill.

Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 21st edition, further states on page 491: "An amendment is out of order…if it is irrelevant to the subject matter or beyond the scope of the clause under consideration." Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, provides perhaps the clearest direction when it states on page 207, citation 698, subsection 8(b): "An amendment may not amend sections from the original act unless they are specifically being amended in a clause of the bill before the committee."

I would also note that Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, third edition, page 2, clearly identifies Beauchesne as one of the authorities that members and others may rely upon to guide them in the search for answers to procedural questions.

Madam Chair, since this bill does not address section 13 of the FOI Act, I would submit that the amendment being proposed is beyond the scope of the bill and the clause currently under consideration and, therefore, is out of order. Accordingly, I respectfully request that you so rule.

The Chair: Member, I've had a chance to consider the amendment, and the amendment would add a new section to the bill which does not relate to other concepts in the bill. Accordingly, the amendment is out of order, as it is beyond the scope of the bill as agreed to at second reading.

K. Conroy: Just under section 9, then, could the minister explain what exactly foreign demand is, underneath the…?

Hon. O. Ilich: A foreign demand for disclosure is a subpoena, a warrant, an order, a demand or a request that is from a foreign court, an agency of a foreign state or another authority outside Canada and is for the unauthorized disclosure of personal information to which this act applies.

For the information of the member opposite, though, this is a housekeeping amendment to the act. The act already has this in it. What we're doing is that instead of it saying that…. Right now there's a foreign demand that goes to a public body. A public body can't receive anything, so this is going to a head of a public body. That's the only change that's being made. We're introducing the head of a public body, and so nothing else has changed in this clause.

K. Conroy: In this clause it talks about the concerns around the Patriot Act and that public bodies and their staff must immediately notify the head of a public body if there is unauthorized disclosure. Would that also lead true, then, that the public would be notified if there was unauthorized disclosure?

Hon. O. Ilich: This clause requires, if there's a security breach, that there is a notification to the head of the public body. There is no subsequent policy here that states that that head of the public body then must notify the public, but I'm told that we do, do that through policy. But right now there's no requirement for anybody to actually disclose that to the head of the public body.

L. Krog: I apologize for being absent when this section was first brought in the House this morning.

"'If a public body, an employer or a public body' and substituting 'if the head of a public body….'" It strikes me that the term "a public body" is a much broader, more encompassing phrase that would describe the public body. In theory, it would describe everyone who's involved with the public body, etc. In fact, the way I read this section, it is a narrowing, if you will, of the broader definition.

I'm wondering if the minister can explain. Am I wrong in my interpretation, or am I right?

Hon. O. Ilich: Could the member opposite just clarify what section he's on, please?

L. Krog: Thank you, hon. Chair, and thus my apology. I'm obviously a little late on that one.

K. Conroy: In section 12 there's a reference to a third party's position. Could the minister define what that would be and give an example of what or who a third party would be?

Hon. O. Ilich: I wonder if the member opposite could clarify where it says that in section 12 and, specifically, what she's asking for?

K. Conroy: Parts of section 22 that are applied to section 33 by this amendment…. It talks about: a public body may disclose "if the information is about the third party's position, functions, or remuneration as an officer, employee or member of a public body."

Hon. O. Ilich: What we're doing here is listing things that will be routinely disclosed. Right now section 22 limits the routine disclosure. One of the things that it is going to be allowing, that we will be specifically routinely disclosing, is details of personal information that right now are held private.

In that particular instance, this amendment will permit public bodies to make routinely available a person's position, function or remuneration as an officer or employee or member of a public body; financial and other details of a contract to supply goods or services to a public body; expenses incurred by a third party while travelling at a public body's expense; a licence, permit or other similar discretionary benefit granted by a public body, not including personal information supplied in support of the application for the benefit; and details of a discretionary benefit of a financial nature granted by a public body.

These are all things that have been excluded before, and now they will be routinely disclosed. Does that answer the question for the member?

K. Conroy: Could the minister actually define, then, who or what a third party would be that would be disclosing?

Hon. O. Ilich: The third party would be different in every single case. It would be a person who is getting remuneration as an officer or a person who is filing expenses to an agency. That would be the third party, and it would be different in every single case.

What the member should know is that this is now held private, and this will be now released. So it's an expansion of what is now meant to be released.

K. Conroy: Does that mean that anyone could get access to any contracts that the different ministries might have with outside bodies and scrutinize them for the financial details around those contracts?

Hon. O. Ilich: What we're doing here is making a routine release available. If something would have been normally releasable under a formal access request, we're going to be releasing these things on a routine basis. Anything that would have been withheld before will still be withheld, but it's going to be released on a regular basis if it could have been released on a formal request.

K. Conroy: So for information like that, there no longer will be required freedom-of-information requests? They will just be released to the public on a regular basis from the different ministries?

Hon. O. Ilich: The interpretation of the member opposite is correct. The opportunity will be there. The ability to routinely release information is there. It will still be up to the public body to decide whether they want to routinely release that, but I think the member's interpretation of that is correct.

L. Krog: As I understand it, then, the amendment is going to give the power to disclose financial and other details of a contract to supply goods and services to a public body, which arguably is very good public policy. The public should have a right to know how its dollars are being spent.

On the other hand, there are clearly contracts the government has entered into and policy around disposition of some Crown assets and other matters where these things aren't made public. I'm just wondering. What's the minister's position on this as a matter of policy? In other words, does she think this is good policy? Should it apply across the board with government contracts?

Hon. O. Ilich: This amendment does permit public bodies to routinely disclose predetermined personal information that can currently be released in response to a formal request. So it will allow public bodies to routinely release information.

The third-party aspect of it is that this is personal information, so what we are now allowing is that, for instance, if the director of IM/IT…. If I had a contract with her, what she's paid would be her personal information, but we will now be allowing the routine release of that information. I think that's what the member opposite was trying to get at earlier.

L. Krog: I've probably not made myself very clear to the minister. As I read section 12, it will allow a public body, under (f), to disclose "financial and other details of a contract to supply goods or services to a public body."

My question is: does the minister think this is good public policy? In other words, are all the details of the contract available? Am I missing something in terms of the specificity of the release, or does it apply to everything in that contract?

Hon. O. Ilich: We do think — and I do think — that that is good public policy. It will allow much more disclosure of information and provide for a more open government. There are specific categories of personal information that this amendment will allow a public body to make routinely available: a person's position, function or remuneration as an officer, employee or member of a public body; financial and other details of a contract to supply goods or services to a public body; expenses incurred by a third party while travelling at a public body's expense; licence, permit or other similar discretionary benefit granted by a public body; and details of a discretionary benefit of a financial nature granted by a public body. These are things that we believe we can disclose routinely and won't be needing an access request.

L. Krog: My specific question to the minister is: does she believe that this is an appropriate approach for government to take with respect to all contracts involving the provincial government?

Hon. O. Ilich: I think, in talking about section 12…. I believe we are expanding the disclosure that we routinely do. We are very pleased to be supporting this part and think that's a good public policy. Other issues that we are not routinely disclosing…. Obviously, it's outside the scope of section 12.

L. Krog: I'm asking this question. I mean, I appreciate that we're talking about this section. But I'm asking the minister: with respect to this section and its implications for government policy, does she agree that this is the appropriate approach to take with all government contracts?

Hon. O. Ilich: We're debating section 12 here. My personal beliefs about what we should do with the FOI Act aside, what we're talking about here is section 12. We're asking questions and answering questions on section 12, so I think that I've answered the member's question.

K. Conroy: I just have one more on that section, then. I just want to confirm. All public bodies will now automatically release this information. But could a public body choose not to if, for whatever reason, they decided they didn't want to release it? Will this amendment now make it so all public bodies will automatically release the information?

Hon. O. Ilich: Right now it's prohibited, so should a public body want to release this on a routine basis, they're not allowed to. This clause will in fact allow public bodies to do that on a discretionary basis, should they choose to do so.

Hon. O. Ilich: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Bill 13, Labour and Citizens' Services Statutes Amendment Act, 2008, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call committee stage of Bill 15, intituled Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008. The hon. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 15; S. Hammell in the chair.

J. Horgan: I am pleased to participate in committee stage debate of Bill 15, the Utilities Commission Amendment Act. We have a number of questions for the minister and a number of amendments as well, which the Clerk is reviewing and which I'm sure we'll get to the minister and his staff as quickly as possible.

With respect to section 1, the addition of some new definitions, I'm wondering if the minister could help me out with "demand-side measure," particularly sections (a), (b) and (c) — (a) being "to conserve," (b) "to reduce" and (c) "to shift."

Hon. R. Neufeld: Before I start, I'd like to introduce the folks that are with me today. Deputy Minister Greg Reimer is on my left. Shelley Murphy is a director of electricity policy in the ministry, and behind me is Les McLaren, ADM for electricity and alternative energy.

The three items, (a), (b) and (c): (a) is obviously to reduce greenhouse gases wherever they can, and they should take that into account while they're reviewing projects that come before them. I think that one is pretty straightforward.

Then "(b) to encourage public utilities to take demand-side measures." The energy plan says that we want to actually meet 50 percent of our growth, going forward, through demand-side measures, and it's to actually take that into account.

And "to encourage public utilities to produce, generate and acquire electricity from clean or renewable sources" is something that has been a bit of a debate over the last while within this chamber and outside this chamber. We want to make sure that the commission actually reviews those in a way that we can maintain the 90 percent average we now have today in the province of British Columbia with energy generation from clean sources.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister, but as I read those definitions, he made reference to greenhouse gases, and I don't see that anywhere in this section. Maybe he can point me to it in his response.

One demand-side measure that I know the government and B.C. Hydro are promoting is the residential inclining block funding or block tariff. I'm wondering if the minister could articulate, for the House and for those paying attention at home concerned about where their hydro rates are going to go over the next number of months or years, whether the residential inclining block tariff would fit under the demand-side measure definition. I would think it would be under section (a), but I'm not clear.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I apologize for that. I went to the second (a), (b) and (c).

The first one that you're talking about is "to conserve energy or promote energy efficiency." That was your first question. "To reduce the energy demand a public utility must serve, or to shift the use of energy to periods of lower demand."

The last one obviously is that if you can shift energy demand from peak times to off-peak times, you need to build less generation or have less electricity at hand at any given time. I think that's better for any utility or better for the ratepayer at the end of the day, because we have to build to a certain percentage over and above what the peak demand is. If we can actually move some of that peak off of peak into another time frame, that makes good sense. That's something that B.C. Hydro, I know, has been doing for the last couple of years with some of the test runs they've been doing.

Then "(b) to reduce the energy demand a public utility must serve." Again, that's through conservation, the things that we have to do.

The member asked the question about the inclining block. Yes, that's a part of it. The inclining block, although we call it stepped rates in the industrial world, has been in place with industry now for two years. They can use a certain amount of electricity that's relatively cheap from the heritage assets, and there comes a time when they have to step up and pay a higher rate for new energy consumed.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for that. I am a fan of the stepped rates in the industrial tariff. That makes a lot of sense to me. When you've got large users who have an ability, through managing their shifts and depending on whether their output is high at certain times of the year, that makes complete sense. Some of the people that have been talking to me…. I know that the inclining block application is before the commission or will be shortly, if it's not there already. I guess we'll hear if it is there or not, thanks to the able staff beside the minister.

As a demand-side management measure, it makes sense if you use electricity for cooking, turning on the dishwasher, that sort of thing. But many, many British Columbians — and the minister will know this — in the 1980s and 1990s were encouraged to get rid of fossil fuel heat sources, whether it be natural gas or home heating oil, and convert to electric baseboard heating, to electric floor heating. Their electricity consumption increased, but their greenhouse gas contributions decreased.

We encouraged people, not just this government but the government across the way and all governments since the 1980s…. We encouraged citizens to stop doing one activity and promoted another. Now, 20 years on, we've decided that even though, as the minister knows, 90 percent of our electricity is clean, green electricity…. We're saying to consumers of that, who may not have the same opportunities as the industrial tariff sector, that they should pay more at certain times of the day because their usage is larger than their neighbour's.

I'm wondering if the minister could help me explain to my constituents and others who have been writing to me. Maybe, even, he could advise me on how he's responding to people who say: "That's really not demand-side management. We did our bit in the '80s or '90s, and now we're being penalized for it."

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, at the time, 20 years ago in the '80s, the issues about greenhouse gases and the effect they was having on the environment were not topical on the public's mind — in fact, probably weren't spoken much other than maybe in some circles, but not commonly.

The process that was used in the 1980s to get people to change over to electricity is because we had a huge amount of electricity that was in excess to what the province needed at the time. That's the only reason I can give for that.

I don't think it's wrong in today's world, 20 years later, to change attitudes a bit, to quit thinking that we have a huge amount of electricity that we can just use all we want at any given time. I know it will be a bit more difficult for those that heat their homes, but what we want to do is actually change habits a little bit. I think that with an inclining block, we can start to do that.

I'm sure we'll get to another section here that the member will want to talk about at length, which is smart meters, which has something to do with the inclining block. I'm going to be careful how I choose my words about the inclining block, because it is before the B.C. Utilities Commission as we speak.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for reminding me that it's already before the commission. That's good to know, but I am pleased that I had an opportunity to raise the issue.

I don't disagree with the minister. We were awash in electricity. It made good sense to market that electricity by encouraging citizens to use more of it. Now we're in a different environment, and I appreciate that. I want the minister to know that I'm not so obtuse that I don't get that.

The irony for these people is that they were really trendsetters on the climate change front inasmuch as they were forgoing burning their wood in their heat stove, or they got rid of their oil burner and started warming their water with electricity. It's not lost on them that they were groundbreakers even though, as the minister quite rightly says, it wasn't on the top of everyone's mind in the 1980s when these transitions were being made. We were awash in energy, so it made good sense for our Crown to market it as aggressively as they could, and that's what they did.

With respect to section 1, I'll just ask a couple of more questions, and that would be section 1(f). It reads as follows: "to encourage public utilities to take prescribed actions in support of any other goals prescribed by regulation." I appreciate that we don't have all the regulations here, but I'm wondering if the minister could tell us what's contemplated in that section.

Hon. R. Neufeld: This is not uncommon to have in a piece of legislation maybe not the exact wording but something similar. What it does is give flexibility for a government to actually make regulations as things change, as the world changes around us, as it has over the last while — changed dramatically in some areas — and for governments to be able to adapt to those changes by regulation.

J. Horgan: Well, the Minister of Finance and I were having a discussion about the need to manage Hydro's debt cap a week and a half ago, and I asked when the last time…. The issue was that we don't want to keep changing the cap all of the time. The last time it was changed was 1984.

I appreciate that government needs flexibility and the Crown needs flexibility, but it is a little bit open-ended. I just want the record to show that prescribed actions in support of prescribed goals some time later is not something that we can discuss here with any confidence that we're capturing all of the possibilities that may be contemplated here.

I just think it's important that we be on the record saying that the government hasn't completed its work here. They've got some other work to do. That'll come forward in the regulations, and if that's not good enough for particular issues as they come forward, then we're going to see this section enacted to ensure that those goals are met. That's my interpretation of it anyway.

Hon. R. Neufeld: As we move forward — and the member is correct — things will change. The debt cap that Hydro has is not in here any place, but I could maybe use that as a bit of an example. The last large facility that was built by B.C. Hydro was Revelstoke. That would have been in the '80s. Very little was built after that, so debt caps were able to be maintained.

The member is right in his assertion. As time changes, as we move forward, a government will be able to move forward and make those changes by regulation, depending on the magnitude of them. I think any government would look at those kinds of things and be careful about what they put in regulation and what they don't.

I know the member would probably agree with me that that's probably what a prudent government would do in the future.

J. Horgan: This section, section 3, speaks to directions from the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. For those who don't have a copy of the bill and those who don't know what that is, that's basically the cabinet.

The existing Utilities Commission Act has a "Commission subject to direction" section, section 3. There are amendments, as I'm looking at the two acts, and I'm wondering…. It seems the significant changes in section 3(2), "The commission must comply with a direction issued under subsection (1), despite (a) any other provision of (i) this Act," and so on….

That doesn't appear to be…. Oh, that's an addition here. Could the minister explain to me where the changes are between section 3 in the existing act and section 3 of Bill 15?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Subsection (2) is the question that the member has. It makes it clear that this power is despite any other provision in the act, any regulation under the act or any previous decision. This ensures that where there could be a conflict between a government regulation and a requirement under the act or a previous decision of the commission, it is clear that the government direction prevails.

J. Horgan: That's consistent with the previous powers of Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council with respect to the Utilities Commission?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'll attempt to expand on it a little bit. Section 3 allows the government to specify factors, criteria and guidelines a commission must use in regulating and setting rates for B.C. Hydro and B.C. Trans-

mission Corporation. These powers are despite any other provisions of the act and despite any previous order of the commission.

J. Horgan: Then these are new powers to the minister and to cabinet to direct the commission subject to acts or policies that may come after this bill has passed.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes. It enhances and clarifies. There was some discussion amongst the legal world that some of the powers that a minister had prior to the changes maybe wouldn't take effect, and so what you wanted to do was to enhance it so it was relatively clear. I think that all we're trying to do is make it relatively clear that when a direction is made, it's a direction.

J. Horgan: I know that a government never takes lightly a special direction, either in the '80s, '90s or now. I don't want to appear to be fearmongering, but there are those who are concerned whenever cabinet or the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council or the minister — all being the same, I think, when it comes to this act — is given more power than they had before.

This speaks to…. I was in a briefing this morning with staff from the ministry. I know that the Queen takes our responsibility very seriously to shine light upon those things that change on our watch. I just want it to be clear, and the minister's done that by declaring that there are new powers granted to the minister as a result of this amendment in section 3.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It enhances the power and clarifies it, and it's a power not to the minister but to cabinet. How the cabinet minister at his or her peril can…say something and just go ahead and do it — may get in a fair amount of trouble with his or her colleagues in cabinet later on, if it were something that were a little bit out there….

I agree with the member. I know that every government has used directions. It's not that one government has and another government hasn't. For specific reasons, they do that, and they do it with trepidation, I can tell you. I know, from our government, they do it with trepidation, and I'm sure that the last government and the government before also did it with trepidation.

We needed to actually clarify it and make sure what it actually was. It's not conferring any new powers. It's enhancing what's there and clarifying it.

J. Horgan: With respect to this section and the existing act, we're now dealing with…. "Commission's duties" is the heading for section 5, and we're amending that section. We are now explicitly saying: "In this section, 'minister' means the minister responsible for the administration of the Hydro and Power Authority Act."

Now, I appreciate that the Minister of Energy is responsible for B.C. Hydro at this present time, and ministers are responsible some days for one thing and other days for others, depending on the Premier's wanting to saddle them with a lot of stuff or not. But as I understand it, the Utilities Commission Act is the responsibility today of the Attorney General.

I'm curious if the minister could explain to me why now the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro is named in the Utilities Commission Act. If it's nothing nefarious, that's grand, but I'm curious as to why it's there now.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Nothing nefarious. This actually just leaves with the Attorney General…. The reason it went to the Attorney General was because the Utilities Commission now regulates more than just utilities. ICBC, for instance, is now regulated by the Utilities Commission. That's why it was moved from the Ministry of Energy, Mines to start with.

But this has to deal with energy, and we thought that the minister responsible for energy should be the minister responsible for the electricity part of it. That's why it's named in there that way.

J. Horgan: I know I'm going to be jumping ahead here, but this may save us at the end of the debate. There are consequential amendments at the back of the bill, sections 18 and 19, to deal with ICBC and the Water Utility Act.

Coming back to section 4, where the minister's name, the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro…. The minister is not named on those other sections.

Again, I know we're out of sequential order here, but is there any reason why that's left hanging, or is that because the Attorney General's responsible for those sections?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I don't have any problem with going forward. But would you ask that question again, please? We're just having a little bit of trouble trying to understand what the question is.

J. Horgan: Sure. I thank the minister for that. As we get to the back of the bill — and we'll be able to fly through these sections at that time — sections 18 and 19 make consequential amendments to the Insurance Corporation Act and the Water Utility Act. The minister just said, in his response to why the Minister of Energy is now named in the act, that it's because the commission now has other, broader responsibilities, so that it was felt important to name the Minister of Energy on these sections. I'm wondering why it wasn't important to do those sections.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Under section 19, at least what I'm told by the staff, it's to make sure that the issues that we're dealing with that deal with the utilities that are covered under this do not apply to the Water Utility Act. So it's just the reverse — okay?

J. Horgan: I thank the minister and his staff for that. That'll be one less question to ask at the end.

Still within section 4, again, under the heading of what is in the act, section 5, "Commission's duties," we now have section 4(c), sections 4, 5, 6 and 7 through 9.

I'm wondering if the minister could comment. "The commission, in accordance with subsection (5) must conduct an inquiry to make determinations with respect to British Columbia's infrastructure and capacity needs for electricity transmission for the period ending 20 years after the day the inquiry begins." I'm wondering what that means.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Prior to this anticipated change — and it still has to be approved by the House — there was no requirement for B.C. Transmission to look forward 20 years, as there is now for B.C. Hydro to look forward 20 years in generation capability. Transmission didn't have that responsibility, and we thought it was prudent that…. Let's say an inquiry started, for the purposes of this, a month from now. They have to look, from that period, 20 years out as to what would possibly be required so that planning for the future 20 years in transmission can be made, not in a per-project process but more long-term planning for the greater good of the utility.

J. Horgan: That's useful for section 4(5). If we go to the following page, subsection (7) says: "The minister may declare, by regulation, that the commission may not, during the period specified in the regulation, reconsider, vary or rescind a determination made under subsection (4)." I'm wondering if we're looking….

Again, I think everyone would applaud strategic planning and forward planning for our transmission and generation needs — even our distribution needs, I suppose. But then, when we turn the page, as it were — literally, with the bill — we find that…. Should, over the course of conducting investigation, new information come to light, I seem to think, as I read subsection (7), that that can't be brought forward to the commission for reconsideration. Is that an incorrect interpretation?

Hon. R. Neufeld: In my earlier response, I said BCTC didn't have to, and I was incorrect in that. They did, but they did in a very broad way, and they didn't do it in conjunction with other utilities, that being Fortis — right? So now they have to take that larger look, the 20 years out, incorporating…. We have another large utility in the province of British Columbia called Fortis, so we need to actually make sure that they're part of the long-term planning process too, because there are some difficulties that are happening in that part of the world in regards to transmission.

As I understand, it's to fix the need for a period of time so that you don't constantly go back and keep reviewing transmission. Transmission is a lot of people. In fact, I often thought transmission was probably the easier part to build, but it's apparently not. I've experienced a few of those things in the last number of years with transmission. I'm sure the member is aware of it. So it takes a lot longer to get some of those things happening. We just didn't want it to be something that they constantly replan and replan and replan — that we actually look out 20 years and get on with doing it.

J. Horgan: Of course, Fortis is the other large utility. I'm wondering, though. Just while we're on this, then, with respect to transmission, would this contemplate hooking up smaller generators? Would that be part of a long-range plan, or will hooking up smaller generators still be on an as-needed basis, in terms of planning?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, although there will probably be some of that happening individually, it's to try to get away from that. You know, Hydro and Fortis and BCTC need to get together and actually get this plan figured out.

I think Hydro has a good idea of where the energy is generally going to come from — not always exactly where all of it's going to come from, but generally has a bit of an idea — so that we can actually build transmission to those areas where generation will probably come from in the long term, so that when you build a line, you get the right-of-way and get the line built. You build it a bit for the future, instead of just building for the past.

I think probably if we look at a lot of things that we have done in the province, and it's of no fault of anyone's…. But looking forward at some of these things, such as transmission, that take a long time to build and cost a lot of money…. We should be thinking out 20 years to make sure we build that so it at least facilitates the upgrading of something so that we can actually get more energy as we move forward and the province grows, even though we're going to try to get as much from conservation as possible.

There's no doubt the province is going to continue to grow. It's a great place to live. People are coming here by the thousands, and they're going to continue to need electricity. Probably, when you think about industry and those kinds of opportunities that take place and will take place in the province of British Columbia…. We need to be able to serve their needs.

J. Horgan: Well, one of the areas that the minister, I know, is very interested in — as am I and certainly the members for North Coast and Skeena and the member from Bulkley Valley — is the electrification of Highway 37. I'm hopeful that when one thinks of providing large blocks of energy to industrial users….

I know that this isn't the right time. I am planning a whole bunch of time on this in estimates with both the ministers responsible. But just as an example so we can close this section…. In the 20-year planning, would it be contemplating potential industrial activity, and would BCTC be directed to bring forward plans that contemplate industrial activity that's not yet on the ground — just based on what we would all hope might happen, subject to commodity prices being right and

capital for expansion and various corporate entities being right? Is that sort of what we're talking about here?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I think probably, in a nutshell…. And I'm sure that we will go through that at length in estimates about northwest transmission line. But it's maybe, in a nutshell, to look at where the demand is, where the generation is and where the transmission has to be located to get that to where the major demand is.

There would be all kinds of, which come out of that…. But we need to actually start looking at how that's done in a rational way and meets the ratepayers' best interests. That's the other part the commission has to be careful about — that we maintain some of the lowest rates in North America moving forward.

We were talking about BCTC, B.C. Hydro and Fortis. We could probably add Columbia Power, which was also kind of located in the southwest corner and needing transmission upgrades on the Fortis system to hook up with the BCTC system. I guess my question would be burrowing down a little deeper to independent power producers who would require transmission hookups to the grid, to the BCTC system.

I'm assuming that those hookups are not contemplated in this section. Rather, that's part and parcel of a power purchase agreement and a commercial arrangement between the provider and B.C. Hydro.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It looks at the major transmission and not the interconnections. That would be done in a separate process.

J. Horgan: In section 5…. Again, for many people it's difficult to follow these debates, because people don't have access to statutes readily, even with the Internet. I try and find statutes through the very capable Legislative Assembly webpage, and it takes me forever and ever. I'm very grateful to have a big pile of them right behind me here in my unique corner where I can grab them and refer to them.

We're dealing now with persons generating electricity for own use — section 22, where we're repealing that section and substituting the following with respect to exemptions. I'm wondering if the minister, again, who is named now in this section, could clarify for me what changes from section 22 in the current act are now contemplated in section 5's amendments.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, changing the minister responsible is pretty straightforward — to the minister responsible for energy. The only real change, as I understand it, is adding transmission and distribution that can be exempted if, in fact, a cabinet deems that in the best interest.

Also subsection (3) of the old act says "(b) authorize the commission to make an order under subsection (2)." There's another section coming further that will deal with that issue.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for that answer. Again, with some apprehension on my part with respect to eligible persons…. In section (a), it says "generates, produces, transmits, distributes or sells." And as the minister just said, we added "distributes." Where did "sells" come from, and who can sell electricity in British Columbia right now?

Hon. R. Neufeld: If you go back to the old act, "sells" was there. It's just in a different part of what we're dealing with. So that's nothing new.

J. Horgan: Would an eligible person be someone who is perhaps in a net metering situation or someone who has a large number of solar panels to meet their own needs at their residence but yet has additional power that they can sell back to the grid? Would they be contemplated in this section — people like that?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I am told that the net metering or the small ones may be under that or under the tariff that's already there with the Utilities Commission. So no, it doesn't mean that; it means the larger ones.

J. Horgan: As I read section 6, it's amending section 43 of the existing act. It is just about being compelled to respond to commission questions, and it tightens up the requirements for annual reports. Is that correct?

J. Horgan: In section 7, in the explanatory notes — this is referring again to sections 44.1 and 44.2 in the existing act — it says as follows: that this now "requires public utilities to submit long-term resource plans to the commission and authorizes them to submit expenditure schedules to the commission." Could the minister explain what those expenditure schedules would look like, or are they as they are today?

Hon. R. Neufeld: What it is, is that you can get approval from the commission for your demand-side

management, whatever form that may take. You'd have to get approval from the commission to do that. Or smaller capital projects, you could do it there, or electricity supply contracts. Those are just a few of the examples that expenditures would be related to that they could bring forward to the commission. Instead of doing each one individually, you could do a number of them at one time.

J. Horgan: So "Long-term resource and conservation planning" is the subheading for this new section. It fits in with the duty to keep records, or it's under that section of the new act. This is a new subsection, and it's quite extensive. It runs a number of pages in the new bill.

I'm loath to let that go by, just because the Queen likes us to shine light on these things. Again, the intent, as I understand it, of the first sections, as the minister has explained, is to encourage demand-side management or find that as part of the requirement for utilities to ensure that they are regularly reporting on what measures they have in place.

We're going to get to smart meters in a second, but again, I'm giving the minister licence here to stand and tell me in great detail why we have eight subsections now, where there used to be none.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, it's not that there doesn't have to be any. It's to clarify it, put it out relatively straightforward so that the commission understands, and so do the utilities that are actually going before the commission. It's to make sure that they bring all the relative information forward so that the commission can make informed decisions as they move forward.

J. Horgan: In section 9, we are now amending section 46 of the Utilities Commission Act, and this is the procedure on application. Again, I'm wondering at what point, if there is any in this section, interveners should be concerned. The "government's energy objectives" could be a movable target, I think.

One of the concerns that people have with this section — who have talked to me, at any rate, and there may be others out there that are concerned as well — is that it's fairly broad. Again, therefore, it's subject to potential abuse — not, certainly, by this minister but by potential ministers in the future — as to what the government's energy objectives might be. Maybe a clarification of that now would be a good idea.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I get the member's question. Really, and the member knows this, it's explained earlier. It's a section to deal with the commission — that they must take into account a government's energy objectives. I would assume there are people who don't always like the energy objectives of any government. That's pretty understandable. That happened, I know, during the '90s. It has happened now. No one is immune to those kinds of things. This is just to actually inform the commission that they must look at the objectives of an energy plan put forward by a government and apply that energy plan.

I'm hopeful — and I'm always hopeful, Member — that regardless of whose government it is, people actually think through these things, and think through them well, before they bring them forward as policy. At least in our administration, it has to go through an awful lot of processes to become policy.

It doesn't just become policy because one person thinks it should be. It's because a group of people, larger than just a government, has decided that's probably the best thing to move forward. It's probably an argument that the member has heard before, but I'll leave it with him.

J. Horgan: I don't disagree with the minister. It's just that as I read section 9(3.1)(a), the "government's energy objectives" are pretty broad. Again, as time goes by, circumstances change. Governments can come and change and amend this if they have the will of this Legislature. That's quite all right, except that I'm not necessarily clear — and I'm paying attention — on what the government's energy objectives are.

How are those that are not spending as much time on this as the minister's staff and myself going to find comfort that the government's energy objectives are consistent with — again, one assumes that they are, but they may not necessarily be — the objectives of some families, which are to keep the rates as low as possible so that they've got more money for other necessities like food and shelter?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'll maybe give one quick example: when you stood up after I released the last energy plan and said: "This is a real good energy plan. I think we should move forward with it." That's one example.

I can think of another example of Dr. Andrew Weaver, who said the same thing. I can think of another example of David Suzuki saying that this is a good energy plan. The Environment critic even gave not his whole support — and I'm not trying to infer that the member gave whole support either — but said: "You know, depending on how these things are enacted, it looks like a pretty good plan to move British Columbia into the future."

I think that regardless of what happens, there's no difference between that side of the House and this side of the House about the cost of energy. Of course everybody wants to keep the cost of energy down. We want to maintain and in fact stipulate that. We want to have the commission review costs on a constant basis and look at those costs to make sure that we're still retaining some of the lowest in North America.

You can also look at this in the light that we need to actually build some generation. We need to actually do some things in the province of British Columbia instead of just saying that we're going to keep your rates

really low and not build anything for the future, because that will cost you some place too, obviously. I know the member would agree with me on that.

I think that any government that comes in and wants to change the energy objectives certainly can do that. Basically, when we went through section 1, there was a pretty good description of them. It is broad. We want it to be broad so that the commission can actually look at all of those and see how they all fit together in the best way possible for the ratepayers in the province of British Columbia.

J. Horgan: I agree with quite a bit of what the minister said. I know that sometimes he finds discomfort when we are in agreement; sometimes not. I do want to say, while I'm on my feet, that I did give full marks to the conservation components. I hold Scott Sutherland responsible, if he's listening. He asked me to give a grade, and I said that on the conservation measures, I'd give them a B. I thought I was being generous. I'm glad the minister was grateful for that.

I think 50 percent of new energy, to fly, is an ambitious target, and if we can meet that, we're all going to be better off as a result. I believed it when the minister stood and issued the plan, and I still believe it today. So I have no quarrel with that.

As we go through this bill, we're going to be coming to part 3, "Energy Security and the Environment" shortly. There I divide greatly with the minister, and he knows that. This is where I think we can have some problems with this section under the government's energy objectives, because as he quite rightly said, there are many of the issues outlined in section 1 — the definition about what we would like to see the utility encourage. I think most people in this place would agree with that.

But as we literally turn the pages, shortly we're going to be at quite a significant divide between this side of the House and that side of the House and, I would suggest, a significant divide in the community. It's not just an "us against them" issue. There are many, many people very concerned about how the term self-sufficiency is being used as a component of government's energy objectives in what I would argue, and will argue shortly, is an uneconomic way.

Again, were it to be just section 1 and the definitions, I think you'd have complete agreement with me that government sets objectives, and the commission should be mindful of those as it hears applications for CNCPs. However, when we get further on in the bill, I'll have some trouble with that. With that comment, I'll just take my seat.

J. Horgan: I would suggest at this point that it would be useful to submit the following amendment, and I believe a copy is with the Clerks' table. It will be section….

The Chair: Member, may I just intervene. I think the advice I've been given in dealing with your amendment is that we should deal with section 11 first and then deal with your new section.

The Chair: Then you are adding a section, 11.1 — recommending an addition, I should say.

J. Horgan: Correct. While I'm on my feet, Chair, I'll just ask for clarification. I'd like to seek a division on section 11, so I'm wondering at what point the amendment fits into that.

The Chair: Member, after the House has dealt with section 11, then we would receive the member's new section, 11.1.

We are now, again, for those who don't have access to the legislation and are following this debate — I think Oprah started ten minutes ago, so we might not be as high up the channel as we would be otherwise…. We're dealing with the rate rebalancing section. This is amending section 58.1, the revenue-cost ratio. I'm wondering if the minister could explain to me and to those watching the intent of this section.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The commission had actually asked B.C. Hydro to come forward with a plan on rate rebalancing. There's no magic to how many years you wait until you do a rate rebalancing. In the midst of a whole host of other things that were going on, the commission ordered a rate rebalancing and would have increased further the cost of electricity to residential consumers by 11 percent.

We thought it was not prudent at this point in time to actually do that, so we're undoing a commission's decision of rate rebalancing. It would have had some further effects…. I think I said in my second reading debate, in regards to irrigation for farmers that actually irrigate their crops, that it would have been a lot higher than 11 percent. What we wanted to do was actually have some time to make sure that we get the amendments under the Utilities Commission Act and then, at a later time, the commission look at how they rebalance rates.

This is just simply to say no, we don't agree that you should put another 11 percent on the ratepayers of the province of British Columbia at this particular time. We undid that decision.

J. Horgan: Just so I'm clear, the rebalancing was an action by the commission to reduce industrial rates and increase residential rates — the tariffs for those classes of customers. By introducing this section, by passing this section, this Legislature will be saying to the commission that that rebalancing is not in effect. We'll be telling them to go back again and come up with

another rebalancing. Or is that the end of the exercise? Industrial rates will go back to the rate that they were at, and residential rates will remain where they were.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes, rate rebalancing is something that is done to actually set the rates, the costs of generation and what you should be charged in relationship to industrial, commercial and residential. What we are doing is saying that rate rebalancing that was done cannot be done and that they actually are encouraged to look at it — in fact, there's a date in there — by March 31, 2010, when they can review it again.

At that point in time, if in fact the rates need to be rebalanced…. That determination will be made at that time that they can't increase residential rates — because they're the ones that are out of sync a bit now — more than 2 percent a year to actually get it back into balance or what they determine balance to be, because it's different in different jurisdictions.

J. Horgan: I don't have with me the various orders that are referenced in the act under section 3, but it's section 3(a), (b), (c) and (d).

I appreciate the minister's response, but I didn't hear "with respect to the industrial class," because I believe that's where the rebalance took place. One rate went down when the residential rate, therefore, went up. That was the balancing exercise. Am I correct in that? If so, does that mean that the industrial rate will go back to the level it was prior to those orders, whichever one of those is the correct one?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm sorry if I didn't fully explain that. The rates will stay exactly as they were before the utility changed the rate rebalancing for industrial, commercial and residential, other than for the rate increases that took place.

J. Horgan: At this time I'd like to submit an amendment to Bill 15 under section 11.1. It goes as follows:

J. Horgan: For those who are not familiar with this, a lifeline rate is something that currently exists in other jurisdictions in North America, particularly in the jurisdiction of California. To qualify for a lifeline rate, families or individuals would have to demonstrate to the utility that they have a certain level of income that is below a standard that would be prescribed by regulation.

For example, in the California context they have what they call a CARE rate. CARE is the acronym that they use, and that is the California alternate rates for energy act. I know that the minister will want to support this amendment, because it gives the opportunity for this Legislature to say to the commission that there are those in our community who are hard hit by increasing costs of energy, whether it be home-heating fuel or gas at the pump if they need a vehicle to get to and from work or other pursuits.

With this amendment, we in this Legislature have an opportunity to say to low-income British Columbians that their hydro rates should not be so onerous that it leads to distress or shortfalls in other areas of their life, whether it be for food or housing or other such things. It has been considered in other locations. It's being discussed in Nova Scotia, as I understand it, as well as in Ontario.

I think it's certainly time in this Legislature and in this province where we can, with our abundance of electricity options…. I know the minister and I have some dispute on just how much electricity we do have at our disposal. Certainly, it's my contention that with the downstream benefits, which are a premium product owned by the province of B.C., not by B.C. Hydro but by the Treasury Board — in essence, by the taxpayers of British Columbia — we have an abundance of electricity at our disposal.

It might be an opportunity, with this amendment, to say to low-income British Columbians, to those many seniors in the community who see their rates rising…. Of course, we've all just voted in favour of forestalling the rebalancing that the minister talked about, which the commission had brought forward, and that's a step in the right direction.

By bringing forward this amendment at this time, I think I'm giving the Legislature and certainly the minister the opportunity to take another step in the right direction for low-income British Columbians — to set a rate specific for those who can least afford the cost of keeping their lights on and the cost of heating their homes, if they're using electricity.

This is innovative. It's cutting edge. It's something that in my opinion would certainly strengthen the relationship between the commission and ordinary people. These regulatory bodies quite often don't take into consideration the hardships that rate increases do have on families and ratepayers. Certainly, I know my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings would be supportive of this initiative. My colleague from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, where there are a number of folks who are living right on the edge….

Hydro rates quite often can be the difference between making it or not making it on your own. Finding

housing in the Lower Mainland is a challenge at the best of times. If you have to hook up with the hook-up charge that B.C. Hydro requires of new customers and then you have to pay significantly higher than necessary, based on the amount of electricity that I believe we have available to provide to low-income citizens…. This is an ideal opportunity.

In the California case, what they do is look at the total combined gross annual income, based on the number of members in the household. They must be below a certain amount prescribed by a table. I've got a table in front of me that indicates that a family of two with an annual income of less than $30,000 would come in at a certain rate. Then it goes up from there, depending on the number of individuals in the house — family members. I don't think this is necessarily designed for communal living, but that's something I think others certainly may want to touch upon as this debate progresses.

From my perspective, this is something that is being done in other jurisdictions. It's not so innovative that it would be dismissed by the government as something that's not necessary at this time. We all know the rising costs of energy — whether it be, as I've said, in the form of fuels or of electricity — can be a significant hardship.

I commend this to the House's attention. I'm hopeful that other members who have an interest in keeping rates down for low-income residents in their community will support this amendment.

The Utilities Commission is the place that would be appropriate for setting this, and I know that the minister and his staff would be aware of this. It's an opportunity. I believe it should have been addressed at this time, rather than leaving it for a subsequent amendment at another time. That's why I'm pleased to put it before the Legislature and before the minister for his approval and the approval of his colleagues on that side of the House.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm happy that the opposition finally got an opportunity to read the bill and actually vote for a section, section 11, that eliminated the 11 percent rate increase.

Everyone in the House will remember that during second reading they spoke about this bill in a huge number of ways that…. I didn't read anything into the bill, but one thing they did vote against in second reading was rate rebalancing, which would have seen everyone receive another 11 percent on top of what's already happening and, as I said, some farmers actually receive up to a 20 percent rate increase for irrigation.

So I'm pleased that the members actually saw the wisdom, in their way, to actually call a division on section 11 and actually record that they are in favour of keeping rates low for the people in the province of British Columbia. I appreciate that from the member opposite — that you're looking at it that way. That's how we actually looked at it when we designed that section.

We've done a number of things in British Columbia to keep the costs down for people who find themselves — maybe seniors on a fixed income and those kinds of people, through increased SAFER grants…. It was our administration that actually increased SAFER grants, which hadn't been increased for decades, I don't think.

We actually increased rates for those that find themselves disabled for whatever reason. We actually have increased revenue by eliminating and reducing income tax for those $15,000 and less. In fact, we eliminated it totally. That's something that wasn't there until this government came into office.

I appreciate what the member talks about here — a number of things and compared us to California. I just want the public to know, because they don't always have the information that we have in the House, although I would hope that the B.C. Energy Plan is on everybody's coffee table so that they can read it.

The price for electricity in California, in San Francisco in 2007, was 21 cents, and ours was 6.4 cents — so three and a half times what it is in British Columbia. I can understand maybe why California would be looking at some of those issues.

The bill also says that the commission must take into account rates and keep them some of the lowest in North America. We're very fortunate in the province of British Columbia, and contrary to what some people may say, I think that everyone in this House, really, if you come right down to it, wants to keep your electricity rates as low as we possibly can, understanding that there are some things that have to happen if we're going to have new generation in British Columbia.

There is a whole host of things that we've done. The inclining block rate, which the member said he was hugely in favour of earlier. Earlier I believe the member said the inclining block….

Hon. R. Neufeld: No, you're not in favour of the inclining block now? Okay, well, that's interesting, because I'll go back and read the Blues tomorrow. I think that earlier you said it was a good deal, and you were in favour of inclining block.

What happens with inclining block is that actually, most people that consume less than 1,600 kilowatts, I believe it is, during two months will actually see their prices stay exactly the same. They won't receive any increases. I'm not even talking about rate rebalancing. They won't even see any other increases.

So we have taken into account how we can do that. There's a whole host of things that are being done through the Ministry of Environment, through the Ministry of Housing in actually looking at ways that we can help people maybe insulate their houses, if in fact they need that — many people already have that — or doing something with the windows or doors — all of those kinds of things.

Power Smart. The member is aware of Power Smart. There's a program within Hydro to look at all of

those kinds of things — to work with seniors and those on fixed incomes to make sure that they're not impacted in a hugely negative way with rate increases.

As I said, we have the third-lowest rates in all of North America — not just Canada, in all of North America — and we want to stay there.

The member mentioned one other thing, the Columbia downstream benefits. I know that under the NDP administration…. They tried to give those away at that time, not to people that were on fixed incomes or that may have been having difficulty in life. They gave them away to large corporations in Power for Jobs, a program that we eliminated that actually chose companies that were having lots of problems financially. All of a sudden, guess what. The NDP were going to step in and help that particular company at the peril of other ones who were surviving quite well. So we saw a giveaway of some of the downstream benefits.

I think one of the programs in the downstream benefits — and I'll say it probably before the member says it — was the Highland Valley one, which was actually relatively good. Actually, it's worked well. But not all of them worked well.

Member, when you started picking out different groups to get a special deal, it didn't work out so well.

The member's also aware that those Columbia downstream benefits at some point in time…. He's right. They're owned by all British Columbians. I think it's $250 million or $350 million — I can't remember — back to the province of British Columbia to supply health care and education to everyone, regardless of who you are. It helps, actually, to provide that.

But those benefits don't last forever. They will end, I assume, at some point in time. There's a process in place. How that process starts…. It's not too long before we'll probably get the first notice that the U.S. wants to begin the first stage of revisiting the Columbia downstream benefits. I think that in the long term we'd better keep that in mind also.

I know that the Columbia downstream benefits weren't there for the full ten years that the NDP were there. But for a number of years, if the member remembers correctly — I do; I was here in the House — they wanted to actually sell them in a block for somewhere around $50 million for the next ten or 20 years to the U.S. to take that electricity. But thank goodness, cooler heads prevailed, and we were receiving that back in British Columbia, with Power Smart actually marketing that on behalf of all of us in the province.

That's basically what I would say to the member's amendment. I think we've dealt fairly with what has typically and always been in place in the province of British Columbia. There's a residential rate, there's a commercial rate, and there's an industrial rate. There are different things that happen in different areas, but basically, there are those three rates. That was never changed during the ten years in the 1990s, and I don't think we should venture out changing it today, with some of the lowest electricity rates in all of North America.

J. Kwan: I rise to enter into debate on this amendment, the call for the lifeline rate for this government. The minister just finished talking about the value and the importance of keeping hydro rates low to benefit British Columbians.

I've got to tell you that in my riding of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant we're one of the poorest neighbourhoods in all of Canada. Many people struggle day to day to try and just survive, to make ends meet. They have difficult choices with respect to tough decisions. Are they going to buy a new pair of shoes for their child at a time where the weather pattern is changing? Or do they spend the money to buy a new coat for their child when the weather pattern is changing? Or do they try to put food on the table? Those are the kinds of decisions that they make.

Many people in my riding actually don't have a telephone. Why is that? Not because they don't make calls but because they can't afford to have a telephone. They can't pay the monthly charges of a telephone, which I think it's fair enough to say that all of us in this Legislature take for granted. Not only do we have a telephone, but we have a cell phone. We have those things that people call CrackBerrys; we have computers and so on and so forth.

For some of the folks in my riding, the basic choice becomes: are they going to make rent this month? Are they going to be able to pay for food on the table? Are they going to be able to get some of the basic necessities for their children? Frankly, some children actually go to school with empty stomachs because the family income, the household income, is that stretched.

At a time where we're talking about changes to our system, at a time where the government, quite frankly, since 2001 has put in a lot of increased fees in a lot of areas…. I won't name them all, because the ministers know what they are. I don't need to reiterate all of those increased fees that have been put onto the average family.

At a time when the cost of living is also increasing significantly for many people in our community, something like a lifeline rate initiative would make a difference. That is to say that your hydro rate would be based on your income. So there's a sliding scale for those who could afford to pay a little bit more and for those who couldn't — to accommodate that and to simply make life a little bit easier.

I know that it's the case with some constituents of mine, frankly, that they've had the hydro cut off because they could not afford to pay the hydro bill. It's not because they don't want to pay the hydro bill, not because they don't need electricity but because they can't afford it. Every little bit helps.

I know of constituents, for example, who don't have heat in the wintertime. In some cases it's because the landlord they rent from actually doesn't provide the heat, or the heating system has broken down, and they haven't actually provided a replacement. But in other instances — and often it is the case — constituents of mine could not afford to pay for heat. They sit in the cold, and they try to survive as best they can.

Some people might just sit there and think: "Well, it's not that much. We already have some superior rates here in terms of hydro rates, so what's the big deal?" The big deal is that for people who are counting every cent that they bring home to make a difference, it means their ability to provide for their family or not — as simple as that.

There's no magic here. It's simply a question of affordability, and anything that we could do as legislators to make life a little bit easier for those who are living in the margins already, who are struggling already each and every day, will make a difference to their quality of life.

I urge all members of this House to support the amendment that has been put forward by my good colleague the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca and to make a commitment to British Columbians to support those living at or below the poverty line.

By the by, British Columbia has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest child poverty rate in Canada for the last four years, and as we know, children do not live alone. They live with parents, and many of those parents are single parents — who are working, by the by, who are not on income assistance but who are working one job, two jobs or multiple jobs in order to try and make ends meet.

This initiative, this amendment, the lifeline rate, will make a difference for those struggling families, and I urge all members of the House to vote in support of the amendment.

S. Simpson: I am pleased just to take a couple of minutes to add my voice to this discussion. I rise to speak in favour of the amendment.

As has been referenced by my colleague from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, I have very similar circumstances in my constituency, in Vancouver-Hastings. I think that coming into my office, the issue I hear more about than any other, probably, is the availability of affordable, appropriate housing for people and the struggle they have to find that accommodation that meets their needs and the needs of their families. We all know that one of the critical components in affordable, appropriate housing, of course, is meeting requirements around utilities and electricity.

The government has, in its rent subsidy program, acknowledged…. There's a debate as to how successful the program is or isn't. There's been some recognition, by the provision of the program, that we do need to provide support and assistance for people who face cost pressures that none of us in this room face in terms of being able to find housing for themselves and their families. The lifeline rate system that has been proposed in this amendment does provide another tool, another vehicle to begin to give people an opportunity to write down or to reduce their costs in an area where we have some capacity and ability to provide that support.

What we know is that when the pressures come in, when people pay the bills and when there are more bills than there is money to pay, they start making choices about which bills they'll pay and which bills they won't. Sometimes the hydro bill is the one that doesn't get paid. Of course, that builds up a liability for people, and there are times when those liabilities become so great that they face the additional pressures of the company coming back to have to collect or essentially turn off the power.

Now, I do believe that the government has no desire for that to be the case and that the government would have desire to support people to ensure that the cost of turning on the lights or other utility costs are not ones that should be prohibitive for people in our communities. In my community, for a portion of the people who live there, this is prohibitive. It is a challenge for them. We know housing costs, not everywhere but certainly in Vancouver, have become very challenging for people — to be able to just find a place to live. When you layer on those costs of utilities, you create additional challenges.

I do believe that this amendment provides one small tool and small vehicle for us to be able to support people who are facing that challenge and give them a little bit of extra assistance if they qualify and to be able to ensure that they keep a few more dollars in their pocket to pay for all the other critical costs in raising a family, etc.

I would hope that the government will give some consideration to the lifeline rate system that's been proposed here by the member for Malahat–Juan de Fuca. I do believe that it does provide us with a tool. I certainly know that for the people of Vancouver-Hastings, for a significant portion of my constituents, it would be a very welcome addition. It would be seen as a very welcome benefit to help them deal with what is often the very challenging issue of just getting from month to month and from cheque to cheque to pay the bills and make sure that they keep food on the table. They pay the rent; they pay the bills. This would be very beneficial in helping them get through what is often a very difficult challenge.

I believe this does move us forward to make us a more progressive, a more compassionate and, by its nature, a more sustainable society. It is worth our support, and I hope the members opposite will give some consideration to that.

J. Horgan: I'll just add a few more words to this issue. I thank my colleagues from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Vancouver-Hastings for adding to this debate. I really do believe — and I know others do as well — that as time goes by, as technologies invade our homes, mostly, we're told, to make life easier for us…. I'm thinking of the Internet, for example, and the need for electricity to access information.

Whether it be for government services…. I know that in certain ministries — the minister of human resources will know this — there are some programs that can only be accessed through the Internet, which will, of course, require electricity. The cost of using that electricity, as the two members from Vancouver have just articulated, can sometimes be onerous.

This is not about surfing the Net for entertainment. This is quite often a question of whether or not you're going to be able to access ministries, departments, government agencies to find assistance in times of need.

It's also an educational tool, and I know the Minister of Education would support any initiative that would allow children, particularly children of low-income families, to enhance their opportunities to access educational devices through the Internet.

Again, I just commend this to the minister's attention. It is an opportunity. I don't believe the cost would be prohibitive to reduce rates or to provide a lifeline rate for low-income British Columbians. I'm quite optimistic that the Legislature will support this amendment.

J. Horgan: As sad as I am that the government didn't see its way clear to support a lifeline rate, I'm sure that we'll find other opportunities to agree on some of these issues as we go forward, but sadly, not this section.

We're now on section 13, again for those who are trying to keep track of the debate at home. This is a new part that's called part 3.1.

We're now into the section 3.1, "Energy security and the environment." I have quite a bit to say about this. We did spend a lot of time at second reading — more time than any of us expected to on second reading. I think that it's appropriate that when we are here at committee stage and in the meat of the bill, the guts of the legislation, that we spend a good deal of time at least trying to get some squaring of the circle on this issue.

The first clause we see is electricity self-sufficiency, which will now be 64.01 in the act. It says the authority must: "(a) by the 2016 calendar year, achieve electricity self-sufficiency according to the prescribed criteria." Could the minister explain to me what that prescribed criteria is?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Yes. The prescribed criteria is — as the member knows, and I'm sure he read in the energy plan — critical water.

J. Horgan: Could the minister clarify. Was that "critical water," did he say? I didn't hear that.

Hon. R. Neufeld: By 2016 what we're asking is that we be energy self-sufficient. That means that we have enough energy in the province of British Columbia to keep our own lights on, to keep them lit, so that we're not dependent on other jurisdictions for our electricity. The measurement will be by critical water in the system.

The member knows full well what critical water is, average water and high water. It's what B.C. Hydro has used as measurements probably ever since they've had dams in the province of British Columbia, and that's the measurement we're asking them to use.

J. Horgan: Can the minister explain why 2016 was selected as a date for this self-sufficiency to be achieved?

Hon. R. Neufeld: So 2016 was chosen — it was in the throne speech in '06 — to give B.C. Hydro the opportunity for ten years to actually get electricity self-sufficient.

We understand that you can't build generation and do all of those kind of things in a short period of time. We thought, after discussions with B.C. Hydro obviously, that a decade was achievable to actually arrive there.

J. Horgan: Were there any reports or any consultants retained or any internal documents prepared to

Hon. R. Neufeld: This is to coincide with B.C. Hydro's energy planning and the integrated electricity plan that they released of what energy they'd need into the future. Much of the information was garnered from that.

J. Horgan: Well, the integrated electricity plan from Hydro to the commission somehow…. I don't recall seeing 2016 as a date that's been proposed by anyone other than the government, through the throne speech and, then subsequently, through the energy plan.

Perhaps the minister — I know he wouldn't have this at his disposal now — could commit to show me where in any of B.C. Hydro's documentation between 2006 and 2007 there was a direction or determination that it would be in the interests of the corporation to achieve energy self-sufficiency by 2016.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I may not have understood the member's question, but as I recall, he asked the question about what information was made available to choose 2016. Maybe I misinterpreted the question. It's not in the IEP for 2016 to be self-sufficient. That is a government directive — to be self-sufficient by 2016. Much of the material that was actually put together by B.C. Hydro and that was before the BCUC was the information that was used to determine that 2016 was an achievable date. I hope that clarifies it for the member.

J. Horgan: As I understand the minister, you reviewed the information that was available through B.C. Hydro and determined that that was an achievable date. It wasn't a date that was selected by B.C. Hydro; it was a government date. Okay, good. Thank you for that.

Well then, I'm curious, because I know a little bit about this. I know the minister has been in his portfolio for seven years now. That's a long time, and he knows this stuff very well, but I know a little bit about it also. I know that one of the advantages of our system is our ability to trade and Hydro's ability to manage those reservoirs in the best interests of ratepayers. I'm curious how it could be possible that purchasing disparate amounts of independent power, at times when our water levels are high, is going to somehow assist us in continuing to manage our reservoirs in the interests of ratepayers.

By setting a date certain, arbitrarily…. I think that's what the minister said; they decided that that's an achievable day, so let's pick that date. I'm going to call it arbitrary, and I don't mean anything by that. I'm not loading it up. I'm just saying that the government picked the day, and that's it. Based on inputs…. I'm not suggesting you pulled it out of the air. You looked at what was possible, and you said: "Let's do it by this day." You also added an insurance component on top of that, which I'm still not clear on. Maybe we can save that for another day.

It strikes me that the value of the reservoirs is diminished if we have to use them to manage inflows of low-value power at the time that IPPs can provide it to us and that then we're left potentially having to sell — if we're in a position to trade — at lower rates than we would have otherwise. How do we make this an economic endeavour rather than just a policy decision by government?

Hon. R. Neufeld: No one…. I mean, I know it's been said by the NDP — I listened to second reading debate — that we wouldn't allow B.C. Hydro to trade on the market anymore. In no place have we said that; in no place have we ever indicated that. B.C. Hydro will continue to buy and sell off peak and on peak as we continue into the future.

We know — at least, I believe we know, and I'm pretty sure about it — that you don't have to be in a negative position in the province and be depending on another jurisdiction for ten to 15 percent of your electricity to be able to trade. I mean, that rationale just doesn't work out. You can actually not have excess but at least meet your needs as you go forward and still continue to trade on the market.

There are still markets out there that want electricity. Actually, there are markets out there that want green, clean electricity. There is, I believe, a premium in many cases for clean electricity. In the places that we trade, in many cases, it probably can be as high as 60 percent generated by coal or natural gas. In fact, some of it is a lot lower than that, depending on where you trade.

Those jurisdictions are looking at how they can actually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions also. This is something in the future — and I'm sure that the member will agree — that there will be an opportunity to sell green energy at a premium as we move forward. If we want to do that as a premium as we move forward….

I don't think there's anything wrong with selling electricity. The member, the opposition critic, is quite vocal about that — that we should continue to sell electricity on the market. I can only assume that he would approve that we would sell electricity on the market if, in fact, we were self-sufficient. I don't think you have to be in a huge negative position to be able to sell off and on the market.

I appreciate the other point that the member makes that some of this electricity, not all of it…. When Hydro makes the calls for the electricity, they ask for a certain amount of firm and non-firm. We know that wind isn't firm, but it can be part of the mix. I'm sure that the member, in fact, during his second reading debate talked about wind energy. We will have some wind energy shortly in British Columbia, built in the northeast part of the province, in one of the last calls that B.C. Hydro made.

Those things are all moving ahead, and they'll be able to integrate that into the system quite well, remembering that it's a small amount of the total system that will be brought into the system to be able to

continue to trade. I don't think, for any reason, that we have to be in a huge negative position to be able to trade off and on the market.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for his answer. But, again, it's a mystery to me. You know, the minister and I have been going on this for a couple of years now, so it's no surprise that we have a disagreement on this question.

It seems to me that B.C. Hydro does its call for independent power. They get a number of positive responses. The price is significantly higher than the market price. We've talked about that, the reliability — some of it's firm; some of it's not firm — to meet peak demand to be self-sufficient. I believe we're already there. We're not exporting massive amounts of power at six o'clock every night to meet our domestic needs.

I think some people will be concerned that should we not meet this target of 2016, there are going to be rolling blackouts or some such thing. I don't believe that's going to be the case, and I'll give the minister an opportunity to say that he doesn't believe that's going to happen either.

Do you believe, Minister, that not meeting this target of self-sufficiency by 2016 will lead to any significant disruption in electricity distribution in British Columbia?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Well, first off, those are the member's words, not mine. Not anybody from this side of the House has ever said there's going to be rolling blackouts. I mean, that's part of the fearmongering that goes on about these kinds of things, about energy self-sufficiency.

The member will agree with me. He's on record of saying that he agrees with self-sufficiency. He may not agree with 2016, but he agrees with electricity self-sufficiency, and he's on record in a number of places. I have them in my desk. I can read them into the record, but I don't think there's any need for that. The member says he was raised that way, and he agrees with self-sufficiency. He just doesn't believe 2016 is the time to be self-sufficient.

We think that 2016, in the IEP, in the integrated electricity plan that B.C. Hydro brought forward…. The documentation they gave to us that we were going to need another 30,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in the next 25 years is something that we should look at, really look at — 30,000 gigawatt hours.

We consume today 55,000 gigawatt hours a year. So somewhere out there, 20 or 25 years, we need that much more electricity just to keep our lights on. We've asked B.C. Hydro to actually meet half of those 30,000 gigawatt hours by conservation, and the member agrees with me, I believe. At least he said a while ago that he believes in conservation and that it's a good thing that we should have conservation, and we should look at it carefully, and I do agree. I think we need to do that. Inclining blocks or time-of-use electricity pricing — and I'm sure we'll get to that in a matter of time; I'm not sure how long in regards to that — are good things to do to shave off the peak usage in this jurisdiction.

To think that other jurisdictions are going to continue to build electricity generation, which they are doing today for their growing needs, and we should just depend on that forever, is a bit irrational to me. To think that, my goodness, since the '60s, since we've had excess electricity in the province of British Columbia — and for those watching, when the dams were put in on the Peace and the Columbia, we had excess electricity — that there's something wrong with that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think actually being able to look after yourself with good, clean, green electricity to keep your lights on is something that probably all of us should agree on. I don't think that, with the ability to do it, and we have the ability to do it in the province of British Columbia…. Why should we depend on Washington, Oregon and California — who are short of electricity —Montana, Idaho or Alberta or any of those places?

If you don't think the need is growing in Alberta, check it out. They're talking about a nuclear plant to meet their needs — and a number of them, not just one. So they will run short of electricity in time coming, and we should just sit here as an island unto ourselves and say: "Guess what. We want to continue to be not just 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent. We want to grow to be 50 percent dependent on our neighbours to the south, and they're great neighbours, or our neighbours to the east, and they're great neighbours."

But let me tell you, at least the way I've got it figured, that at home and the way I was raised, if they're short, they're not turning the lights off to keep B.C.'s on. That isn't saying the lights are going off. Let me tell you, at some point in time, you have to think about those things in the long term.

We talked earlier about transmission. You know, actually thinking about transmission, thinking out 20 years and how you actually work the transmission planning with B.C. Hydro and Fortis across the whole province of British Columbia, so that we can meet the needs of all British Columbians, regardless of where they live in the province of British Columbia…. I think those are smart things to do. The same is, actually, making sure that you have enough electricity to keep your own lights on in the province of British Columbia.

Contrary to what I heard in second reading debate, no one in government…. Not in this act does it say anywhere that you can't buy off the market, that you can only buy one place, and that you can't build anything. That's entirely incorrect. That's the fearmongering that goes on out there that…. Actually, we need to bring some facts to light.

I don't think, Member, that you have to be in a negative position, that you have to be dependent on other jurisdictions for, as we see in the last… I think it is eight years out of the last ten or 12 that we have been net importers of electricity. We can stand and argue about net importing. They're not my numbers. I don't come up with those numbers. Actually, Powerex gives

us those numbers. That's that corporation that sells and buys electricity for the province of British Columbia that B.C. Hydro generates. Those are their numbers.

To be short sometimes 15 percent, even 10 percent, of what we need actually to keep our own lights on…. What happens if down in the future…? Certainly you're going to see Washington grow. I think you're going to see Oregon grow. I think you're going to see California grow. I mean, they've seen massive growth there. California, for one, knows what happens when you don't have enough electricity.

For me, I think it's pretty straightforward. It's a pretty down-to-earth thing that I think most British Columbians, some don't, understand — that it's not a bad idea to have enough electricity in your own home province if, in fact, you can generate clean, green electricity.

Now, some of those other jurisdictions have no other opportunity other than maybe coal or natural gas or nuclear. You know what? We're fortunate in this province to have other options. I think we should actually take those options. I think we should actually reach out and say, "Yes, we think it's great to be energy self-sufficient in the province of British Columbia," and we should be proud of that. We shouldn't be shy to say we're proud of being sufficient to ourselves if, in fact, we can be.

To relate it all to: "It's going to cost more money…." When you blend that in — that new generation, obviously, that's being built now — the cost of it is no different than any other place that they're building in.

If you go to neighbouring jurisdictions in Canada or the U.S., you'll find those costs about the same. Whether it's wind energy, run of the river or biomass — all of those kind of things — the costs are about the same. The costs will be the same whether the Crown builds it or independent power producers build it. So to us there's nothing wrong. That's the way we believe, and those are the things we believe in — that you can sign contracts with independent power producers, in some cases for up to 40 years and in some cases less, depending on what the independent power producer wants to do.

You can buy that electricity. You can buy and sell it off the market. You can actually update the facilities you already have, which is going on regularly as we speak. Aberfeldie is one — the 500-megawatt generator that's going into Revelstoke. There is opportunity for more, and those are under study. CPC is looking at Waneta to actually expand that.

There is nothing wrong with having that electricity in Waneta, by the way. I've heard the members talk a lot about Waneta. That's a project that actually only delivers electricity at a time when there is a fair amount of electricity in the province of British Columbia. But that's what we asked Hydro to do and Powerex to actually look at. They're great. They do a really good job. We should be proud of them for the job that they do for British Columbia — keeping our rates low, and over 90 percent of it coming from clean sources and moving to having electricity self-sufficiency.

J. Horgan: Well, again, the minister's comments about my support of self-sufficiency is a result of my mother teaching me to take care of myself, and most mothers do that. Where I quibble on this issue…. This is a good opportunity for the minister and I to go back and forth on this, because it's not a huge divide, but it's a significant divide.

The notion of energy self-sufficiency by a certain date says to the marketplace, says to those who would provide energy to B.C. Hydro if they're private power producers, that by law now, in the Utilities Commission Act, the primary supplier of electricity to most British Columbians, B.C. Hydro, must buy all the power that they will need in a critical water year — not a normal water year, but a critical water year. In addition to that, they must purchase 4,000 gigawatt hours more than they need — the insurance policy provision of that.

Again, the language. Sustainability, self-sufficiency, green, clean — all shiny words that make us all feel comfortable in our bellies. This is stuff that most of us were nurtured on in British Columbia, and that's a good thing. I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the notion that you now have a marketplace that is going to be drastically skewed because the government of British Columbia said that this is the day something shall happen.

Would it be appropriate for B.C. Hydro to find new energy supply? Absolutely. Will that cost vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction? Probably not. The inputs are about the same in the Pacific Northwest, as they call it in the States, or here in British Columbia. They're pretty much the same. We don't have a lot of difference of opinion on that.

Where we divide sharply is that the government's focus is on creating an independent power sector, and they've said to that independent power sector now that by this law and by this section of this law they have a captive market. They have a buyer that is a willing buyer with, in essence, a gun to their head saying: "By 2016 you must buy this much power."

How can you go into a negotiation as an entrepreneur — and I know the minister's background is in business — with someone and say: "I'd like to buy a product from you, and I'm compelled by the law to buy this much of it by a certain date"?

How do you go into that negotiation with the upper hand? I don't think you do. That's been my quarrel on this file right from the start, right from the beginning. The government, in its desire to prop up the independent power sector, has put in place encumbrances on the Crown by saying: "By this day you must buy this much."

The challenge for those of us on this side of the House is not that we are against self-sufficiency as a concept, whether it be electricity or buying ferries. Would we like to be self-sufficient as a marine province, creating ships and vessels to move people around? I think we probably would. The government doesn't seem to think so. The government seems to think that the marketplace should dictate those sorts of

I don't know; I've not been on one of them yet. I might get the opportunity, when I leave the Island to go over to the Lower Mainland, to talk to people over there. I might get on one of these new boats made in Germany. We're not self-sufficient in ferries, and that's a tangible, real, physical asset that could have employed people in British Columbia, could have created new skills, could have created a whole network of new business opportunities.

How are we doing that by doing micro-hydro up and down the west coast, particularly when those that are providing that electricity know that the buyer has to buy it by 2016? It strikes me that if we're not near our target by 2014, the value of that independent power project just went through the roof.

A question to the minister is how do you get into a negotiation with the private sector and say to them: "I need what you're selling, and I need a whole bunch of it by this date. How can you help me"? How is that in the interests of ratepayers?

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's always interesting to listen to the rationale of how, I guess, you don't want to be energy self-sufficient and how you don't want to be open and transparent with the public. I guess by a wing and a prayer you just get there. I don't know. But let me tell you that if you don't set targets and you don't set dates and you don't set times, usually what happens is that when you get to that time you set a few months ahead, you say: "Oh my goodness, we can't make it; let's add to the time frame." That doesn't get you anywhere.

Let me take what the member talked about, about the price of electricity. He agrees with me, and I appreciate that, that the cost to build wind energy is not much different in British Columbia than it is south of the border — at least, that's what I think I heard him say — or in Alberta, where we would actually have to import electricity. The argument that it's exorbitantly high in the province of British Columbia to build this is answered by what the member said, because he agrees with me. To build it south of the border or to build it east of us costs about the same as it does in British Columbia.

So there's a competition process that goes in place. This fits with the ferries. It's interesting. There was a competition. It was open. There were companies in British Columbia….

I mean, ferries are a far thing from what we're talking about here, but there was a competition in British Columbia to build the ferries, and a company in Germany won. That's competition. The competition was out there. It's the same when they called for energy. When Hydro makes a call for X amount of electricity that they would like to receive, it doesn't mean that they're going to actually take that exact amount. If they called for 5,000 gigawatt hours or 3,000, they may take more, or they may take less, depending on the price and what it looks like. But that's the competition that happens.

You know, there are lots of them out there bidding. I can go back to the 1990s and show you where Glen Clark and Moe Sihota — you're familiar with those folks; I know the member is very much familiar with those folks — and members of the NDP cabinet at that time…. In fact, even the member for Yale-Lillooet, who spoke so much against independent power producers, was bragging them up in the 1990s. The fact that there were 26 independent power producers in the 1990s says that even the NDP at that time agreed with it. So there is a competition factor that goes there.

The member agrees with me that the costs are the same in other jurisdictions to build that kind of power. But right now I believe that Hydro actually spends about $300 million worth of ratepayers' money south of the border or in Alberta every year to buy electricity.

Wouldn't it be better to have that electricity actually built in the province of British Columbia — to have that investment in British Columbia, to have the ensuing jobs in British Columbia and spend that money in British Columbia rather than in other jurisdictions? Wouldn't it be better for those small communities, whether they're along the coast…?

In fact, the independent power producers have shown that they can build across the province. Wouldn't it be better to have that money reinjected into local economies in the province of British Columbia instead of into economies in Washington or Oregon — not probably in California — or Montana, Idaho and Alberta? Wouldn't it be better to actually inject that kind of cash into British Columbia and create jobs here?

At the end of the day, to have happen what the member and I agree on, I believe, is that we should be energy self-sufficient. It's the date he takes umbrage with. I'm trying to explain how competition works with calls for electricity and how you keep the rates as low as you possibly can and blend those into the rates that we already have in the province of British Columbia, as every other jurisdiction is doing.

Quebec is doing the same thing; Manitoba is doing the same thing. It doesn't matter where you go. They're building some new generation because all those provinces and jurisdictions are starting to grow more and more every day. Probably we'll become more dependent on electricity as we move forward, decades out, compared to using a lot of fossil fuels.

There are things that we have to look at seriously and move towards. We can disagree on the date. I appreciate that, but I appreciate that the member thinks we should be self-sufficient.

J. Horgan: Well, I certainly don't agree that private power costs the same as public power. I don't agree with that. So let's get that right on the record.

Can offshore suppliers bid on B.C. Hydro calls based on section 64.01 of the new Utilities Commission Act? Once this bill passes, will offshore bidders be able to bid on new sources of supply, as ferry builders were able to do with B.C. Ferries?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Certainly. It's similar to how it was when the projects were developed in the 1990s. The member's quite familiar…. I'll remind him of one at Campbell River. It was an American company that built it. That's who the contract was with.

Yes, foreign money can come in and build projects in the province of British Columbia. That happens all the time in everything that we do, whether it's oil and natural gas…. There's lots of investment from around the world in British Columbia. We're actually open. We don't mind the investment from all over the world, and it keeps the competition going.

J. Horgan: I'm up quickly, and I thank the minister for giving way to the floor.

It wasn't a question of: can international money come to B.C. to create a return? That wasn't the question. Can suppliers of energy from south of the border and east of the border bid on new energy supply to B.C. Hydro with this section?

J. Horgan: Then that's an answer. That gives me the answer that I wanted. You used the example of B.C. Ferries, as I did, and said that that was the marketplace, that was competition. Well, there is no competition if you can't buy power generated outside of the province of British Columbia.

How can there be competition if the purchaser of new energy supply, B.C. Hydro, is constrained in where they can go in the marketplace? This is an integrated electricity market. We know that. We've done very well by that integrated system. This clause says that B.C. Hydro can't go get the best deal for ratepayers. It must only purchase from one class of providers, and that class is independent power. That's not competition to me.

If the minister could get me to understand that, then we might have a convert here.

Hon. R. Neufeld: The competition is…. The member used the ferries. There was a competition for ferries to be built. That's what I'm talking about — the competition out there, if you want to actually bid in to build that ferry.

The difference here is that if you want to supply electricity to British Columbia and you generate it in British Columbia, there's a competition to keep the rates at…. I mean, what the member talked about — that they go sky-high…. He agreed with me, finally, that they don't go sky-high, that building wind power down south of the border or in Alberta costs about the same as it does in British Columbia in the process that we're in. There is a competition within British Columbia to buy that electricity.

This does not stop B.C. Hydro from buying and selling off the spot market in the U.S. I don't know how I can say it any clearer than that. We will actually continue to buy and sell on the market in the U.S. I don't know why the member thinks…. The member must understand and know that prior to us becoming a net importer of electricity, we actually bought and sold on the market.

Interestingly enough, B.C. Hydro has bought and sold on the market for a long time. They bought and sold out of the U.S. when we had more electricity than we needed, when we had a surplus. There's no difference in what we would get to today.

I don't know why the member is so intent that you have to be negative of electricity, that that's the only time you can buy and sell off to market. I guess that's maybe someplace where you and I will part, because I believe you can have a surplus of electricity and sell on the market and still sell in peak and off peak.

Let's go to the peak that was on COB here just recently. I have $90 a megawatt hour. So it's not always…. You can't just take the average of COB and say that's what the price is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's not quite what it is. You have to look at the peaks and the drop.

I know that we don't agree on it. I agree and this party agrees that we should be self-sufficient, that we can be self-sufficient, that we can actually look after our own needs, that we can actually have enough electricity generated in the province of British Columbia to keep our lights on and that we can still trade with the Americans and with Alberta. All of that can happen under our energy plan and what we've directed through the B.C. Utilities Commission Act.

J. Horgan: But under this section, Minister, the utility cannot purchase least-cost power to meet our domestic needs, and that could be fish-flush requirements for federal U.S. fish requirements. That's clean. That's green. It could be wind from Alberta. We talked about that at second reading. Not all the power on the marketplace is dirty. Some of it is dirty. No question about that. We don't need to get into that right now.

The challenge for me is that there is no competition in the broader marketplace, which is international. Certainly, it's North America–wide with respect to electricity — which is a commodity, by the way. It's not a boat, as a ferry would be. It's not a convention centre. It's not an on-time and on-budget sort of thing.

That's why the date certain troubles me so much. It's a commodity. The prices go up and go down. The minister quoted a California-Oregon border cost of $90 a megawatt hour. That's high. Sometimes it's as low as $45, and it's somewhere in between.

What the beauty of the B.C. Hydro system is, as I understand it, is that they've been able to play that

market in the best interest of ratepayers. They don't go out and buy power when it's too high. They let the water spill out of the reservoirs rather than buy too high.

It's that flexibility that I believe is constrained by this section. That's my whole beef. It's the flexibility that the Crown did have in the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and the early part of this century to go to the marketplace — that could be a domestic market; it could be in Alberta, California, Washington, Montana, wherever — and secure electricity.

I mentioned brownouts. It wasn't the minister that said that. Someone on that side of the House said that there were going to be brownouts. I'll check the Blues and get back to you on that.

If it comes to pass by 2016 that we are in serious jeopardy of having an electricity catastrophe, it's probably going to be pretty much out of our control. It's not going to be located here in British Columbia. It's going to be up and down the west coast of North America. We need to be concerned about that. We need to know that we can access power for our domestic needs. The minister and I agree upon that.

What troubles me is that you have a Crown corporation in the marketplace providing services to British Columbians, providing services to other users up and down the west coast of North America. Why would you say to that utility publicly, date certain in legislation, that they must do something by that date?

Why would you not direct them, as you're able to do as the minister without legislation, and say: "You need to build to meet this"? Go to the commission, and say to them: "You need this much electricity to meet domestic supply. You don't want to be overly dependent on exports to meet peak demand."

I would argue you'll find that B.C. Hydro will say that at peak demand we're all good. The challenge is: what do we do for the 24-hour day? What do we do for the seven-day week? What do we do for the 12-month year? That requires flexibility.

I don't believe that this clause gives the Crown the flexibility it should have to make decisions, commercial decisions, in the best interests of ratepayers. That's my problem with this. In my mind, the fact that it is designed to prop up the IPP sector is a problem for me. It's a problem for those of us on this side of the House.

Is it a challenge across the board to have private power in our system? Certainly not. The minister has quoted, chapter and verse, the number of IPPs. Teck Cominco is not the smallest IPP on the planet; Alcan, not a particularly small IPP. Were they working in the province of British Columbia in the 1990s? Yes, they were. Were they providing electricity to customers outside of their own base? Yes, they were.

We buy and we sell when it's advantageous to do so. I don't see where it's advantageous to say to the suppliers: "I need to buy your stuff by a certain date." That's where we divide, and I don't believe there's going to be any reconciliation on that matter as the afternoon progresses.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I look forward to estimates debate, because I can't imagine we're not going to go through, probably, all of this again. But I just want to correct a number of things here.

If you want to actually be blind to the fact that we're going to need 30,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in the next 25 years…. That's over and above what we have today. If in fact you want to say that 10 percent to 15 percent of your electricity now…. You're a net importer, so that's anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 to 12,000 gigawatt hours.

If you want to say that in 25 years — well, round the numbers — we want to be short 40,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in British Columbia, that we should be dependent on the jurisdiction called the United States of America or the jurisdiction called Alberta, I think you're wrong, Member. I just can't get that rationale. What is wrong with actually having that money rotate in the province of British Columbia?

I'm surprised that an NDP government would say: "I want activity to take place in other jurisdictions. I don't want it to take place in my province. I don't want people to work in my province. I don't want people to actually have enough electricity in my province to keep their lights on — if, in fact, you get to that point in time."

You know, there's nothing wrong with actually building generation. Hydro can build some of their own. You know full well and I know that the NDP have been all over the map on this one, too, from supporting it to not — Site C.

Hon. R. Neufeld: Site C. It's in stage 2. The member over there is chirping away a little bit, but Site C is in its second stage.

I don't know whether it will get built or not. I'm not sure. But I know that it takes about 15 years to get a project like that built, and that's under 5,000 gigawatt hours of firm electricity a year. We're looking to need 30,000 above the 10,000 or 12,000 that we now import.

Members on that side of the House sit there and say that's okay, because they're running around saying it's the market that actually demands all this. Well, listen. Keeping enough electricity in the province of British Columbia is not a bad deal.

The member referred to us or Hydro being able to sell on the market because we were short of electricity in the '70s, the '80s and the '90s. Well no, we weren't, in the '70s; we weren't, in the '80s. We had an excess of electricity, and you're right. They bought and sold off the market. I know that in the '90s…. I believe there were two years in the '90s that we were net importers under the watch of the NDP.

Under the watch of the NDP, they only built 11 percent of the generation that was required to meet the growth in demand. How long can you do that before you get into trouble? It takes years to build a transmission line. You don't just build that overnight. I think the member knows that full well. I certainly know that,

and I'm sure that he's been following all of that. It takes a long time to be able to do those kinds of things.

It takes a long time. Fifteen years, even if Site C was built, from the time you started, and that's a rough guess — 15 years. Shouldn't we be planning a little bit now for what's going to happen in the future with load growth? Shouldn't we try to at least have enough electricity in the province of British Columbia for our own needs? Shouldn't we spend that money in the province of British Columbia instead of having B.C. Hydro spend over $300 million a year south of the border and in Alberta buying electricity from independent power producers?

That's the private sector down there, in both those jurisdictions. There is no real public entity. It's mostly private sector, and I'm not talking about whether it's coal or wind or whatever. There is a little bit of wind in Alberta. In fact, some days a lot, but anyhow, I digress. Maybe 5 or 8 percent of their generation is by wind. The rest is by coal and natural gas.

I think we should look at being energy self-sufficient. We can beat this for…. If you want to go on for a couple of days about this, I'm quite willing. I'm quite happy. I'm quite happy to continue to stand here and tell Fred and Martha, the people out there that actually get the electricity from us, that the NDP want us to be dependent on other jurisdictions. They want us to be dependent on the market in other jurisdictions where it could actually get short of electricity.

Let's not think that didn't happen in California. Ask a few folks in California if they were happy about paying a thousand dollars a megawatt hour for electricity.

Hon. R. Neufeld: When the NDP were in power they sold into that market and took advantage of it.

The member from Maple Ridge talks about privatization. He lives in another world some days. You know, having it generated in the province of British Columbia and buying it with IPPs is bad to that member, and having it built in the U.S. by IPPs by the private sector is good to that member.

I don't care how you beat this around. The public understands it quite well. You can still trade on the market. Hydro is not curtailed from trading on the market. They're not curtailed just to IPPs. They can build some of their own generation. They can also look at updating some of the generation they already have, and it's happening in some of the areas of members that are in the House right now.

I don't think there's anything in the world wrong with having enough electricity in the province of British Columbia to meet our own needs, but if your party and your group want to continually say that we should be dependent on the private sector in the U.S. and the private sector in Alberta, I guess that's a wall I don't have a wit of problem with.

J. Horgan: Certainly, the minister will know well that land use in B.C. is a blood sport in every corner of the province, even in the Peace country where the minister comes from. People are profoundly concerned about what happens on the land, whether it be on Crown land or sometimes on private land. We have debates at municipal councils. We used to have debates at municipal councils with respect to run-of-the-river projects. We don't do that anymore because of legislation on that side of the House.

People in communities want to have some say on what's going on in their community. One of the challenges of having an open call…. We're going to get to that now, moving to the standing offer and some of the other provisions.

When the minister was inventorying those opportunities for B.C. Hydro, one thing that he didn't inventory was their ability to look at the province — to look at opportunities for micro-hydro and to build it in a sequential way to meet our domestic demand, potentially and most advantageously, and to have those micro-hydro projects servicing the communities that they're in rather than building transmission lines to take that power and move it somewhere else in the province.

One of the advantages of micro-hydro, as the minister knows well, is that it provides an opportunity to displace other sources — like diesel in the northwest, for example. Why wouldn't we want B.C. Hydro, in a climate change environment…?

Our Crown corporation knows electricity better than most people and certainly knows it better than the Howe Street promoters that are behind some of the IPPs that the minister lauds. Wouldn't you want to have B.C. Hydro, with their expertise and with their access to other sources of supply, in the game with respect to micro-hydro?

The minister said that they can upgrade at Mica and Revelstoke, and that's good. The minister says that they're looking at Site C, and that's fine. Aberfeldie, I think, is a wee bit over budget. We'll touch on that in estimates. We don't want to get into today.

There are opportunities for B.C. Hydro, for public power. Why wouldn't we let B.C. Hydro get in the game and build their own generation? That's the sort of self-sufficiency that, I think, resonates with the public — having B.C. Hydro providing new sources of energy for the consumers. That resonates with the public.

The notion that somehow some of the promoters of independent power projects in British Columbia know more about energy, about land use and about what the requirements will be 15 years out — that's where we divide, as I said to the minister.

He's also talking about 30,000 gigawatt hours of new energy. We're looking at 15,000 of that from conservation, so we're down to 15,000. If we have a high-water year, we'll manage that without too much difficulty if we bring on these capacity projects, as we're contemplating, in the major dams on the Columbia, the energy from Waneta, the downstream benefits we've talked about and the potential for Site C. So it's not as dire as the minister characterizes it.

That's, again, another one of the challenges that I have. I live in a practical world, and I'm not driven. We on this side of the House in Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition have an obligation to highlight some of the inconsistencies in government policy, and I believe this is a fairly stark one.

I'd like to move on, still under section 13. It's a large section, and I was hopeful we would be able to dispense with this. I've still got an amendment to come yet. I'd like to quickly just ask about the standing offer and if the minister could characterize for me what an "eligible facility" would be? If so, does it include, for example, greenhouses?

Hon. R. Neufeld: Actually, what it includes is clean or renewable — Hydro has those definitions — or high-efficiency cogeneration. It's a program that is being used quite often in those places that the member talks about.

I think California has a standing offer. I know Ontario has had a standing offer for a while. Some of those jurisdictions that have a standing offer for people that…. Maybe they live out in the country someplace, and they have some way to generate electricity. Maybe they live in the city, and they have a large roof or something that they can put solar panels on, which is in excess of what electricity they need.

The Crown is actually instructed to pay the average of the last electricity call to those people for that excess generation that they may put back into the grid. I know we've been criticized by some people that that's not enough electricity for some of the people out there that want to produce it by solar or some other means. We think it's an opportunity for people to self-generate their electricity and sell back into the grid, obviously, what they have in excess. This will be for people that are on the grid.

I want to just qualify one thing before we leave electricity self-sufficiency — rural communities. It's this government that actually started working with rural communities. There's a program that Hydro has been instructed to work on to get as many rural communities off diesel generation as possible. That could be with small IPPs. It might be a company coming in to work with that small community to build generation. It might be the community building it themselves.

We know that there are numbers of first nations around the province of British Columbia, some right here on Vancouver Island, that are tickled pink with the opportunity to have activity happen on their land base, to actually have employment. There are some along the coast, the East Toba.

There are first nations there that say they now have a future. They didn't for years. They had nothing to look forward to, and now they have a future with hydroelectric generation in their traditional territories. It's a way of looking at those communities. I forget the number of communities, but there are quite a few that Hydro, many of them first nations…. So they have to work with INAC to get through the process.

Many of those communities are not delivered electricity in the best fashion that we would say would be acceptable to the rest of us in the province of British Columbia. We have to work with those communities in the best way we can to help them self-generate.

Some of those communities need much less than ten megawatts. It may be intermittent power, so they still may need diesel backup for their firm electricity or for secondary electricity. Many of us have two lines running into our communities, so if one goes down, the other one is there to serve us. We need to look at that, but that's what the standing offer actually accommodates.

J. Horgan: Again, with respect to high-efficiency cogeneration, is there a definition for what is high-efficiency that I could put my hands on? Again, I ask if greenhouses are contemplated as a potential source of supply.

Hon. R. Neufeld: We can go on to another question. The staff here are looking for some of that. If they don't have it, I'll commit to the member that we'll get it to him.

When he asks about greenhouses, I don't know. I can't say. If they fit the clean or renewable and high-efficiency cogeneration, they may fit those criteria. I don't know. That would have to be determined. Just a carte blanche to say yes or no would be pretty difficult.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister for taking the look or committing to getting back to me on that. One of my concerns is that natural gas, of course, is used extensively in the Fraser Valley and in the Delta area for greenhouses, and they don't always need all of the energy that they're producing. I would think that the standing offer would be an ideal opportunity for those facilities.

Again, though, we're into the food-or-fuel argument, and it could come to pass that if rates are high, the average of the last call would be in the $80 to $90 range. That's a pretty good return on your natural gas burning. Rather than growing tomatoes, it might be more advantageous to grow megawatts. I'm wondering if the minister has any thoughts on that.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I didn't hear all of the question, but the average of the last call was $74, not $85 or $90. Staff have just informed me that the average was $74.

J. Horgan: The natural gas, is that considered…? If it's high-efficiency co-gen, yes. But if it's…. I wouldn't put that in the clean or renewable section.

Hon. R. Neufeld: They're looking for that, so we'll get that information to the member.

J. Horgan: With respect to the smart meters that are referenced here — and I touched upon this at second reading — I want to ensure that the minister is aware that if there's a solid business case for the installation of smart meters right across British Columbia, then I would be certainly enthusiastically supportive of that. But as I understand it now, by putting this section 64.04 into the act, we are saying that there will be no

I'm wondering how that could be in the best interests of ratepayers, even though it will provide them with a graphic opportunity to visualize just what their energy consumption is or electricity consumption is. That may or may not be a good thing, and this is where we may quibble.

I think many electricity users would be delighted to know just what the cost is or what the usage is at certain times of the day, but that may well not be a determining factor in terms of their conservation. It may well be a little bit of a gimmick, and I don't want to overstate that. I don't want the minister to get up and say: "Oh, we're just talking about gimmicks." I know it's more than that.

For some people, they're going to say, "Well, that's cool," and then they're going to stop looking at it maybe a year or 18 months from now. We will have expended a goodly amount of money for a gadget — albeit a gadget that can direct behaviour, should the person who has it in their house wish to be directed. But if they choose to ignore it, then don't you think we may well be expending more money than we need to on these devices?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I remember the member's remarks during second reading, and some of the other members…. Hydro has actually tested smart meters to a degree over the last couple of years to find out just what happens when people have a smart meter installed at their house. I have one installed at my house because I wanted to be part of the test case to see how things worked. They did it across the province. I think there were 2,000 people participating in these kinds of things.

Some of the things that came back to Hydro were that 63 percent of the participants saved electricity and saved money. So there is something that says that when you know how much you're spending, it does actually temper some people — maybe not everyone — into using it in a smarter fashion. They're still maybe using the electricity but using it off peak or at some other time when the price is lower.

I'm priced on peak and off peak. There's a significant difference in the bill. I don't remember the amount, but I know it's significant. I look at mine at the end of every month to see what took place. During peak hours, as I say, I think it was Campbell River on Vancouver Island that actually did better than any other group across the province of British Columbia.

It says another thing. During all hours of the four-month winter period a participant's average energy savings was 7.6 percent, 8 percent. So there are some significant savings in doing smart meters. In this day and age I don't think there's anything wrong with using some of the technology that's given to us to actually make things better in our lives. If we can actually help with the conservation factor — I know the member agrees with me — and also look at using on peak and off peak, that will be beneficial to the Crown and utilities all over North America.

It's not just British Columbia. I'm told that over 800 electric, gas and water utilities are deploying advanced metering technologies of some kind. I'm not saying they're all the same, but of some kind. There are lots of them. Fortis has already started to do it. We're a long way behind.

I know it's expensive. I see the numbers too, and I'm surprised by the numbers. But at the end of the day and over the long term B.C. Hydro, maybe contrary to what some people say, will still be here as a publicly owned entity — as long as we're around — for the province of British Columbia. We should be looking at ways that we can actually make it use its energy a lot smarter. We can get time-of-use pricing. They can do that digitally. It's an absolutely great way of doing it, rather than reading meters at the end of every month.

J. Horgan: Well, I met with the CEO some time back — a couple of years, I guess. He advised me at that time of his enthusiasm for the pilot project he was participating in. I encouraged him to come and hook one up in my house, and he didn't do it. Maybe this debate would be shorter if he had done that.

I don't have the benefit of the minister's experience with these devices, but I have looked at the literature. I'm interested that of this pilot group of 2,000-odd homes…. My experience with public opinion surveys and canvassing opinion — I have a bit of experience in that — is that usually, if you get a focus group, they're willing participants, and they're actively wanting to put forward their opinions so that the group has them clearly in front of them.

If you've got a 2,000 sample size and you find 63 percent saved money or electricity, that's not a particularly good return on a group of people who were by and large self-selected. If they weren't self-selected, then that's a different matter. But the minister certainly had a device at his home, and the CEO had one at his home. I don't know how many other Hydro executives availed themselves of the opportunity. I don't believe anyone on the opposition side has a smart meter. Again, perhaps that might have been a good way for….

J. Horgan: Well, maybe it's going to happen anyway, based on this section. I'll just wait for it to be installed.

Again, I don't think this is really the time, and maybe in estimates, when we have the benefit of B.C. Hydro and the CEO at your elbow, we'll be able to have a broader discussion.

I'd like to go back to the business plan. I know that this government, other governments and other people across the province would like to see a business plan and have it tested by the commission, if not some other body, to ensure that this is a useful expenditure of ratepayers' money, because at the end of the day the cost of installing these is going to be borne by rate-

Does the minister have a plan for testing the value and efficacy of these devices?

Hon. R. Neufeld: First off, I want to respond to the one thing that my critic said in regards to how people got them into their homes. Actually, as I understand, they advertised in the newspapers in different communities, because they wanted to target different communities and different parts of the province. That's why they targeted Fort St. John.

I didn't do it through the community. I knew what was happening and said: "Hey, I want to be part of it." It's not something that's secretive or anything like that. I think that's exactly how they did it and probably not a bad way to do it. They might have even done it through focus groups. I don't know.

I'm maybe a little different. I actually depend on Hydro to have some relatively good business sense in how they go about doing these kinds of things across the province of British Columbia, and I think they do a pretty good job of doing that.

In regards to how we've asked for a certain time when these meters will be installed, they will probably start installing them in areas that are more heavily populated before they get to some of the rural areas. The regulations will tell the commission…. We haven't developed those regulations yet — of what oversight the commission will have to make sure that everything is prudent and done in a good business fashion.

That process will take place, and I'll commit to the member now to make sure that he gets those regulations and understands what those regulations are. He may even want to give us some advice on what he thinks we should be doing with some of those regulations. But there will be some oversight from the Utilities Commission through that fashion.

J. Horgan: So the business plan will be incorporated in the regulations for the implementation of the program.

Before I finish, I don't want the…. I wasn't implying any…. I think it's absolutely appropriate that the minister responsible for Hydro have access to this technology to see it firsthand. If I were in his place, I would have wanted the same thing. I wasn't suggesting anything was inappropriate about that — nothing at all. In fact, I was encouraging that to happen at my house, too, so I would have a better understanding of how it worked. Just so the minister is clear on that.

The notion of people responding to a newspaper ad, however, tells me that this was a self-selected group and that the 63 percent is not a particularly encouraging statistic. I think what then might have happened is the boredom factor that I mentioned to the minister — not checking it every day or not being excited about the potential savings that these devices could solicit from customers who are motivated.

The downside of that is that if a customer is motivated to save energy, a smart meter might not help him get there any faster than just doing the commonsense things. The good advertising campaigns that Hydro runs to draw attention to different ways that consumers can save electricity….

I know that wherever I'm at speaking engagements talking about Hydro, I always encourage people to shut out their lights. I was at a meeting last Saturday on education in the Cowichan Valley, and of course, at eight o'clock we all turned out the lights, so we had the meeting in the dark, which the minister might think is probably the best way for me to be conducting my affairs.

Nonetheless, we did our bit, and the public wants to do their bit. I know that the minister agrees — we agree on this — that people want to conserve. It's part of our Canadian ethic. We know it gets cold here — certainly not where I live but where the minister lives — and people want to be prepared for that.

Again, I come back to the business plan, the business case for the deployment of these devices across B.C., at a cost that's estimated at $900 million. If that number is wrong, I would be delighted to hear it, but that's a significant expenditure. I know that the Queen would want me to ask the minister: what's the business case for that?

Hon. R. Neufeld: The business case is that you can actually save electricity, that you have time-of-use pricing. The member might say that some people just don't pay attention. I think that when they start seeing time-of-use pricing, they may pay attention, regardless of who they are.

I have greater faith in people across the province of British Columbia, when they can actually start seeing these kinds of things and what takes place. Right now it's a meter on the side of the house that no one ever looks at, unless it happens to be something that you walk by all the time. At certain parts of the day you see the little wheel running at a hundred miles an hour, or at other parts of the day you might see it hardly turning. Unless it's in some conspicuous place, people just don't pay attention to it. "What the heck. Energy is cheap. I can just continue to use all I want." What we're trying to do is encourage more.

B.C. Hydro will make the business case. That's what they're doing now. That's what they've been doing for a number of years in their studies: looking at smart meters and actually looking around the world at other jurisdictions using smart meters. There are jurisdictions that have energy prices four times as high as ours that are also looking at putting in smart meters. I don't think we should stay in the Dark Ages just to say: "Hey, by the way, we've got a plan out here. We're telling everybody to save energy, and guess what. Every individual in British Columbia is saving energy."

You may put down the 63 percent of participants that saved money and saved electricity, but that could be significant, Member, across the broad base of consumers in the province of British Columbia. I think we should use the technology. The business case will be made by B.C. Hydro. We will have regulations that will actually instruct the commission on how they review

those things. There will be some oversight from the commission on this through that process to make sure that we're getting value for dollar. I do have some faith in B.C. Hydro — that they actually bring us value for dollar, in many cases, across the province. I don't think they are running out there saying….

In fact, why we're putting this date there is because we want them there. We actually want a date you put them in. I know the member may not like dates like that, but we actually want a date and a time when they're installed across the province of British Columbia.

There's no better way to actually exercise the Crown than to look at that date and say: "Yes, we have to make a case. We have to make a good case. It has to be prudent, it has to make sense, it has to be in the best interests of ratepayers in the province of British Columbia, and we're going to put that forward." I think they do a pretty good job now, and I think they'll do a pretty good job through this process too.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister. Again, the date does trouble me, not as much as the self-sufficiency date. If I heard the minister correctly, the regulations will be made available to me. I'll get the briefing, similar to the very thorough briefings I'm able to get from the minister's staff on other issues.

He did say that there would be commission oversight, and that gives me a little bit more comfort as well. Again, if that's the case, I'm just curious why we would have had a separate section of the Utilities Commission Act now to focus specifically on these devices, when there will be new innovations, presumably, as time goes by. We've got definitions for what a smart meter is, and we'll know more about that when we see the regulations.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, when all is said and done — two things that my spouse hates when politicians say — the Utilities Commission will have some oversight over the installation of these devices. And if the commission rules that they're not in the interests of ratepayers, it won't happen or the proposal, the business plan, will be amended?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm not going to presuppose that I know exactly what's going to take place in the absolute near future. If we had the regulations, they'd be here. I don't have the regulations, but I know that in the regulations there will be some oversight by the B.C. Utilities Commission on the installation of smart meters in the province of British Columbia. There will be some flexibility there with the commission, but we have a date when we want smart meters put in. B.C. Hydro has informed us that they want it, that we should have them for all kinds of good reasons as we move forward. We think it's the right thing to do also.

There will be some prudence there. There will be a business case. B.C. Hydro doesn't just go out and spend a billion dollars, saying: "Hey, I think I want to blow a billion dollars today." They never have done that, and I don't think they'll do that in the future either.

We're giving the Crown the instruction to have them in by 2012. There's nothing wrong with that. To think that we should wait because things will improve…. Well, they always improve. I guess we can wait for the technology to keep improving. The technology will likely…. I can't imagine it won't, when you think about the way technology changes today around a whole bunch of things.

You could be sitting here for the next 20 years waiting for technology to improve, and you haven't gotten anywhere. At some point in time, you have to choose a technology that meets their needs going forward and actually get them installed.

J. Horgan: In this section it says that it requires the commission to consider certain matters when deciding whether an energy supply contract is in the public interest and authorizes the commission to approve a proposed energy supply contract in certain circumstances.

Again, I'd like to spend some time on this. I had hoped — I know the minister, as well, had hoped — that we would be done today. I think this is the last significant section that I want to spend some time on.

I'm wondering if the minister could explain to me what the certain circumstances would be. Is this to ensure that certain projects proceed regardless of cost, or is there some other motivation?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I perused it very quickly, and so did the staff. Can you tell us which subsection the member is referring to in his question? Sorry about that.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's explained to me that it gives the commission the ability to approve a contract prior to the price if, in fact, they know the price and if they believe that's in the best interests of the ratepayers.

But subsection (2.6) requires that the commission, if it approves the terms and conditions and method of acquiring the power, may not declare a contract to be not in the public interest if the commission has previously approved it under section (2.4). Section (2.4) says that it allows the commission to approve the proposed terms and conditions and method of acquiring that power.

J. Horgan: I guess the minister…. I thank him for the answer. I started at (2.6) and wanted to end at (2.3) because as you read it, it says refer to (2.4).You go to (2.4), and it talks about (2.3).

It's not clear to me what…. I can't contemplate a circumstance for this section, and I guess the minister's answer doesn't help me figure that out, and for good

reason. This is dense material if you don't have access to the documents that I have here and the minister has over there.

So in the interests of understanding just what situations would arise whereby the commission would approve a contract…. Again, I tried to follow it. I started at the bottom and worked my way up, and I'm still no clearer. If the minister could try again, with the benefit of his staff?

Hon. R. Neufeld: I'm not trying to take time. I'm trying to get the technical part of this down so that it's easily understandable. So, for instance, B.C. Hydro could go to the commission and get the terms and condition and the method of call preapproved. Okay? Then when they're filed with the commission, they just go through.

It's a productive piece of legislation that says that there's not a protracted time that has to be taken all the time. In fact, this is total choice by the commission, as I'm told. So the commission can do this. They're not ordered to do it. They can do it if they feel that it's in the best interests of the ratepayers to actually move the process through a little bit quicker. Other than that, they don't have to do it. They can stick with the way it's been done before.

J. Horgan: I thank the minister, but it leaves out the notion of leaving out price when you're regulating price in a contract. I don't know. I mean, again, the commission has its ways, and they do some fairly incredible things within the existing confines of the act to ensure that interveners, the utility and energy providers, are given an opportunity to come to a resolution that's in the interests of the ratepayers, but I don't know how you do that without kind of fixing a price.

I have an amendment that I wanted to add to this section. Perhaps, noting the time, I will do that at the next opportunity. So I ask that we rise, report progress 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.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ADVANCED EDUCATION
AND MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
(continued)

Hon. M. Coell: Chair, before I start, I just wanted to correct the record. In responding to a question Thursday on ABE FTEs — that's adult basic education — I quoted the total audited developmental FTEs as being 12,259 going up to 12,711. Actually, I think the member was asking for the total audited ABE FTEs only. That would be 7,813 in 2006-07 and 7,812 in '07-08. So that's flat, rather than trending in the other direction.

R. Fleming: I thank the minister for that correction from the other afternoon.

Today I want to talk a little bit about the ministry's performance on the spaces initiative to add 25,000 new spaces by 2010 and maybe get into some detail about how that's working regionally and within the different types of our institutions — universities, university colleges and colleges — and also just to talk in broad parameters and work from there to get some information on Budget 2008's implication on overall ministry funding.

As we know, there is a lift in this year's budget, but it's some $37 million less than the overall lift that was seen in this ministry last year. There is a $100 million decrease in capital expenditures in this ministry this year. I think what we want to get into discussion on here today is how the minister sees a 3 percent reduction in per-student FTE funding…. How will that impact institutions as they try and deliver educational programs of all types that, of course, vary in complexity and student-teacher ratios and cost of delivery?

The other thing that is worth asking the minister about this afternoon is research and development. We talked last week about student aid and the reductions that are going to be seen in this year's budget in that program. There may be a couple of questions I would have this afternoon just in terms of how that will work, with potential cuts to tutorial budgets that may actually be far more substantive than the 250 new spaces in the graduate scholarship program this year, in terms of teaching positions wiped out, and incomes that

Those may be difficult for the minister to answer objectively in terms of having new numbers, because this is speculative, but I'd like him to do the best job he can. Hopefully, his staff can aid him in telling us how many positions could foreseeably be lost.

I know there are discussions between university presidents and their finance committees and others — senates — occurring right now, so I would expect some of this information will be incomplete. But if he can do the best he can in giving some oversight to his ministry in how the March 12 decision to cut funding is in fact having an impact on campus plans to expand and also to reorganize, in some cases, academically.

Maybe just to start with the 25,000-spaces update, I wonder if the minister could comment and maybe provide additional details. I'm using broad numbers here, but the ministry had anticipated that to date it would have created approximately 11,000 new spaces since 2004 that are permanently there and added to the supply in our institutions. According to a memo circulated to institutional presidents, the to-date creation of new spaces is 3,400. I wonder if the minister can confirm that and maybe give some detail as to where that FTE growth or, I should say, underperformance of its growth targets has been concentrated in the various types of institutions in our system.

Hon. M. Coell: The member covered a lot of territory in that question. I'll try and give sort of a global overview of what we're trying to accomplish, and then I suspect he'll have more specific questions.

In the throne speech of 2003 we set a target of a B or better to get into university. The estimated number of seats to accomplish that was 25,000. We began on a process working with our partners to develop how we would get there, looking at the differing and varying needs in the regions of the province. So we endeavoured to do that.

The Auditor General did a report a couple of years ago which said that we weren't meeting targets and that we had to refocus to some extent. That was very helpful. I think that whenever a government takes on a new project or a new direction, it's always helpful when the Auditor General will wade in and give you midway helpful hints, I guess, more than anything.

What we have done since then is look at those areas where we were not achieving our goals. I did mention, I think, one program last week — I believe it was Thursday — where we have built the capacity, but we don't have the bodies in the system. The building is up, the lab is built, the instructors are employed, but you maybe have half as many students in the class. So there is capacity throughout the system, which we hope will be taken up in the coming years.

What we've done differently this year is that we've said: what are the most pressing areas that we need people to be educated in, in the province? Nursing was one of them — not just registered nurses but the whole broad spectrum of health professionals. The others are skilled trades, technology, graduate students and aboriginal learners.

What we've said is that we've reached the goal of building out the campuses with construction. There's more to come. There's $600 million more to come, but a good percentage of it has been successfully built now. We have put money into seats that in some cases aren't quite full yet but will be. We have a number of areas that we want to target and move in that direction.

I think one of the things we need to be as a ministry is flexible, and I think that when we see that a change needs to be made, we need to move in that direction. When we look at the new seats for '08-09, we've got 721 health — RN/LPN, 625 graduates, 392 new skilled-trade seats and 100 new aboriginal seats as well as those buildings and labs that have been built and aren't full yet. So there should be quite a lot of movement.

I know that making a change like this creates some additional work for our partners in the college, university and institute sector. I believe they will have the ability to make those changes and are doing that now. We're going to work with them during this month to make those changes with them. But I think that, overall, what we're trying to accomplish is, "What does British Columbia as a whole need out of the post-secondary system?" and move in those directions.

I think you've seen that over the history of post-secondary, where you'll have a new university built or a new trade school built to meet the demand and the need in the system. We believe we've done that. We believe that when you look at the trades seats that have been created by economic development, coupled with the trades and the academic seats that we've created, there has actually been a significant…. More than 25,000 seats have been created. What we want to make sure of is that they're filled, so we're going to be working with those institutions to make sure that's the case.

I know the member will probably want more detailed questions, but that's sort of my global perspective on what we're trying to achieve with this year's budget.

R. Fleming: I think the concern with what is going to occur in this year's budget is that the reallocation of FTEs generally from universities to colleges, which are directed towards different areas, is going to spread the sector very thin indeed. In terms of British Columbia's position in not having enough graduate students, not producing per capita as many advanced degrees as other provinces and, in general, in terms of those with four-year degrees and completing them, B.C. is shifting resources away from a part of the system that already underachieves relative to Canada and that previously — only a couple of years ago — the ministry had a strategic plan to dramatically increase.

Now we are correcting some errors that are seen in other parts of the system around skilled trades and some health care professional credentials that need to be addressed. I guess the path not taken in this year's

budget was that we would continue to expand seats and places and funding at our universities, to carry on with that plan as well as add an enhancement to look at new areas or new urgent needs that his colleague the Minister of Health or his colleague the minister for economic competition would like to see.

It's fair enough that that would happen — that there would maybe be some more directed and targeted funding. But I think what is quite clear now is that we are taking funds from one area to address failings in the other.

I guess what's very disappointing, as well, is that the Auditor General report — although it's critical to cite it because it was a very good audit and the conclusions were well researched — is a year and a half old now. It wasn't a halfway report. It was a report at the one-third marker of this effort, and the findings were quite clear in that report. It mentioned that the government was pursuing a seat expansion at exactly the same time that they were doubling tuition fees, eliminating student aid programs and were also experiencing changes in the employment situation and shifts in demographics. These were all warning signs that were clear and present as the ministry was trying to cobble together a strategy to actually increase spaces.

One of the areas that I'm particularly interested in now, in terms of getting the most updated numbers possible, is around FTE utilization, because I know the minister was probably quite alarmed by the Auditor General's findings that things weren't going well in this initiative. I noticed that it's still on the website as if it's happening, but the reports we're getting are that it's coming far short of its targets.

One of the internal reports that the minister was good enough to share with me was this report on FTE utilization analysis. In particular, one area that was dealt with here was around the university sector.

I wanted to ask the minister again to explain his views on why demand is softening across the sector and if he could give me an idea of where utilization is strongest and weakest and break it down in terms of universities, university colleges and community colleges. Within that, he may well have an idea of how it works regionally.

Hon. M. Coell: As the member cited, there are a number of factors for that. I think when we look at the rural colleges, they're functioning at around 80 percent of what they could be.

You hear anecdotal evidence of a classroom that should have 18 in it, which has 11 in it. It's actually sort of like starting a transit system, where you buy a bus, hire a driver and start a route. On your first day you might not have a full bus, but the idea is that you build towards that.

I'm not alarmed by that. I think it was good for some of the rural colleges to build these courses. I think it doesn't stop them from looking at other courses that may have been there for a while, which aren't as relevant to their region as they were when they started, and to change that mix for more relevant programs as well.

I think, too, when you look at the Lower Mainland, when you look at the colleges and the universities there, some of them are functioning at 100 percent or over 100 percent in some cases. BCIT and Emily Carr are both over 100 percent. I think that's a good thing. They can always add or change their courses as well.

You look at issues like increased competition between the sector. You look at the hot economy. Other challenges would be in trying to find faculty for new programs with a lot of people retiring. The decline of the 18-to-29-year-old cohort is another one. So there are a lot of issues, I think, that affect utilization in our universities and colleges.

So with that, do we continue to expand in all areas, or do we target growth? I think at this point we're best to look at what's needed in regions and what's needed in general, and target that growth for this year and possibly the next couple of years as well. In times when you just want to expand the number of programs and expand the general use, you would do sort of general growth FTEs. In times like I think we are in now, you target them for a while, and ask the colleges and universities and institutes to change their mix of programs. Our staff, I know, are working with their staff on that as we speak.

I think there are, as the member said, a range of challenges that affect FTEs. We've tried to target, this year, a change from last year.

R. Fleming: Because the government is sticking to the branding of this initiative as 25,000 spaces by 2010 even though the completion date is now 2011, so that's shifted out a year; even though the Auditor General has concluded that that target has missed the mark, at one-third of the way through the initiative, massively; even though this year a ministry memo says that of 11,000 spaces that should have been created, only 3,500 have in fact been….

I wonder if the minister could commit to the public and to those interested stakeholders that he will transparently show and report, quarterly perhaps — at the very least, annually — reports that show exactly what the Auditor General and others who picked up on this area have been asking about.

In other words, report transparently and clearly what the difference is between seats funded versus seats created and report accurately what institutions individually are doing. It's absolutely critical that this be done now, although it should have been done in previous years of this campaign.

But it's absolutely critical that it be done in this year, because what university presidents and college presidents are saying is that although in the colleges' case there may be some new funding tied to a particular program, with the core budget reductions occurring, they're actually going to lose programs. So it's critical to track capacity and seats in programs that are going to be lost versus what is now being centrally directed from the ministry and funded to come on stream at those institutions.

So will the minister commit to doing that — to maybe creating a new quarterly or at the very least an annual report that robustly discusses and discloses what is exactly happening in our post-secondary sector on spaces?

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, we do much of that now on the website. There is a breakdown of their actual by year and percentage, by seats and by FTEs. That's on the website. I'll get the member a copy and see if there's an addition to that which he's asking for.

A number of the things we've recently changed. We've put the profiles of all institutions on the website — all presidents have access — implemented last year. Profiles include the funding, the programs and the challenges.

The budget meeting on the 12th, with all presidents in the same room. Information on all institution funding levels for the next three years was also shared. So that should be public knowledge. The budget letters including details on FTEs and funding allocations were included on our website as well, and the level of information had never been shared before.

The ITA's full activity is now included in our ministry service plan. It makes it much more transparent than having to go to both ministries. The government letter of expectations will be introduced this year as well. It will be an agreement with each institution and will outline government's expectations for institutions. That will be public as well.

It will have all the supporting information and outline the institution strategies to deliver on programs, including the implications of funding levels. So I think we may be accomplishing what the member is asking for, but I'll check to make sure that this is readily available on the website. If it isn't, we'll make sure it is.

R. Fleming: There was a decision, when the strategic investment plan was conceived and then implemented, to front-end-load the FTE growth at the universities. I think there's some concern that universities were asked to take that on in fairly short order and did so and now are seeing funding that disappeared for next year, over what they had anticipated would be increased.

Frankly, there have been so many changes to the strategic investment plan in just a few short years that it is extremely difficult for anyone trying to follow it to track where new seats were originally anticipated to be delivered, the internal reallocations that have occurred in just a few short years for grad students and others — grad students basically being much more expensive to fund — and all of those things that are within the 25,000-space initiative.

So the slogan remains the same, although the goalposts have moved significantly. The types of spaces to be created have also changed over time. If the minister can maybe give me a statistic on FTE growth just for universities at this point in time and tell me the FTE utilization rate at our six universities in B.C., maybe we can start there. He can give me a current number on FTE utilization.

Hon. M. Coell: I think the starting point would be what the goal was. The goal was access, and the goal was to have a B or better to gain access to university. So the front-end-loading aspect of it was that we wanted to start with the universities to build that capacity for acquisition into the universities.

So they're all actually running between 100 percent for…. Royal Roads is actually at 105 percent. Simon Fraser was 107. Thompson Rivers is 83. UBC Vancouver is 99.6. UNBC is 88.8. UVic is 98.8. So their utilization is very good.

There again, we looked at the regional breakdown, the rural colleges before having more difficulty getting the targets into their seats. What we were trying to do is treat all the partners the same in the system, realizing that we had reached the goal of a B or better for access at the universities. They have more flexibility in that they are at the 100 percent, or in some cases a little bit better, whereas the colleges were going to have a more difficult role in the targeted funds.

I think that we were pleased that the universities stepped up to the plate when we were going for the B or better. They've achieved that. They're achieving their targets as well.

But the system as a whole, I think, needs to be looked at. I think that's one of the things Geoff Plant's report really struck home to me — that we have to treat the system as a whole being to make sure that when we're making decisions, it affects the whole system. That was the intent for us — to treat everyone the same in this year when we're doing the targeted funds.

R. Fleming: Then carrying on from there, if the minister could give me an idea of FTE utilization in the other parts of the sector — just in terms of what was funded and what was in fact created and what the FTE utilization is there — it would be appreciated.

Hon. M. Coell: This may take a minute, but I think it's worthwhile having all this information out. If you look at rural colleges in 2007-2008, the College of New Caledonia was 72.3 percent, College of the Rockies was 86.3 percent, North Island College was 76.3 percent, Northern Lights College was 56.7 percent, Northwest Community College was 99.8 percent, and Selkirk College was 82.3 percent.

Say you're being funded for 100 percent, and this is what you're able to produce. I think that it warrants repeating, too, that there are many reasons for that. There may be a capacity built but a student not in that space as yet. As well, there's the hot economy and a range of others that we've discussed.

When you look at the urban colleges, it's again a bit different. You've got Camosun College functioning at 94.2 percent, Capilano at 83.7 percent, Douglas at 86.5 percent, Langara at 92.1 percent, Okanagan at 90 percent and Vancouver Community College at 91 percent. When you look at the trend, they're all filling more FTEs than the rural ones.

Then, when you move to the university colleges, Kwantlen is functioning at 90.7 percent, Malaspina at 90.4 percent and the University College of the Fraser Valley at 97.8 percent.

So they're in the same ballpark, but then when you move to the institutes, you have B.C. Institute of Technology at 103.6 percent, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design at 101.7 percent and the Justice Institute of B.C. at 101 percent. The Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, again, is in a rural setting as well as an urban setting, and they're at 74.8 percent.

Then again, you go to the universities, where you have Royal Roads at 105 percent; Simon Fraser at 107 percent; Thompson Rivers at 83 percent — again, in more of a rural setting; UBC Vancouver, 99.6 percent; UNBC, 88.8 percent — again, rural; and then the University of Victoria, 98.8 percent. It varies throughout the province as to what they're being funded for and what they're able to achieve for us.

R. Fleming: One of the internal assessments or questions being asked as to why the expansion was going so badly — which follows on the question I was just asking about the ramp-up or the front-end loading that was happening at universities — is whether this actually had a negative impact on university transfer programs at community colleges. That sector, which for some colleges is 60 percent or more of the student body on the campus, has seen reductions in enrolment, and this was at the same time that the ministry was pursuing a GPA entry requirement decline at institutions and also giving most of the funding over for the SIP initiative to universities.

Has the minister had a conclusion handed to him through internal analysis that the rollout of this seat expansion actually benefited one sector at the expense of another and has misaligned the rural colleges and those seeing a declining enrolment continuing and those that are treading water or that have achieved targets on the university side? Does has he have that advice? Has he had that analysis given to him?

Hon. M. Coell: I guess it's one of these things where you have to look at a glass half full or a glass half empty. I think that the improvement in access across the system has been great news for students. I think that coming down to a B to get into university has been very good for students throughout the province. I think that the increase in the trade schools, from Cloverdale to Chilliwack to Fort St. John to a number of other smaller ones throughout the province, has been very good for access.

Again, I go back to — if the member is interested, I wouldn't mind discussing it further — the Campus 2020 report, where it says that we need to do more collaboration, and we need to have more collaboration, not just between the universities, who I think communicate very well amongst themselves, but between the institutes and the colleges and the universities so that there is a flow and transferability through the system.

I think that there's nothing…. The member's probably witnessed it — the back of the bus advertising one institution and then the back of another bus advertising another institution. I think that somehow we've got to get better cooperation between all of our institutions. We're going to work with them on doing that. I know it's a long-term process. That was one of the longer-term recommendations that the Plant report had.

I think that there has been a lot of good news in the last few years on access to different kinds of programs. I know I've approved, just in my tenure, about 120 new degrees. I know that with the technical schools we have developed a number of new technical programs and trades programs that weren't there before. We want to make sure that we've got better articulation from K-to-12 into the colleges, better transferability between the colleges and the universities and the institutes, better schedules and more degrees as well.

I think that there's been a lot of good news. You can always do more, and we're endeavouring to do more in targeted areas this year.

R. Fleming: I'll apologize to the minister — just the 25,000 spaces. It's very difficult now to separate it as an initiative from what's happening in the core budget of the ministry and the transfers that are given to institutions. So I may go back and forth in questions about both, because they're so interrelated, particularly this year, when there's a reduction of 2.6 percent to those institutions.

Maybe if I could just get the minister to confirm some of the broad numbers in the budget that see tuition revenue for the institutions go up $32 million, and overall funding for the entire sector, the 25 institutions, is $68 million. I wanted to ask him to confirm those numbers as well as confirming, just so we're just on the same page, that student financial assistance has declined by $56 million since 2006 and that this year we'll see that reduction that was in the budget for StudentAid B.C.

The reason I ask is that I think there's something interrelated there in terms of programs, the Auditor General's finding around difficulty in accessing, affording and paying for school, and the situation we're in today where the enrolment growth at some institutions has been unexpectedly poor at a time when the government suggested it wished to increase participation rates in society and expand it.

If he could just confirm for me, again, those broad numbers in the budget — $68 million in new funding, which is $35 million less than last year's increase, as well as the tuition revenue increases of $32 million.

Hon. M. Coell: The student financial aid of course is demand-driven, so in any given year no one is going to go without financial assistance if they qualify. That has not happened and won't happen.

The budget for the ministry goes up for the institutions by $68 million. The increase in tuition revenues is…. Three reasons, I guess, would be the rate of inflation, the increase in students generally and then an

increase in international students as well. Those would be the three main characterizations.

R. Fleming: Can the minister confirm the decline in operating grants per FTE student spaces ministrywide this year over last year — from $9,145 per student last year to $8,852 per FTE this year?

Hon. M. Coell: Just looking at funding for FTEs back to '06-07, it was $8,650. In '07-08 its $9,142, and in this year's budget it's $9,301. That's the operating grant allocation student FTE targets.

One of the things that I would give as an example of something where you could increase your FTEs and not have to cost you anymore is if you've got…. We talked about the Chilliwack experience, where you've got a lab that's built, you have a professor hired and the building is new, but you only have 11 out of the 20 students or 22 students the first year. Well, it doesn't actually cost you any more your second year if you have classes full, because you're already paying for the heat, the light and the faculty member. You just have more students.

So there is capacity out there as well. I believe you'll see that programs just have more students in them. You're actually getting FTEs and not having to pay any more because you were already funding them last year.

R. Fleming: I apologize for jumping around here, but I wanted to introduce the member for Cariboo North, who the minister knows very well. He has some questions and has other places to be in the Legislature. He has some questions about institutions in his community.

B. Simpson: Thank you for the minister's indulgence on this. I have to head to the airport shortly.

I have some specific questions around UNBC and CNC and the implications for the 2.6 percent cut in their budgets and, also, around some of the other programs that CNC previously announced it was going to cut — adults with disabilities and forestry. That's the context for what I want to spend some time on.

I just want to get clear for the record the promise to UNBC in the three-year budget, the stable budget that was promised, prior to the March 12 letter. What was the base budget allocation to UNBC, and post that, what was the base allocation — so that that's on the public record?

Hon. M. Coell: I just want to broaden that question a bit, because I think it makes a lot of sense. When we became government, we developed three-year planning horizons. They're estimates. They weren't in a letter saying, "You're getting this amount of money in these three years," because we only budget for one year. We can't hold, during an election…. You may have a totally different government elected that may want to revisit.

A good example of that was BCIT, which wrote to us saying that they had done a number of different scenarios for their budget — one getting what they were looking at in the three-year plan, one with less, one with just a stationary budget or no increase. They were able to do that and have the scenarios at their fingertips when they got their final budget.

They actually won't get their final budget letters till the end of this month. Our staff are working with each individual institution to look at what program changes are contemplated, what additional targeted funds will help and what new capital construction will be involved in that as well.

There are a number of things as to what goes into their final budget letter, but they all got an increase in their budgets. No one got less than they did last year. Some got a greater percent than others because of the targeted funds, and others didn't. I'll get the exact number for the member. I don't have it at my fingertips.

B. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's explanation of how he and his ministry perceive it, but as the minister well knows, the boards and presidents of CNC and UNBC both dispute that. They believe that what they did was due diligence around budgeting, with an expectation from the ministry of a certain amount coming to them. In the case of UNBC, they state explicitly that there's a million dollars difference between what they budgeted for in good faith and what the ministry indicated they're going to give them.

The way it was presented was as a 2.6 percent cut to the promised allocation. So yes, the minister is correct. There's a lift there. But the lift is less than what was indicated to the university board and presidents that they were going to get.

As a consequence, in the case of UNBC — and then I've got some questions about CNC — the board has indicated, as other boards have indicated, that they're going to operate with a deficit. What's the minister's intent with respect to boards, like UNBC's board, that are going to operate with a deficit?

Hon. M. Coell: The legislation, of course, says that boards will have a balanced budget. Institutions will have a balanced budget. If they cannot for some reason, they need the permission of both the Minister of Advanced Education and the Minister of Finance.

We're working with them. I've sent a letter to the board chairs asking them to present us — my staff — with scenarios on how they would achieve a balanced budget. Then I will be getting some recommendations back later this month on what those changes may be.

I've got a lot of confidence in the staff in our institutions and our boards being able to do that. I don't view this as not a challenging exercise for them but as one that they are able to do.

B. Simpson: I guess part of my struggles in all of this is that we've had a recent report out indicating that UNBC in particular contributed $700 million to the local economy. We have plans in place to diversify the local economy and other communities there that are being impacted by the mountain pine beetle. As a

consequence, at this time why wouldn't a targeted funding approach be allowing us to increase and grow our post-secondary opportunities in the northern region and particularly in the mountain pine beetle region, as a targeted approach to using post-secondary education as a mechanism for accelerating change and as a mechanism for giving some economic diversification?

I'm going to come back to some of the cuts that CNC made, but certainly, with UNBC it has ample opportunity to grow. It has ample opportunity to become an economic attractor in that region. What it needs are the additional resources to ramp up some of its program capabilities to be able to do that.

The government made a decision, for example, to put money into the University of Victoria for climate change. We haven't done the same in a major centre for excellence for forestry or mountain pine beetle research.

Was any thinking done about a targeted response, through the ministry, to actually take a look at what UNBC and what post-secondary can offer in the mountain pine beetle zone and to actually target increased funding, above the promise, into those regions as an economic diversification strategy?

Hon. M. Coell: I probably should have added to the last question, just looking at UNBC and CNC. Their projected surplus for last year, at UNBC, was $1.284 million. Their actual surplus was $2.8 million — over twice the projected surplus. CNC was projecting a surplus of $2.796 million, but their actual surplus was $3.2 million — significantly, again, more than they projected. That's why I say that I think there is room for them to make some changes and to target the funds where needed.

I think that the member probably knows that the investment at the Quesnel campus in his riding is one that is in the middle of the pine beetle area. At UNBC, of course, is a new medical school, a new teaching building, a new sports building — tremendous growth there in the last few years. I think all of that is to diversify the economy of the north. They're doing a lot of work with aboriginal learners and partnerships with the different aboriginal leaders in the north. We have a chair on environmental health and aboriginal health at UNBC that is new.

There are a number of areas where I think we've made changes to the economy. I agree with the member. I think that post-secondary education is one of the big change agents for a city. I'm from Kamloops. I was born in Kamloops, and I've got to tell you that the change in Kamloops with TRU there, as a university town, and bringing the Open Learning Agency there and the sports facilities associated with that area…. And of course, they're affected by pine beetle as well. So I think that the strategic investments we've made will help to diversify the economy of the north and will continue to do so.

For me, one of the big changes is UNBC and its medical school. I think to actually have students being able to grow up in Prince George or Quesnel or Williams Lake and go to UNBC and become a doctor and then stay in that area has got to be one of the biggest change agents that we've seen. So I appreciate the question, and I agree with the member.

B. Simpson: We can have a discussion about the Quesnel campus. As the minister is well aware, we'd like the second phase, particularly now that you're targeting some of the funding to the things that we can do there, so I'll give you scope in the next answer. Just say, "Yes, that's going to happen," and then I'll go away.

I have to admit I'm confused, because I have in front of me a UNBC budget presentation that shows in '07-08 a $2.1 million deficit — this is assuming the government's projected revenue to them on base funding — a $2.6 million deficit in '08-09 and then the deficits continue on the way out. So the board has indicated that its response to the 2.6 percent cut is a $1 million deficit. The minister is saying that they're sitting on a $1.28 million surplus. Help me rationalize that.

Then in the case of the CNC…. You might as well lump them in. CNC has indicated to the public that it was in a deficit position and had to cut forestry, had to cut people-with-disabilities programming and had to cut ecotourism in order to make sure they weren't in a deficit position.

I find it hard that there are two sets of books here, and I'd like to understand how the minister gets them into a surplus when they're telling the community that they're not in a surplus; they're in a deficit.

Hon. M. Coell: I was talking about the operating surplus for '06-07 that UNBC had. That was $2.8 million. CNC had an operating surplus of $3.2 million. So that's a $7 million surplus that those two institutions were running in '06-07.

B. Simpson: Again, I guess I'll have to go back and have a discussion with those folks, because they made program cuts in order to be — especially CNC — in a balanced-budget situation. So there's something there that I'm not understanding, but I'll take that up with CNC and UNBC so I get their perspective.

If I could, I'd like to go to the CNC cuts. They were cuts that were made prior to the 2.6 percent. The folks involved in this have made it clear that I have to say that, because they've got other cuts that they're going to have to look at.

With respect to adults with disabilities…. I'm being told the issue there is that that is not a fee-for-service program in any of the communities, that the delivery costs far exceed the per-FTE grant that comes in, in the base funding. As a consequence, what you get is a very, very expensive program — but a necessary one — that then becomes a target for cutting. It's an easy out.

In the case of CNC, again, they indicated to the public a $1 million–plus deficit if they continued that program. If they cut the program, it was half of their deficit that disappeared.

My question to the minister on behalf of my community is: would the minister consider fully funding programs for people with disabilities so they don't put the colleges that offer those programs in the bind that CNC finds it's in?

Hon. M. Coell: I think one of the areas that…. For regional colleges, they're supposed to represent the needs of their region. My comment to them, through my staff, was that programs for people with disabilities shouldn't be changed. I've made that clear to a couple of colleges as well.

They may be more expensive to deliver, but I think they're a necessary part of the region that you represent — so that everyone has access to post-secondary education, regardless of ability or, in this case, disability. So I've made that, I think, quite clear to all of our institutions.

The announced changes are not finalized yet. They still will be working with my staff over this month to look at options to bring back to us, but it's very much a working partnership with the ministry. We want to see regions succeed in every way possible, but we still have a sort of provincial responsibility to target funds where areas are needed. As I say, I have confidence in my staff and in the institutions' staff to make those necessary changes for what I consider the benefit of British Columbia as a whole.

B. Simpson: I want to nail the minister down a little bit on this one. The government has a stated explicit goal with respect to adults with disabilities and integrating them into the workforce. It's part of the government's agenda.

The issue here, as I'm being told and as the minister has already admitted on the public record, is the difference between cost delivery and what they've got in terms of an FTE base funding formula. Because they can't do it through cost recovery in this particular case, again, it makes it an easy target for them politically or fiscally. It becomes an easy target to take those programs out.

I know that's a major hit in Quesnel. We were integrating a number of those folks into our local workforce, and I know they've got even more robust programs in Prince George.

My question to the minister is this. The minister is talking about diverting funds from the 2.6 percent cut into targeted funding, and letters are going to come out with respect to targets and objectives around the targeted funding. Is it possible for adults-with-disability programming to be part of the target and for additional resources to be put to that to stabilize those programs?

Hon. M. Coell: I think the member has a good point in there, and I would try and flesh it out a bit more. What we're asking the institutions to do is look at their entire program mix. Are there areas that might have been relevant ten years ago that are underused now? Those are the sorts of programs that I know my staff are working on with each individual institution and where there are new programs — and I'm suggesting some of the targeted programs — where they're more relevant now to that region.

From my perspective I think programs and courses for people with disabilities are important in every region of this province. I'm encouraging my staff, in talking with the institutions, to reinforce that there are a lot of opportunities that differ in different regions for people with disabilities — a lot of really good programs.

They may be more expensive to administer; I agree with that. But lots of our programs are. A nursing degree is more expensive than an arts degree. A doctorate is more expensive than an arts degree. So we need that mix.

The idea is to make sure that a region represents what it wants. From Prince George and the member's area I certainly got a message that this particular program for adults with disabilities was important to the region, and I would hope that CNC would take that into consideration.

B. Simpson: I hope that the minister's discussions do include targeting that program and putting some more resources into it as well.

The minister has indicated something, and it's the next topic that I want to get into. It's the targeting, where he has an expectation that the post-secondary institutions look at their whole programs and possibly look at redirecting funds from programs which ten years ago made sense and maybe don't make sense now.

Let's switch gears and talk about forestry, because forestry programs throughout the province are in significant decline. Yet in many ways we need more engaging, innovative training in forestry in order for us to help revitalize or restructure that economy in the future. But because we're not attracting students at this juncture, those programs are getting cut. Again, in the CNC case it's a very expensive program to deliver.

My question to the minister, independent of all of the detailed information, is: do we have a plan for the province of British Columbia for post-secondary education in forestry? If so, where can I see a copy of that?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm glad that the member brings this up, because there is, I think, an important partnership developing between the federal government and ourselves. I actually just had a briefing this morning on the billion dollars for the forest industry that's coming from the federal government. Some of it, of course, is for early retirements and bridging, but a number of dollars will be set aside for retraining.

We're going to be working specifically with the pine beetle areas as well as some areas on the coast where possibly — and the programs have not been finalized yet — tuition will be free for some of the programs for those displaced workers or people who have been laid off to retrain into jobs that are more prevalent. It may be oil and gas; it may be electrical or construction. But it wouldn't just stop there. It could be in nursing or any program that people in the forest sector…. The administration staff in the forest sector are also affected by this.

I think it's hoped that that program will be up and running by this fall. Again, it's another important aspect to the help that the forest sector workers do need.

The member is obviously interested. I know many people and families in your riding are affected by that, and I'll keep you up to date on that.

B. Simpson: I appreciate the minister's response. It wasn't actually what I was asking. I was asking the other question, which is: how are we supporting maintaining forestry education and training and not losing it?

The minister's answer actually concerns me, because as I've gone around and spoken to a number of communities, there is a great fear that what we will do is transition the forestry workforce out of forestry. Then when the industry does rebound, we won't have a workforce there to actually populate the mills and the various other manufacturing facilities that we have. I think that's a slippery slope, and I would hope that the minister is doing some consultation with folks.

The minister is indicating that they've done some targeting. I'm assuming that once we get the letters out, we'll see what is in the mind of the government with respect to targeting.

We have a seen a slide in forestry in the province. If you look at Ministry of Forests and Range projected retirements alone over the next few years, it is staggering. If you look at the retirement from the industry alone, it's staggering. Then you look at all the displaced workers, and you design programs to take people out of forestry. Yet the land-based challenges that we're going to be confronted with are enormous. We will need all kinds of innovative, trained individuals — forest technologists and registered professional foresters — to get on the ground.

My question to the minister is very explicit. Where is the plan for forestry education in the province? The post-secondary education institutions are making decisions that are fiscal decisions but not necessarily strategic ones in this realm.

Hon. M. Coell: Point taken. I think there are two sides to the issue here. One is what you do with the people affected right now. How you keep an industry going and changing, I think, is probably more what the member and I are discussing.

I think there are two programs. UNBC just revised its forest ecology and forest management program, which is a change and, I think, a positive change. BCIT has a new forest management specialty as part of their sustainable research management program. That is new as well.

Some of the things that we've done in the member's riding are the $11.6 million in the North Cariboo Community Campus, which is open now; and the Quesnel trades facility is in the ten-year plan, as the member asked earlier, for capital as well as in consideration for ongoing operating costs.

There are a number of things that I think government is doing from the task force on forestry as well. The forest industry is very involved in that. We want to make sure that the programs for the forest industry are relevant in post-secondary. From my perspective there is obviously an obligation for both the federal and the provincial governments to act.

I think that pension bridging and some programs that may have tuition free for displaced forest workers, both administration and hands-on forest workers are things that we need to do right now to help communities that are affected by the pine beetle and affected by the changes in the coast industry as well.

B. Simpson: One last question. I'm notorious for showing up at the airport in a panic. I made a New Year's resolution I would try to not do that.

On this point, and there's lots more that we could canvass…. I do appreciate that the minister's door is open if I need to come in and have conversations. On the forestry program the feedback I'm getting from everybody is that we need to map out where that's going. We need to have a specific sectoral strategy for forestry, right from the professional foresters through the technologists on the land base and then into the emerging economy.

I heard the minister use the term "task force on forestry." Is that a standing organization? Does it have terms of reference? Is it something that has actually come up with a concerted plan? As I go around talking to people, they're not aware of that. They're just worried that post-secondary education in forestry is disappearing.

Hon. M. Coell: It's the B.C. forest recruitment task force, which was established by the Ministry of Forests and Range. It has identified a few issues that we're working with them on to make sure that all stakeholders are heard and that we start to develop the programs that are recommended by that task force. We're working with them on that. It's early days as yet.

C. Wyse: It's good to be back again, Minister. I have some questions to you, through the Chair. I'm not going to repeat the information….

Many of the comments that my colleague from Cariboo North mentioned…. It would be redundant for me to go back over it, so I've made that statement for the record so that residents from Cariboo South know that, likewise, I've canvassed those areas.

However, there is a question or two around TRU and the funding cut effect upon that particular campus as well as all of the campuses in general, whether it be Kamloops or otherwise, and then, more specifically, upon the Williams Lake campus.

Like you, Minister, I was born in Kamloops — quite a while ago; I will acknowledge that aspect of it — and likewise, I couldn't agree with you more in your observation about how a university or college contributes to the ability for a community to grow and develop, and so on. You have mentioned Kamloops and Prince George as examples of, in your mind….

As you're aware, I've been in front of you for the last two or three years with the Williams Lake campus and some of the unique struggles it has been facing. But going to TRU, in general, the operating cuts and uncertainty, as far as programs go, are there.

I have attempted as late as Friday to determine where the actual program cuts will occur, and I'm not able to determine that upon this particular campus. Does the minister have any idea when that knowledge of the specific cuts for the TRU will occur?

Hon. M. Coell: As the member knows, I was up at the Williams Lake campus, and I am very pleased with — I think it was close to $12 million worth — the upgrades and construction to that campus. It still has a relatively small number of students. I think that it will be seen as a very wise investment ten years from now.

We have some new skill seats. I think there's about $200,000 worth of new skill seats that are targeted to TRU. They will be, I guess, deciding how many of them could go to the Williams Lake campus. They do have some very good shops there that could use them, but I don't know. That will be up to TRU to make those decisions. The decisions and final budget letters will go out the end of this month.

The discussion with TRU is ongoing. They, I think, do a very good job of mixing academic and trades in both Williams Lake and Kamloops. I suspect they'll continue to do that.

I think one of the things, from my perspective and looking at the Williams Lake campus, is that they have to pick programs that are relevant to the people who are there right now and then build on that as the years come. I think some places, like Kamloops, may be able to get more international students than, let's say, Williams Lake or some of the others, but I don't discount that in the future.

I think there are some opportunities that Williams Lake will have that they're probably not even developing right now. From my perspective it was the right thing to do — to invest the money there to develop the programs, even though they are serving a small number of people.

C. Wyse: Again, I thank the minister for his continued support for the Williams Lake campus. Because his mind has gone to that campus exclusively, I'm going to join him there.

As the minister knows, the difficulty that faces the Williams Lake campus is that they have an exceptionally good building, but you fill buildings with operating funds and the programs that are offered. Last year we had discussions around the issue of uncertainty of what will be offered at this particular campus, and the uncertainty effect forces students to relocate at other universities and colleges across B.C. and the rest of the province. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of maintaining the mass necessary for these programs to exist.

Given that we have this new campus; given that there was uncertainty around registration last year, which the community believes quite strongly contributed to further decrease in enrolment, particularly in the academic programs; and now given the uncertainty put in once more this late in the year so that the students as well as staff — let's concentrate upon the students here — have this uncertainty factor in place…. Already my office has been contacted about the concern that with further reductions in programs, more students are not being able to consider the Williams Lake campus in place.

With that preamble, what I'm asking is whether, in the funding level that goes out, some funds can be targeted here from Victoria to ensure that these base programs that were maintained aren't further jeopardized with the late announcement of this budget cut.

Hon. M. Coell: I think I can give the member a couple of examples of why I believe we're committed — and I know TRU is committed — to the Williams Lake campus.

The nursing program is popular. The new LPN program is full. They had over 60 applicants for 16 seats. So I think there is an opportunity in the future to look at targeted funding for nursing.

The FTEs are actually from 2006-2007. They're up by a dozen or so, so they're going in the right direction. I think that you just have to be patient with the numbers there. I wouldn't want to see a change in general direction. I think that if they've got a nursing program and they've got an LPN program, start to build on that, and build on it slowly.

The home support program is in demand as well. They're looking at expanding it to dedicate it to first nations, another targeted area, as well.

There are some opportunities there. I've spoken to the board and the president of TRU, and everyone, I think, is very supportive of the Williams Lake campus.

C. Wyse: Likewise, I've had the same conversations with the same individuals, and like the minister I am convinced also that that commitment remains with those particular bodies. However, new buildings and new facilities only provide the cover for where the actual students that are going to obtain their learning are going to be.

The concern that I have is that further reductions in the operating funds will put additional strains upon new campus buildings, whether it happens to be the Kamloops campus or whether it's the Williams Lake

one. However, from Cariboo South, if we are going to be able to regrow the academic program that used to exist, for example, it requires the funding to remain in place so that students will return once more to use that particular campus and the growth take on it.

I have no doubt that the minister has understood the general point that I'm making. I leave with you, Chair, if he can consider, in the funding envelope that goes out at the end of the month, that there are some funds targeted for the Williams Lake campus to help continue that bridging so that the academic as well as the vocational programs also have some seats in them in this campus for students to consider.

Hon. M. Coell: If I can give the member some comfort, I understand your concerns, and I share them.

R. Fleming: I just want to get back to some of the systemwide funding issues that are involved in this budget. The last two of my colleagues have been asking questions. They've basically been asking on an institutional basis about the 2.6 percent funding reduction to what was anticipated in this budget, which has in fact been confirmed on March 12. I believe that was via teleconference, at first blush, with those institutional presidents. That is an indication of what's happening systemwide.

I want to ask the minister a few questions about his awareness. I'm sure he's being updated on a regular basis — maybe an hourly basis — on what the universities and colleges are looking at.

Just a general question. The premise for making these cuts, I think, is flawed in a number of ways. One, it generally does not create a decent environment for institutions to meet the challenges that the minister and his ministry have acknowledged on a number of occasions around meeting the skills shortages and credential gaps that we have in this province. It also clashes with statements that this government has made previously about the value and role of institutional autonomy in making decisions that are in the best interest of their community.

This could be interpreted and is being interpreted as a change, a signal that signals a change in direction of the ministry. I suppose that, instead of block funding, which was recommended in the Perrin report, we are going to return to a previous system where funding is more directly tied to programs. That lack of flexibility was widely decried in a study that was done by Mr. Perrin when he produced it.

I want to ask the minister if he's aware of how the 2.6 percent funding reduction is impacting certain institutions. Maybe I'll start with Vancouver Community College. There are some Vancouver MLAs who have other information, too, that they may wish to ask him later, but I'll start there and just ask him if he's aware of the board of governors' recent plan and program changes that they published, in particular around arts and sciences.

Is the minister aware that at Vancouver Community College next year, as a result of this year's budget, there will be fewer spaces available at that institution in mathematics, science and humanities and, as well, that a program will be rescheduled entirely called the employment and education access for women program?

Hon. M. Coell: The institutions are in the process of finalizing their budgets. I mean, my budget is finalized, but their budgets are being worked through with my staff right now. They're making some suggestions. In many instances they also have contract obligations that they have to meet by certain dates. So they're making those decisions.

A good example at Vancouver Community College is, I think, that at the end of the day now they're looking to actually be producing more ESL for domestic students than they were last year. I'm sure they're going to work through some of the challenges that they have. Again, at their main campus we've spent close to $30 million on a new building, new programs. They have a number of new academic programs as well as trades programs that they're looking at in the years coming ahead.

The member makes a point that I think I should address on the ability for autonomy of institutions. We certainly believe in that, but we also believe that from time to time government needs to fund programs that they need as a whole. I think that the nursing one is sort of an obvious one when you've got 1,800 nursing vacancies in the province. If we were to fund general growth, we probably wouldn't get more than a handful of new nursing spaces, because there are competing desires within every institution to grow in a number of different ways.

We felt that we needed almost 600 more nursing positions this year. In order to get that, we believed we had to target the funds. In order to target the funds, we needed to take some funds out of general growth. But as far as autonomy of institutions goes, you know, 95 percent of what colleges and universities do and how they function is autonomous.

Another example, that I think is worth mentioning, is the medical schools. That was a government initiative. We aren't graduating enough doctors and hadn't been for two or three decades, so government made the decision to double the number of doctors. I think that was a good decision, but it wasn't an autonomous decision made by three universities. They collaborated with us. They've done a great job, and we're now expanding it to a fourth campus.

I think that when you look at targeted funds — and I'm sure we're not the first government to make those decisions — it does allow government to get what the province as a whole needs, while leaving 95 percent of the autonomy with the universities and colleges.

R. Fleming: Well, I think that we go back to a point that we were discussing earlier, which is that there's no

problem with targeted funds in and of themselves. The problem is when they're happening in an environment where a budget increase is anticipated and is no longer delivered, and then there's an additional requirement put on an institution to change the direction and the programs that they're offering. That's what the problem is right now at Vancouver Community College and elsewhere.

I wonder if the minister can tell me if he's been made aware that next year Vancouver Community College overall is expecting 393 fewer domestic FTE student spaces, which is a 4.6 percent reduction in their planned spaces, and whether he's aware, also, that a part of that is having an impact in certain areas of the college. I'm going to read some of the impacts that we're just becoming aware of now, and I'm sure the minister would agree with me that these are skills that are also very much in demand. As of next year, suspended programs include accounting, financial management and transportation logistics.

Could the minister tell me if he's aware that as a result of his actions, close to 400 student FTEs are going to be lost at that campus and if he can confirm that, in business studies, the accounting, financial management and transportation logistic programs are now suspended?

Hon. M. Coell: As I said, a lot of those discussions are still ongoing with the ministry.

I think that one of the important things, when we look at changes in courses, is that if you have room for 30 in your class and only five show up, you have to make a decision whether you're going to offer that program or not. Likewise, if you have two programs and two different classes of 60 and you only get applications for 30, you might be saying, "Well, we're not going to offer that program," but it's not even wanted.

What we're doing is asking the institutions to look at those programs first and to see what is underutilized. There was one example where there was a program that had five applications, and it could hold 35 people. Would you reasonably put that program on or not? I think that there's good reason to probably not go ahead with a program like that.

In dealing with all of the institutions, we let them know that the three-year forecast is a forecast. It's not a three-year budget, because budgets are done every year.

I've got a note here from BCIT saying: "We developed a 2008-2009 budget on the conservative side of the ledger, which has now proven to be in line with the government's financial allocations. Accordingly, we're positive to meet our enrolment targets in the coming year." So if one of our institutions can do a number of conservative budget estimates, I suspect they all can.

R. Fleming: I think the minister is playing with words here, though. He has promised and stood behind the three-year service plan in the past, saying that what his ministry and other ministries need is predictability and stability in their funding.

He's had reports into the funding issue that recurs amongst college presidents and university presidents recommending new models for stable, secure funding. Here we are in year 2, and what was anticipated only a few short months ago has been completely turned upside down. Now institutions like Vancouver Community College, which I'm talking about now…. All of them are having to live with the impact.

He says: "Well, maybe it forces them to make decisions about programs that aren't that popular or that have small enrolments." As the member for Cariboo North has said, sometimes those programs are ones that, by their very nature, have small enrolments or offer something that's incredibly vital, like education programs to transition disabled people in his community back into the workforce.

Those are obviously labour-intensive courses. They cost a lot, and when you force an institution to make difficult choices, guess what. They make the choices where…. As the minister says, they may be inefficient courses to offer, but they're ones that are important to the community.

With regards to Vancouver Community College, I wonder if the minister is aware that the American Sign Language program, which is part of the deaf studies department in that institution, is under active consideration right now to be eliminated — not offered next year. It will be eliminated.

Also, in trades, he's talking about how, for some skilled trades, we need to increase spaces. There's going to be targeted funding for that. Well, as a result of the 2.6 percent cut, I wonder if the minister is aware that Vancouver Community College right now is actively considering reducing spaces in autobody apprentice, automotive refinishing and automotive prep apprenticeship programs. Again, we know the reason for this. It's because that's an expensive trade to train people for.

At a time when resources are being made more finite, where commitments haven't come through that were anticipated, we have boards of governors like VCC's scrambling to make decisions. They're obviously trying to make decisions that impact the fewest people and allow the college to carry on as best it can, but somebody pays the price. We're hearing it here from the American Sign Language and deaf studies department. The automotive trades are taking a hit. Business studies I have already mentioned.

I wonder if the minister can comment on those program reductions at VCC as a result of the budget that he's now defending.

Hon. M. Coell: As I have said earlier, we're working with all of our colleges and institutions to develop their final budget. They're making some assumptions and some observations now, I guess, of what may be.

I think this goes back to what I said earlier. We need to have a collaboration between our institutions to make sure they're delivering programs that are needed in their areas. Some of those programs they're looking at…. I don't know, but maybe they're underutilized.

Maybe they're programs that some other institution is delivering at the same time.

We need to see them collaborate. We need to allow them to work with our staff to develop new programs in targeted areas.

We talked about the number of dollars into the system, and in the last month and a half into the system, for research and for capital and for new programming — $94 million for climate research at the universities. Research universities are all using that. That's money they didn't know was coming but that they got. We just sent them $9 million in increased capital. They didn't know that was coming. It's money they got last week.

Places like Genome B.C. and the Brain Research Centre — tens and tens of millions of dollars. That was money they didn't know of but got.

Sometimes money comes in different forms, too, to the universities and colleges. I think that in capital for the colleges, we sent out $10 million earlier this year — money that they weren't expecting to get. So there's a lot of money that flows to the universities and colleges during the year that they weren't expecting to get but that they get. They use it wisely and on behalf of the citizens, the taxpayers of the province.

When we ask them to make some changes and to target funds and give them increases, I think that's all positive. I think that working together and collaborating with one another is also going to be positive. I don't see this as anything but creating a stronger, more collaborative system that works in the best interests of academic and trades training, but also works in the best interests of the people of British Columbia.

R. Fleming: I don't think that an environment for encouraging collaborations between institutions is one where you take anticipated funding away from both of them, because it tends not to produce an atmosphere for collaboration. In fact, I know the minister will recall this…. In terms of encouraging greater collaboration in the sector, the Perrin report recommended that special funds be created — bridge financing, if you will — that would encourage collaboration and no net loss and all the other turf-type considerations that maybe the minister worries about and that are apparently holding back collaboration.

They recommended that, in fact, you incentivize collaboration, not force cuts on institutions and expect them to rationalize their programs so that one agrees to discontinue it to the benefit of the other, because that's not likely to happen. There are ways for the student experience to be improved between institutions, and I think we can agree to that. But in this budget, there are no such funds available to incentivize collaboration.

So I think it remains just words on this point. What we're left with at Vancouver Community College…. I've mentioned a number of cuts today of programs for next year. These are programs, by the way, that students had already enrolled in, in some cases, or where their program is going to be interrupted, where they've already begun their studies.

I want to ask the minister…. One of the, I would say, rationales that he is offering for making these cuts and redirecting FTEs is to put some of it toward specific health professional needs that we need in our health authorities and provincewide. In terms of the rollout of how this is happening, with March 12 being the date that institutions were told they could anticipate 2.6 percent less core funding than they had been previously informed they would get, there are concerns here that we're not going to be any further ahead when it comes to health sciences.

Again, at Vancouver Community College there's a nursing bachelor's degree program that he now expects to be started next January. I want to know if the minister has an understanding now that resources to go to support this nursing bachelor's degree program are actually going to come from the practical nursing program, the summer 2008 classes which are set to begin in the month of May. I understand that they are being redirected to support the degree program.

I also understand that the practical nursing refresher program — a shorter program that is a great way to get people who have experience in the system to come back and work in the health care system again — has been deferred to spring 2009.

Could the minister tell me today whether that's his understanding, as well, at Vancouver Community College?

Hon. M. Coell: As I say, that is still under discussion. The member talked about collaboration. I'll give you one good example, which is the northern team in the spring of 2006. The northern team was established by the Ministry of Advanced Education, and that is all the post-secondary institutions and other regional stakeholders in the north. They're getting together and collaborating so they don't duplicate programs and so they can feed off one another.

I can give you an example of the College of New Caledonia, Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College and the University of Northern B.C. They have all approved this approach and have formed the Northern Post-Secondary Council, which includes all four presidents and an assistant deputy minister in the post-secondary division in my ministry.

When you say, "How much is this going to cost," well, it may have cost the ministry a few thousand dollars to initiate this new collaboration. But it has been embraced by the sector, and they're going to do some great things. They're starting to focus on what they need for aboriginal students, what they need for technology diploma programs. The mental health and addictions certificate program has come out of that.

This is what we're asking them to do — to work together, to work as a team, to collaborate, to make sure that the programs they are delivering are good for their region but also good for the province and how the province can collaborate with one another.

As I say, there are a lot of discussions going on right now. Final budget letters for institutions haven't gone out. I realize — and I think I've said this a couple times — it is a challenge to make these changes. But I think we didn't have a choice in making the change to targeted funding with the evidence we have in front of us, from the Auditor General's report to FTE enrolments to nursing vacancies throughout the province to skilled trades unemployment rates.

So I think that we did the right thing to target funds, and we're working diligently with our partners. But we must make sure that as a province, the province is in a position to benefit as a whole from the decisions we made. I think we will find that those decisions were the right decisions.

R. Fleming: I think this word "collaboration" that's being bandied about this afternoon is really a word that's being used to gloss over the degree of chaos that is actually being created in each of the institutions as they scramble to meet a bottom line. The minister knows that most of these colleges and universities were struggling with internal structural operating deficits previously, before they had this 2.6 percent funding cut heaped upon them.

Now he's aware that at VCC— because we're talking about that right now — but also at other institutions, valuable programs are in fact being trimmed or eliminated in order to accommodate his ministry's central directive that other labour market needs take priority. I think that's going to cause a lot of difficulties.

He has used a slightly less strong word to acknowledge that he is creating concern amongst administrators, but I think there's going to be a lot of poor and shortsighted decisions being made in order to meet, in a very short amount of time — just two weeks before the new fiscal year started — the new demands from this ministry, the new budget letter that includes 2.6 percent less than what those institutions anticipated.

I want to ask the minister to confirm for me, at Selkirk College in the Kootenays, what the 2.6 percent reduction means there. I understand it's $688,000 less than what they originally anticipated in funding dollars. If the minister could confirm that and also that he has received notice from the college that the following programs are going to be cut or eliminated. I would like to refer to human kinetics, process operations and the West Kootenay teacher education program, which incidentally is specific and unique to the Kootenays and has been operating in that institution for 18 years.

Is he aware that those programs, among others, will be eliminated to make up for that $688,000 shortfall?

Hon. M. Coell: The member might be interested to know that during the last year, Selkirk College received — I'll just go through it — money they weren't expecting, I would say. It's $73,000 for insurance claims funding; community adult literacy programs, $120,000; regional literacy coordinator, $24,000; labour market adjustment, $10,000; aboriginal administration data standard, $12,000; college pension fund, $55,000; Kootenay School of the Arts expansion, $873,000; lease increases of $1.2 million; and capital funding of $300,000. That, again, is all in addition to what they received in their budget letter.

So as I say, there are different flows of funds into institutions from the ministry. The teacher program that the member mentioned…. I know my staff have talked to them. That's one that is in their budget letter and that they need to keep.

But again, we're talking with them on other programs. They also have a nursing program in conjunction with UVic. UVic is getting new nursing seats, and they'll be working through those as well.

I'm going to be touching on a few questions on North Island College. The campus in Port Alberni is specifically what I'll be dealing with, but I can't really deal with it just in isolation.

Fairly typical of a lot of rural institutions that have some unique challenges, full-time-equivalents and such. As the critic was talking about earlier here, we're seeing a 2.6 percent cut coming in very close to year-end fiscal, which has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench certainly into any three-year planning process.

My understanding is that North Island was already facing about a $600,000 structural deficit. I believe the 2.6 percent cut will add another new $539,000 rollback, if you will. Can the minister confirm those numbers, please?

Hon. M. Coell: We'll probably have to go back and forth a couple of times to get the answers. In 2007-2008 the base operating grant was $20,571,355. The base operating grant this year is $20,691,088. So it's an increase over last year's budget.

S. Fraser: I'm just going to get confirmation on the answer as we were interrupted by the bells. Did I hear the minister suggest that we have an increase? It's not a 2.6 percent cut? It was right in the middle of his response, so I just need to get that back again.

Hon. M. Coell: Yes, the base operating grant is up from $20,571,375 to $20,691,088. So it's a 0.58 increase. They also got, in this year's, 16 new skills FTEs, $99,000 pension adjustment. The negotiating framework was $556,095.

The last speaker…. I think we were also talking about what were some of the one-time funds that were moneys that showed up during the year, which weren't necessarily budgeted for. We had a non-timber forest product course development, which we funded an additional $38,000, and the cultural heritage resource management program, which was $100,000.

Then we had the aboriginal service plan, which was $200,000. The adult literacy program was an additional $171,000. The community adult literacy program — English as a second language — was $48,000, and then there were a range of other smaller additions. Then in capital equipment funding there were a quarter of a million dollars and an increase in one of their leases of $92,000.

So there were some significant changes and additions to their budget last year. If the member wants more, I'm quite willing to answer.

S. Fraser: The rural situation. There are some unique challenges, as I'm sure the minister is aware. Participation numbers, in particular, courses, class sizes…. I mean, there are some realities that don't necessarily fit into a cookie-cutter model that might be able to be used in an urban centre.

With that in mind, we have…. The anticipated budget has been cut by 2.6 percent on March 12. So the gross numbers from the year before are still…. This would, no doubt, be a disappointment to those trying to juggle very challenging situations with limited funds for the coming year, especially with two weeks to deal with that. My calculations show that the 2.6 percent rollback announced on March 12 for North Island College will amount to — if my calculations are correct — a $539,000 cut to what was anticipated. So I just want to clarify that. Am I in the ballpark here?

Hon. M. Coell: Maybe I'll take just a moment to expand on the question. One of the things we did when we became government was do a three-year service plan and a three-year estimated budget. Our provincial budget was passed a couple of weeks ago, and we're passing on that budget to the institutions, colleges and universities. During this month, we sit down with them and look at the effects of the provincial budge — our budget — on them. So those discussions are going on. Then a budget letter will go out later this month after we've sat down and looked at the targeted funds, where they're going and what changes in program mix that a college would make, but the two years out are only estimates.

Earlier we were talking about BCIT, and BCIT had sent me an e-mail saying that they had done a number of budget scenarios on the conservative side. I suspect it was one with no increase in funding, one with an increase and one with actual reduction. So they already changed what they were planning to do in the mix they were trying to accomplish with the new targets, prior to the March 12 meeting with my staff and the presidents.

I think there are a number of areas that the colleges can concentrate on. What we want them to look at is how the targeted funds will affect students in the different regions and to look at some of the programs that aren't as relevant today as they might have been ten or 15 years ago when they may have been initiated.

I'm confident that between the staff in the ministry and the professional staff in the colleges, institutes and universities, they'll be able to make these changes. I said to the member for Victoria-Hillside, the critic, that I do realize that this will be somewhat challenging, but I think they're up to the task.

S. Fraser: I'm confident that everybody's up to the challenge too, but there's an expectation that when you make a three-year plan, you try to find some stability in budgeting for that. They've done their three-year plan. This change, this 2.6 percent rollback, means they have to change that. So their original planning process has to be changed with very little time and almost no notice to make those changes.

The substantive challenges that are faced by all institutions, but certainly the smaller, rural colleges, have been greatly increased by having to deal with a drop in the expected funding based on their three-year plan that they did in good faith, at this 11th hour. That's a problem.

I must ask for the formulaic approach by the Treasury Board here on how the budget's done and, presumably, how the cuts were made. Are they taking into account…? Presumably, the college in Port Alberni may have to make cuts. It may have to be staffing cuts. There are costs associated with that. Is there anything to offset that along with the budget?

Hon. M. Coell: That's one of the reasons that we want to see what their plans are and how they affect…. I think that when you look at the number of people who are employed in this sector, there are literally thousands and thousands of retirees out of this sector. That gives them some flexibility on what to make for changes.

They also have the ability to relook at some of their programs that may be not utilized. We were talking earlier about some programs that might only have four or five applications for a potential class of 35. Would you be better off to take that FTE allocation and do nursing, where you're going to get 100 percent takeup right away? Most of the nursing programs in the province and many of the skills have waiting lists, while there are others that have vacancies. I think that we need to be a little collaborative between the universities and the colleges on what each one of them is providing, as well. I think there are lots of opportunities there.

S. Fraser: I'm not sure that that would be interpreted as opportunity — having this $539,000 rollback at this point in time. There are realities, in some cases, retirement…. Maybe that's a way to deal with things, but there are collective agreements that have to be dealt with. There are, certainly potentially, severance costs. There are a number of transition costs that may be incurred by this rollback. The rollback and the attempts to deal with that can, in some cases, create more costs. So it can be very, very challenging.

I question, I guess…. In Port Alberni we've had some…. I attribute it to government decisions in other sectors that have led to some pretty serious conditions and job loss in the Alberni Valley. The Alberni industrial review that came out this last year, which we got the Minister of Forests to engage in, specifically recognizes North Island College as being an integral part of recovery and diversification, retraining in some cases.

Everybody has pinned a lot of hopes and expectations on North Island College in Port Alberni. There are people watching this, I'm sure. I'm hoping that they're going to get some comfort here. If there's a 2.6 percent reduction, which there has been, will the required targets be reduced by a similar amount?

Hon. M. Coell: The member makes a good point that the targets for some of the colleges…. We've got some of the colleges that are functioning…. I'm thinking North Island, at 76 percent of what their FTE target is. Maybe we need to look at the rural colleges, because they're all significantly lower than the urban and the universities and institutes, as to what targets can be. We're working with them to do that.

The other thing that I think will affect the rural colleges, and we did talk a bit about this earlier, are the federal funds that are coming for the forest worker transition fund. That's $129 million to B.C. Some of that will be for pension and bridging, some for communities, but some is also going to be for retraining.

The initial plan, and we're just working through it now with the federal government, might be to have tuition free for displaced forest workers. So that would increase the ability for forest workers to go back to college and stay in their own communities. Port Alberni would probably be a good example of how that could be, working with the city council, the forest industry and the union, as well, to target some of those funds.

They could be significant funds for retraining, when you've got $129 million federal funds coming with the idea of using retraining funds this year. So that's another area that we'll be working with the rural colleges on as well.

S. Fraser: Thank you to the minister. All involved will be lobbying heavily for that federal money. While $129 million sounds like a lot, when you put in the effects of some of the other issues across the province, resource issues, beetle kill — there are a whole bunch of changes here and hardships across the province — that may actually get spread pretty thinly.

I just wanted to thank the minister and acknowledge that…. Looking at the rural situation, that 76 percent, fair enough…. Looking at that with the lens of the realities of problems with class size, the realities of rural colleges, the possibility of dropping the required targets and acknowledgment of costs — all of that will be useful.

There are cost increases here that I know the minister is aware of. There are labour costs, and of course, there are the costs of just running the institutions. They're all going up. The needs for the Alberni Valley, as stated in the Alberni industrial review, are great and increasing for the college.

With that in mind, I'm going to leave that message with the minister, and I shall return to inquire at a later date on this.

C. Trevena: I will continue some questions about North Island College, obviously. There's a huge disappointment by the announcement in March, which I'm not sure if my colleague from Alberni-Qualicum mentioned. I know that the president told me that he was quite shocked and described it as an unprecedented move. So there was real dismay.

I mean, North Island College actually started in the North Island. It started in very remote communities as a service to the people in the remote communities. People in the more remote communities have seen it sort of pull back more and more, so that it's now almost campus-based. There's a small outlet in Port Hardy. There's Campbell River, then Comox, Alberni Valley and small in Gold River and Cortes Island.

What I was wanting to ask the minister, a couple of things…. While some of the moneys from the federal government will be going for the forest workers retraining and will be divided up, as my colleague says, it's likely to be divided quite thinly. I wonder how widely the minister is looking — whether he's also looking at quick, rapid retraining forces, if he's talking with the colleges about how best to use this money so that it doesn't just go as a pot to the college, so that it can be used very innovatively to really serve the people who are in the more remote communities.

Hon. M. Coell: The initial discussions with the federal government would be to have some sort of individualized funding that could be directed to colleges, institutes or universities.

You have a variety of people in the forest industry, from administration staff right through to people who work hands on in the forest. All probably have different desires to retrain. There's also retraining within the forest industry. You may find someone who — a heavy-duty mechanic or a heli-logger or something like that… Those funds could be used for those sorts of new opportunities.

We're working with them to see what amount of money should be allocated to an individual and for how long. Would it be for a one-year course or a two-year course? Those are still in negotiations. But I think it will help the rural colleges, because there won't be a tendency for someone to say: "Well, I'm going to go to Vancouver to take this training." They'll say: "Can I take it in the area that I live to save living expenses and to keep a family together as well?"

I think there are some good opportunities. We talked a little earlier, too, about some of the pension bridging and support for communities that comes out of that and that should all be part of the mix. I'm optimistic that it will be a positive thing for the rural colleges.

C. Trevena: Sadly, this is money coming from the federal government for the rural colleges, and with the cuts…. We were talking last year, in fact, about doing mobile trades training, getting mobile units out to more remote areas and trying to advance training in that way, getting back to the more remote communities. Sadly, with the cuts, I think this is highly unlikely.

Again, when the minister has been talking about money that is available in his public statements, it's very much on the capital costs. I wondered how much will be available to North Island College for capital renewal for, when we're talking about trades training, the renewal of the machinery and so on that is needed for that training to be effective.

Hon. M. Coell: There are 16 new skills FTEs for North Island. There's $150,000 for the aboriginal service plan, and there's $600,000 for an aboriginal gathering place that could be used in a number of settings. That's over and above their operating budget this year. The new skills is worth about $65,000 — the 16 new skills FTEs — as well.

C. Trevena: The minister is prescient. He has answered my next question, which was going to be about training for aboriginal students and access for first nations. Obviously, it's a high demand or a high need.

But my question actually…. Maybe I didn't phrase it properly. It was in the capital funding. How much is going to be available for North Island College for renewing capital when it comes to trades training, once they're renewing the machinery and making sure they're not having to rely on Finning and other local companies to provide that machinery?

Hon. M. Coell: The college isn't getting any new capital money this year. I'm not aware of any new capital buildings that are being planned. They may be planning some that they haven't told us about as yet, but it's not in our capital plan this year.

C. Trevena: So the replacement for equipment as it wears out comes under the operating budget rather than the capital budget?

Hon. M. Coell: That would be the general operating capital, and they would be getting $254,000.

C. Trevena: My last question goes back…. Obviously, the budgeting has been knocked sideways for North Island College with the announcement of the cuts, and I was wondering whether there's going to be any provision for transition funding to…. If there has got to be paid severance, whether the ministry will be assisting in that for the college itself.

Hon. M. Coell: The colleges also…. What I've asked the board chairs and the presidents to do is a number of scenarios as to what changes would be made to move to the targeted funding from general funding increases. They're working with my staff, and we hope to have final budget letters to everyone by the end of April.

It generally works that the provincial budgets pass. Then we pass our budgets on to the institutions. They do their calculations of what programs can expand, what will contract or what capital projects will go ahead and what won't. They're doing that with us right now, and then my staff will make some recommendations to me on what we can do to assist in the transition.

There are about three weeks of good hard discussions in place. As I have said before, I have full confidence in the presidents and the boards to be able to do the scenarios that really best suit the regions that they represent throughout the province.

C. Trevena: I just really want to say to the minister that it's good that the minister has full confidence that the presidents and the chairs can plan for the transition and the downsizing. It would be very helpful if the minister would recognize the ability of the presidents and the chairs to see the needs of the colleges, particularly rural colleges. We do, in the rural communities…. The more rural you get, the greater need there is.

North Island College doesn't just do Alberni and my constituency. It goes up to Bella Coola and so forth. It really does serve a very needy population. While the minister has some money there for aboriginal funding, it's really not going to be enough to ensure that people do get the training they need close to home. It's going to not just centralize it in Campbell River, but we're going to start seeing people go down to Malaspina and beyond.

You'd lose people from the communities. Once they leave, it's often very hard to get people back. I wonder if the minister is factoring this in, into the future for the development of communities.

Hon. M. Coell: I appreciate the member's thoughts. I did forget that they do have an annual capital allowance as well. That's $827,510. That's on top of the one-time grant of the $254,000. But as I mentioned, there isn't any capital for new buildings. I don't think there's any contemplated.

The member did bring up the trades-training trailer, which was piloted out of Kamloops. There's now one in Prince George as well. I know North Island has shown an interest in it, as well as Camosun College. So we are looking at that, possibly, for later in this year or next year.

R. Fleming: I thank the minister for those answers to my colleagues. There'll be some more coming his way from other institutions that MLAs have in their constituencies.

I want to ask him a little bit about the University of British Columbia because, like other institutions, they were caught off guard by the 2.6 percent funding

reduction from what they had expected and what was in the three-year agreement previously. While they don't have a detailed plan as to how that will impact students, in terms of the courses that are available to them and all of the programs that may or may not be there in future, the board has given some direction to how the cut will play out.

One of the board of governors' documents that comes from last week in terms of digesting the 2.6 percent cut, and also the reductions in growth that were promised to them, suggests that, in total, there's a $15.8 million funding shortfall implication for the University of British Columbia. I just wanted to ask the minister if he's aware that, as of now, UBC will manage this problem from his ministry by disproportionately putting most of the funding cuts onto the new Okanagan campus of the institution.

Again, if the minister could comment. Of the $3.3 million that is anticipated to be lost in the budget expectation of what it previously was — that is, to fund growth expansion — is he aware that 100 percent of that growth expansion that was to be funded is going to be lost at the Okanagan campus?

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, UBC is one of Canada's great universities, and we have been supporting UBC Okanagan even…. In the last two months I would think Treasury Board has probably approved over $50 million worth of new construction at UBC Okanagan — a new medical facility and a new engineering facility. The climate change solution — of course, they're going to play a big role, with the University of Victoria, in that — was $90 million. Actually, they received, I think, $20 million for settlement of the golf course issue, as well, in the last couple of weeks.

They also have an increase in their budget this year of $25 million, so significant funds have flowed to the university, with new graduate seats as well. Of course, they get a number of new targeted seats this year, for a master's in nursing, medical lab pharmacy, speech pathology, audiology and a master's in nursing at UBC Okanagan. They have a number of new programs in medical school also, which will have an increase at the Okanagan campus as well.

I've opened five new UBC renewal buildings, to the tune of about $120 million in the last three years, and the new medical school was close to $300 million. We're supporting them. I think that they do a great job, and my staff are going to be working with them, as well as the other ones, over the next month to finalize their budget.

R. Fleming: I think, before the bells interrupted us once again, the minister was saying something or other about the reduced expectation of the budget, how he's confident that it will be managed and recognizes that it will cause some difficulty.

We're talking about UBC Okanagan. I wanted to continue questions on what exactly that difficulty might look like for that campus, because, as the minister knows, that's a campus that only a couple of years ago his ministry had complete confidence would be able to double its enrolment over a five-year plan.

Now, according to the Board of Governors of UBC, there'll be a 343-space reduction next year on the FTE growth, and they are off-target, as we've covered earlier this afternoon. Though they had 17 percent growth last year, the reward for that effort is a 343-FTE reduction next year.

I wanted to ask the minister if he's aware that at UBC Okanagan the cuts of his ministry may impact financial aid. There's an internal plan, of course, at UBC to take new funding, some of which was made available when the government deregulated tuition fees and institutions started increasing them at a rate of 30 or 40 percent a year. UBC and other institutions have had a plan to cope with the assault on affordability of education by the government to try, at least internally in their institutions, and have a more robust student aid program. Now that's under threat this year.

Cuts to financial aid and also recruitment support. In essence, what's happening here is that the recruiters that try to build the FTE growth at the institution…. Their budgets are being cut, which is shortsighted to say the least, also counter-productive, but necessary because of the lean situation in the budget. Also graduate teaching assistance programs are going to be reduced as well. The expanded IT facilities that were promised at this campus have been slowed down in terms of their construction, implementation and procurement.

I wonder if the minister can comment, then, with the reduction in FTE growth that he's aware of at that campus, if he has any information whether FTEs will be lost in programs other than engineering and business management.

Hon. M. Coell: UBC has been in touch with my staff, and they're still considering what changes they're going to make to both UBCO and UBC. I can tell the member that their base grant for '08-09 is $477,755,016. We have now plus grads, plus aboriginal spaces, health, physicians, negotiating framework and pension, and their total comes to $503,577,935. That's a 5.4 percent increase over last year.

I would just, because I think that they're our biggest and, as I say, one of the finest universities in Canada…. They have a foundation that has a billion dollars in it that helps them to help students and to help develop new programs and develop research and technology. The new degree programs that…. There's just a page of

new degrees, from doctor of philosophy, to bachelor of arts, to bachelor of science, to master of arts in different areas that they've been able to do.

What's more important to me is what has happened on the physical plant in the last year. We've got at Vancouver the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, ICORD, which is a $45 million budget, funding from the province. The Centre for Disease Control modelling was $18.77 million, and the Museum of Anthropology was $50.5 million. The Prostate Centre's translational initiative was $19.24. LASIR, the lab in advanced spectroscopy, was $12 million.

Integrated biodiversity lab, $49 million. The centre for hip health, $13 million. The centre for interactive research on sustainability, $36 million. The Centre for Drug Research and Development, $20 million. Brain Research Centre, $17 million.

Quantum materials lab — these are all buildings — $16 million. Multipurpose building, $31 million. That's at Kelowna. Health sciences building in Kelowna, $32 million. Arts and sciences building, $42 million. Engineering-management building, $79 million.

So a significant amount of money has been spent on capital costs for UBC. At the same time their operating budget has gone up significantly — I think around the 30 percent area — since 2001-2002 and, as I say, this year we just sent out an additional capital allowance to them to cover some increases in costs to construction of their share of about $9 million.

The Musqueam land settlement. I think it's close to a $20 million payment to them as part of that agreement. So there's a number of things that we do to support UBC. Again, a $25 million increase in their base budget this year over last year. I am thrilled that we're able to do that. I'm thrilled that we have the economy to be able to assist UBC, because they do exceptional work in the country.

R. Fleming: I hope I didn't hear from the minister there that UBC's $1 billion foundation, which of course has been accumulated over decades from alumni and donors and moneys earned by the university, would be a suitable place to weather the storm on his inability to keep to a commitment on a three-year service plan and fund its deficit. Because I can tell you, that would dry up donations pretty quick to that institution. That would be a terrible place to try and make up for the mistakes of the ministry, promising one thing a few months ago and delivering another on March 12, which came, to quote the board of governors document, "as a complete surprise to the institution."

My question specifically was that at UBC Okanagan engineering seats, business management seats are not going to be funded. Those FTEs that were expected to be growing at that institution are being pulled away next year. You mentioned that some buildings have been built to support that. When it comes time to have the students in those buildings and learn those programs and graduate and contribute to the economy…. It's being slowed down next year.

If the minister can confirm that at UBC Okanagan there will be fewer engineering and business management seats — we understand 343 — next year, if he has additional information on other FTEs or other programs that are contributing to that loss, if he could tell the committee here.

Hon. M. Coell: I want to emphasize to the member: I think that we have to realize that this is still a budget-planning exercise that UBC is going through. We have some commitments with them. They have some commitments to us as well. They're working through those as they expand. It's an extremely large expansion at UBC Okanagan. We have just announced the approval of the medical school moving ahead, as well, and that comes with FTEs as well.

B. Ralston: I do have a question about UBC that flows out of some public discussion of some of UBC's investment management last January. The minister may recall, or he may not, that in response to a letter I wrote to the Minister of Finance, she disclosed that UBC had invested $122 million of its $525 million working capital dollars in non-bank-asset-backed commercial paper.

This was striking, in the sense that the money manager for the province — the B.C. Investment Management Corporation, which manages $83 billion worth of Crown assets — had specifically advised all entities under its control and made a decision not to make any investments in that type of commercial paper. What happened, then, was that there was some reaction from UBC. In the student newspaper, the Ubyssey, the university treasurer, Mr. Smailes, said that his estimate was that the loss would be based on a write-down of $18 million.

I'm convinced that that's far from adequate. Indeed, in a recent article in The Globe and Mail business section, there was a quotation from a RBC Dominion Securities analyst who says that…. This is the Globe and Mail, dated Tuesday, March 25, 2008. RBC Dominion's analyst Andre-Philippe Hardy based his analysis on court documents which disclose…. There's a combination of assets. A $17.2 billion portion of the market leverage super senior swap transactions were worth about 30 percent of face value as of March 4, Mr. Hardy noted.

He believes that a further $3 million portion of the market that is tied to the U.S. sub-prime is probably worth about 20 percent, assuming that all of the other assets underlying this paper are still worth their full face value. This "implies a valuation of 56 percent for ABCP". And the last — beginning with "implies" and ending with "ABCP" — is a quotation. So a rough calculation, based on a 56 percent valuation, would mean that UBC has lost approximately $67 million.

I raise that here because I don't want to be confronted by the Minister of Finance, in her estimates, directing me back here when these estimates have already been completed.

So my question to the minister is: what mechanisms for oversight are there in UBC managing public

money? Secondly, when the main money manager for the province did not invest in this, why did UBC invest in this? Thirdly, where did they get the investment advice from? And fourthly, who is being held accountable for this potential $67 million loss?

Hon. M. Coell: I don't have that at my fingertips, but if the member will give me an hour or so, I'll endeavour to get staff to get an answer to that question.

B. Ralston: Well, I appreciate that offer. I'm just concerned, given that it's now a quarter after five, and I understood that estimates for this ministry might conclude at the end of today. So given that we'll probably adjourn in precisely an hour, I'm wondering whether we're actually going to get back here for that answer or not.

Is the minister then prepared to continue estimates tomorrow morning, if it's necessary to get that material together, and provide a response to the public?

B. Ralston: Another part of the UBC financial structure is the UBC Properties Trust. Can the minister advise…? The Properties Trust is owned totally by the University of British Columbia and manages not only the construction of facilities but also, as I understand it, real estate development on the Endowment Lands. There are a number of directors with substantial commercial real estate connections and experience. I'm wondering what the mechanism is for public oversight of this vast real estate operation at UBC.

Hon. M. Coell: I think the short answer to that would be the board of governors of UBC.

B. Ralston: Can the minister give a rough estimate of the real estate developments that are underway that are directed by UBC Properties Trust at the present time, giving a dollar value, and the estimated real estate development in their plans over the next three to five years?

Hon. M. Coell: That is their development arm. I would imagine that most of their developments are coordinated by that arm of UBC.

B. Ralston: With respect, that's not a very satisfactory answer. This is a substantial operation, a major real estate development. These are very senior people with substantial real estate connections. The minister is responsible for the University of British Columbia, and an inability to answer the most basic questions about their inactivity is, in my view, unacceptable.

So I'm asking the member again: in general terms, what is the scope of what this real estate arm is doing — UBC Properties Trust — and what are its real estate development plans over the next three-to-five-year time horizon? Ordinarily, most companies have a plan. Obviously, if the revenue is self-generated, then let's hear about that.

Given the lack of financial oversight on this or non-bank-asset-backed commercial paper, I'm concerned that there's a lack of public scrutiny and oversight of substantial financial public assets, and the minister's answer does not reassure me or, I'm sure, anyone else who is listening.

Hon. M. Coell: I understand the member's question. I think that under the University Act UBC is an autonomous institution. I don't have any direct authority to intervene in their day-to-day operations.

I don't believe that the rating agencies have an issue with their funds or the investment of their funds. I would offer the member — it's not something that I have before me — a technical briefing on UBC's finances and investments. I'm sure that UBC would participate in that as well.

Before I go on, I've been remiss. I promised the member a number of materials to support the technical briefing that he had, and also there are some questions from yesterday. I wonder if I could have the staff deliver that to the opposition critic.

B. Ralston: I suppose if that's the nature of the answer, then I'll reluctantly accept a technical briefing. Will the minister commit now, here, publicly on the record, then, to disclose all reports by rating agencies, by any outside auditors assessing the capacity of the real estate investment trust and to disclose its development plans and its full balance sheet publicly?

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, the rating agencies disclose that publicly for the universities.

R. Fleming: Just on UBC Properties Trust, there's a lot of interest in the campus, and there's a debate there. Basically, we have a large unincorporated municipality where citizens don't have a mayor and council to hold accountable to the development plans of that community. Nevertheless, as an unincorporated entity and with the university having the boards that it does, there is concern about the housing mix at that campus. I want to ask the minister if he shares those concerns.

Basically, the concern is this. There's a waiting list of over 3,000 people to get into an on-campus dorm and for student housing spaces on that campus. In the meantime, there's a campus plan that does not direct specific formulas or that institution to address that backlog in its housing plans but allows them to develop, basically, as they see fit.

What we have, predictably, are properties — 900- and 1,100-square-foot properties — selling for $1½ million. They're full market recovery, private real estate agreements that are being entered into. Of course, there's a role for that in any campus that was endowed

with land of that size. UBC does a pretty good job of many of the planning aspects of the use of this land.

But the question for me is: does the minister feel that it is reasonable for students to have his ministry work with UBC to address the backlog in wait-lists for student housing and that perhaps in partnership with Properties Trust…? The ministry used to fund the creation of subsidized student spaces in prior years. They don't do that in their capital planning anymore.

If the minister could comment on how he might have a conversation — or maybe he has — with the president of the university to look at housing affordability, which is a critical issue in the Lower Mainland. Here we have an opportunity, with this land in the GVRD, to try to address it.

Will he have that conversation, and does he feel it would be appropriate to arrive at targets to expand affordable housing primarily directed at students on that campus?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm happy to raise that with UBC. I know that there are two very large towers for student housing going up right now that were held up at the GVRD level for a number of months. But I will take that under advisement. I think that's a good point.

R. Fleming: I wonder if we could just talk about Simon Fraser across town in Vancouver and the funding cuts there and what they might mean. Again, SFU's senate is meeting tonight. Its board of governors won't meet until later this week, I understand — or the finance committee of that. Like other institutions, it's just coming to terms with the sudden withdrawal of anticipated funding from the ministry.

For context, SFU was struggling with an internal deficit. That's typical of a lot of the institutions in this ministry who live with the funding formula, as it were. They had just completed a difficult exercise of finding $9 million to balance their budget this year. They basically had to solve what they would call a structural deficit, because there are non-salary operating costs that are forced upon them that aren't covered in the ministry funding formula.

Also, the minister has talked about capital projects. Any new building coming on stream does not get triple-net extra additional costs to help that institution. Those budgets aren't raised. You have these inherent structural deficits that are accruing in institutions. They worked with great diligence to come up with a balanced draft budget. Now they're set back by $6 million because of what the minister announced on March 12.

I wonder if the minister can comment on whether he is aware that the academic reorganization at SFU may be in jeopardy, because — and I think he's in favour of this — the announced creation of two new faculties at SFU, which is a reorganization exercise, has a cost implication of $2 million. When you're staring at a brand-new, two-week-old $6 million funding cost cut on you, those are the kind of tough choices that can arise.

What will the minister do to ensure that the academic reorganization at SFU is not under threat because of what he did to that institution and others on March 12?

Hon. M. Coell: The increase for SFU, year over year, is 3.8 percent this year, and that doesn't include the school for contemporary arts at the Woodward's site, which is $71.5 million; the new Surrey campus, which is $69 million; a health sciences building, which is $34 million; and a number of other buildings — approximately $30 million — on the mountain campus.

So they've had significant increases over the last few years, a tremendous amount of infrastructure. I think that all around this table would agree that the new Surrey campus is a spectacular success. That's fully funded as well.

As I say, I don't have any doubt that the senate and the board of governors and their financial people, working with my staff, will make the decisions that are in the best interest of Simon Fraser and its students. There was a 3.8 increase in the budget over last year.

R. Fleming: I think it's a critical question that SFU is wrestling with right now. Let's remember that they wouldn't be wrestling with this were they to receive the $6 million in additional funding they had anticipated, which the ministry in fact told them they would receive.

What's at stake here…. I know that the minister will support this because he's part of a government that would like to be recognized for understanding and supporting initiatives to tackle climate change. One of the elements of this academic reorganization is to create a new faculty of the environment, which will feature applied sciences, geography, natural resources and earth sciences. The other is to create a new, distinct faculty of engineering and computer science.

Obviously, that may work well with what the minister has been saying as his rationale for cutting funds elsewhere, which is to tailor programming and grant funding towards things that lead to employment and labour market demand. So that's at risk as well.

The question for the minister was…. He went on to read a list of things that they've funded over the last several years at SFU. There's a $2 million cost implication attached to this academic reorganization at SFU. I presume that he supports it happening, but rather than help and assist to make it happen, he's handed them $6 million in cuts that they have to make, just in the last two and a half weeks.

The question is: if this is something that the senate decides against in the context of additional cuts that they're going to have to make, will he step in and help SFU specifically to accomplish this academic reorganization? Remember, they're going to have to choose. Every $2 million counts on this campus now. They're going to have to find that money somewhere. So you're either going to cut it from other programs, other departments…. Maybe you're going to support less graduate research and teaching programs. Who

knows? They're making those decisions. They're looking into it. They're not pleased about it.

The question to the minister is: in an effort to find $2 million for an academic reorganization in the context of less money coming from the ministry, will he step in and help them in that effort?

Hon. M. Coell: I'm confident that if SFU wants to make this change and if it's a number one priority for them, they will find a way of doing that.

I look at the funds that have gone into research and development. We've had $35 million from BCKDF since 2001 in 79 projects, totalling over $100 million of new research funds at SFU. We've put $11 million from the leading-edge endowment fund into five B.C. leadership chairs at SFU, and one-time funding of $2 million for 200 more graduate scholarships over four years. So when you couple that with….

As I say, I have confidence. Here's a group of talented people grappling with how to put Woodward's together — $70 million hiring staff, producing programs. Again, I've got another page and a half of new degrees that have been approved and funded since 2001, all of which take time and effort from their senate and their board of governors to develop.

If they're capable of dealing with building the Surrey campus at $70 million and putting thousands of students in that, creating new programs, and then going on to Woodward's to create a new, great facility for the downtown east side…. These are people who are capable of doing great things. I expect that they'll be able to handle their budget all right.

B. Ralston: Well, the minister has provided me with a perfect point of entry to ask some questions about SFU Surrey. The minister will be aware, based on representations by the leadership at Simon Fraser University, that the proportion of new SFU Surrey students in the fall of 2007 was 49.7 percent. In other words, the institution in Surrey has been very successful in attracting students from Surrey.

The minister will also be aware that the per-capita university attendance in the typical age band of university attendance is well under the per-capita average and that, in fact, the South Fraser region is one of the lowest in the province. Therefore, policy that encourages students in that region to attend university is desirable. I'm sure that the minister would share that.

My question is about the future policy direction and development of SFU Surrey. What the leadership there has put out is two scenarios, where it will continue at the present level and basically become a niche campus of about 2,500 students, with a continued presence in the Surrey city centre but not appreciable expansion, or a more ambitious and robust scenario which would address the existing and growing disparity of post-secondary access in the South Fraser region with additional programs and spaces, particularly in the sciences and health sciences, and expand research in areas such as biotechnology and health to support Surrey as B.C.'s second-largest city and the South Fraser region as a key economic driver for the province.

Now, I think that by asking that question, the minister will know what my preference is and I'm sure the preference of most of the residents of the South Fraser region. Certainly, those in positions of municipal leadership would support that. The city of Surrey is making some ambitious plans to support the city centre, including moving the city hall there. SFU needs a new science building, and there's a recent further interest in developing some on-site residences for students.

Some of the elements are there. I think what's needed is a longer-term commitment by the province in the direction of the more expansive scenario that SFU proposes. I'm convinced they're capable of executing that. Is the minister prepared to support that kind of ambitious expansion — of serving the students and families of the South Fraser and leading to creating Surrey as an economic and research centre south of the Fraser, which will be good for everyone in British Columbia?

Hon. M. Coell: I do appreciate the suggestions from the member, whose riding, obviously, is where the Surrey campus is situated. I would agree. I think the Surrey campus has made a tremendous improvement to that area of Surrey. It has probably started some more rebuilding and thoughts by the province.

I am aware, and I have spoken to the president of SFU, who has said a very similar scenario to me. So our staff is looking into what those suggestions might be. I know they own some land that possibly could be redeveloped, along with the city, to create new opportunities for SFU.

Again, I go back to…. It has to be a priority for SFU, and they have to present that in their capital-planning meetings with us. I've certainly heard very similar comments from the president, and I've made a commitment to him that the ministry would look at those suggestions.

B. Ralston: Well, I want to say that from my conversations with the leadership at Simon Fraser University, I expect that if it hasn't already been made, those kinds of submissions will be made. I just want to thank the minister, then, for the confirmation that he will seriously consider these expansion plans for Surrey.

I can say that I for one — and, I know, the leadership in the city of Surrey — will be interested in supporting that. I look forward to working with the minister on those developments in the immediate future.

R. Fleming: Just continuing on from the member's question, I want to talk about other institutions, as well, that are impacted by cuts and changed plans for seat expansion. We've covered a number of institutions this afternoon. Of course, there are many more that are in the midst of deciding how this will impact them. They're hoping to come up with plans to make it

impact them as little as possible, but it's a significant challenge, as even the minister has acknowledged here today, to do that without impacting other programs and without impacting the quality of education at these institutions.

Closer to home, I wanted to ask the minister about Camosun College, because I know it's in his backyard, and he knows the institution well and visits it frequently. They have a very delicate budget situation there. In past years there have been significant reductions to university transfer programs offered. That's 60 percent of their student FTE space there at that institution.

Maybe what I would ask the minister for a short answer on…. He's very familiar that Camosun College has some very unique characteristics and student-friendly abilities to help adult learners particularly to manage a schedule of work and go to school. One of them is an exemplary child care centre at that institution. It's been under threat probably three times in the last three years.

With this funding cut at Camosun College, or the reduction in what they had anticipated in funding from the ministry, has the minister taken the time to inquire and to seek from the president a guarantee that this child care centre will not, once again, be threatened with closure?

Hon. M. Coell: I believe that their child care centre, and I think that it's the Lansdowne campus, is run separately, but I'll check into that. If the member will just give me a moment, I'll check with my staff.

I was wrong. It is withinside their budget, and it is run by CUPE employees. I would be very surprised if that was considered as part of the changes that they may or may not make. But there has been a number of, I think, very positive one-time funding at Camosun that I just would take a moment to go through.

We've got the foundation skills, addition of 18 FTEs; nursing health, an additional 16 FTEs; associative arts and adult basic education, 19 and ten. New degree programs were 18 — new business management and marketing communications and a bachelor of business.

They had aboriginal project funding of over $400,000 last year and regional innovation chair in sport technology, $1.2 million; trades training consortium, $50,000; and a college pension fund adjustment. The Pacific Sport Institute is close to $30 million of government funds. They have a gathering place for aboriginal people at $600,000. They're all over and above their budgets.

They're improving on the capital side, improving on the degree side and improving with, I think, the number of student spaces. I, as the member knows…. I think both he and I are frequent visitors to Camosun's two campuses, and I'm always impressed with the professionalism of their staff and their board as well. Their funding increase this year is 3.9 percent over last year, and as I said, our staff are still working with them. I believe that I have a meeting with their president and board chair later this month.

R. Fleming: Camosun estimates that they're going to be wrestling with a $2½ million structural deficit, and part of that is the 2.6 percent cut that we've been talking about this afternoon. That's a $1.2 million implication for them to handle, and they're trying to get a handle on it in just a couple of weeks' time. In fact, we're into the new fiscal year now so I think that with a lot of institutions, they're really going to have eight months to manage this out of their fiscal year because they have commitments that are ongoing right now.

One of the things that I'm aware of at Camosun that has changed, as well, is there were to be 112 new student spaces funded this year at a cost of $700,000 in new funding to the university. That was part of the SIP program, I gather — Camosun's allocation of new spaces.

Now that's been pulled away. I know that the minister will go and say that we're creating 100 new health care–funded spaces there, and that's true, but I wonder if the minister can confirm for me, in terms of the 112 new student spaces that were part of the SIP allocation, whether those have been cut and which departments is he aware of that that might impact. Is it, in fact, university transfer programs, again, at Camosun?

I think that it's important to look at the university transfer issue, before the minister answers this, because its decline is happening at a number of institutions across B.C. Why that should be concerning is that it comes back to the issue of accessibility.

The university transfer programs at community colleges offer GPA entrance requirements that are significantly below where the minister wanted to target. They offer a cost accessibility relative to the university fees that have gone up under his administration. They also are linked to a higher success rate and degree completion rate in the university.

We're talking about Camosun here. I want to know if those 112 spaces are university transfer spaces that are going to be lost next year, because we know from statistics that those who study at Camosun for years 1 and 2 are more likely to complete their degree at UVic when they get there than students who go to UVic straight away in year 1. I think that speaks to an efficiency and a valuable service that community colleges are playing, particularly Camosun in this example.

If the minister could confirm for me, in light of that evidence that the implication of his funding reduction is going to be a loss of 112 university transfer spaces, why he would support that.

Hon. M. Coell: Actually, Camosun's utilization is better now than it has been in years. Also, as the member says, they have a great relationship, both from UVic's perspective and from Camosun's, of working together for the betterment of students.

I don't see that university transfer changing much. The new seats that they've got — the aboriginal access at 14 seats, skills at 54 seats, nursing and nursing health on one time is 20 and 92…. So they have some significant new seats as well.

I know they're in their planning for the new specific sports facility. They have a number of options that they're looking at, and again, our staff are working

with them to make sure that when that building comes on line, it's full of students.

R. Fleming: I would suggest that a reduction in the core funding is precisely not what will ensure that that new building, that sport centre, will be full of students, because it has been rumoured that in fact some programs that go to support that institution might be examined by the board.

A final question on Camosun College for the minister. They, like UVic, UNBC and other institutions, have said that because of the lack of notice that he provided and the late change in the funding that was anticipated from the ministry in the three-year service plan and the indication that was given just earlier this year, they're going to have to make these budget adjustments that we've been talking about.

Some of them have identified ways that they can do it. Some of them have said: "We can't do it." They've said that they would like to run deficit budgets, and the minister, I know, is aware of this. I don't know if he has formally received requests and from how many institutions.

Maybe I'll start there and ask him: how many institutions at this point in time have asked him whether they can have ministers' permission to run deficits for the 2008-2009 operating year?

Hon. M. Coell: At this time I haven't any formal requests to run a deficit. I have heard and read in the media that some of the boards of directors are contemplating that, but they haven't finished working with our staff through the budget planning process. The only one I have heard from that won't be running a deficit is BCIT.

R. Fleming: I guess, then, that under your signature there was a letter sent to the board chair at Camosun, and probably to all the board chairs, and I want to ask the minister if this should be interpreted as a warning. It reads: "In keeping with legislation, should an institution project that it will be unable to achieve its objectives within the financial resources available to it, government approval by the Ministers of Advanced Education and Finance is required."

I want to ask the minister for an interpretation of what his letter is trying to explain to boards that might be considering deficit budgets as their only option to avoid chopping valuable programs at their institutions and what they can expect to hear from him, should they try to advance plans to do just that to his office.

Hon. M. Coell: I was merely reminding them of their obligations under the University Act. I think that, in many instances, the boards plan upwards and changes every year, and they just want to make sure they work with us on any changes that are planned.

R. Fleming: Well, maybe I could ask the minister, then, what his response is going to be when an institution…. As he has already said, he's aware that a couple of them, at the very least, have said that they will submit plans very shortly, so I don't think that we have to be too hypothetical here. They're in the mail or on their way. They've said that their way of managing his ministry's directive that they will get less funding than they anticipated will be to run deficit budgets. Surely, the minister has already considered what his recommendation might be, and I would like to hear it on the record here today.

Hon. M. Coell: It would be my expectation that during the next few weeks, when the different institutions are working with my staff, that they would bring back some recommendations to me. They have, in the University Act, the ability to ask for a deficit in an operating budget, but there's so much more to the budgets of our colleges and universities. I think over the last number of hours we've identified that funds from a variety of different areas — be it capital or operating or federal-provincial funds, private sector funds, research funds — all affect how the budget will work and the priorities of the individual institutions.

So that's the conversation that's going on now. From my perspective, I have to look at it as what's in the best interest of British Columbia as a whole and how the different partners can collaborate to deliver that for British Columbia.

R. Fleming: It doesn't really answer the question, but I think that it will be something that very soon the minister has to deal with in reality. We'll see what happens then, because I know that the University of Victoria has said that rather than take these late $4.5 million cuts to their institution, they simply will run a deficit this year. They believe that they can manage the hit over a longer period of time than in just one fiscal year, which coincidentally is the entire rationale for having a stable and predictable funding that was promised in the minister's own service plan, which has now been altered in year 2.

The university is simply asking for the same consideration in running a deficit this year that the minister and the ministry promised all institutions just a short time ago was a fundamental principle of this government, and that's being betrayed in this most recent announcement — just in the second year of the plan.

I have just a question that has come to my attention about Private Career Training Institutions Agency. One of the recommendations in the report that the government has received, and just generally from anyone paying attention to the problems in the private career training sector, is that it needs vastly more oversight. It needs to not just be an industry self-regulating organization. It needs to go back to the time when broader stakeholders were at the table and were providing oversight.

It has taken the minister a long time to admit that there was anything wrong with his predecessor's deregulation of this sector — one very, very slight, I would say, concession to those that have brought to his attention massive problems in this industry and real

tragic human consequences of changes made to the legislation in terms of people losing money and not getting degrees or credentials that they had signed up for.

One minor concession that government made very recently was to allow — imagine this — a student to sit on the board of the PCTIA, and if the minister can confirm for me that appointment has now been made, and maybe, in explaining who that individual is and if the appointment has been confirmed, also tell me if that person represents a student society or a provincial student organization and has some linkage and accountability to the students they're there to represent. Because I think the whole point of stakeholder oversight is that they report to their peers formally and are connected to those networks.

Hon. M. Coell: I have made that appointment. It is a student from University Canada West. Sara Pearson is her name

Before we go on, the member for Surrey-Whalley had asked for a number of updates. I think I have those. I'd like to table them. Then maybe the member can have a look at them, and if they don't answer his question, he could pose more. I've got some on the role of the UBC Properties Trust — the mission statement, the institutional development, student housing and faculty housing as well. I'll table those and get them over to the member.

Is there any word on the financial oversight of the non-bank-asset-backed commercial paper transactions at UBC?

R. Fleming: I want to know what the minister might have contemplated for situations where universities have had FTE reductions. Maybe he can quantify the FTE reductions, because I know they're in the hundreds. Where there have been offers of admission that have already gone out to current high school graduates or to those that will graduate — those that might have found a letter of admission — and now the institution cannot accommodate it because the space has disappeared…. In those instances, what will the minister propose to do? Hopefully, his proposed solution would be one that would err and support on the side of the students and work with the institution to meet the offer that they've made.

Hon. M. Coell: That's a question with many different potential answers, I guess. The desire, I think, is that we have courses that are relevant and courses that actually are full or almost full.

I think that we have an opportunity now to look at some of the programming. We're saying: "Okay, we're going to target some new funds. What are we doing that we don't need to do to the level we are?" We talked earlier about, possibly, a program that had 60 students in it two years ago or four years ago and this year or for the foreseeable future is only going to have 30. Do you run both of those courses, or do you combine them and run one?

The other area is the capacity we've built into the sector. There are classrooms running half full that we're funding for full. So as they fill up, there wouldn't be a necessity for us to put more money in for more FTEs because we've already been funding the ones that aren't there.

I fully expect that some of these courses — and some of them are in the rural colleges as well — that don't have as many students in them actually will increase. So we'll actually have more students in the system, but it won't actually cost us more, because we've already built the buildings, built the classrooms and funded the faculty. We're just waiting for the students to come in. I suspect that'll happen.

You sort of have both. You have underutilized programs that really may have had more relevance a decade ago than they have today. You have new programs that are funded, but the students aren't in them now, and now you've got targeted funds in addition to all that.

It's interesting, and as the member knows, it's a very intricate and complicated mix when you put literally hundreds of thousands of people within a system and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of programs and faculty members. To get that mix right — I think that's part of the job they do. That's why I've said all along that I have confidence in them to be able to make these changes in the next month.

R. Fleming: Well, I want to come back to that, because the minister again says he has confidence that the institutions can manage at the very last minute on less funding than they had anticipated in the three-year budget plan and from the signal that his ministry sent out just a few months ago. You know, it actually begs the question, if he's so confident that they can manage with less, why he hasn't taken this move before and whether he will, in fact, in the next budget seek to reduce even more funding.

Again, he has said on so many occasions here this afternoon that he's confident that the ingenuity of the institutions can manage with less funding all the time. I think that's a dangerous statement, to not acknowledge that there are real limits. Anyone working in the sector would say that those limits were reached some time ago in the funding situation, to keep accomplishing more and getting less per student from this government.

I want to take a step back and ask the minister this. There has been sort of a hushed rationale outside of these chambers, to those that have been asking questions, as to why this ministry and why their institution is being asked to take a hit. The rationale has been this. I don't think you'll see it written down anywhere on paper, but it's basically said that government is slowing down. Everything is uncertain. We live to the north of

the U.S. housing bubble below us, and it's basically just time for people to tighten their belts.

The interesting thing in this ministry is that we've seen lots of increases in all kinds of funds, hundreds of millions of dollars of funds for all kinds of tax cuts, for banks and increased largesse subsidies for the oil and gas sectors, even as the price of oil reaches a record level on the barrel. I'm not aware why they need an enhanced level of subsidy, but for this ministry there's been less money available. The hushed rationale given to those asking questions from within the sector has been that there's a systematic belt-tightening in this ministry and other ministries, and it's based on government's lowered confidence in the growth of this province.

I wonder if the minister could respond to that rationale, whether it's an official one or an unofficial one.

Hon. M. Coell: I think that when I look at the increase in this budget from 2001-2002, it's a 40 percent increase in the money that was going into the post-secondary sector, which is really close to health, if not greater than the amount of money spent on health. So what I think we've seen is a tremendous expansion that is still continuing, with $600 million worth of capital in the next three years plus increases in seats.

It isn't the first time, actually, that we've reallocated seats. We did that last year as well. There were some institutions that were underperforming to the level of their seats, and we moved those seats into areas of…. Again, most of them were in health and skills. So this is just another reallocation in that.

I think you don't want to continue to produce general growth if it's not being absorbed. If you have huge increases in the need for doctors, nurses, LPNs, pharmacists and the like, I think we need to respond to it. I don't think it's anything of a change in direction for government. I think that it's just a change in focus as we move forward and continue to grow the campuses and grow the programs. It's a narrowing of focus to what I think British Columbia needs.

If I can, just before I sit down. I've got a couple of notes from my staff re the member for Surrey-Whalley's comment. Really, the board is accountable for the activities of UBC. But because I know it's something that he's interested in, I would arrange a technical briefing, as I mentioned. I'll also make sure that people from UBC are at that meeting so that they can explain more fully.

I guess the question is this. UBC is a public institution. The board of directors for the most part is appointed by order-in-council by the government, and it manages public money on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia. So to say that this minister, somehow, is not going to answer questions here in this forum, which is really the only forum other than question period where the minister is accountable for this public institution is, in my view, unsatisfactory.

There are some very basic questions about financial oversight here that I think deserve a public answer. This is a potential loss, according to that calculation that I provided by the analyst from RBC, of $67 million. This is not something that can be just brushed off and swept under the carpet and off to a technical briefing and no public discussion of it.

So I think that I'm going to insist on an answer here in this forum. If the minister is not prepared to provide it here, if he doesn't think that this is the place to answer it, I think he should stand up and say that he won't answer it here.

Hon. M. Coell: I guess that the answer I would give is that under the act…. The act vests the oversight with the board of directors of UBC. They have an audited financial statement every year that they have to produce, and that is a public document.

B. Ralston: Well, there's something beyond providing an audited financial statement, and the minister is well aware of the difference. This is a public institution — I'm going to repeat it again — spending a substantial amount of taxpayers' dollars, and it has lost, according to very reputable people in the financial services industry, potentially $67 million worth of public money. I think that the public is entitled to an answer here and not to be brushed off to the board and to say that this is a function of their financial statements.

The minister is accountable, ultimately, and the minister should answer here. I'm asking the minister to provide an explanation of how this money was lost. Who gave the investment advice, and why was this decision made when the province's main money manager, the B.C. Investment Management Corporation, which manages $83 billion worth of Crown assets, did not invest in this type of commercial paper?

I think that the public deserves some answers, so I'm asking the minister to provide the answers. If he's going to say on the record that he won't answer it, then the public will be able to draw their own conclusions, anyone who cares to follow this issue. But I think that it's a substantial issue when, potentially, $67 million worth of taxpayer money has evaporated.

Hon. M. Coell: I understand the member's question. In looking at the act, it says that I appoint a board of directors who oversee the finances of a university. I think that if you check UBC's financial audits over the last decade or so, they've actually made very good returns, and their auditors and the people who give them a credit rating are quite pleased with them. They're going through a process this year of a change in the money that they have made on their investments. It's a sizeable investment, one which they have professionals to help them with.

As I say, I'm willing to prepare a technical briefing on how that works, and again, I am relying on the act that I am working from, which makes sure that the board of directors is responsible for their finances.

B. Ralston: I guess my question to the minister is: who is he holding accountable for this? Mr. Brad Bennett is the chair of the board. Has he spoken with Mr. Bennett and asked for an explanation of how the board of governors apparently managed to lose this $67 million? Is he thinking of replacing the board? Mr. Bennett is the chair of the finance committee of the board of directors of UBC. Have there been any changes there? What steps has the minister taken to ensure some very basic financial accountability here?

The minister seems blithe, very unconcerned and untroubled by this. I don't think that's good enough, with respect.

Hon. M. Coell: We spoke earlier. The university has over a billion dollars in endowments and finances — all of that through the professional people that it uses. At the end of the day the member is making some assumptions that may or may not turn out to be correct. I'm willing to wait and see how UBC's finances come out, but I look at their history and their track record of raising funds, investing funds. They do very well.

B. Ralston: Well, this is a question about a specific asset that they hold, and there's a market valuation by very reputable people. Mr. Purdy Crawford is engaged in cross-country negotiations about this asset class with a number of people. The question isn't about UBC broadly, the everything-will-turn-out-in-the-end kind of Pollyanna approach to finances. This is a question of specific accountability on a very specific investment. Who's going to be held accountable?

The minister didn't answer as to whether he'd even talked to the chair of the board — the chair of the finance committee, Mr. Brad Bennett, appointed by the government — about what steps they took. Why was this decision made? Who were the investment advisers that counselled this? Why did they take that step when the B.C. Investment Management Corporation didn't make those investments and didn't suffer those consequent losses?

All of those questions, in my view, deserve answers. The minister is just trying to brush me off, and frankly, I think it's unacceptable.

R. Fleming: Just before that line of questioning we were talking about funding, and I was asking the minister whether there's an official or unofficial directive that is guiding what appears to be his waning confidence in the ability of his ministry to grow and meet the FTE requirements or visions of the 25,000 spaces planned. There had been a suggestion that things are changing and that the government is managing risks, and that one of the areas they're taking funding out of is the Ministry of Advanced Education.

I wanted to ask the minister again: can he confirm that there is a change of thinking at a senior strategic level in his ministry, held by him, that is calling for this slowing down of seat expansion and in funding increases that were previously committed to? Whether within that bigger picture there is a view in his government that, having failed to meet the growing skills demand in a better-performing — I think the press releases from government would say a booming — economy, are they now withdrawing funding as the economy slows slightly on this continent, in order to dampen down the training needs that this province has?

Hon. M. Coell: I guess we did talk a little about the goal of a B or better to get into university being, for the most part, achieved. I think that what's incumbent on us — and is incumbent on every government, not just this government — is to meet the challenges of the day. The challenges of the day are health care and skills.

So there is a refocusing. There is still more money going into this ministry in operating and capital over the next years, and we'll continue to improve seats for aboriginal learners, for graduates, for skilled trades and for a variety of health professionals. I view this as a refocus and a continuation.

R. Fleming: Noting the hour, Chair, I would move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.


	YEAS — 30

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	James	Kwan
Ralston	Cubberley	Coons
Thorne	Simons	Puchmayr
Gentner	Routley	Fraser
Horgan	Dix	Trevena
Bains	Robertson	Karagianis
Evans	Krog	Austin
Chudnovsky	Chouhan	Wyse
Sather	Macdonald	Conroy

	NAYS — 41

Coell	Ilich	Chong
Christensen	Les	Richmond
Bell	Krueger	van Dongen
Roddick	Hayer	Lee
Jarvis	Nuraney	Whittred
Cantelon	Thorpe	Hagen
Oppal	de Jong	Campbell
Taylor	Bond	Hansen
Abbott	Penner	Neufeld
Coleman	Hogg	Sultan
Bennett	Lekstrom	Mayencourt
Polak	Hawes	Yap
Bloy	MacKay	Black
McIntyre		Rustad