Hansard — Wednesday, April 9, 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


Statements		11113
	Battle of Vimy Ridge
	Hon. G. Campbell

Introductions by Members		11113

Tributes		11113
	Mike Gray
	Hon. G. Abbott

Introductions by Members		11114

Tributes		11114
	Reg Scholfield
	D. Routley

Introductions by Members		11115

Statements		11115
	Deaths of children in Merritt
	H. Lali

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		11115
	Public Health Act (Bill 23)
	Hon. G. Abbott

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		11116
	Vaisakhi
	C. James
	Big Brothers and Big Sisters
	H. Bloy
	Ridge Meadows Seniors Society health and wellness program
	M. Sather
	Wild at Art Festival
	J. McIntyre
	Women of the World event
	R. Chouhan
	Guildford Community Partners Society
	D. Hayer

Oral Questions		11117
	Deaths of children in Merritt
	H. Lali
	Hon. G. Campbell
	Ferry safety
	G. Coons
	Hon. M. de Jong
	Frank Paul public inquiry
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. J. van Dongen
	Hon. W. Oppal
	J. Kwan
	L. Krog
	Funding for forestry programs at College of New Caledonia
	R. Fleming
	Hon. M. Coell
	Future of Elk Falls sawmill
	C. Evans
	Hon. R. Coleman
	B. Simpson
	Penalty provisions for mining industry
	N. Macdonald
	Hon. K. Krueger
	Safety inspections of mines
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. K. Krueger

Petitions		11122
	J. Horgan

Second Reading of Bills		11122
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act (Bill 16) (continued)
	N. Macdonald
	B. Simpson
	B. Ralston
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. R. Neufeld
	Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act (Bill 18)
	Hon. B. Penner
	S. Simpson
	On the amendment
	S. Simpson
	M. Sather

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		11151
	Estimates: Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (continued)
	Hon. P. Bell
	C. Evans
	S. Fraser
	G. Robertson
	B. Simpson
	M. Farnworth
	G. Gentner
	N. Simons
	R. Austin

Hon. G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, today we mark the 91st anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. On this day in 1917 four divisions of the Canadian Corps attacked together in formation for the first time, advancing at the dawn on Vimy Ridge. It was a battle in which 3,598 Canadians made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of freedom and democracy, and it was also a turning point for our great nation.

To this day the courage and sacrifice of those soldiers at Vimy Ridge serves as an inspiration to all Canadians. Their legacy is a constant reminder to all of us of our duty to defend the ideals that they fought for.

I ask today that this House join me in paying tribute to those who gave so much at Vimy Ridge and all who served in the great wars that followed and all who today carry on that proud tradition around the world of protecting freedom, protecting people and trying to build a better future for all of us.

D. Chudnovsky: You will know, Mr. Speaker, because I have told you on a number of occasions, that the two best high schools in British Columbia are in Vancouver-Kensington. Today we have as guests a number of students, I think 68 of them, with their teachers and supervisors visiting from Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School in Vancouver-Kensington.

I had an opportunity before lunch to chat with them on the steps. It was terrific to meet with them. Could you please welcome the students from Sir Charles Tupper.

Hon. S. Bond: Today we are absolutely delighted to be joined in the gallery by a group of 20 individuals from across this province who make a difference in the lives of families and children every single day. These individuals are members of the B.C. chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, who deliver an invaluable program called Mentoring Excellence B.C.

Leading the delegation today are Rhonda Brown, executive director of the Greater Victoria chapter; Doug Blott, the B.C. national board representative; Doug Sheach, treasurer for the Abbotsford chapter; and speaking very personally, someone that we know very well from Price George, Tim Bennett, who is incredibly active in our community and in fact just recently organized the Prince George Bowl for Kids Sake fundraiser. We had a team that participated, and I'm proud to say that a record level of funding was actually garnered at that event. We also have Alex Mitchell here, who is a grade 10 student and a Big Sister in the teen mentoring program.

I know that every member of the House will join me in making them welcome and, I hope, will join Big Brothers Big Sisters later today as we celebrate the mentoring program. Please join me in making them welcome.

R. Austin: It's not often that I have a guest visiting in the precinct, but today I'm very delighted to introduce my father David Austin, who is here all the way from Melbourne, Australia. He's come for a week to see how business is done here and to attend a family celebration. Would the House please join me in making him welcome.

Hon. I. Chong: Today in the gallery and observing us for question period are a number of individuals I know we are all familiar with. They are the members of the UBCM executive, and I would like to introduce them to you.

We have Mayor Ella Brown, who is the small-community representative from the district of Logan Lake; Councillor Kim Capri, Vancouver representative from the city of Vancouver; Mayor Sharon Hartwell, the second vice-president representing the village of Telkwa; Director Rhona Martin, the SILGA representative from the Columbia-Shuswap regional district; Director Terry Raymond, electoral area representative from the Fraser Valley regional district; Director Rod Sherrell, the AVICC representative from Mount Waddington regional district; Councillor Mary Sjostrom, director-at-large from the city of Quesnel; Director Heath Slee, AKBLG representative from East Kootenay regional district; Mayor Joe Snopek, director-at-large from the town of Creston; and Councillor Barbara Steele, the Metro Vancouver representative from the city of Surrey.

I hope the House would please make them all very welcome. They're here for a number of days.

Hon. G. Abbott: It's with great sadness that I inform the House of the tragic loss of Mike Gray, a B.C. Ambulance Service paramedic who suffered a sudden and unexpected collapse while he was working for the B.C. Ambulance Service in the Lower Mainland yesterday afternoon. Mr. Gray was a 39-year-old paramedic. He was an 11-year veteran of the B.C. Ambulance Service, who worked in Vancouver and across the Fraser Valley providing emergency medical services to the residents of British Columbia.

This incident is a great shock to all at the B.C. Ambulance Service. I'd ask members to keep the family and loved ones in mind in their thoughts and prayers today, as we mourn his passing.

Hon. G. Abbott: On a different and much happier note, I'd like to introduce four very illustrious guests who are with us in the gallery today. Dr. Perry Kendall is B.C.'s provincial health officer. Dr. Brian Emerson is a medical consultant in the Ministry of Health. Dr. Richard Stanwick is chief medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, and Mark Collison is the director of advocacy and stakeholder relations with the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

They are here with us today to celebrate the introduction of new legislation that I'll have the privilege of sharing with the House in a few moments. All of these gentlemen, particularly Dr. Kendall and Dr. Emerson, have worked very hard to assist in putting the new Public Health Act together. I'd ask the House to make all of the gentlemen welcome.

C. Evans: The member for Skeena is quite a modest person, and he did not mention that the family celebration that his father has come to attend is his 50th birthday, which is today.

C. Evans: The second thing I wanted to do was notice and welcome Mayor Snopek from Creston.

This is a great year to visit Victoria, Mayor Snopek, because it's the coldest spring in almost 20 years, and the Creston Blossom Festival will be the first sign of spring in British Columbia. Victoria has nothing yet for flowers.

R. Hawes: In the gallery today we have who I really believe is the friendliest, most outgoing mayor in British Columbia. For anyone who doesn't believe it, he'll be down later to shake your hand. That would be my good friend and an amazing guy, James Atebe, the mayor of Mission.

Along with James is Skip Bassford, the great president of the great University College of the Fraser Valley. They are joined by Dennis Clark, clerk from the district of Mission. Could the House please make all three of them most welcome.

C. Wyse: Amongst all of the guests we have with us today, those from the UBCM, those from Big Brothers and Sisters, and the rest of our guests — I make them all welcome — in particular, I would like to recognize two special guests that are here today. That includes my older sister Carol, along with her husband Paul Molyski, who have come from Sunnyvale, California. Carol is here to see how her younger brother is doing and behaving himself here in this sandbox. I'd ask all the House to join in making them welcome.

Hon. W. Oppal: I want to introduce to the House Jorge Luis Donado, who is the prosecutor in charge of the anti–organized crime section of the public prosecutor's office in Guatemala; Ruben Antonio Molina, who is a senior trial prosecutor from the public prosecutor's office of Honduras; Rick Craig, executive director of the Law Courts Education Society; Cal Deedman, who is a senior prosecutor with the criminal justice branch.

As well, there is Kendra Ashton, who is a grade 11 student from Sir Charles Tupper School. She was a job placement student in my constituency office. She is a well-rounded student who plays flute, guitar and oboe. She is a Girl Guides ranger — I'm sure I'm embarrassing her now when I'm saying this — and she's a soccer star as well.

J. McIntyre: April 9 is also the birthday of a very special friend of mine, a former member of this House and in fact my predecessor as the member for West Vancouver–Garibaldi. Today is Ted Nebbeling's birthday.

I think some of you may be aware that Ted is embarking on a very serious fight with cancer. I was hoping that everybody in the House today would join me in sending him our very best wishes and keeping him in our prayers and thoughts. If he's watching at home: happy birthday, Ted.

D. Hayer: I would also like to recognize a very special guest in the gallery today, Barbara Steele. She's my constituent and a friend, and she's a very hard-working councillor from the city of Surrey. She's in Victoria to attend a Union of B.C. Municipalities executive meeting.

Also, as you know, this is the month of Vaisakhi. Vaisakhi is being celebrated in Surrey and in communities throughout British Columbia and around the world. Vaisakhi celebrations are important to the South Asian community and very important to the Sikh community, as it celebrates the birth of Khalsa in the Sikh religion.

I ask all members to welcome Councillor Barbara Steele and to recognize and congratulate all of the South Asian and Sikh communities during these Vaisakhi celebrations.

Hon. M. Coell: I have four guests in the Legislature today. They're members of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia: their president Janet Benjamin, who is a pioneer of Power Smart in the province; their vice-president Margaret Li; their past president Tim Smith; and Derek Doyle, registrar. They're here for meetings with members over the next few days. Would the House please make them welcome.

D. Routley: I would like the House to offer condolences to the family of Reg Scholfield, the proprietor in Duncan of Reggie's Veggies. Reg died last weekend at the age of 62 in his sleep. He and his wife Sharon founded their business in 1985. Reggie was a very generous

person, very helpful to our community. He was instrumental in our youth soccer programs. I would like the House to share with me an expression of condolence to his family.

R. Hawes: I would like to welcome back our great colleague from Kelowna-Mission today. She's back, well on the road to recovery. I hope the recovery is speeding along and that she's going to be with us for a long, long time to come.

H. Lali: This is not the ideal circumstance under which I wish to address this assembly. By now every one of us here in this chamber has heard of the tragic events on Sunday in my hometown of Merritt. In stark contrast to other days, I wear black today in memory of the three innocent little children whose lives were unnecessarily and unmercifully taken on this past fateful Sunday while their mother had briefly gone to run an errand in town.

Imagine a mother leaving behind three young children at home for a brief spell to make a trip to the grocery store, only to come home and make the gruesome discovery that her three most precious gifts, to whom she had given birth and had left behind cheerful and playing only moments before, had all been senselessly stabbed to death in the interval. Imagine the horror, the shock, the disbelief, the distress, the fear, the sadness and the guilt that surely must have gone through her mind upon making this tragic discovery.

I have lived in Merritt for over 42 years. Never has the community witnessed such an unimaginable tragedy amongst our ranks. The friends of the victims, the school children, the neighbours, the first responders and the entire community are devastated. Merritt has lost three of its innocent children. The community has lost its innocence as the suspected killer, the father of the children, is the subject of a manhunt.

As the community tries to come to grips with this tragedy, I ask all my colleagues to keep Darcie Clarke, the mother of the children, and the people of Merritt in your thoughts and in your prayers and to join me in a brief moment of silence in memory of Kaitlynne, aged ten; Max, aged eight; and Cordon, aged five. May their souls rest in peace.

Hon. G. Abbott presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Public Health Act.

Hon. G. Abbott: I move that Bill 23, the Public Health Act, be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. G. Abbott: The new Public Health Act creates a modern legislative framework establishing the tools and provisions necessary to fulfil the commitments for a healthier British Columbia outlined in our recent throne speech.

A few years ago Canada was affected by the global SARS outbreak. B.C. was remarkably well served by our public health officials during that incident. However, it brought to light across Canada the need for increased vigilance to global public health risks. This legislation provides public health officials with the tools to quickly and effectively mobilize public health initiatives to address these global threats.

If governments across Canada are going to address the sustainability of our public health care system, we need stronger tools to support health promotion initiatives. More than 1.3 million people in British Columbia suffer from one or more chronic conditions, and over 90,000 people suffer from four or more chronic conditions. While these individuals represent 34 percent of the B.C. population, they consume 80 percent of the combined MSP, Pharmacare and acute care budgets. Addressing this challenge is fundamental to the sustainability of our health care system for the future.

While our government has already taken steps in addressing chronic diseases, we know there's much to do. We'll use the tools established by the new Public Health Act to ban the use of trans fats in the preparation of foods in schools, restaurants and food services establishments by 2010. Through the tools in the Public Health Act we will be better placed to continue to make further investments to address chronic disease.

Safe and healthy communities are another goal of public health and of this government. The new Public Health Act will address government's throne speech commitment to require communities to include provision for mental health and addiction service facilities in their community plans.

The new Public Health Act is an important addition to our legislative toolkit that we hope will serve the people of British Columbia for the next 100 years. It is also a reflection of the fact that addressing public health issues is a job not only for the provincial government but for local governments and for individual citizens themselves.

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

Bill 23, Public Health 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. James: This month communities across B.C. will be celebrating Vaisakhi. The growing enthusiasm about the festival of Vaisakhi shows how much pride British Columbians take in the tradition and culture of B.C.'s Sikh, Indo-Canadian and South Asian communities. Vaisakhi allows all of us to come together and celebrate the South Asian community's culture as part of our province's collective heritage. It helps us learn about one another and strengthen our pride in our shared customs.

The Sikh community has played a central role in building this province and in bringing the core principles of Sikhism to every aspect of our province. Those principles — equality, social justice, respect and tolerance — are key to B.C.'s future and ones we must all continue to strive for. I want to take this opportunity to thank B.C.'s Indo-Canadian and Sikh community for their contributions to B.C.

Recently we marked two most important dates in the history of B.C. in Canada. On March 26 the community remembered the day in 1907 when people of Indian origin were deprived of their right to vote, and last week on April 2 we remembered the community leaders and the organizations who worked so hard to regain the right to vote in 1947.

Almost six decades later, here we are together celebrating Vaisakhi with several members of the Indo-Canadian community here in this House as MLAs. I hope this Vaisakhi we all reflect on the achievements and contributions of B.C.'s Indo-Canadian community.

H. Bloy: I'm delighted to rise in the House today to recognize the second annual Big Brothers and Big Sisters day at the Legislature. This is a special day when MLAs from both sides of the House will be meeting with Big Brothers and Big Sisters throughout the day, learning more about the organization's strategic focus of increasing the number of children in B.C. with a mentor, increasing its in-school teen mentorship program and developing new literacy and numeracy skills.

For more than 80 years Big Brothers and Big Sisters have been providing support to children across the country. There are over 23,000 children who benefit from the one-on-one mentorship that is provided through this program.

Through mentoring and support, the Big Brothers and Big Sisters help children receive the acceptance, understanding and respect they deserve as individuals. A mentor can be instrumental in helping a child find his or her way in the world while encouraging and challenging them to do their best.

I like to call mentoring an investment for success, because by investing in the success of the younger generation of British Columbians, everyone benefits. A positive adult role model will directly contribute to increased academic achievement, better family and peer relationships, a substantially lower reliance on social services, and a more successful transition from school to work.

Children who spend time with a mentor gain confidence, self-esteem and new skills, and develop their ability to relate to others. I ask my colleagues here today to join me in congratulating Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada for all their success and contribution to our youth.

M. Sather: Maple Ridge has an active seniors community, and the hub of this activity is the Ridge Meadows Seniors Centre. Once a week in a room down a hall, you will find the Ridge Meadows Seniors Society health and wellness program. Greeted with a smile by one of the many volunteers, seniors come to have their blood pressure monitored, their height and weight recorded, get a massage or just sit and have a chat with friends both old and new.

The health and wellness program was started in 2002 by Peggy Lambert, retired nurse and current director of the program. Peggy says she started the program because she was angry that seniors health was falling through the cracks, and there was no focused, comprehensive program for seniors in the community.

Over the years the program has grown. Through word of mouth and referrals from local doctors, approximately 550 seniors have frequented the program, with up to 83 seniors dropping by weekly to the Tuesday morning program.

Not restricted to the seniors centre, clinics are also held at Willow Manor every third Wednesday and at the Pitt Meadows Seniors Centre twice a month. With 14 volunteer nurses, peer counsellors and a massage therapist, the health and wellness program emphasizes prevention and early detection of potential health concerns as well as health awareness and support of seniors in maintaining their well-being.

Community support includes free hearing-aid cleaning, glasses repair and hearing tests by Crystal Optical, and pharmaceutical and diabetic education by professionals from the local Safeway pharmacy to assist seniors with any medication or diet concerns.

With cuts to seniors health care, preventative care becomes more crucial. Please join me in thanking Peggy and the volunteers of the Ridge Meadows Seniors Society health and wellness program for their dedication to the seniors of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.

J. McIntyre: I rise to applaud the community of Squamish for putting on a terrific arts and entertainment event with the theme of motion. A successful

one-day local festival in 2004 has escalated to the ten-day annual Wild at Art Festival featuring original displays, with hopes to expand for the duration of the games in 2010.

This year the Wild at Art Festival was moved to coincide with the Haywood Ski Nationals and the 81st annual Canadian Cross-Country Ski Championships. Taking place at the new Callaghan Valley Olympic Park, the event attracted almost 200 athletes from 16 countries around the world. The Callaghan Valley Local Organizing Committee, headquartered in Squamish, was a co-sponsor of Wild at Art and took full advantage of the cross-opportunities to showcase the venue, the site of the Nordic Olympic events.

On March 14, I attended the opening of the festival, and for the second year it again involved a spectacular art display at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park, this time accompanied by musical acts. Wild at Art, supported by provincial and VANOC funding to participate in the 2008 Cultural Olympiad, successfully celebrates the richness and diversity of the local arts community. On March 16, a crisp, sunny morning, I was at the opening ceremonies of the cross-country nationals starting with the team sprint events. This cross-country championship event received a significant grant from Hosting B.C. to assist in mounting a first-class international event.

Both these events could not have happened without exceptional local support, without hundreds of volunteers who put together an art festival and a sporting event that wowed the community. I'd like to congratulate Carolyn Grass, who assumed the role as festival coordinator in 2007. She, along with her team of volunteers like Judy McQuinn and Sonja Lebans, has brought refreshing energy and passion to the festival. I'd also like to congratulate Denise Imbeau and her CALOC team for making B.C. proud and showing the country and the world that we have the know-how.

For me, this is what the Olympic spirit is all about — bringing communities together in the pursuit of excellence in sport, arts and culture and innovation.

R. Chouhan: Last weekend Lougheed and Brentwood malls in Burnaby were transformed into the United Nations of women events. It was called the Women of the World event. Along with several other MLAs, MPs, mayors, city councillors, park commissioners, the Burnaby fire chief and the RCMP superintendent, I attended the opening ceremonies at the Lougheed Mall. The primary goal of the event was to provide information on employment readiness and opportunities to immigrant and low-income women through educational workshops and mentoring.

Burnaby is a very diverse community. For example, at one of the community schools in my constituency, more than 85 different languages are spoken. Burnaby Family Life, incorporated in 1971, is a non-profit society. It provides leadership and many important services to immigrant and low-income families. Eight women currently enrolled in Burnaby Family Life programs were selected as protégés for mentorship. The mentorship program will provide these women inspiration and guidance as they develop their career paths.

I would like to congratulate Burnaby Family Life, Lougheed and Brentwood town centres, Burnaby Now newspaper, Burnaby Board of Trade and the province for sponsoring such a great event in Burnaby to help women of the world.

D. Hayer: Communities are made up of people who live in them and on a volunteer basis work for them. One of the strongest communities in my constituency of Surrey-Tynehead is Guildford. It is that way because of the Guildford Community Partners Society.

Among the many volunteers who contribute hundreds of hours every year to make Guildford Partners very successful are the president Rob Terris, vice president Lenora Bradley, treasurer Diane Chiasson, secretary Diane Demarinis and directors Joan Basic, Jean Munday, Steve Boyd, Barry Baskin and seniors representative Seiny Van Vliet.

Formed in 1994, Guildford Partners Society helps develop recreation facilities for young people and for seniors, and works with the RCMP on crime prevention school liaison programs and on drug awareness in schools. Guildford Partners, along with the Guildford Lions Club, also raises funds for the Surrey Baseball Association and is advocating for an Olympic-sized swimming pool for our communities, supports inner-city schools and works on youth leadership programs.

This entirely volunteer non-profit society also raises funds for the Guildford library computer lab and computers, and works to resolve poverty and crime issues. It celebrates the culture and social fabric of Guildford and raises funds for all good causes, including $260,000 toward the Guildford recreation facility.

It has also been involved in all-candidate meetings, Guildford Night Alive program, a home-invasion forum and an earthquake awareness meeting. It works successfully to keep Holly swimming pool open and helps fund the Etcetera Kids after-school activity program, Etcetera youth leadership programs and after-school youth programs and activities.

I would ask everybody in the House to join me in congratulating all the volunteers for everything they do to make our communities a better place.

H. Lali: I want to start off by thanking the Solicitor General for calling me last night. We discussed the situation in Merritt and exchanged briefings with each other. I also want to extend my thanks to the Minister

of Education for passing me a note, offering her help in any way and the ministry's help in this situation.

From time to time, both sides of the House are able to work in a spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship. I'm going to ask a couple of questions in that spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship on behalf of my constituents, who have asked me to put forward their issues.

My community is in dire need of help right now. Indeed, the entire province is reeling from the deaths and the murders of three innocent children, and people across the province are struggling to come to terms with this heinous crime.

I was in Merritt in the past few days. The community is grieving, and the people are afraid that the murderer is still at large.

I would like to respectfully ask the Attorney General: what supports and services are the Attorney General and the government providing and willing to provide to help the grieving mother, the children at Diamond Vale Elementary — I thank the Minister of Education for her note — and the families in the neighbourhood and the entire community to help them get through this unfortunate tragedy?

Hon. G. Campbell: I appreciate the member's questions. I also appreciated the comments that the member made earlier, hon. Speaker.

I think at a time like this, with a tragedy like this that occurs, we have to recall that it touches all of us. All the people of the province are saying: "How can this kind of thing take place?" There's no question it raises a number of significant questions, and our first concern, obviously, is for the mother. I can't imagine what it must be like to discover that kind of horrendous scene. Our concerns also are for the police officers. Again, I can't even begin to understand what it must be like to come upon a scene like that.

I'm sure the member will agree that every member of the detachment, every member of the community and indeed all of us are trying to struggle with how we cope with something so senseless. You can't comprehend it.

Our concern, like the member's, is for the family first, for the mother first and the supports we can provide to her and for the children in the schools. Clearly, this is an enormous event in their lives. It may touch them forever. We have to offer all the support we can, and we will. To the members of the detachment, to the members of the public…. We're trying to ensure that all necessary resources are available not just as we search for the suspect but also to provide the support and succour to the community that they require.

It is, I think, really important for all of us to understand that everyone has been touched by this — the RCMP, the judiciary, members of the community, families and people around the province. So the government will make available all required resources, all necessary resources to provide support to ensure that we get through this, that we learn as much as we can from this and that we provide not just the RCMP but the public with the support they require.

At the end of the day, I think all of us have to be patient enough to allow the work to be done that needs to be done. It's not a time for a rush to judgment. It's a time to provide support, to provide understanding and to reach out to the community, to the family and to everyone who's involved to try and ensure that we can all get through this, that we all learn from this and that we do everything in our power to stop anything like this from ever happening again.

Three children, hon. Speaker — ten years old, eight years old and five years old. This weekend I'm sure they were laughing, they were smiling and their eyes were dancing with light. They were full of life, and then that was taken from them. We all lose when that happens.

The government and all of its resources will be there to try and aid and assist the community, and particularly the family, in all ways we can.

G. Coons: I visited 30 ferry-dependent communities on the coast of B.C., and everywhere I heard major concerns about fares and operational safety. The Transportation Safety Board report on the sinking of the Queen of the North and the Morfitt safety audit alluded to many safety management concerns. The recent near collision in Active Pass with a contracted-out captain at the helm highlights Morfitt's concerns with on-time management performance bonuses compromising operational safety. On-time payouts are a key goal in performance measure for this government's quasi-privatized corporation.

My question is to the Premier. Since the Minister of Transportation has washed his hands of the marine highway, what is the Premier doing to ensure that B.C. Ferries on-time bonuses do not compromise safety and put passengers and crew at risk?

Hon. M. de Jong: In the absence of the Transportation Minister, I'll take the question on notice.

G. Coons: I do have a new question, hon. Speaker. Morfitt's safety audit had 41 recommendations that would reassure public confidence in our ferry system. This government and this Premier have stated that B.C. Ferries has committed to implementing every single one of the Morfitt recommendations. The public needs more than a commitment from B.C. Ferries. They want a commitment from this government, from this Premier and from the minister responsible.

I'm asking the Premier: what is the Premier doing to ensure that every single one of the Morfitt recommendations is implemented?

Hon. M. de Jong: Again, in the absence of the Transportation Minister, I'll take the question on notice.

M. Farnworth: In 2001 the then Solicitor General, the current Minister for Housing, wrote to the Police Complaint Commissioner and informed him that he would not be calling a coroner's inquest into the death of Frank Paul. He said: "I'm significantly concerned with the possibility of opening a coroner's inquest during which culpability, liability and issues of racial discrimination are likely to become central features of attempted cross-examination."

My question is to the current Solicitor General. Can he explain when it would ever be appropriate that a Solicitor General's political concerns should outweigh full disclosure, especially in a case like the Frank Paul one?

Hon. J. van Dongen: There is a process in place right now to examine that issue, and I can't comment any further than to let that process work.

M. Farnworth: In fact, I wasn't asking about the process. I was asking about how it was handled.

Having said that, I have a second question, which I will ask the Attorney General. In the last few weeks, as the public inquiry continues, both former Coroner Larry Campbell and former Police Complaint Commissioner Don Morrison have testified that there should have been an inquest. The former Solicitor General, the current Minister for Housing, has yet to explain why he rejected the call for an inquest.

My question is to the Attorney General. Will he recommend that his cabinet colleague testify at the public inquiry?

Hon. W. Oppal: You know, Frank Paul died in December 1998. Suffice to say that there were sufficient issues that remain outstanding that we asked for and commissioned a commission of inquiry. The government appointed the hon. Mr. Justice Davies to conduct the commission of inquiry.

I think it would be totally inappropriate for me to direct the commissioner, while the commission of inquiry is ongoing, to embark on a particular course of conduct. In fact, it would be wrong for me to order what the hon. member is asking me to do.

J. Kwan: When the government finally called the inquiry into Frank Paul's death, they promised a full and open inquiry. But now this government is going to court in an attempt to prevent Crown prosecutors from testifying about the decision not to lay charges against the police. Justice Davies has ruled that hearing from the Crown prosecutors is critical to actually having a full and open inquiry.

To the Attorney General: will he live up to his government's commitment to openness and allow the Crown prosecutors to testify in this inquiry?

Hon. W. Oppal: Again, I reiterate. We want all the answers. We want to know what happened to Frank Paul in December 1998. That's why we commissioned this inquiry. The issue raised by the member regarding the evidence or the compellability of Crown counsel to testify at this inquiry is a legal issue. Certain legal objections have been taken with respect to their compellability and their ability to testify, and that matter is now being heard, or will be heard, in the Supreme Court.

J. Kwan: Justice Davies is clear in suggesting that what we need to ensure a full and open inquiry into the death of Frank Paul is to ensure that the Crown prosecutors testify. The government has made the commitment that there would be a full and public inquiry into this matter so that we can learn about that death and, more importantly, so that we can prevent it from ever happening again.

Again to the Attorney General: will he make the commitment today to ensure that openness is in fact followed and to ensure that the Crown prosecutors do in fact testify in the inquiry into the death of Frank Paul?

Hon. W. Oppal: I can assure the member…. I can assure the House that we want an open inquiry. We want the answers. We want to know what happened to Frank Paul on that evening. The fact is that there is a very important legal issue, a very important constitutional issue, that needs to be decided before the Supreme Court. That issue is a serious issue, and the issue is being advanced by members of the criminal justice branch independently of me.

L. Krog: My recollection is that the motto over the law school at UBC is "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall." I'm wondering if the Attorney General, in his interest in pursuing a fine legal point, is prepared to acknowledge that…. If the prosecutors wish to give evidence voluntarily, will he support them in that decision?

Hon. W. Oppal: I'm sure that member well understands the Crown Counsel Act, which was passed in 1991. That act grants independence to members of the criminal justice branch. They are exercising their independence independently of whatever I have to say. They have that right. The Crown Counsel Act allows for and permits independence in the discretion of discharging their duties, and that's what is taking place.

I think the wise course of action here is to wait for the results of the hearing that will be held in the Supreme Court. We all anxiously wait for the results of that hearing.

R. Fleming: Last month the Minister of Advanced Education told B.C.'s college and university presidents

that he wouldn't honour his ministry's three-year budget. Instead of the scheduled increase, they were given two weeks' notice to go and cut $60 million. Now the institutions are being forced, predictably, to look at layoffs, program cuts and deficits.

So far the minister has dismissed every college and university president's warning about program eliminations. Today in the media he downplayed it by saying: "I think they will do just fine." The College of New Caledonia in Prince George is now cancelling the forest technologist program and the aboriginal access forestry programs.

To the minister: does he think eliminating forest technologist programs at the College of New Caledonia is just fine to him?

Hon. M. Coell: The member knows that during the last seven years, the budget for advanced education has gone up by 40 percent. He also knows that we've spent $1.5 billion on infrastructure, added five new trade schools and added two new university campuses. There's $68 million more going into advanced education this year than last year, and we're asking them to target it to areas that are of importance to British Columbians as a whole.

R. Fleming: What everyone in the forest sector knows is that the future of the industry requires B.C. to work smarter to build new market opportunities when the industry rebounds. But here we have the minister responsible for training that future workforce cutting forest technologist programs that build capacity to better manage our forests — including programs for aboriginal people, I note.

This isn't just a temporary enrolment decision. College internal documents show that this decision is forever. All faculty and staff of this forestry program are receiving layoff notices, and unless the minister acts, it will be wound down.

So will the minister step in with the very modest amount of funding needed to ensure that training for professional foresters and technicians isn't wiped out in the central and northern region of British Columbia?

Hon. M. Coell: The member knows that colleges have the ability to bring in courses as they see fit. He also knows that the budget for colleges and universities has gone up by $68 million this year.

We continue to build post-secondary education in this province with new trade schools in every part of the province, new funding for trades, new funding for aboriginal seats and new funding for graduates. We're targeting those funds to what British Columbia needs as a whole, while continuing to build a great system in British Columbia.

C. Evans: I think in the last three years, 18 sawmills have closed in B.C. In a month Elk Falls in Campbell River, with 275 workers, I think, will become the 19th unless something happens to end their proposed layoff date. The Minister of Forests has stated on several occasions that he thinks the Elk Falls mill is inefficient and not economically viable.

My question is: are you still of the opinion that the Elk Falls mill is not economically viable, or would you support capital investment and an attempt to make that mill make money and keep those people on?

Hon. R. Coleman: We've actually met with the Steelworkers who are trying to put together a business plan with regards to Elk Falls, and we are supporting that effort on their part. We hope we'll be able to assist them in seeing that that opportunity exists.

C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, I don't think there are any Steelworkers at Elk Falls. The minister has met with a group that isn't there.

Okay, assuming that that's simply a slip of the tongue and that the minister meant to say the CEP, who I think is the union of record there, is the minister then saying that the government — the Crown, the Ministry of Forests — would like to come to the table and assist the consultant to CEP and potential investors and rebuild and reopen Elk Falls and save Campbell River?

Hon. R. Coleman: To the member: you're right. It was a slip of the tongue. I met with the union from Elk Falls, which is the CEP. My ministry, I believe, has advised them that we're actually going to assist them with some financing dollars with regards to the business plan, and they are working together at this point in time. I haven't seen the results of that, but I do understand those conversations have taken place.

B. Simpson: The minister was very explicit when we had early debates about Elk Falls — that Elk Falls was an antiquated mill and that there was no way it could run. That really was TimberWest's argument about that mill. What in reality was happening was that TimberWest was starving the mill of the logs that it needed to run.

TimberWest still has public forest licences, yet they've told their shareholders that they are log exporters and land developers. Will the minister commit today to put those public forest licences back on the table so that those 275 workers can get back to work with a guaranteed supply of wood to that mill?

Hon. R. Coleman: We've canvassed the rules and statutory responsibilities around transfers of licences in this House before, and we will deal with this issue as it comes before us.

B. Simpson: Those rules that the minister is talking about as canvassing are the rules that this government put in place in 2003, which gutted the Forest Act, which took the relationship away from communities, which took the relationship away from mills, and which caused Elk Falls and many other mills in this province to go down. That's what this minister is talking about canvassing, and we have agreed to disagree on that.

I was just in Kamloops yesterday — same situation. Mill permanently closed and the forest licences sold.

Again to the minister. The issue for those folks who are working so hard to get Elk Falls up and running again — they have a business case; they have the proof that the mill can run — is that they need a guaranteed fibre supply. Will the minister commit today to make sure that mill gets the logs it needs to put those 275 people back to work again?

Hon. R. Coleman: We haven't seen the business case, hon. Member. Maybe you've read something that I haven't, but when we see the business case, we'll deal with the issue.

N. Macdonald: I ask again about the recommendations from the Sullivan mine inquest. Teck Cominco built a structure that four people died in. Teck Cominco broke two regulations. One required workers to register when they entered and left the property. As well, they broke the rule that required people working alone to call in every two hours. Because of that, somebody died and was left dead on Teck Cominco property for two days.

Now, the coroner's jury heard that and said that that cannot happen again. They said there had to be regulations in place; there had to be penalties as well. Recommendation 12 is clear. When will the minister put in place meaningful penalty provisions for companies that break mining regulations?

Hon. K. Krueger: The chief inspector of mines attended the site of this tragedy immediately after the event. The chief inspector of mines said that, in his opinion, the infractions did not lead to the tragedy. No penalties were assessed by the chief inspector of mines, and ministers do not interfere with the recommendations and decisions of the statutory officer.

N. Macdonald: There was an inquest, the coroner's inquest, which lasted a week. The jury heard the information and made a decision, and they were clear. Recommendation 12 is clear. Penalty provisions for companies that break regulations must be increased in meaningful ways. That is the conclusion of a jury that heard information for a week. You cannot pick and choose who you're going to listen to. That is the recommendation that they put in place.

I know that companies like Teck Cominco do not want that, and I know that Teck Cominco is the major donor to the B.C. Liberals, but there is a clear choice that this government needs to make. It could not be clearer. Does the minister serve the corporate interests of the major donor to the B.C. Liberals, or is he going to do the right thing?

The right thing is clear. Without this piece, the minister has failed the families of the Sullivan mine accident. They have failed Kimberley, and we will not accept that. We need the penalty provisions. When are they going to come?

Hon. K. Krueger: Following two full investigations by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources that were managed and coordinated by the chief inspector of mines, with absolutely no political interference and following the coroner's inquest and its recommendations, the chief inspector of mines, fulfilling his mandate, convened a code review committee. The code review committee consisted of three representatives from unions and three representatives from management, as it's properly constituted, with the chief inspector of mines chairing.

The code review committee came back with recommendations, which did not include any changes to penalties, and all of the recommendations of the code review committee were enacted by an order-in-council which I gave to the member the same day. It would be inappropriate for us to interfere and add recommendations to the code review committee's recommendations.

C. Puchmayr: The code review has nothing to do with the matter that's before us right now. We're talking about a recommendation from a coroner's jury, the last of the judicial inquiry into the deaths of those miners and those paramedics. The code review has nothing to do with it whatsoever.

What has everything to do with it is the fact that there was not one penalty, not one nickel of a fine levied against Teck Cominco, when four people died on the site. When will the ministry look at taking away the responsibility of mines inspections and putting it with WorkSafe B.C.?

Hon. K. Krueger: This question has been raised repeatedly by Mr. Jim Sinclair of the B.C. Federation of Labour and by some of the members opposite. For over a hundred years the Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, by its various names, has been responsible for the health and safety of miners and mines themselves.

The mining industry in British Columbia has one of the very best safety records in the province of any heavy industry. That is because of a collaboration that goes on every day between the workers, their unions,

mine managers, the companies and the government. When an accident happens, inspectors get there immediately. Inspectors do random checks on the mines constantly. They act on any infractions they find. They have the power to shut down the entire site, which is a tremendous penalty.

C. Puchmayr: Almost all provinces in Canada have taken the inspections of the mines over to WorkSafe or to their workers compensation boards. After the Westray disaster the mines minister even went on record saying that there is no way that a ministry that is promoting mining should also be enforced with the safety of mining.

Again to the minister: will the minister encourage this government to divest the inspections of mines and turn it over to WorkSafe B.C. so that it has a clearer sense of independence?

Hon. K. Krueger: This is a government that believes in measuring by result, and it is impossible for anyone to demonstrate that the mining industry, its workers, the community and the environment, which are the first consideration in every mining permit process, the very first thing that government thinks about and the last thing…. A mining permit is only issued when a mine application is spelled out from the very earliest stages right through construction, operation and reclamation of the site, with the safety of workers, communities and the environment first and foremost.

When you compare the results that the collaboration that I just spoke of delivers day in and day out, every day of every year, no one can demonstrate that people in communities and workers would be safer under the alternate arrangement that is proposed.

B. Simpson: I have the pleasure of introducing my nemesis in the House, or at least one of them. In the last election, the Green candidate Doug Gook is here. Doug and I go way back and have fought a number of battles over the years about what constitutes sustainability and sustainable communities.

J. Horgan: I'd like to table a petition signed by over 400 residents of Sooke, in my community of Malahat–Juan de Fuca, calling on the government to reinstate protections for manufactured home park residents in the Residential Tenancy Act.

Hon. M. de Jong: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 16, and in Section A, Committee of Supply, for the information of members, continued debate on the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands.

GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION
(RENEWABLE AND LOW CARBON
FUEL REQUIREMENTS) ACT
(continued)

N. Macdonald: I rise to speak on second reading for Bill 16, the greenhouse gas reduction act, which is, of course, enabling legislation. For those that are just joining into this debate, it provides the legal framework which will allow a series of things to be put into place.

The focus of my comments will deal around, basically, the issue of secrecy. That will be the focus of my comments. I'm also going to speak somewhat about the larger issue, which is about the effectiveness of this sort of a strategy in dealing with greenhouse gases.

Enabling legislation is, in my experience, not unusual. It is something that is used, but there are elements of this that cause problems for me. Essentially, these allow the vast majority of what is going to unfold to unfold through regulation, which means that essentially you're going to have the Premier and cabinet making a number of very, very important decisions that will not be made with the scrutiny and the tools that we have available when they are made here in the Legislature. There is an element of "trust me" with this legislation that I simply am not comfortable with.

What we have seen with the greenhouse gas initiative to date is a tremendous amount of secrecy, and what I would say is that there is an unnecessary amount of secrecy in pushing this forward. I would even go as far as to say that the secrecy is, in fact, destructive.

What is going to be needed if we are going to make meaningful changes is that we are going to have to engage the population as a whole. They are going to have to be making decisions that they fully understand and that they decide is something that they want to support. Without that you really are not going to have the success that you need. You are not going to get the commitment and the buy-in from people if they do not

fully understand what is going on, if they do not fully understand the implications of some of the choices that the government is going to ask them to make.

To date we have a secretariat that has a tremendous amount of government and public resources put towards it, and that may be a reasonable thing to do. Obviously, to work through what we are going to put forward, we need to put resources towards plans that are going to be sensible.

But in my mind what is not sensible is the secrecy that surrounds it. This group meets in secrecy, what they discuss is in secret, and most troubling, who actually comes in and talks to this group is also secret. So you take a process that the public is invited to participate in and that the public is going to pay for, and you leave them out of the decision-making process. You do not give them the information that the secretariat is considering as they come up with these plans. We don't even know who is providing the information, and that is the key.

Now, with the B.C. energy plan, what I would assert — and this is the wider B.C. energy plan that has been put forward over the past number of years — is that you had all of the right language being used around sustainability, around green power, all of that language being used, and yet the reality of the B.C. energy plan as it emerges shows that the primary focus of the government has been putting in place a framework that benefits certain businesses, and that that is the primary beneficiary of the B.C. energy plan. It is not the public, as you would expect, that is going to benefit from it.

With this enabling legislation, the difficulty with it is that it sets up a framework for making decisions on biofuels. But a number of key decisions that will be made by the Premier and by cabinet will be made in secret. How they make those decisions, what sort of decisions they made, who speaks to them, whose interests are the decisions being made in — all of that will be beyond the public purview.

We will not know, really, an awful lot of what we need to know. Even the Privacy Commissioner, the gentleman responsible for freedom of information, Mr. Loukidelis, has very specifically written…. He doesn't write on a tremendous number of bills the government puts forward, but on this one he specifically writes that he has concerns.

Granted, it is around a specific provision, section 22. My concern is far broader than that. But even he is specifically concerned about section 22 and asks that the government consider what it is doing there and think about changing it and making it more open so that the public is actually able to see what is going on with the legislation that will flow from this enabling act.

I am deeply concerned about the lack of public input that is going to flow from this bill. What I would suggest is that it follows a pattern that we've seen here in this Legislature — in fact, not only in the first term of this government but in this second term.

We were here in the fall talking about TransLink. What we see now is that you have TransLink meeting in secret and making decisions in secret — all of this with huge implications for the public. But the public not being able to fully understand what is going on, not able to fully judge whether the public good is being served or some private good is…. That's never a good thing.

We have VANOC meeting in secret. We have the consistent mishandling of freedom-of-information legislation — really, the abuse of that tool for opposition. We have changes to the Public Inquiry Act, a consistent pattern of moving things into secret.

What I would say is that when you do that, you are fundamentally weakening the public's ability and the opposition's ability to question government policy and to see if they are doing things for the good of the province.

We have set up this system, and the system has emerged over several hundred years for a very particular purpose. It is based on the premise that with a system where assertions by government are challenged in a very formalized way, you will find the truth on how money is spent, and you will get to the truth about whether a policy is good and defendable or whether it's weak and sloppy.

What we have seen is that when we weaken those tools, when we weaken the tools of opposition, we have poor decisions being made. I'll choose just one to talk about, and I'll talk about it just for a minute.

The Vancouver Convention Centre expansion project. It was shrouded in secrecy, and what we saw is government trying to hide the facts about what was going on consistently for a long period of time. It allowed a sloppiness of decision-making that will cost the taxpayers of British Columbia hundreds of millions of dollars. There is no question that there was a sloppiness and mismanagement that is far more likely to happen in secret where the scrutiny of the media, the scrutiny of the public and the scrutiny of the opposition are absent.

What all governments need to think about is that this institution will continue long after they're gone, and they need, as one of their legacies, to have strengthened it. So the difficulty then is that if you allow things to move away from a public forum and allow decisions such as this legislation would allow — key decisions — to be made in private, in the secrecy of cabinet, without the scrutiny that this Legislature affords, there is the probability, I would suggest, of legislation, of changes of direction that are not properly scrutinized. That is a weakness with this legislation.

There is also the issue of the direction that this legislation takes us on biofuels. What other members have spoken about — I think very eloquently — is the concern around biofuels. I think that it is clear, from experience in other jurisdictions, that the conclusions on biofuels…. The effectiveness of this strategy in dealing with greenhouse gases is in no way agreed to. In fact, there are many prominent people in the world, prominent scientists working on greenhouse gases, that question the effectiveness of this direction.

The implications for this initiative need to give us reason to pause. We really need to think about whether

we would go in this direction — which is why I thought it was such an effective suggestion that was put forward by the critic for Energy where he suggested that we pause and go and speak to people and fully understand what we are entering into before we enter into it.

As I said, there are many jurisdictions that have experimented with biofuels. They have found that the unintended consequences are significantly problematic, and we need to think those through. With all of the things that we do with greenhouse gases, we need to be very careful, first, that we are doing them with sincerity, that we are not saying that we're doing one thing and doing another.

What I would argue is that, with the B.C. energy plan, that's exactly what's happening. The government is putting forward the idea that they are dealing with environmental issues, when really they're putting in place a structure that will benefit corporate friends.

We need to make sure that is not what we're going to be doing, because if we're going to deal successfully with greenhouse gases, the first steps this province takes cannot breed cynicism in the population. We have to make sure that it is done sincerely, that it is done properly and that all of the steps that we take are measured.

Not only do I have concerns about the fact that this enabling legislation will put decision-making into a secret place — a place that I'm uncomfortable to put it, because I do not have faith that the right decisions will be made in that place….

Secondly, it needs to be based upon solid ideas that are actually going to work to fix the problem that we want to see fixed. If we're going to be moving with efforts that will come at a cost to the public, we need to make sure that we are doing things that we know are going to be beneficial. If it is in a direction where many, many other jurisdictions are saying, "We've tried it. There are problems. You better sort this out before you go forward," then that should give us pause to stop. That's the second reason why I really think that the initiative needs to be reconsidered and that there are problems with Bill 16 in that way too.

My main concern, though, is with the secrecy and with the concentration of power, again, with the Premier and cabinet — the stripping away of a very necessary and important public process where people are able to actually look at the legislation, the rules, the regulations that are going to be the meat of what we actually do with this issue. We have to get them into the public purview, and they should be back in this Legislature and properly debated.

In my mind, there's no reason why that should not happen. In fact, I feel strongly that it's absolutely essential that it will. But this bill will, in essence, remove that opportunity for the public to see. So it's secrecy that I have my main problem with.

I know that other members will speak in greater depth on the particular issue around biofuel, but with that, I'll take my seat.

Madam Speaker, as always, I thank you for the opportunity to speak on the issue.

B. Simpson: Now, hold your applause. You should find out what I'm going to say first.

I want to start with some context for this bill, because I think that often as we get stuck here in Victoria in the legislative session, as we get stuck in the legislative precincts, it doesn't give us an opportunity, because of the hectic pace that we have, to stand back and reflect on what we're really supposed to be doing here. Then I'll get into the substance of the bill.

I want to make it clear that I cannot support the bill as it stands. I would love to support a bill that brings forward biofuels, second-generation biofuels from sustainable sources, that drives the biofuels industry in British Columbia. I would love to do that. That's not this bill.

We live on a planet that's been around for a little while — even longer than some of the members on that side who've been serving here for a long time and even longer than the Clerk of the House, Mr. MacMinn, who has been involved in parliamentary democracy for a long time. But as human beings, we've only been on it for a very short time, on a relative scale. I think it's time that we admit in places like this that the human endeavour, human civilization, is putting at risk the planet's ability to continue to sustain our way of life.

More and more evidence each and every day comes forward saying that we are threatening our very existence on this planet, and we're certainly undermining the ability and the possibilities of future generations. That is a very serious charge to this Legislative Assembly and to all legislative assemblies and democracies around the world to take that very, very seriously whenever we're in public policy debate.

For a reference to that, there's a very interesting report that I would suggest all members of this assembly should read. It's from the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. It's entitled Living Beyond our Means. In the summary section, which is entitled "Running Down the Account," the sub-bullet, the bottom line…. I would like to read into the public record:

It goes on to say: "This assessment shows that healthy ecosystems are central to the aspirations of humankind."

I've had the opportunity, over the last few months in particular, to speak with young people all over this province, and one of the things I've challenged them to do is come up with a different definition of "sustainability" for us.

The idea of sustainability as a three-legged stool of equal balance between ecology, economy and social systems has outlived its purpose. It's outlived its usefulness. It was useful for us to start putting environment on the table and to start balancing economic decisions with social and environmental decisions. But that day is long gone.

What we need is an understanding of sustainability that first and foremost puts ecosystem integrity and resilience at its core. That has to be the first criterion for any decisions we make about anything in this House. Will it garner us a better opportunity to have a sustainable planet that can sustain human life and a whole host of other life for many generations to come? As I look at this bill, I look at it through that lens. I have to say — and I will explain why — that no, this bill does not meet that test. We can debate all aspects of climate change, and I'll speak about that. But I don't think this bill is debatable.

The second filter is that if we are going to engage in truly addressing climate change, we have to engage in it together. It is going to cause us all to change the way we live. It is going to demand of all of us personal sacrifice and changes in the way that our daily lives unfold, the way we get to work, the kind of work we do, the kinds of schools we build, the kinds of institutions, the economic structures that we have. In order to do that change, we have to embrace the fundamental concept of democracy — the right to know — and the second fundamental concept of democracy — the right to debate.

This bill, as this government has been warned by the Privacy Commissioner, fails on the right to know. As we've seen with the climate change secretariat, this government and this Premier fail on the right to public debate. That we have a climate change secretariat that is beyond the pale of FOI is, I think, a tragedy, and it undermines our democratic processes.

One could argue back that this is only enabling legislation. What's the big deal? It's because we don't know what this government is going to be enabled to do with this legislation. Enabling legislation simply means the government is giving itself the right to determine through regulations, which are done behind closed doors and see the light of day when they're finally printed….

It's going to allow them to do all of the hard work of determining targets, determining penalties, putting in place all the things that will determine this biofuel strategy in offices, in the bureaucracy with cabinet and with various politicians involved. That's wrong. We need to see the details. We need to see in this bill some of the substance of this biofuel strategy.

We have an obligation to present and future generations. We have the huge challenge of climate change. We have to build societies. We have to build economic and social systems that are resilient with resilient ecosystems. We can debate in this House carbon tax and how you do that. We can debate cap-and-trade, which we will in Bill 18, and how you do that. We can debate how you drive change. But quite frankly, there is no debate on this bill, because this bill is behind its time. This is not an ahead-of-the-time bill. This is a behind-the-times bill.

Right now there is a massive debate in the U.K. and in the EU. What is the nature of the debate? Is it about: should we put targets on or not? No. It's: how fast should we get away from the targets that were already put on? How can we rescind those targets and get out of the biofuels business?

I'd like to read again into the record some substance to this. This is the Environment Commissioner for the European Union in an interview with the BBC. He says that the environmental and social problems caused by biofuels are "bigger than we thought they were," and said that the EU has to "move very carefully." His comments follow a media interview by the development commissioner. It goes on. He agrees for the first time that there should be a moratorium on new targets while they debate whether or not to rescind the targets that they have.

We have Bob Watson. Now, who's Bob Watson? Apparently, Al Gore has called him the hero of the planet. He is the chief scientific adviser to Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and he was previously the World Bank's chief scientist. What does he say? He says that biofuel in reality is a policy that's led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease and that it is an insane policy.

He goes on: "He urged the British government to hold off on compulsory quotas on biofuel content in transportation fuels before the environmental impact of such a move is better understood. His views are similar to those of Sir David King, until recently the British government's chief scientific adviser. He, too, said the biofuel quotas should be put on hold."

Madam Speaker, that's all we're saying. We're not saying no to biofuels. We're not saying no to going down this path and looking for alternative fuel sources. We're just saying the way the economy of biofuels is structured just now, other jurisdictions have already been the pathfinders, and they're now pulling back off that path. Why are we going to go on it?

If that's not enough, the U.S. targets are being challenged by the Nature Conservancy and the University of Minnesota. They asked the research question as to whether or not the land conversion that's needed for biofuels is sustainable. "Is it worth it?" is the question, and the categoric answer…. But they say it's a surprising answer, because the answer is no.

So other jurisdictions that have targets are pulling back, and what are we doing? We're going down a

There's a book I'm reading just now called Peak Everything. In Peak Everything the author says there's not a lot of wisdom in the world anymore. He says there's lots of conventional wisdom — and conventional wisdom is where everybody agrees that what we're doing today is okay — but there's not a lot of true wisdom. What we need right now is true wisdom. True wisdom would indicate that we back off.

There's a UN report that gives lots of policy advice. I suggest the minister read it if he hasn't had his staff read it already. They said: "Before we continue on this path of biofuels, here's what we need: internationally agreed standards and other certification models for the production, conversion, use and trade of bioenergy systems to protect both society and the environment; that we need to develop sustainability criteria and analytical tools for these biofuels." Don't have them. Shouldn't go there.

The U.K. House of Commons — again, full report, happy to give it to the minister and his staff. The U.K. House of Commons was asked to look at the European Union's targets and give the House of Commons advice. What was the advice? They said that the EU was reckless in going into these fuels and that the U.K. should not go down that path. Here's from their report: "Biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road transport, but most first generation biofuels have a detrimental impact on the environment overall, and they're not an effective use of bioenergy resources."

They say that they want a moratorium on current targets until technology improves, robust mechanisms to prevent damaging land use are developed and international sustainability standards are agreed.

Now, here's a kicker. "It will take considerable courage for the government and the EU to admit that the current policy arrangements for biofuels are inappropriate." Inappropriate, Madam Speaker. "The policy realignments that are all required will be a test of the government's commitment to moving the U.K. towards a sustainable low carbon economy."

For a Premier that wants, apparently, as his legacy to leave this province in a better place, to put us on the path of sustainability, to address climate change…. Surely we can learn the lesson of jurisdictions that have been on the path before us — not take this reckless course of action, not do this and have the courage to withdraw this bill, which is what we asked be done.

Then, of course, that left-wing think tank the Royal Society of London, established in 1660 to promote excellence in science, have their own report. Again, happy to share it with the minister if he hasn't read it. What does it say? Don't do it. Don't do it. "Biofuels in their current form undermine biodiversity, threaten food security, increase greenhouse gases in their full life cycle. More importantly, they are exacerbating poverty around the world and the disparity that exists between ourselves and developing countries."

The toxicity of these production methodologies are such that we may be sterilizing the Gulf of Mexico and wiping out its entire biological life. We are mowing down the Amazon in order to stay in this game. It is wrong.

B. Simpson: I'm happy to share all of this with the minister. I'll give him all of the documentation.

It's because — if the minister is not informed — the minute you're not producing crops for food and you're producing crops for fuel, you pour on the fertilizer like mad. You pour on the pesticides like mad. There are no standards that apply to food crops for the use of fertilizers and pesticides.

It's an education in science. But where does all that stuff go? A very tiny percentage of it goes into the crops. The rest of it goes into the water table. Where most of this crop is being grown in Mexico and the United States, it's flooding down into the Gulf of Mexico and toxic-loading that in such a rapid way that yes, we are sterilizing it. Again, happy to give that information to the minister.

The World Wildlife Federation came out with a report last week. Again, I hope the minister has taken a look at this, because it says that what we really need to do is move away from biofuels, because what biofuels do is continue our dependency on the internal combustion engine. They continue our dependency on other petrochemicals.

He says they're no different, really, than other fuels in our dependence on the single-occupancy vehicles and, in the report, makes a very good case for moving to electric vehicles and other forms of transport.

Why is that important? Because the report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also looks at the economics of biofuels. First and foremost, they say — and they agree with everybody else: "Regulations mandating usage or blending percentages and fuel tax preferences to stimulate production of biofuels are used by many countries. In most cases these policy measures do not distinguish among biofuels according to their feedstocks or production methods, despite wide differences in environmental costs and benefits."

That's precisely the point. We don't distinguish. And because this bill is enabling legislation, we have no guarantee, on behalf of the public of British Columbia, that this government has in mind biofuels from sustainable resources. Therefore, we can't support it.

Let's see how the government is going to support that. The OECD goes on to say that it's of particular importance to government to recognize that this is market interference. Now, for a government that was pooh-poohing that in question period…. "Oh, we don't interfere in the marketplace." Well, what are targets? It's market interference. What is a subsidy? Market interference. What are tax incentives? Market interference.

I'm sure they must be swallowing hard that they're going down this path and interfering with the marketplace, but the critical point here is that this tool of

market interference, which good governments do use to the benefit of society, doesn't discriminate between tax incentives for sustainable biofuels and non-sustainable sources. It doesn't distinguish between targets for sustainable biofuels and unsustainable sources, and it doesn't distinguish between subsidies for sustainable versus unsustainable sources.

In fact, this government references the federal government and its targets and what it's doing. Right now the federal government subsidies apply to ethanol from wheat — not from waste, not from waste wood, but from wheat. This government has a plan in the Peace along those lines.

Are there sustainable sources? Yes. Does British Columbia have the opportunity to grow those? Yes. Not through this bill. This bill doesn't do it. This bill doesn't discriminate. So we're using market interference, and what will happen….

There's a study again that the minister…. It may have come across his desk because I think it's from his ministry — on the biodiesel possibilities in British Columbia. It shows that if we took every piece of waste available — agricultural waste, organic matter waste and other wastes — and turned it into biodiesel, the most we would make, if we did all of that, was 3.5 percent of our net demand in British Columbia — the most.

Our target, apparently, in British Columbia is going to be 5 percent. So even in a best-case scenario for biodiesel, we're going to be sourcing 1½ percent from other sources. Without international standards, without sustainability criteria, we will not know where those sources are coming from, and we will be contributing to the continued demise of the planet's ecosystems. Not on. Not going to happen.

We have a special obligation to make sure our planet is resilient and adaptable and capable of sustaining future generations of British Columbians. We have a special obligation to make sure that British Columbians are engaged in the debate around these issues and that it's fully disclosed — what these additives are going to be, what they're sourced from and what the impact on the environment is.

We have a special obligation because this is market interference. The government is going to be a driver of the biofuels marketplace. We have a special obligation to make sure that's from sustainable sources and meets sustainable principles.

The NDP, through our party, has come up with a very substantive set of principles for sustainability. They've called it Sustainable B.C. As we get into the debate about other things here — cap-and-trade, carbon pricing and all that stuff — we should actually have a set of criteria that we use to make a determination as to whether we're in or out. I'd like to put this on the record, because it's very good work done by very dedicated people over a long period of time.

Here are the principles. First off, anything we do must protect ecosystems. It must protect the life support systems of the planet. Does this do that? The science indicates: not on your life. It is undermining the life systems of the planet.

It should lead to resource conservation. Does it do that? No. In fact, many biofuels use more resources in their full life cycle than simply going and getting the fossil fuels out of the ground.

Does it protect biodiversity? The answer to this is a clear and unequivocal no. In fact, it's one of the major threats of biofuels. As we mow the Amazon down, as we convert peat, as we convert deserts, as we convert all kinds of other special ecosystems over to fuel crops, we are undermining the biodiversity of the planet.

Does it promote protection for the commons and for the general public? The commons are our public resources like water, air, fish and wildlife, heritage of parks and protected areas. No. It's polluting water, it's polluting our air, and the production of these fuels is undermining the fish and wildlife throughout the world.

Does it promote food security? Again, the clear answer to that is: definitely not. Food security is now becoming a major issue. Talk to the ranchers in the Cariboo. They'll tell you that one of the biggest insults to their bottom line that they have had over the last two years is ethanol subsidies, and they can't absorb it. We've seen wheat and rice prices go up. We're seeing prices for basic foodstuffs go up. That's not food security. As we convert more and more land base to fuel, that will be exacerbated.

Does it promote social equity? No. We are exacerbating poverty through this. We are making more and more people live on the margins because they can't afford basic food as a result of this biofuels policy around the world.

Does it involve full-cost economics? No. You won't go into biofuels if you do full-cycle pricing and costing. That's what the European Union found out, that's what the United States is finding out, and that's what the U.K. has found out. Full-cycle costing — you don't do it.

Precautionary principle. Now, the precautionary principle is a good one for us to consider. What the precautionary principle says is that if the science is unclear — not in this case, where it's clear — and the jury is still out, err on the side of caution. Back off. Wait. See or engage in more science and more research. It doesn't adhere to that.

Does it adhere to adaptive management, where we're continually learning from the best available practices and technologies? Again, definitely not. There are people on this path who are backing off of it, and we're going on it. The analogy is that everybody is running off of the path that we're just stepping onto, and we think that somehow maybe there's a nice rainbow at the end of that path. It isn't there.

Does it promote democracy and due process? As the Privacy Commissioner has raised, due process under FOI — getting meaningful information out to the public — is not protected in this. In fact, it's worsened in this bill. The democratic process, as we've already pointed out and the member for Columbia River–

Revelstoke has already pointed out, is being undermined not only by this but by the climate change secretariat.

Finally, does it contribute to a just transition to whatever a sustainable world looks like? Does it bring everybody along equally? Does it prevent picking winners and losers? The answer on this one is a categorical no as well.

It's not as if this is debatable science anymore. It's not as if this is now some sort of contest out there. It's simply that this government is too late out of the gate on this bill, and we should learn from those who have gone ahead of us.

I'd like to finish up with a couple of quotes from the environmental community, because the environmental community in British Columbia and in Canada is slowly waking up to the biofuels boondoggle. And again, boondoggle in this case is not a word that I've used. It's a word used by one of the other authors here. Some are calling it a juggernaut that's out of control.

On January 14, 2008, Friends of the Earth, in response to the Royal Society's report, make the following comments. They first say: "The report warns that biofuels risked failing to deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transport and could even be more environmentally damaging, unless the government puts the right policies in place."

Then they go on to say: "When the U.K.'s targets come into place, the U.K.'s use of biofuels is likely to accelerate climate change" — for a Premier who wants as a legacy addressing climate change, that should be a stark warning — "and lead to social and environmental devastation around the world. Consumers will have no way of distinguishing between good and bad biofuels, and biofuel companies will not be held to account for the negative impacts of their products. The government must put the obligation on hold" — that's all we're asking for here; the same as they're asking for there —"until it can guarantee that only biofuels that lead to significant greenhouse gas savings without causing social and environmental destruction will count towards it." That was January 2008.

Then on April 2, 2008, a group of environmentalist NGOs got together. They wrote a letter to the EU, the ambassador of the European Union, and they said: "Given the overwhelming scientific evidence emerging in recent months, which highlight the risk posed by biofuels, it is inconceivable that the decisions on sustainability should be rushed."

We're not saying no to biofuels. We're not saying no to finding some kind of transition to help us get off our dependency on oil. But there are better ways to use market interference on the part of the government — better ways to use tax incentives, to use subsidies and to use targets — than biofuels.

We should learn the lesson the rest of the world is learning just now and a lesson that was hard-learned, because the planet's ecosystems have been undermined because of our headlong rush into biofuels in the first generation.

So I ask the minister responsible, I ask the Premier, to withdraw this bill, to go back to the drawing board, to come back with something that give us the guarantees that biofuels will be from sustainable sources.

I also ask them to use the targets and incentives and the market interference that they want to engage in this for better urban transport and for better alternatives to the internal combustion engine. That's a better use of the government's limited resources until this biofuels issue gets straightened out and until we grow the second-generation biofuels industry that can be sustainable and can help us through the transition.

B. Ralston: I rise to join the debate on Bill 16. Bill 16, as my colleague from Cariboo North has pointed out, is enabling legislation, so it's difficult to make a lot of judgments about the bill because most of what one would expect in the bill — the guts of the bill — will be promulgated by regulation. The cabinet, in the privacy and secrecy of the cabinet room, will develop regulations which will then be announced publicly. So it's not the same kind of public legislative process that this particular process is, and it poses some obvious concerns.

I do have some comments on the bill. I want to begin with the rather extraordinary development of the Information and Privacy Commissioner addressing a letter to the minister and asking him to withdraw certain changes that are proposed in the bill.

Ordinarily, the Information and Privacy Commissioner does not undertake such steps, so one can well imagine that he feels strongly and, in the exercise of his independent jurisdiction, feels obliged to bring these matters publicly to the attention of the minister and to the opposition in order that his opinions be added to the debate of this bill.

It is important to recognize just what he is saying here. He is concerned that the definition section in section 22 would be at odds with policy choices reflected in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and, in particular, section 21.

He says — and I'm quoting from his letter dated April 4 to the hon. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources — that in relation to these two classes of information it specifies, section 22 would "deem information to have been 'supplied', even where the information has been generated by government officials through inspection, thus effectively eliminating the requirement, in the circumstances of a given case, to prove supply of information under s. 21(1)(b)."

He also goes on to express further concern about section 22. "It would deem information to have been supplied 'in confidence,' thus effectively eliminating the requirement, in the circumstances of a given case, to prove confidentiality under s. 21(1)(b)."

Thirdly, "section 22(1)(a) would protect 'information with respect to a trade secret,' not simply a 'trade secret,' thus broadening the scope that may be available under s. 21(1) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act."

I can say, having been legally trained, that the phrase "information with respect to a trade secret" is very standard lawyer's circumlocution — the kind of

thing that, in what is called plain drafting, is to be avoided — and really is, I think, Delphic in its ambiguity. It's perfectly unclear as to what it might mean. Quite properly, the Information and Privacy Commissioner raises a concern about that choice of phrase.

He says — this is returning to the comments of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, a statutory officer, independently appointed by both sides of the Legislature and who serves for a fixed term unencumbered by any concerns about his tenure or his independence: "I am concerned about the significant encroachment that section 22 represents on the overriding FOIPPA" — Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — "policy of accountability through access to information, a particularly important consideration in relation to climate change measures and their enforcement, and urge you to withdraw these changes."

The "you" that's being addressed here is the minister responsible — the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, whom the letter is addressed to.

There has been some subsequent public comment by the Campaign for Open Government — Gwen Barlee, who's the policy director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. She's also a member of the Campaign for Open Government. She pointed out that these bills — she's also referring to Bill 18, which we'll discuss later — combined with the B.C. government's creation of a climate action committee last year that is outside the reach of B.C.'s Freedom of Information Act, is starting to show a pattern of secrecy when it comes to government plans and actions around climate change.

Then I'm quoting her. "Global warming is currently the most talked-about topic, but the B.C. government is treating it as a top secret," concluded Barlee. She goes on to refer to the clauses that are the subject of a letter from the Information and Privacy Commissioner. She is quoted as saying: "You could drive a truck through that definition." This is the director of the Campaign for Open Government: "It's very sweeping and very ambiguous."

In another article, what Mr. Evans says is: "It's vital that our democratic values not be abandoned by the creation of a rapidly growing, quasi-governmental grey zone where government and the private sector mix. Transparency and accountability should prevail wherever public work is done and taxpayers' funds are spent." That's from a column by Stephen Hume, who supports that point of view.

Very significantly in this piece of legislation, there's public intervention by the Information Commissioner offering his strong recommendation, his urging of the minister that that aspect of the legislation be withdrawn.

On occasion bills that come forward have a few blemishes or are less than perfect. It's a process, one would hope, where the comments of the public and the opposition are taken into account by the government. I'm hopeful that the minister, the Premier and the cabinet will listen to the public concern that's being raised about this bill, particularly these aspects of this bill, from a broad range of the community and will reconsider that particular section. So I ask the minister to consider that.

In addition to that, there are other concerns that this bill raises on a broader policy basis, which have been addressed by many of my colleagues in speeches here today and previously.

I think that what has happened here as the issue has advanced…. One understands completely the desire of the government to seek legislative ways and means to combat climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's probably an understandable direction to take, I suppose, because this direction has been taken in many other jurisdictions before. But what is becoming increasingly apparent around the world is that biofuels — while they were previously thought of as a potential solution, a good solution to some of those concerns — are no longer viewed in the same light and indeed are viewed as taking the world in the opposite direction.

In these kind of debates, one often hears — I imagine it's sincere in most cases — a concern for the planet, an exhortation to adopt a broader perspective, to think globally, to think about the impact of all these changes not only on ourselves and our own jurisdiction here in British Columbia but on Canada and on the globe as a whole. The biofuels debate is truly a global debate, and it is one that is rapidly evolving over the last several years.

I'm going to quote briefly from an article in The Guardian — the English newspaper, originally The Manchester Guardian; I don't think it's called The Manchester Guardian anymore — by John Vidal, who's the environment editor. He says in his article:

What thoughtful and leading thinkers about these issues have concluded is that while, understandably, people may have thought initially that biofuels offered an avenue for one solution to some of the real concerns raised about climate change, they ought to be reconsidered, should be reconsidered. One would expect — hope, in the case of this piece of legislation — that it will be reconsidered.

Bringing the debate a little bit closer to British Columbia with some British Columbia sources, B.C. Stats, which is a provincial government agency, issued a newsletter in January 2008 entitled It Ain't Easy Being Green: Why Biofuels May Not Be the Answer.

Basically, this was very helpful — well written, short and to the point. It says that there are two basic concerns about biofuels, where the promise that biofuels offered doesn't appear to have been borne out by subsequent analysis.

One is that there's a doubt about the validity of the claims that ethanol and other biofuels conserve energy. There's also evidence to suggest they may actually create more greenhouse gas emissions than they remove. So rather than heading in the direction we all wish to head in, they will take us in the opposite direction.

I would agree with the member for Cariboo North about some of the options that biofuels do present. They do mention some in this particular piece, including perennial grasses, lignocellulosic…. That's wood, plants and oil palms.

What's happening in terms of the economics of biofuels…. The cost of producing biofuels from these materials is currently much higher than the cost of using corn or rapeseed, and it is not economical to mass-produce biofuels using these other materials. This leaves corn as the primary input for biofuel production in North America. Based on the evidence, many critics believe that corn-based ethanol is not an optimum substitute for fossil fuels and may cause even more environmental damage than those other fuels, at least when corn is grown using current farming methods.

It may generate biofuels. Particularly, ethanol may generate more emissions rather than less. They take vast amounts of land out of production for food, having the effect on the world's global food economy of increasing prices. It is truly an international conflagration that is spoken of here.

In this article in The Guardian, Robert Zoellick, who is the president of the World Bank, said this week, April 5, that prices of all staple food have risen 80 percent in three years and that 33 countries faced unrest because of food price rises.

He urged rich countries to give the UN's world food program $500 million for emergency aid. In Bangladesh, for example, where families spend up to 70 percent of income on food, more than 50,000 households are getting emergency food after rice price rises. The government source said that one reason is the overall drop in food production because of biofuels has prevented food from being exported.

There have been protests, and there's a long list: Guinea, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Haiti, Bolivia and Indonesia. In the last two months Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India, the Philippines and Thailand have stopped crop exports or raised prices to more than $1,200 a tonne to discourage exports. So the impact of the production of corn and other crops for biofuel is at least contributing — not the total cost — to rising food prices around the world and civil unrest.

Again, to return to British Columbia and this piece of legislation, it would seem prudent — given the international concern by the Food and Agriculture Organization, by the UN Secretary-General, by the president of the World Bank, by officials in the European Union, by Members of Parliament in Britain — that this legislation be reconsidered at least to specify more clearly not in regulation but in the legislation just what kinds of biofuels might be considered and for the government to demonstrate some sensitivity to these issues.

Frankly, I don't get a sense at this point that the minister is prepared to accept the representations of the opposition, to accept the science that's offered, to accept the opinion from various international sources that's offered, and to deter from the course that he has been placed upon no doubt by his cabinet colleagues and by direction of the Premier.

This bill does leave much to be desired. Again, it's a bit like going to a boxing match with a skeleton on the other side, because there's really no flesh and meat on this particular skeleton. The substance of the legislation will be brought forward in regulation, and it's very difficult to know just what that might be. Obviously, the members of the opposition will be following this bill closely as it proceeds through the stages of debate in this Legislature, particularly at committee stage.

I think it's significant that these concerns are raised at this stage and that there is an opportunity for the government to make a graceful and considered sidestep here so that we can move forward together and use the potential of biofuels, which is perhaps not as vast as initially thought. There is potential there to use it as one means to begin to combat climate change.

I support that, but this legislation doesn't head in that direction. With that, I'll conclude my remarks, Madam Speaker.

M. Karagianis: I would say it's clear from the debate that has taken place here in the last couple of days that there's lots of information and lots of controversy on this topic and that the variety of opinions to either endorse or refute biofuel ranges from mild to extreme.

I've been very clear in my remarks speaking to the motion to refer this to committee, which failed yesterday, what my feelings are about the controversy that's

waging out there around biofuel. Certainly, it's no secret to the House or to members in the House that I am a proponent of alternative fuel use and have taken those very significant steps within my own life and made it a point to educate myself and to in fact promote where I can the use of alternative fuels.

I think the issue around the controversy, which has been taking momentum and seems to be growing at a faster and faster rate as time goes by…. In the past few months there's been sort of an escalation of the controversy around this topic. It's kind of epitomized in something that landed on my desk 48 hours ago.

This is from canada.com and was sent to me by someone who knows my interest in this topic.

But then they go on to say, which I think is another part of this very compelling debate…. The GM chief said that GM themselves "remain committed to developing the electric car and eventually a fuel cell electric vehicle. Fuel cells, however, won't be commercially available for another decade or two, and building the infrastructure to fuel them could take decades longer."

So I think it is a compelling argument that we will need to find some kinds of alternatives as we try and change our culture away from fossil fuel dependency to a future that is some kind of fuel cell, some kind of solar electric. There will be a long gap between now and then, if GM themselves admit that they are not going to be able to commercially produce anything in the way of a fuel-celled electric car for a decade or two. So we're talking perhaps 20 years in the future. We're talking about an infrastructure that goes even further than that.

Then we have, conceivably, 20 to 30 years where we are going to have to provide some kind of bridge, some kind of alternative for people. I am a huge proponent of that being alternative biofuel. But I recognize that the discussion here has two very real components that in many ways compete with each other. One is the biodiesel industry; the other is the ethanol industry. In fact, those two industries are driven by very different forces and in some ways have very opposing goals at the end of it.

The ethanol industry itself has been primarily driven by the oil and gas industry, and now we see that General Motors has become a partner in this and is looking at partnering with a company that's developing a very leading-edge concept of bacteria that would eat through garbage and form ethanol. The way that industry is driving the debate on ethanol has become enormously controversial, much more controversial in many ways than the biodiesel debate that is going on, partially because of the world view on what is happening.

I know the previous member, the member for Surrey-Whalley, talked about the World Bank's position, talked about some of the discussions that are going on around the world. Those are very real and significant debates that are going on, and I think it's imperative and important that we here in British Columbia really heed those as we move forward and determine what our future is going to be.

Conversely, the biodiesel industry itself, which is primarily working initially on waste product, on finding ways to use products that are left over from other uses…. Soy is grown for protein. The waste product of that is used for biodiesel. They are looking at meat-packing plant waste as being a good and very stable biocompound for biodiesel. In my meetings with the biodiesel industry, which have gone on for the past couple of years, I hear coming from them a real concern about sustainability, about ensuring that what they're doing is sustainable not only from a moral point of view but from a commercial point of view.

Frankly, there is a growing concern among consumers around what they purchase and what the source is of the things they purchase and use. Certainly, I think that those individuals out there in society — who are embracing immediate change and trying to find ways within their own lives to reduce their footprint, find alternatives, kind of look to new ideas that are coming along and engage in them — are very concerned about this whole issue of sustainability.

I think it should be, and I hope it will be, one of the lenses that this government applies to this bill. I'll be interested, really, in hearing what the response is from the minister, having heard from this side of the House our concerns and knowing that we are not opposed to the concept of alternative fuels. But we do expect that whatever is done in the future is enormously responsible and that in putting together and putting in place legislation, we can actually ensure that what we do here is very responsible and shows tremendous leadership out there for the world.

I think other provinces will be looking to us and to our legislation and saying that we are taking steps here. Are we ensuring that we are responding responsibly to the debate that is going on worldwide and the debate that is going on here in this country, and that in fact we are listening to the consumer and to our constituents out there who are asking us to take those responsible steps?

Having very clearly outlined over the past number of years my support for moving into alternative fuels that are based on sustainable and responsible governance and policies, I say it's unfortunate that that is not laid out here for us so that we find a way to support legislation that would start to lead us in that direction.

There is a complete lack of any guarantee or assurance that the things that concern us most about this new, growing alternative biofuel industry have been in fact key components in drafting this legislation. That

language around sustainability hasn't become a significant part of the legislative bill before us. Perhaps it may. We can hope that through the course of our debate, we may have a way of influencing some language changes in this — some amendments that would give us assurance that sustainability and responsible policies will be key components of this.

The second portion of the bill that is of concern is the carbon intensity component, which is a key evaluation that the government is going to use. Again, many of the details of this will only become clear when the policy is drafted. I'd like to hear from the government some assurance that as part of the debate on the sustainability and efficacy of biofuels as a long-term product that will grow in the marketplace, we are actually considering the carbon intensity as a part of our gauge on what it is we use.

If we are going to legislate an initial 5 percent ethanol, 5 percent biodiesel component in fuel, then I think that in the carbon intensity, it cannot only be about the fossil fuel component of that. Up to this point, that's how we judged things. As the ministry staff has sort of clearly stated — and I think it's a catchy term — they judge carbon intensity well-to-wheel. I think that's a great way for us to determine the carbon intensity and, in fact, the full range of what implications there are in our fuel consumption.

I would hope that the minister will reassure us that a part of that as well on the biocontent of both of these choices and anything in the future that may come up also include the source to the wheel so that we look very clearly at what we are expecting as components to a biofuel and what those implications are.

Many of the speakers who have gone before us here, many of the members on this side of the House, have talked about that. When they talk about corn, when they talk about food security, when they talk about the implications of these new fuels on agriculture and on the amount of resources it takes to deliver these, that's what they're talking about. They are talking about carbon intensity as including the bioproduct, the biofuel additives, in the case of both biodiesel and ethanol, and so I think it's imperative. I don't see that. I haven't seen or heard that. I didn't hear even from the ministry staff that that is a part of the component in judging what the carbon intensity is.

If we're going to judge that, then I think it's got to be really clearly laid out. In that portion of the bill we could incorporate the kind of sustainability that would in fact satisfy the market, the environmental community — all the people out there across the province who are very concerned about making sure that the next alternative we move to is not worse than the one we're coming from. The carbon intensity part of this is where we could clearly, again, outline the sustainability and that we will include that as a huge component of our consideration on what we expect producers or suppliers to bring into the province.

The third concern around the administrative aspect of this is around the concerns that have now been voiced by the freedom-of-information office itself and the officer. I know that other members have spoken very eloquently to this, including the member for Surrey-Whalley, who outlined very clearly the responsibility we have to make sure that before we even establish a legislative bill….

We've had warnings from the freedom-of-information office on some components of that, and I'll be looking forward to hearing from the minister responsible what amendments will be brought forward to ensure that there is transparency in this process.

I don't think anybody on this side of the House anticipates or would support the concept of us undermining industrial privacy around formulas and all of the industrial secrets that manufacturers and producers like to…. You know, the secret recipe or whatever it is. We're not asking to in any way interfere with that. Nor are we expecting that the freedom of information will jeopardize that component of it.

Because this is such a significant step that government is taking, I think it's really important — and I think it's an imperative — that any of these concerns around freedom of information that have been voiced be resolved before this bill is considered any further. If the public has a feeling that somehow…. Not only are we embarking on something that's very controversial in the world-view around the long-term sustainability of any kind of alternative fuels and not only are we unclear on whether or not we as a province are going to incorporate sustainability as part of the carbon intensity considerations here — the source of the bioproduct — but now we actually in some ways have veiled this in secrecy so that the public begins to wonder.

What is the secret? Why would we need to have anything secret, other than industrial recipes for their product or perhaps in the case of the bacteria that's used to turn garbage into ethanol? I'm sure that company itself will want to protect and patent what the bacteria are and how that system works. It's their right to do that, and we're not asking that to be compromised in any way.

The fact that we are going, in some ways, to conduct business out of the public eye at the very end of the day will have an enormous bearing on the next steps, the bridging and alternative fuel use. From now until the time we produce the fuel cell or solar-operated electric car that has zero footprint on the Earth, I think we can't operate in secret.

In fact, I would expect that the minister would want to give every appearance of transparency and openness here. If the government is serious about wanting support for this bill from the public if not from opposition, then I think it is incumbent on them to assure us and the public that there will be no secrecy — that there's nothing here that's being veiled. Other than protecting industrial recipes, there is no reason or rationale whatsoever to conduct any of our business out of the Freedom of Information Act and out of the public eye.

I would hope that the minister is going to, in his closing remarks — and I hope he is going to close off debate on this at some point — explain to us how he

can reassure us on all of the concerns that we and the public have — that he makes sure he doesn't embroil us in a further controversial debate with the world at large around our actions somehow jeopardizing food security anywhere else in the world and that in fact we seriously consider carbon intensity as taking in all aspects of alternative fuels.

The minister will know — it's no surprise to him — that I've talked before about availability and production as well, and how this legislation fits into that component. Where is the framework here for us to access product? Where is the production on this? What are the plans around the production of this?

If, as GM has told us, the fuel cell electric car is in the works but is not going to be readily available for ten, 20 or 30 years and the infrastructure won't be there to support it for 30 years…. Well, that gives us a long time to flounder around hoping that we will have those alternatives at some point in our life. Frankly, in 30 years I'll be a very, very old woman driving an electric car.

Hand in hand with this, we need to hear the government say to us that if we're going to put these kinds of fuel requirements into place, they're in fact available in the marketplace. So far we're not terribly successful at that.

Having driven a biodiesel car for a few years now, I can tell you that it's not easy to find. I can't find B100 like I would like to run in my automobile. I can find it only if I go off the grid completely and go to those independent little co-ops that are mining cooking oil from Wendy's and rendering it down in their back yard. Frankly, as entertaining and interesting as the concept is, I'm not sure that the warranty on my car would actually permit me to use backyard hooch to run my car.

Until we have the kind of production system in place that allows the consumer to do this, we're kind of putting the cart before the horse. I don't see the companion piece to this, which is the production and availability, the structure, the infrastructure in place to support this as well.

I was very disturbed and concerned always to hear that B.C. Ferries, one of the largest GHG producers in this province, is exempted from all these things. They're exempted from everything the government is doing around carbon taxation, around alternative fuels.

Frankly, I've issued the challenge here in this House, and I think it's a very real challenge that could be taken up. If we can bring sustainable biodiesel fuel into this province that we are guaranteed is not jeopardizing someone's food security anywhere…. If we can provide that, B.C. Ferries can be one of the first to take advantage of that and can begin to cut their footprint and show responsible behaviour.

I would renew my challenge to government around the fact that when they can put in place legislation that guarantees us sustainability and that guarantees our carbon intensity will be judged on all components in the fuel, when we can hold our heads up and know that we are not in any way jeopardizing anyone's economy or anyone's food or anyone's environmental integrity anywhere in the world and when we put these products in place, then I think we can show that government will lead the way with B.C. Ferries and our own heating system within the government structure and system here in the province. I renew my challenge. We could use that. We could use those products there.

I think that the issue here around food security is one that is being pushed very hard by climate change anyway. Much like climate change, all of these are new debates. There's raging science on all sides telling us what's going on, and frankly, it's because people don't know. What is happening here is an onslaught that is coming at us faster than we anticipated, that is actually changing the way we do business, changing the way we think about our food crops, our transportation and every aspect of our lives. Things are changing.

We are in a very cataclysmic kind of time in the global history of mankind. When you look back at history, you see those big shifts, the big things that changed mankind — right? What kind of processes come into place that change mankind's behaviour and perception? This is one of those things. So we have to look at all the things we are doing, such as food security, alternative fuels and new transportation options. I think we have to take the most responsible route.

Until the government can assure me that the legislation they are bringing forward satisfies all of the quotients — all of those pieces that have to come together, such as sustainability and ensuring that we are doing and behaving in the most responsible way — I will not support this bill.

It's unfortunate, because I want to be able to do that. I want us to be able to move forward and champion alternative fuels. But I have to be guaranteed from the government that what we're doing has sustainability as its basis and that we are making sure that all aspects of this legislation — not the policies that go on within government and can change on government's whim but the actual legislation — are something we can all stand on and be proud of. That means there's a lot more work that's got to go into this before it's supportable.

I would hope that the minister has heard the concerns that we on this side of the House have. They're legitimate. The government could engage in this as a real bipartisan bill, where we can sit down collaboratively and say: "You know what? This is not about left or right, New Democrats or Liberals. This is about fundamental components of how we live our lives for the next 20 and 30 years — until alternatives come on board, until those alternatives are affordable for everybody, until all the people who live in every corner of this province actually have choices they can make that move them away — and that we as government and that we as leaders in the province made those really

good decisions when we set up the legislation that will actually carry us for the next 20 or 30 years."

I'm hoping that the minister will address many of these concerns and that the minister is prepared to make some amendments and include in the legislative bill here, in the framework for this, some of the language and some of the pieces that would be necessary to make this supportable — not just for us in the opposition but for the rest of the world out there, which is watching very carefully to see that what we do is responsible, is defendable and is defensible.

With that, I will close off my remarks. I anticipate hearing that the government has drafted some language or some amendments and is prepared to make some significant changes in this bill to make it supportable for me and other members on this side of the House.

Hon. R. Neufeld: It's been an interesting number of hours to listen to varied responses from members in the opposition in regards to greenhouse gases. It becomes painfully obvious to me that regardless of what the government tries to put forward to reduce greenhouse gases in the province of British Columbia, it is totally opposed by the NDP party. In fact, it saddens me a bit that we hear that. It saddens me that they stand over there, constantly opposing any move that's made to actually reduce greenhouse gases.

I think we all — at least, I think we all — in this House know that we need to actually tackle that problem, and we have to start looking at it in a realistic way so that we can actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province. This is just one small step, one very small step. There is no silver bullet out there yet. There are all kinds of ideas, and there are all kinds of different ways that we can actually reduce our footprint on the environment. This is enabling legislation to allow us to actually grasp and use those new ideas as we move forward so that we can actually apply them in our lives.

I was heartened to listen to…. I know, previously, that the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin was very concerned about this. Do you know what? I credit her for her remarks. She is one person across the way that has certainly demonstrated that she thinks that we have to realistically look at greenhouse gas emissions — unlike the rest, other than my critic, who actually talked about how he uses biodiesel for heating. I think that in his heart, also, he knows we have to start moving towards this.

Ethanol and biodiesel, biodiesel being a little bit newer. Ethanol has certainly been around for a long time in British Columbia. I've been in this House now since 1991. I know Husky has had ethanol mixed in their gasoline, I think to 10 percent or maybe even higher, for as long as I've been in this House. You know what? I have never once heard the NDP, when they were in government or since they've been in opposition, say that that was not right.

It's interesting that when you get to the point where you actually have to stand up and say, "Yes, I believe we have to do something; yes, I believe we have to reduce greenhouse gases," the NDP will find every excuse under the sun to say: "No, we can't support a move to reduce greenhouse gases in the province of British Columbia."

The member opposite that just spoke a while ago, the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, has had a motion on the order paper for a number of years now: "Be it resolved that this House urge the BC Government to implement a pilot study using bio-diesel to fuel BC Ferries." Well, she's getting her wish and wants to vote against the bill that'll do it.

It's absolutely amazing. We're going to apply biodiesel in the form that we actually know today how we can do it. The member has been asking for it for three years. I would say that she was outmuscled by the rest of the folks around the NDP table — that group that's leaderless, confused, not sure whether they want to support the reduction of greenhouse gases in British Columbia, just want to oppose everything and actually come up with absolutely no ideas of their own on how to move forward.

I listened intently. I listened to everyone. Not one idea. I did hear from the member for Vancouver-Fairview that we should continue using fossil fuel. That was interesting, because in every estimate process I've gone through with that member, he has come into the Legislature and tried to encourage me as the Ministry of Energy and Mines to curtail looking for natural gas and oil in the province of British Columbia. Yesterday, in opposition to the bill, he stands up and says that we should continue to use fossil fuels. Those two things don't even come close to meeting.

It absolutely amazes me when I listen to that leaderless group over there talk about reducing greenhouse gases and how they were thinking about this in the '90s, when we see that about the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter is a gas-fired plant that was built by the NDP in British Columbia. Today they have no ideas. They're absolutely vacant of any ideas, and the only thing they can do is say that they're opposed.

I listened to the member for Cariboo North talk about young people — that he'd talk to young people. Well, I talk to young people too. In fact, I introduced a young person in this House who is from Fort St. John — a grade 10 or 11 student, one of the two — who for three years in a row has won to go to a science fair around the world. And this year she went to Taiwan with a biodiesel project. That's a young person.

Those are voters. Those are the people that we're all going to depend on to sit in places like this and actually make rules and regulations for us. There she is, a farm girl. I bet that if she heard the words from the member for Cariboo North — how all farmers do is just plow lots of fertilizer into the ground to grow canola to make biodiesel and how they don't care about the environment, don't care about runoff and don't care about any of that — she would cringe.

I guess that the member for Cariboo North just wanted to make a point, that he doesn't have any ideas about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and wants to just vote against everything. But there's a young lady that's actually moving forward, that's thinking about things we should have probably been thinking about a long time ago.

Those are the people that we're going to depend on, not the member for Cariboo North, who actually degrades farmers in the northeast part of the province when he says that all they do is punch lots of fertilizer into the ground just to make a whole bunch of money. That's totally unfair. At least, the farmers I know actually do a pretty good job.

I want to read from the bill just quickly, because the members talked about ethanol and biodiesel. Let me read, in the bill, page 4:

That encompasses pretty well all the things that the member talked about and probably some that we don't even know about yet.

We should actually be happy that there's a government coming forward to say: "We want to look after the future of the province of British Columbia. We're concerned about the environment." The Ministry of Environment has bills coming forward that are going to deal with those kinds of things also, and we need to do that.

Here we have a member from across the way, from North Island, who says it's immoral to grow canola for biofuel. We have the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin saying that she'd like to have B100 — that's full biofuel — to run in her car. So I don't know how they square that.

What I would like to see is maybe a free vote on that side of the House for a change. It might be refreshing for them to think about that. Maybe they should let people vote their conscience, because what we heard from the member from Metchosin was that she's pretty concerned about it. The rest were just playing politics. They tried to talk about being concerned about it, but all they wanted to do was to play politics.

You know what? I say that a bill like this is something we shouldn't be playing politics with. We should be out there working with young people, working with people in British Columbia to make sure we get the right regulations so that we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the province.

Now, I also want to say something about the FOI issue. I know that it was brought up by the members opposite. I'm obviously aware of the letter that we got from the FOI commissioner. Of course, they tried on all the conspiracies that you could imagine about why we would have that written into the bill.

Well, it was to protect trade secrets. The member for Surrey-Whalley, a lawyer who's actually dealt with trade secrets, talked about it, and that's all it's meant to do. I know that we are working with the FOI commissioner as we speak, both on my bill and the Ministry of Environment's bill, to see what we can do to make that acceptable so that the FOI commissioner is comfortable with it. But that's all that's to do.

In fact, the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, again, said that she doesn't want to release any trade secrets. She wants to make sure that they keep their trade secrets. That's all we want to do with that section — nothing more. Hopefully, we can work that through with the FOI commissioner.

There's a group across the way that's leaderless and confused about greenhouse gas emissions. I'm going to read into the record something that is very true, and I agree. I don't always agree with the NDP, but I do agree with them sometimes. On August 29 of 2006, in an open letter to his constituents, the member for Nelson-Creston wrote, and I just will quote one part of it: "Our party has no idea how to deal with climate change and its implications for socialist principles."

That is so true, and we saw that over the last number of hours, through the debate on second reading of a bill that actually looks at adding — to diesel fuel by 5 percent and to gasoline by 5 percent — those types of products, which I read into the record earlier, to reduce our emissions. That's by 2010.

They failed to forget or mention that the federal government has those same statutes coming forward — by 2010 in gasoline and, by 2012, 2 percent in diesel fuel.

With that, I look forward to the debate at committee stage, where we go through this enabling act. I hope that they actually look seriously at maybe taking a break and vote…. Let the members vote their conscience. Let the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, who is very knowledgable about this issue, actually vote the way she thinks she should vote. I think that would be, if she was allowed to do that, for this bill.

Hon. R. Neufeld: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 16, Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call second reading of Bill 18, intituled Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act — the hon. Minister of Environment.

Mr. Speaker: Members, quickly proceed to your other business so we can get started.

Hon. B. Penner: I notice members are a little bit rowdy. Maybe I'll just give them a moment to calm down a bit.

I'm also excited to be moving Bill 18, and I move that it be read now a second time.

It's my privilege to speak to this legislation before the House. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act will provide the authority needed to follow through on our government's commitment to establish a market-based system to limit greenhouse gas emissions in British Columbia and to take part in the regional cap-and-trade system being developed by the western climate initiative.

As I noted at first reading of this bill last week, the western climate initiative is a partnership of state and provincial jurisdictions in the United States and Canada that are working together to tackle the problem of greenhouse gas emissions in North America, with an aim to make the region and soon, hopefully, the whole continent a global leader in the fight against climate change.

A cap-and-trade system is a very innovative form of regulation. Rather than government dictating technologies or emission standards, the system sets an overall cap on emissions from regulated sources, and then the market determines where the emission reductions are achieved. This will help achieve reductions in emissions in a more efficient, cost-effective way than the traditional command-and-control regulatory regimes with which we may be more familiar.

The trade part of the cap-and-trade system is the ability of regulated emitters to buy, bank or sell emission allowance and offset units. Those who can reduce emissions at low cost are able to sell surplus units to those who find it more challenging to do so. This market-based system transfers emission reduction responsibility and management to emitters while market forces determine the distribution of reductions.

Setting caps enables choice and flexibility while allowing industry to focus on the problem of carbon pollution, which is responsible for global warming. Based on its own individual circumstances, each company chooses which options work best to reduce its emissions. At the same time, by placing a ceiling on carbon pollution, the government encourages improved energy efficiency, increased use of renewable energy, capture and storage of carbon and changes in types or methods of production, which can increase the competitiveness of B.C.'s industry.

Like B.C.'s revenue-neutral carbon tax, the cap-and-trade system will establish a price signal that will help drive long-term reductions in emissions. By creating a market value for emission reductions, the system rewards innovation and efficiency. The overall outcome is that we achieve emission reductions at the lowest possible cost.

The three key elements of the cap-and-trade system that this legislation will enable are: first, a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from sources regulated under the act in the form of a limited number of emission allowance units issued by government for a given compliance period. It will be possible to make reductions in the cap for successive compliance periods, thus reducing emissions from the regulated sources over time.

Second, a requirement that operators of these regulated sources obtain emission allowance units and other compliance units at least equal to their emissions for a given compliance period and then retire them by surrendering them to the government.

Third, this act will provide the legal basis for a secure tracking system within which regulated operators will be able to trade and bank compliance units, thereby minimizing their compliance costs. This system will be compatible with other tracking systems such as

The act will provide authority to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to establish a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from regulated operations through the setting of a maximum number of B.C. allowance units that can be made available for any compliance period. Regulatory power is provided to enable distribution of these units by auction or any other means.

The fundamental compliance obligation in this act is set out in section 2, which requires each regulated operator to retire compliance units equal to its greenhouse gas emissions in each compliance period.

Mandatory reporting obligations are set out in sections 3 and 4, with supporting authority to regulate the matters to be reported and the methods by which calculations must be made.

Three types of compliance units will comprise the currency of the trading scheme. The British Columbia allowance units, the British Columbia emission reduction units, and recognized compliance units. Each B.C. compliance unit will be equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide or CO2 equivalent.

B.C. allowance units will be emission allowances issued by the government in accordance with the cap identified for a given compliance period.

B.C. emissions reduction units are emission offset credits from approved B.C.-based emission reduction or removal projects.

The third type of unit will be recognized compliance units, which consist of compliance units from other cap-and-trade systems. Units from those systems will be recognized in accordance with the regulations.

The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council will have authority to make regulations to recognize comparable units from other trading systems, including the partner states and provinces of the western climate initiative. Regulatory authority is also provided to establish the process for acceptance of emission reduction projects or offsets, verification and issuance of the B.C. emission reduction units.

Compliance reporting will be required, with companies able to report compliance for multiple facilities in one report. Protection of confidentiality of trade secrets and commercial information is important, and this act is intended to protect the legitimate concerns of third parties. It is also intended that key information on greenhouse gas emissions be made public.

The act provides for the authority to create regulations regarding aspects of the system that do not need to be spelled out in the enabling legislation. This includes authority to adopt by reference the laws, standards or codes of other jurisdictions and the authority to levy fees or charges for services provided by government.

Provisions for the administration and enforcement of the act are included to ensure the integrity of the system. Strict compliance with all aspects of the system will be needed to maintain and enhance the value of the compliance units that will be the currency of this market-based system.

To ensure compatibility with the system currently being developed by the western climate initiative, the proposed legislation includes provisions for automatic administrative penalties. Authority for these penalties is set out in the act, but they will not take effect until the penalties themselves are set by regulation. Those automatic penalties could be either monetary amounts or an obligation to retire compliance units and would be an immediate consequence of non-compliance with the cap.

The use of administrative penalties has been shown to effectively promote compliance in a way that does not rely on traditional prosecutions in the court system, although the option for prosecution for contraventions under this legislation is also authorized to deal with any particularly serious breaches that may occur, in line with other environmental legislation already administered by the Ministry of Environment.

The bill also contains provisions needed to support the negotiation of an equivalency agreement with the federal government under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. An equivalency agreement will allow B.C. to be the sole regulator of greenhouse gas emissions in the province. The provisions in question include similar enforcement, penalty and offence sections and provisions which allow British Columbia residents to request investigations of alleged offences.

This province and the rural community must make dramatic progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next two decades to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act addresses the need to protect the environment for future generations. The climate action initiatives represented by this act and by other legislation that is before the House and that will be coming this session will have lasting benefits on our economy, our environment and future generations.

This act is one of several key bills being introduced this session to address climate change. These bills complement Budget 2008, which introduced B.C.'s revenue-neutral carbon tax and provides $1 billion over four years to encourage environmentally responsible choices, implement new regulatory requirements, undertake cutting-edge research and make low carbon investments.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to stand and speak to Bill 18, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act. I would note too that I am the designated speaker.

I want to start with a bit of disappointment here. My disappointment relates to the decision of the minister to bring the bill at this time and to bring the bill with what I would consider nothing but an arrogant disregard for the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the concerns that he has raised about this piece of legislation — as he has raised concerns about Bill 16 and as, I understand, he's raising concerns now in regard to other legislative packages coming forward.

In a letter to the minister on the fourth of April, Mr. Loukidelis, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, raised serious concerns about Bill 18, and I just want to quote briefly from his letter, hon. Speaker. The Information and Privacy Commissioner said at this time in his correspondence:

The commissioner goes on to reflect the fact that the decisions around this legislation to exclude FIPPA from applying here deal with matters that have little to do with the concerns that have been expressed about protecting trade secrets.

As the commissioner points out, talks about section 22.1…. He says that this "would protect 'information with respect to a trade secret,' not simply a 'trade secret,' thus broadening the scope of protection that may be available under section 21(1) of FIPPA."

He also raises concerns about when information is deemed to be supplied, stating that it isn't even about whether corporate interests or others are supplying information if the government can go out and discover any piece of information it likes in respect to this and deem it to have been supplied so that it continues to be hidden from public scrutiny. It deems information to be supplied in confidence, even if it hasn't necessarily been supplied in confidence.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, in his closing of this letter, says the following:

Now, I know that the minister has been quoted as saying that his office has had discussions with the commissioner's office and that they're going to try to work this out. I think this is a more serious matter than simply trying to work it out.

If the minister was taking this seriously, it would have been very easy for him to have pulled this bill back for a few days, sat his officials down with the commissioner's office, sorted out the kinds of changes or amendments or deletions of sections of this bill that needed to be done, made those changes in the bill and brought back a bill that was consistent with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, as it should be.

If this was an isolated incident, it would be one thing, but we have seen with this government a level of unprecedented secrecy on this issue of climate change — unprecedented anywhere. We're talking about cap-and-trade here. Well, I have had the opportunity to go to the western climate initiative website, to go on to the websites of the other partners to the WCI, and there are remarkable amounts of information made available.

Almost all of those partners have worked to develop scoping documents that look at the cap-and-trade issue, at how cap-and-trade will evolve within their jurisdictions. Most importantly, they have engaged not just stakeholders but their citizens with full release of information.

They have engaged their citizens in discussions that have, in fact, allowed people who have commentary on the questions of cap-and-trade to submit that commentary, to be part of the discussion, and for that information, in large part, to be readily available for anybody who wants to look at it to understand how those jurisdictions are coming to their positions in relation not just to cap-and-trade but to a whole variety of climate change initiatives — the package of initiatives.

We have not seen that situation in British Columbia. We have seen a situation where, in the throne speech in 2007, the Premier announced his newly acquired — at that time — interest in climate change. We then saw nothing, largely, for the better part of a year except extended secrecy.

We now get snippets. We get snippets of what we're hearing. We had a cabinet committee put in place that was excluded from freedom of information. We had a secretariat put in place that was excluded from freedom of information. We have a climate action team put in place that is going to bring some recommendations this spring, but we don't know what they may be, and we're certainly not engaged in those discussions in those meetings. We on this side have asked for this issue to be put before a legislative committee. That's been rejected.

What we're seeing is bits and pieces coming forward. We saw a budget. We were told that we would wait a year, and then we would get the green budget. Well, what we got was a budget that has a gas tax, which has been framed as a carbon tax. But it has a gas tax and, other than that, has a handful of initiatives that will get some exclusion from provincial sales taxes for a period up through 2011. Other than that, there really is very little in that budget that anybody could attribute to this issue of climate change.

Now what we have is a situation where the government has brought forward this measure related to cap-and-trade. I want to talk a little bit, because we often hear from the government side that they want to know what it is that we think should be done. So I

want to talk a little bit about some of the things that we think should be done around this.

We support the principle of cap-and-trade. We believe that cap-and-trade, in the case of British Columbia, would capture — if it's appropriately done — about 40 percent of emitters. The big question here, as is often said with any of this kind of legislation, is that the devil comes in the details. This particular piece of legislation offers us few, if any, details. It is an enabling piece of legislation, and it essentially takes every significant decision, whatever they are, and puts it into regulation.

What that means is that there will be no legislative oversight of those matters. They will be decided by cabinet. If the track record of this government on the matter and the question of secrecy is to continue in the fashion that it has to date, then we can be assured that it will be a struggle, at best, to garner any of that information. We can certainly be assured that there will be no public discussion or debate on these matters, as there has been no public discussion or debate on any matter related to climate change brought forward by this government since December of 2007.

When we talk about cap-and-trade, we need to look at what the model looks like. In March of this year the Pembina Institute, which is a research institute here in British Columbia and a strong proponent of cap-and-trade and initiatives in relation to climate change.… They released a document in March of this year, and their comment in relation to cap-and-trade was as follows:

The question for us here in this debate is: does Bill 18 give us the framework to have a successful cap-and-trade system to meet the objective, as Pembina puts its out, for a system that will in fact reduce pollution and keep the economy and community strong? That's the debate we need to have here.

What is it that we need when we look at a cap-and-trade system? There's a lot of discussion going on around cap-and-trade. I've enjoyed looking at the materials regarding the WCI, the western climate initiative — some of the discussions going on in different jurisdictions — also, matters that have been brought forward from other jurisdictions where cap-and-trade has either been looked at for implementation or has been considered, and there are a number of issues that need to be addressed if we're in fact going to find that cap-and-trade system that works for us.

The first of those issues, quite clearly, is the need for firm caps. We need to have caps that are clear and explicit and show how we go from the day of implementation of a cap-and-trade system to, if in this case we're using the government's targets, a 33 percent reduction by 2020.

Then what we need to do is be able to show very explicitly how that number starts and continues to go down and to reduce the amount of emissions allowed under the cap system until we get to 2020 and how we, in fact, begin to see how this system that British Columbia will adopt — how this particular piece of it, which could involve 40 percent of emissions — gets us to that place.

This is a very big challenge. As we know, reducing emissions is not an easy thing. We'll talk a little bit more about this, but we saw the transportation plan that was put forward. There's an acknowledgment there that, at the end of the day, with that transportation plan in 2020, the amount of emission reductions is about 2 or 3 percent of what's required to meet the objectives that the Premier and the government have put in place.

We know that the gas tax that the Minister of Finance brought forward looks at and projects out about three million tonnes of emission reductions — about 7 percent of the reductions that we will require by 2020. It is not easy to get to those emission reduction levels. Cap-and-trade could afford us a way, maybe, to have a more significant reduction dealing with the large industrial polluters to get those emissions down. But to do that, it needs to be an effective plan, as Pembina stated. So the first issue is to put those caps in place. Be explicit about those caps. Unfortunately, Bill 18 says nothing about that. It gives us no indication as to what that will be.

The next issue is the scope. There are an awful lot of sectors out here that could be engaged within cap and trade, and it is important that we capture those industrial and commercial polluters who appropriately fit under cap-and-trade. Bring them in, have them allocated there, determine that that's their place — not the tax, but this is their place under cap-and-trade — and then deal with them accordingly.

But we don't know who those folks are. Again, this will be done by regulation by cabinet to deem that and to determine who those players are. It is not a public discussion. There is no legislative oversight on this. This House will not get to engage in the debate about who those emitters are, and that's not right, because this is the public interest. The standard needs to be that if it is about the public interest, it belongs in this Legislature for public discussion and public debate.

Hon. Speaker, an example. We have heard — and this is a crossover and creates confusion with the federal government, which may or may not be taking different actions…. But the questions, for example, around marine and aviation are: do we find a place in British Columbia to say that aviation in British Columbia falls under the cap and that that industry

will be covered and that those emitters will need to play a role? We don't know that, because we simply don't know what this bill provides.

This is one of the key questions and one of the most compelling questions that needs to be answered. The

question is: auction or allocation? If so, 100 percent auction or a partial auction?

The minister spoke about the credits that are allocated — a credit is a tonne of emissions — about how many credits any given industry will have for their period of time, maybe five years; about what that will be; about how they in fact will receive those credits that allow them to pollute through this system; and about how that works.

As I said, there are a couple of ways to do this. The first way, which is a way that proved to be a miserable failure the first time it was done in Europe — they're tightening it up now — was the allocation system, where essentially these credits were given to these companies.

It's interesting that under that system…. The first time Europe did it, they went and consulted with all the companies and received information from all of those companies. They then did the calculation. They put the allocation out. The companies all got their credits. Lo and behold, shortly after that was done and when the analysis and assessment of that was done, it was realized that what the government had done, what the EU had done, was give out credits or allocation that was about 15 to 20 percent higher than the actual amount of emissions that these companies had collectively put out.

The system collapsed because it was essentially giving a free pass to increase emissions by up to 15 to 20 percent before you had to actually deal with any emissions. The EU recognized that problem. They pulled back. The EU still continues at this point to use an allocation system. When this next phase, this current cycle, plays out in 2013, they have said they will then go to auction.

The allocation system, though…. What it does as much as anything is create enormous wealth for some, because when you have those credits, you have the capacity to sell them and the ability to sell them. Some estimates say today that the latest allocation, upwards of $100 billion, will be made over those five years in Europe by the buying and selling of those credits — $100 billion.

This becomes not so much a discussion about climate change and greenhouse gases as much as it becomes a discussion around making enormous amounts of money. While British Columbia may not be on the $100 billion scale, you can be assured that there will be money to be made in British Columbia through the buying and selling of these credits.

The second option, which takes some of that merit away, is an auction system that says that these credits will be auctioned off into those sectors. You can certainly put a cap, if you choose, on the amount that the auction can hit before you cap it out, if you're concerned about the price getting too high. But essentially, you're saying: "These companies and industries are going to need to pay for these credits, and they will pay for them now."

If that's done, then for this 40 percent of emissions that isn't going to be captured by the gas tax, you do in fact create what is in essence a tax system. It's driven by the market because it is an auction, but you create a system there where you price emissions from the outset. We believe that's the right thing to do.

We believe an auction is the right way to go. If we do that, then we have a situation where — if we have the tax, if we have the cap-and-trade system — everybody is paying. There is a fairness in everybody paying.

The problem is that we have no idea whether the government is contemplating auction or allocation or what that combination looks like. The language in the regulations certainly allows for both. We know that the corporate sector is very much supportive of allocations and understandably so, but because of the concerns that the Information and Privacy Commissioner has raised because of the language in section 36 of this bill, we will not have any of the information made available to us as legislators or to the public in general or to the media.

There is no allowance here for us to have the information to be able to determine how those decisions were made when the decisions are made around auction or allocation. We will have no access to information here to know if they were made fairly, to know what deals were done, to know who lobbied best. That's not right. The public has a right to know, and under this legislation the public's right is denied.

The other issue that is a significant issue here is the issue of thresholds. Currently with the federal government, their threshold is 100,000 tonnes. That's where they want to capture people. What we know is that if that level was used in British Columbia, there are about 38 polluters in the province who would be captured by that level. That's a very high standard, as far as this side of the House is concerned. We are concerned about that standard, and we very much want that threshold pushed down.

Now, as to the level that it should be at, I think there are some legitimate questions to be asked. You don't want to push it to a level where it becomes administratively overly cumbersome or challenging, either for government or, importantly, for industry. It has to reach a level that allows the maximum amount of polluters to be captured by the cap-and-trade system while not being overly burdensome. Is that level 50,000 tonnes? Maybe. Is it 25,000 tonnes? Maybe. But that's a discussion that needs to be had.

Unfortunately, that discussion is not going to occur under this bill, because it's all covered by regulation. It is not covered in an explicit way in the bill. So we have no idea. As I said before, as has been pointed out by the Information and Privacy Commissioner, any of those negotiations or discussions with industry partners over who's in or who's out, or discussions or negotiations with anybody else will be covered by the secrecy of section 36. The public will not have the right to know, even though we know and, as the Information and Privacy Commissioner has told us, we should have that right to know under the act.

This particular piece of legislation will subvert the rights of British Columbians to know. That's a very, very concerning situation. We believe that we need to have openness on this. We need to push the allocation down.

The other thing that's pretty important, and this is one of the things that's in the bill, is the allowance for offsets. What offsets are, essentially, are the ability of a company or an industry that doesn't have the capacity, through technology or through other practices or operational procedures or changes in their business, to be able to reduce their emissions. They have the capacity to buy offsets, to essentially say: "I will purchase tree-planting, maybe, as a possibility. There are a number of possibilities. But I will purchase another activity separate from my business that is recognized as reducing emissions, and then I can apply that against my emissions in order to put myself back into compliance."

Offsets make sense in some cases. There are certainly sectors of industry where it hasn't been sorted out how to deal with emission reductions. There are sectors of industry where we simply don't know how we're going to deal with those things and get emissions and reductions down yet.

The use of offsets as a way, as a transition tool, makes some sense. We should be very clear about in what circumstances they make sense as an effective transition tool, what limits or parameters there would be put on offsets in terms of that tool and what the value of those offsets would be. But we don't know that, and the piece of legislation tells us absolutely nothing about that. It tells us absolutely nothing about how we get there.

We don't want a situation on this side…. It's our view that companies — if they have alternatives, if they have ways to reduce their emissions — shouldn't be able to buy their way out through offsets.

If there are legitimate questions about whether the technologies exist to reduce those emissions and if offsets are to play a role while those technologies evolve and develop, then there's an argument to be made for them. But to simply say you can buy your way out isn't right. This piece of legislation may be saying exactly that, but we won't know that until we see regulations — and again, no legislative oversight, no ability to look at those regulations.

There are also issues around public reporting and monitoring. I think this comes back again, and really reflects again, on the comments in the letter from the Information and Privacy Commissioner, where he raised concerns about the lack of accountability. I think his comment was: "…the policy of accountability through access to information, a particularly important consideration in relation to climate change measures and their enforcement."

The commissioner is right. If this system is going to work, if this system is going to have public confidence, then it needs to have a system of reporting and monitoring that all British Columbians are comfortable with, that all British Columbians can understand and that is there for everybody to look at and see, if they choose to do that.

There is nothing in this legislation that ensures any of that will occur. We have a director appointed by the minister, who gets to call the shots on this stuff rather than an independent third party. What we need to do is have that level of reporting and monitoring put up front.

The other issue that is required to protect the integrity of this system is to ensure that we have a system that allows for and guarantees penalties that are appropriate and where we have some notion of what the consequence is for companies that, in fact, don't act appropriately under this legislation. But we don't know what those penalties might look like. We have no idea, because the legislation doesn't tell us. It tells us nothing about that. It tells us that that will all be decided by regulation. So it creates a challenge.

We believe that those penalties should be more explicit and more out there and more on the table. Hon. Speaker, if you ask this side of the House what cap-and-trade should look like, we will tell you that we support cap-and-trade. We will tell you that cap-and-trade is a tool that we hope will move us forward on the objective of all British Columbians to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But for that to occur, we need to have firm caps that reduce the amount of emissions until it gets us to the targets that we're looking for.

It needs to have a scope that ensures that all players who should be in are in; that all polluters who should be in are in; that is clearly an auction system, not an allocation system; that sets the thresholds at a level that ensures that those polluters who should be in are in; that limits the role of offsets to an appropriate use and doesn't make them a way to a get-out-of-jail-free card, as in Monopoly, by simply buying your way out; that has a reporting and monitoring system that is public and independent and that all British Columbians can access, look at and understand; that has serious penalties for those who choose not to abide by the terms and conditions of cap-and-trade.

Ultimately, for this place, it's critical that it has legislative oversight that allows this House to be able to deal with these matters in an appropriate way and that requires these kinds of changes to come forward in a way that works for us. There is a question about….

All of those things need to be there. That's the cap-and-trade model that we're talking about. That's the cap-and-trade model that we want to see. If we have that model, then I believe we can meet the objectives as put forward by the Pembina Institute to design a cap-and-trade system that will help reduce pollution while keeping the economy and community strong. I would hope that that's what everybody in this place wants to do.

Now, when we deal with the question of climate change, what we all know is that emissions pricing, whether it be cap-and-trade or it be through a tax, gets us part way there, but it doesn't get us all the way there by any means. What we know is that we need to think

about the way that we do business in British Columbia. We hear often from commentators and from people who think about these things that the approach to dealing with the question of climate change needs to be an approach that's much broader than a bunch of one-offs.

I know there's some rumbling that we're going to see a plan at some point, but we haven't seen it yet. At this point we have a number of one-off initiatives that the government has either proposed or is talking about and has foreshadowed in some way. But we have not seen how this fits into a more significant or substantive plan. We have not seen how this is dealt with in a more holistic fashion for the interests of British Columbia.

At our last NDP convention we passed Sustainable B.C., and for us this is a very important document. It is a document that will certainly frame some of our discussions for next May and will frame initiatives that we will take after that, after the election. I want to talk a little bit about that. I think it puts a context on the broader question of climate change, to which the question of cap-and-trade is such an integral component.

The characteristics of Sustainable B.C. are, first and foremost, environmental stewardship. Whether it be through public, corporate or personal actions, we need to put first and foremost the maintenance of our ecosystem health. We need to figure out how to reduce our impacts on this planet, and we need to find a way to ensure the diversity of plant and animal species — that biodiversity that will ensure our future.

As we often hear, certainly as we hear from our friends in the first nations community: we are one. We are not separate and unique from this planet. We are part of this planet. We are part of the biodiversity, and we simply cannot allow the pieces to be chipped away without it having incredible consequences for us.

We need a diversified economy. We need one that operates within the environmental carrying capacity of this place. We need one that actually serves the needs and the aspirations of people and local communities in British Columbia and, by doing that, begins to contribute in a genuine way to the social and economic progress of this province as a whole. That needs to be a discussion for that to happen. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's a thing that we can do.

We need equity. That's an important characteristic, if we're moving forward. We need equity in the sharing of the wealth of this province among all British Columbians. It has to be based on principles of justice and compassion.

We need to respect individual and community well-being. That will result, hopefully, from all of those other measures where we see the cooperation, the democracy, the sharing of enjoyment, the sharing of information — a system that ensures that we are all part of this solution, we all have ownership, and we all have a role to play.

Now, getting there does require certain principles to be put in place, and these are principles that we believe are essential. They are essential principles that should frame decisions around issues like Bill 18, like cap-and-trade, like the other climate change initiatives that the minister spoke about in his opening comments that would be coming at some time in this session.

Ecosystem protection — the life-support system for all species, including us. We need to make sure that it is a priority for us to protect the integrity of that ecosystem. That has to be a compelling issue and a compelling consideration in all the decisions that we make.

Resource conservation. We have many resources, whether it be our fossil fuels, our water, other resources that we have. I think we all, at different times — at least up until a while back — have been somewhat guilty of taking them for granted. We now know, and I think we all know, and the discussion around conservation leads us to that. We all know that we need to protect the integrity of our resources, and conservation is what we need to do.

The principle of biodiversity. I spoke a little bit earlier about that. We need to protect the diversity of our plant and animal species. It needs to be a priority in resource decisions. We need to look at that. We need to look at that when we consider run-of-the-river projects. We need to look at that when we consider initiatives around climate change. We need to look at that when we look at oil and gas issues, at resource extraction. It needs to be an issue of concern for us all.

Resilience is a key piece to this. We need to do the work in our communities and with our economy to increase our resilience as a people. We are always going to take hits. There's no doubt about that. We are always going to face challenges. Our success will be…. Have we created the framework? Have we created the opportunity where we can bounce back? Have we created the situation where we have that capacity to bounce back? I don't think we're there right now, but it needs to be an objective. I suspect that resilience will always be a work in progress. It's not a finite issue, but it has to be one of the principles that drives our decisions.

We need to protect the commons. That means public trusts, whether it be water, air, fish, wildlife, our parks, our protected areas, our cultural and intellectual assets. The list is long. They belong to us all, and we need to protect them.

We need to protect food security. We had a discussion about Bill 16 here that went on for the last couple of days. One of the challenges around the biofuels issue in Bill 16 and one of the global issues that we hear from Nobel laureates and from eminent scientists and public interests around the world is a concern that food security is at risk if we're not very conscious about how we move forward with some of the strategies that we think will help solve our problems. Food security needs to be a priority. The agricultural land reserve, in our case, needs to be a priority.

We need social equity of the resources so that benefits derived from those resources are shared by everyone. We need full-cost economics, triple bottom line. When we look at decisions and how we make decisions, whether it be cap-and-trade, whether it be other initiatives in the envelope of things that we're going to

see move forward, we have to say: what are the social, economic and environmental implications of that?

I will tell you that I've always been of the view that the other piece of that…. When we talk about sustainability and full-cost economics, there is also a piece about engagement and how we engage people so we all have ownership, and we need to deal with that.

Precautionary principle. We've talked about that often. I can think about when the Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture was out and doing its work there. One of the key emphases of that report, which drove some of the decisions and recommendations of that report, was the precautionary principle.

The precautionary principle says that, given the best available information, where there is no clear scientific consensus on risks or specific actions on policies that might pose a threat to human health or the environment, decisions must err on the side of caution. We have to put the public interest first when we're not sure, and the lack of scientific certainty should not be used as a reason to delay action to prevent harm where a threat to health or environment exists.

We need adaptive management strategies, where the use of the best available practices and technologies occurs within a culture of continuous learning, where we're all continuing to learn. I think that there are many things that we assumed, certainly around climate and those initiatives. We've assumed many things over the years, and we're learning, increasingly, that those things that we assumed may or may not be true. We need to be prepared to continue learning, and how we manage situations needs to be able to adapt to those things that we've learned.

Democracy and due process are fundamental. It is certainly my view that on this issue of climate change — whether it be cap-and-trade, this bill, or other initiatives of the government — the lack of involvement of the citizens of British Columbia in this discussion will lead to the failure of government initiatives, whether they are best-intentioned or not. That will happen because, unless British Columbians have ownership of those initiatives and those processes, they are not going to embrace them.

We are certainly hearing it on this side, and I am sure that members on the other side are hearing it. As an example, the gas tax that was brought in, in the budget — we are hearing reaction to that. The reaction to it, even though 2.4 cents seems like a small amount of money, is largely negative, and that negative reaction, as much as anything, is from people who are saying: "I want to do something about climate change, but nobody is talking to me, and now that decisions are being made that actually have consequences for me, I'm going to push back because I'm not part of the discussion. I'm not part of trying to figure out the solution. If I was, I may have a very different view."

Unfortunately, that has not occurred. There has been no consultation. There has been no discussion. There has simply been an edict from the government — an edict on high or a cloak of secrecy, one of the two. We need to have democracy and due process. We have to have just transition. That's important. We certainly need to look at the mechanisms that allow us to transition to the changes, whatever those changes might be. That's important, because we are talking whether we go to cap-and-trade, whether we go to taxes and the other initiatives around regulation that will be required for climate change.

All of those things are going to mean change for British Columbians. The important question here is: how are we working to transition those changes so that they are as positive as possible for British Columbians, so that British Columbians understand the changes and so that measures are put in place to deal with the inequities of those transitions when required?

For example, we look at the question of the tax. I know that in many northern and rural communities we're hearing from people who say, "Look, we don't have options to leave the car behind, and we certainly are talking about a situation where what it costs us to heat our home is different than what it costs to heat a home in Vancouver," and they're right. They raise those concerns, and we don't see the transition tools to get us there.

All of these problems are a challenge that we need to get at and determine how to deal with. So what do we do? What do we do to deal with the issue of climate change? Well, we do need to have a situation where we price emissions properly, whether that be through fair taxation or a comprehensive cap-and-trade system, or a blending of the two. As I've said before, that's easy to say. The devil is in the details. In Bill 18, we're not seeing much in the way of details for this cap-and-trade system. Maybe the government will bring forward more details before we're done, but we need an emissions system that's fair and effective to reduce those. The tax needs to look at externalities. It needs to include environmental and health costs that result from fossil fuel use.

We do need to look at the balance sheet. We talk about tax-shifting. Tax-shifting is an interesting discussion. We need to think about how we use tax, and that leads to the whole discussion of looking at the economy and the green economy and what that looks like.

We need to have an effective green energy policy and a policy that, in fact, does move forward on dealing with our energy demands; a policy that we, on this side, believe needs to be driven by the public interest; a policy that we on this side believe the public interest is best served by B.C. Hydro; a policy on this side that we believe, if we put B.C. Hydro back in play the way that it had been prior to this government coming into power — that would allow B.C. Hydro, on behalf of British Columbians and on behalf of government, to be a key tool in developing a true green energy policy and strategy — we would be better off.

We need to look at how we deal with, maybe, a legacy fund. Maybe we need to do that and look at how we move some royalties to protect communities for when those fuels are no longer.

We need transportation policies that work. The government brought forward the $14 billion transportation plan. The problem with that, as some on this side have said, is that it looked more like an unfunded $14 billion wish list. Lots of good things in that paper. Lots of good things in that proposal that everybody would like to see occur.

But it doesn't happen without resources, and I would note that in the most recent budget brought forward by the government, as an example of how to contrast a transit strategy that that plan espouses, we see something in excess of $800 million in that budget allocated to roads and bridges, and a little more than $60 million allocated in this year to transit. Over four years we see about $219 million or $220 million allocated to transit while more than $800 million in a single year to roads and bridges.

Now, to be clear, this is a government that said it was going to have to put up almost $5 billion of government-side money in order to meet its commitment to that plan. Well, that's an awful lot of money if the first four years is only going to be $200 million. It's an awful lot of money for the rest of those years.

The government, the Premier, the Minister of Transportation, talked about the federal government needing to put almost $4 billion into this plan. Well, as best we can tell, it's about $60 million that they put in for two years. Got a long way to go to get to $4 billion.

So the question has to be…. The government decided: "We'll cut bank taxes by a couple hundred million dollars." That's a choice. We might have made the choice of investing more dollars to accelerate those buses south of the Fraser. But that's a decision that people will have to make next year about who they think is right about that.

We need local planning. We all know that communities and the growth and sprawl and the need for sustainable communities is critical, and we will need to deal with that.

We need a retrofit program, whether it's for individuals or for communities. As communities start to change their infrastructure, we need to be prepared to support that.

We need education. In the long term…. Changed behaviour is an important piece of this. If we're going to deal with this issue of changed behaviour, then the way we need to do that is to begin to talk to young people in elementary school, weave the question of sustainability through the curriculum and through their education so that, ten years from now, we are graduating young people who understand sustainability, understand both individual and community responsibilities around sustainability and have that inherently as part of their value system.

If we do that, we will be much better off, because they will be many, many light years ahead of us. That's an important thing for us to do.

We need an adaptation program, and I do hope the government is going to bring forward some adaptation strategies soon. We know in our beetle communities it's a very serious problem. We need to look at adaptation. In the agricultural sector adaptation around climate change will be important. Issues around communities that are impacted by flood potential and other issues such as that — very important. So we need to see all of that.

So what we now know is that we have a situation where Bill 18 has come forward. There is a serious question around secrecy in this bill, a question that has been raised by the commissioner in Bill 18, which the government has referenced. But, at this point, they're moving ahead with bringing this bill forward, and they're going to pass this bill through without dealing with the issues and the concerns raised by the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

That's the wrong way to approach this. It's unfortunate that they've chosen to do that. That's the problem that needs to be addressed. We have uncertainty in Bill 18, and that uncertainty is created by the nature of the bill. As it's been referenced in the media, I think quite rightly, it's a vague framework around this question of cap-and-trade.

It is that cap-and-trade, a system that is important and is going to hopefully be a critical piece of our strategy related to climate change, that is uncertain in terms of its framework and uncertain in terms of what it actually means. All of the substantive questions will be answered within regulation, not within the bill itself and not open to legislative scrutiny or oversight. That's a big concern.

We have this situation around the blank cheque to cabinet. As I pointed out earlier, there are four or five critical questions around a cap-and-trade system. I'm hoping that when we get to committee stage and start to delve into some of these discussions, the minister might have an answer or two — we'll see — around the questions related to auction versus allocation, the issue around thresholds and scope, the parameters related to offsets, the monitoring in regulatory issues and the questions of penalties.

At this point we're not there. We don't have that information. We don't know where that all might go. We need to deal with these matters in a way that the bill doesn't allow us to deal with at this time. That's the problem that I have right now.

With the bill at the moment, the challenge of the bill is that it doesn't answer these questions. It leaves many of them out in the open, and frankly, this particular process of debate that we're in right now doesn't necessarily afford us the way to deal with those matters.

This is not the best forum for being able to deal with those questions of how those matters should be dealt with. This is not the forum that allows us to bring expertise to the table to talk to us about these issues. This is not the forum that necessarily allows us to have the back-and-forth discussion that we need to have around questions of cap-and-trade. This is not the forum that allows us to deal with cap-and-trade — not in a silo and in isolation but to deal with it in the context

I do think that we need to get at those matters. I think we need to find a way that we can begin to challenge the questions that are compelling ones for British Columbians and that I've started to get in my office from environmental interests and from other community interests, many of whom are very supportive for the principle of cap-and-trade — as we are supportive for the principle of cap-and-trade — and who are raising exactly the same questions that we're raising as to what those matters might look like and what those issues might look like.

I think we do need to find our way to get at those matters. We need to find our way to begin to address those questions of a broader debate. We need to be able to bring the experts — whether it be from the secretariat, whether it be external experts or whether it be looking at other materials and other information — to start to answer the questions.

I would like to believe that at the end of the day, the government wants the cap-and-trade system that will actually be successful, a cap-and-trade system that will meet those objectives that the Pembina Institute talked about — of being effective, being supportive of the economy, making British Columbia a better place.

There are serious questions about whether in fact it is reflected in Bill 18. So to that effect, I move the following motion.

S. Simpson: I've moved this amendment today because I believe that we need to have this discussion. It needs to be a more substantive discussion than this debate will allow. It needs to be a discussion that allows for some give-and-take. It needs to be a discussion that allows us to bring other people to the table who don't get to participate in the discussions that we have in this Legislature, and for a committee of the Legislature to be able to bring forward its experts, to bring forward those who can provide insight, to allow some real back-and-forth and real discussion.

I've moved that this be sent to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives because, sadly — and maybe we'll get to this motion somewhere down the road — we don't have a standing committee on environment and sustainability in British Columbia. If we had such a committee, then that would be the appropriate place to send it, but we don't have that kind of committee.

A standing committee on environment and sustainability…. If we had such a committee, then all of these climate change initiatives could be sent to it. If we had a committee like that, then what we'd be able to do is take Bill 18…. We'd be able to take the carbon tax. We'd be able to take the WCI — the western climate initiative — recommendations that will come in August. We would be able to take the work of the climate action team, which will come forward this summer in July with a series of recommendations for short-term initiatives for 2012 and 2016.

All important work. Wouldn't it be a good thing if we could put that package, that whole envelope of pieces together, give it to a standing committee on the environment and sustainability and ask them to talk to British Columbians? Ask them to go talk to those northern mayors who've raised concern about the gas tax. Ask them to go and talk to those school boards who are concerned about the impact of that tax on them. Ask them to go and talk to British Columbians who are concerned that they're not being heard in this discussion around climate change. But that discussion isn't going to occur, because we don't have that committee.

I've moved that it be sent to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives. There, hopefully, that committee could do the job. I'm sure they're all bright members of that committee, and I would look forward to them being able to do the job.

We need to have a situation where we have the opportunity to truly have a discussion around these matters. The problems with this bill around secrecy…. For example, wouldn't it be a good thing to be able to send this piece of legislation to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives, invite the Information and Privacy Commissioner to attend the committee and have a discussion with the committee about how the bill might be changed in a fashion that would be consistent with the act? Wouldn't that be a good thing to do?

Wouldn't it be a good thing for that committee — in Hansard, on the record — to be able to ask Mr. Whitmarsh, the head of the secretariat, to sit down with the committee and talk about the broader vision of how British Columbia gets at climate change? Wouldn't it be a good thing if we were able to bring Mr. Whitmarsh and bring Mr. Jaccard to the committee to talk to us?

Wouldn't it be a good thing, instead of having to read a quote in the newspaper? We now have confusion created around the question of the western climate initiative. We see, for example, that yesterday — I believe it was yesterday; it was the 9th of April, so maybe it was today…. Now what we see is Mr. Jaccard, the senior paid adviser of the government on climate change, quoted in The Vancouver Sun as saying that B.C. might decide to remove itself to the sidelines while U.S. states work out their own emission caps related to WCI, the western climate initiative.

He was quoted in an e-mail, Mr. Jaccard, as saying: "B.C. might decide to take an observer position in the western climate initiative while it sees what the next U.S. federal government will do."

Well, the next U.S. federal government is going to get elected in November. There'll be a new President. I'm guessing that they'll have a lot of issues on their plate, and climate change will be one of them. But will it be 2010 or 2011 before you see final decisions out of

the new President of the United States? Well, it may very well be. This won't be an easy issue, and we have a number of other issues for that President to deal with.

So does that mean that British Columbia is going to do nothing around WCI? Does it mean that Bill 18 is going to sit on the books while we wait to see what the U.S. initiative is? That's not necessarily a bad thing, but what we at least could do is ask Mr. Jaccard why he has that view. Maybe we could ask Mr. Whitmarsh whether he shared Mr. Jaccard's view. Maybe the committee could send a letter to the minister and ask the minister whether he shared Mr. Jaccard's view — or to the Premier for that matter, if we really wanted to know who's making decisions.

This committee would afford us the opportunity to take away the secrecy just a little bit, take away the secrecy and open that discussion in a way that British Columbians could turn on the television or go to the website or pick up the Hansard and read what was being talked about in an extensive and thoughtful way. It's a committee that could take the debate out of this building and could go and talk to people in Kamloops, talk to people on the Island, talk to those people in the north who are concerned about where fairness plays in a tax and talk to those industries.

Invite those companies that are the 38 largest polluters. Invite those companies that would be added to the list, if you dropped the threshold to 50,000 tonnes, to come and talk to the committee about what that would mean. What would it mean for them as industry? What are the implications of that, positive and negative?

But that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen unless we send this to a place other than this debate here. The purpose of this motion is to encourage that.

I mean, I'm not holding my breath waiting for this to pass, but having said that….

What we have is the situation where we need to begin to deal with this matter. So let's bring back all those people into play. Let's go out and say to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, "What are your concerns?" on the record — not a private meeting, not this minister and that corporate executive, not this company president and that ADM or that ministerial assistant. Let's put everybody in the room, let's make it an open and public discussion, and let's talk to people about what might be the answer.

We can take this as I suggested. We can take this issue and not leave it exclusive to the cap-and-trade but bring the pieces in. Let's bring the tax in, let's bring the short-term recommendations in, and let's bring in the work that's been done by government. Let's bring those 175 presentations, where we can't get a list of who they were, and give that to the committee.

Let's bring all of this body of work together, put it in front of a committee, ask them to do that work and then at the end of the day craft a legislative agenda that actually looks like what British Columbians want, instead of looking like what a couple of ministers want or, more correctly, what the Premier wants.

S. Simpson: It would be like the conversation on the environment. That's a good point there, Member. We had the Conversation on Health.

S. Simpson: Well, no. I mean, to be fair, what we opposed is the fact that the Premier has decided to ignore the Conversation on Health and say: "I came with presupposed notions. Then at the end of the day, when it doesn't tell me, I'll ignore it. I'll ignore it."

The only problem with the Conversation on Health is that we knew on this side, as the members of the government I'm sure knew too, that it didn't matter so much what people said in that room. What mattered was what the Premier said at the end of the day. I suspect we're going to see that all this legislation will look like the presupposed decisions.

It was interesting that the Minister of Environment raised this issue, because we have exactly the same situation in relation to environment, in relation to climate change. The one difference here is that we don't have the Premier's conversation on environment. Maybe he learned a lesson from the Conversation on Health as: "I'm not going to go talk to people, because they're likely to tell me something I don't want to hear. I'm simply going to drive the agenda that I have, and I'll convince people afterwards that it was the right decision." On the environment that's what is happening, and it's unfortunate.

What we haven't seen here is municipalities, local communities and councillors being consulted on this. I talk to local municipal leaders. They all, to a person, are prepared to do what they need to do to make their commitment to deal with the question of climate change, to have their communities play a role. They understand that local municipalities, local communities drive much of the emissions that we face and that their decision-making can play an important role in dealing with those matters.

The problem they have, the fear they have — and it's a fear that's warranted by past practice — is that this will be a download exercise onto them, where they will face the consequences of having to deal with this without the resources and support necessary to do that. As we saw with this budget, we didn't see the resources there to be able to support municipal infrastructure — substantive resources. We didn't see the resources there to help those communities with the planning they need to do, and that's what needs to be there. But we need to have them at the table.

Let's bring the school boards to the table to talk to us. Let's bring business to the table. Business has a

vested interest in this. There is no doubt that business has an important interest in how these decisions get made. Certainly, business leaders, historically and traditionally very supportive of this government…. Increasingly, I hear them talking to me.

I hear the Jock Finlaysons of the world talking to me and saying: "We want to play a role in dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. We're prepared to play our part in climate change, but nobody is talking to us. We're not part of this conversation. We're worried that the decisions are being made in isolation from the people and the communities and the stakeholders who will be affected, and we want to be part of that discussion. It is a critical part of what we do, but that discussion is not happening."

The labour movement — working people — have an incredibly vested interest, because the decisions that are made will affect the economy, and those effects on the economy will affect the jobs of working people in this province. They'll affect the jobs of working people, and those working people want to have a say. Their representatives want to have a say.

I know that in my discussions with the Federation of Labour, I asked them how it went. They got to meet the cabinet committee. They had a discussion with the cabinet…. Well, not a discussion; that would be going too far. But they met the cabinet committee, and when they asked and asked and asked to be heard, finally they got their 20 or 30 minutes. They came and made their presentation. They talked about wanting to be in on this. There was essentially silence on the other side of the table, thank you very much, and they were out the door.

That's not engaging people, and the government should understand that you don't get to engage just the people you like if the public interest is at all of concern to you. You don't get to engage just your friends if you're serious about a democratic process in the public interest.

A significant portion of the environmental community has been very supportive of some of the government's initiatives. I know they've been very happy. They've been very happy about the fact that the government has moved to the place that they're at since the Premier's announcement two throne speeches ago.

I've got to tell you, hon. Speaker, that the reason they're so happy is because they look back to everything that this government did from 2001, when they got elected. What did they do? They eliminated the Green Economy Secretariat. They terminated the climate change plan that was in place in 2000. They slashed the Ministry of Environment by 30 percent. They eliminated the position of the commissioner for the environment and sustainability. The Premier declared his opposition to Kyoto. It just went from bad to worse.

That was a pretty horrendous situation. I mean, it probably was as bad a litany of anti-environmental views as any government has had in this country, driven by the Premier. I fully appreciate that at the time when the Premier came back from his Christmas holiday and declared climate change to be the issue of the next year or whatever, the environmental community said: "That's a huge change, and we're going to embrace that because it's an important principle." I understand why they did that.

You know, it's kind of like first nations. First nations, when we got to the new relationship, had also seen a government that had gone out and attacked them in the courts, had refused to recognize rights and title, and had flipped with the new relationship. Thankfully, we were very pleased about that and saw progress. But we now see that's all starting to unravel as it becomes clearer that the actions don't match the words.

We're starting to see the bits and pieces of that around this question around climate change. Where we're seeing those bits and pieces is in the secrecy and the uncertainty about who's in and who's out on these issues and about how they get discussed — great concerns that it's business as usual for the government in relation to oil and gas, the promotion of offshore pipeline development and coalbed methane. It's business as usual over here — no linkage or connection between that and what is in fact occurring around the climate change file.

The environmental community — they're not dumb. They understand that if that continues to be the government's position and practice, if they are going to let business as usual happen over here — big announcements around transportation with no money to back it up, continuing to grow sectors that increase our emissions radically and dramatically while at the same time talking the talk on climate change — then we will have a problem, and we won't meet those objectives that the government put forward for 2020.

So they're getting concerned, and they want at the table too. I know there are discussions with some of the environmental groups, but to an organization, I would guarantee that those environmental groups would say: "Bring it on. Open the discussion up. Let everybody come and talk. We'll talk too. And we will develop solutions that work for all British Columbians related to climate change, not just for the Premier."

First nations. We're seeing a growing concern from first nations that they need to have a role in these discussions. They don't feel they have been included in the discussions as they relate to climate change. As a very unique part of our community, they want to be able to be part of that discussion. They want to be able to participate in that discussion. They're not being afforded the opportunity to do that. That's important. That needs to occur.

Then, of course, probably the most important group of all is individual British Columbians — the individual British Columbians in my office and, I'm sure, in other offices of other members. I hear from individuals who come and bring ideas about climate change, who come and talk about their concerns, who talk about their kids and their grandkids, who talk about wanting actions and not knowing how they play a role and what they can do.

Even if for no other reason than to encourage those individual British Columbians to find ways to allow them to contribute, to find ways to allow them to take ownership of this issue…. If for no other reason than that, that would be the reason to engage a real discussion on this question of climate change.

Unfortunately, Bill 18 does none of that. As a consequence, I have moved the motion to send this to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives because we don't have a committee on environment sustainability. I would hope that at that committee, we would be able to engage all of those groups in this discussion, but today most of those groups aren't here.

There is a growing concern, a concern that we know, that some of those very significant polluters…. Just for curiosity, when we look at donations to the B.C. Liberal Party, most of those significant polluters come pretty high on the list of B.C. Liberal donors. We understand that.

We understand that they play an important role in financing this party, and we are sure that those folks who write the cheques will find a way to be part of the discussion. We are sure that when those folks in those large emitters, those large polluters, come and knock on the door of the Premier, on the door of the Minister of Environment, on the door of the Minister of Energy, the door will be opened to have this discussion.

Unfortunately, if this bill passes as it is — when this bill passes as it is — the regulatory aspect of this says that everything that gets written in regulation will allow this government to in fact write those regulations in a way that supports those industries if they choose.

We have a struggle here. We hope that this motion to send this to a committee helps to solve the problem of that struggle, but here's the challenge. I know this is the challenge for many British Columbians. We support cap-and-trade.

We believe that cap-and-trade is a legitimate tool to move us in the right direction on the question of climate change and on the question of greenhouse gas emission reductions. We believe that; we support that. When our opportunity comes as government, we will have a cap-and-trade system put in place that will in fact accomplish those objectives and will do it in a public way.

That doesn't necessarily occur in this bill. So our struggle, of course, is that it's an important principle around cap-and-trade. There does have to be a framework, and we need to look at this one and scrutinize it carefully.

That scrutiny will occur. It will occur after the debate on this motion, which we'll debate for as long as people want to speak to this. Then we will vote this motion. Some of my colleagues are optimistic that it'll pass. Maybe it will. That would be great.

But on the slight possibility that it doesn't pass — and I know it's slight because I can see some of the members…. I can see that the Minister of Health is starting to come around now. He's starting to come around. I think that Conversation on Health stuff convinced him. I think it convinced him. He's coming around. I see that the Minister of Finance is saying: "Maybe I should have talked to a few more people before I agreed to all of this." But….

We will deal with this motion. It will get debated out in due course over the coming time. Then we will get back, I suspect, to second reading, because I'm not quite as confident as my colleagues about this passing. But that's okay. I'm just a bit dour about those things. Then we'll deal with the question around "in principle."

We will also move this discussion to committee at some point. If this motion doesn't pass, at committee stage we're going to need to have that discussion about these critical issues. We're going to need to hear from the minister at committee stage about his views on auction versus allocation. What does he think is right?

We're going to want to hear from the minister at committee stage about whether he believes…. Does he agree with Mr. Jaccard that the WCI is off the table for the moment, until the government has a clearer view of what the federal government in the United States is doing, and that until that happens, decisions won't be made about the western climate initiative?

We're going to want to hear from the minister about the question of thresholds. Does he believe that 100,000 tonnes is the right number? Does he believe a lesser number is the right number? How is he going to determine that number?

We're going to want to talk to him about the concerns that the Privacy Commissioner has about what he sees as a pretty fundamental breach of the rights under his act by this piece of legislation — a concern that, as he says in his correspondence, is something that he doesn't do very easily. As he says, he doesn't write these letters very often. I'm sure there has only been a handful or so of these letters written over the 17 years of this office.

The core question…. This comes back, probably more than anything, to this motion and to the reason for this motion at this point, which is to begin to open up this discussion on climate change and to use cap-and-trade to try to open this discussion on climate change up.

Mr. Loukidelis is right when he says that it absolutely is essential — a particularly important consideration in relation to climate change measures and enforcement, as Mr. Loukidelis points out in his letter — that the public and British Columbians and all segments of our society have the right to be part of this discussion. That doesn't occur now.

If this doesn't pass, this motion, we will, at the point when we get to committee stage…. We will make what effort we can to use committee stage. I will make what effort I can to try to get some of these questions answered about concerns that are raised by British Columbians about these initiatives — whether they're concerns of northern mayors about matters, whether

they're concerns of first nations, whether they're concerns of environmentalists, whether they're concerns about the blank-cheque mentality of the legislation.

Now, at the end of the day, we all need to deal with this question of climate change. We need to put forward initiatives that will work. We believe on this side of the House that emissions pricing is an integral part of that. That emissions pricing will come in forms — whether it be through a fair and sustainable carbon tax, whether it comes through a cap-and-trade system that is designed to be accountable and transparent and inclusive of as many of the players as possible, a system that complements a carbon tax through an auction system. All of those things need to happen.

I talked a little bit earlier today about the things we see as particularly critical and important in dealing with matters of climate change — about the need for real leadership and accountability on these matters; about the need to set shorter-term targets; about the need to integrate those targets into all government planning and program development and not have the isolation; about not downloading costs unilaterally onto local governments, onto school boards and onto health authorities, but understanding that they are partners in the solution, and we can't off-load our responsibilities onto them; about providing alternatives for individuals who want to make a contribution and finding ways that we can help them; about making British Columbia a national leader on climate change.

This was a disappointment without doubt. When the Premier had all of his colleagues out here, the other Premiers, in British Columbia for his meeting on climate change, it was very disappointing that he didn't show national leadership there. If we know one thing — and this is a concern that we would all share — ideally, we would have a national government, a federal government that would have a national plan that would cover all Canadians, that would be inclusive, be effective and be fair. That's what we need to strive for.

So if British Columbia really wants to be a leader on this, British Columbia needs to provide a strong voice and be a strong advocate for effective, fair and sustainable climate change initiatives at a national level. The Premier was silent on this matter, and he was wrong to be silent. He was wrong to be silent when the Premier of Alberta walked out of those meetings and refused to participate.

We need to have a national approach to this, and if we really want to provide leadership in this place, we should be providing leadership in voices at the national level. That would require the Premier to stand up and be a leader on this.

We need emissions pricing that works. We need to know what this system at the WCI looks like, and we need to be able to talk about it. We need green energy and energy efficiency. We need to begin to talk about what green energy looks like. We need to talk about how we expand conservation. The energy plan talks about 50 percent conservation on new initiatives. How do we get there? Let's start talking about that.

We need regional energy plans. You know, we often have this discussion about run of the river here. Well, maybe we should talk about that too; maybe it has a role in here. Maybe if we had community energy corporations in some of our communities, it might be a very good idea to have them build a consensus in the local community that they were going to do a run-of-the-river project — community-owned, through a community energy corporation — and begin to meet their community energy needs, electricity needs. And B.C. Hydro, then, should buy any of that surplus energy and give those dollars to those communities so they could help pay for service. That's the kind of energy strategies that we should be talking about.

We need a transportation policy, and maybe it is $14 billion, but it would be good if it was an amount of money that was actually in the budget where it would start buying some of the services — more than just the rhetoric. We need to talk about road-to-rail strategies. We need to talk about incentives that get people out of their cars and give them other opportunities. We need to talk about regulatory changes.

There is a regulatory regime required for this, and we need to have that discussion. And if this matter went to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives along with these other issues, that discussion could be had right there and right then. That would be a good thing.

We need to talk about local government buying in and having a role to play in this. That would be a good thing as well.

I think I see — I'm peeking at the clock — that I've got about just a couple of minutes left here before the clock runs out on me.

S. Simpson: I am the designated speaker on the motion. I'd like to thank the minister over there for providing that guidance. I hadn't pointed that out at the beginning. Thank you very much, Minister. You've made my day.

I've still got a little bit more time, apparently. I was concerned, because I do have a number of other things to say, and I was worried I was going to run out of time. I did have a couple more things to say. So I can stop for a drink of water now that I know I have a couple more minutes.

We need to look at the local planning and resource management issues and land use. What we do know, quite seriously, is that it is our urban areas where the biggest challenges, in some ways, lie. It is where our population growth is. We know that dealing with climate change is a population issue. We need to meet those challenges of that population.

The millions of people that over the decades will come to British Columbia…. We all know they're coming. We all know this is a fabulous place to live. We know they're going to want to live here. We know

they're largely going to live in our urban and suburban areas as they grow, our Surreys, our Langleys, our Chilliwacks. Those communities are where they're going to live.

We need to find ways to give tools to local governments, to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, that are better than the tools that we have today in order to be able to get at supporting those communities. This is true in two places. It's certainly true in our bigger urban areas, which have capacity and resources, but it's also very true in our smaller communities that have less capacity to deal with these challenges.

What we haven't seen yet — and we may see at some point, but we certainly haven't seen yet — is what, in fact, the government's prepared to do to support those communities as they move forward. We haven't seen that. Where is the density planning? What incentives or supports will the government provide to local governments to look at density planning? Where is the support from the government for improved urban infrastructure, for more efficient infrastructure?

Where is the local energy planning? I talked a little bit earlier about community energy corporations. There are other tools for local energy planning. Where is the support for that?

Where is the support for our first nations communities? As we deal with treaty, as we deal with those issues, as we deal with the growing independence of our first nations communities as they settle those treaties, what support will we provide to those first nations communities to assist them to meet these initiatives?

I know that there's work being done in places that's positive. I mean, we look at the Hartley Bays. We look at some of the communities that are operating on diesel. I know now that we need to deal with those.

What about the economy? I know the Minister of Finance, in her budget, expressed the cautions that, you know, the world economy is changing, the U.S. economy is changing, and that may have implications for us. That's true, and that, in conventional economic terms, we need to deal with. But we also need to deal with the reality of the green economy and begin to make the changes related to a green economy.

I would ask the government…. This comes to where we need to bring policies together. Where is the green industrial policy? We haven't seen a green industrial policy. How does cap-and-trade affect that? What are the implications of Bill 18, of cap-and-trade, in terms of industrial policy? What does it mean? I don't know what it means, but it would be a good discussion to have with experts, with industry. If this motion passed, that committee would be in a place to have that discussion and to move forward on this.

We need to develop a transition plan for those industries that are at risk. Probably the one that comes to mind most quickly, though there are a number, is agriculture. When we talk about adaptation and the effects on agriculture, we know those impacts of climate change could be significant. We need to figure out what supports we need to provide for our agricultural sector, for our farmers — not just for them to survive but, in fact, for them to enhance their production and grow more of the food we need. If we believe in that 100-mile diet that we're all talking about, then we need to increase the capacity of our farming community to meet the needs of British Columbians. We're not doing that, and we need to do a better job of that.

The trucking industry. They potentially are certainly affected by emissions pricing. The trucking industry is an integral part of British Columbia. The movement of goods is a very important component. It's critical. It's a critical piece of this, and we have not got our heads around how the trucking industry will be impacted by the tax, how it may be impacted indirectly by cap-and-trade. We need to get our heads around that, and we simply haven't done it.

We need to look at our fishery. We should be paying attention to aquaculture and tourism and what the effects are on tourism.

Maybe, hon. Speaker, at this point when we look at the beetle, maybe the biggest question of all from an industrial question is: what is the future of the forest sector? How are we going to evolve our forest sector so that it is sustainable, so that it continues to provide good jobs for British Columbians, so that it has a long future, so that it in fact is working within the context of the realities of climate change?

To do those kinds of things probably means looking at green tax credit strategies,

probably means looking at better research assistance, probably means looking at ways to support innovative business and technologies in ways that we aren't doing today. We need to move forward and do that.

I do think that this bill — cap-and-trade — will be an important piece of the work that needs to be done. I do think that cap-and-trade is a piece that needs to move forward, that we need to be able to make progress on. But I will remind you back again of what the Pembina Institute said in their March 2008 report. They said: "If it's designed effectively, the cap-and-trade system will help reduce pollution while keeping the economy and communities strong. If designed poorly, the system could have negative consequences on all three fronts."

I would hope that the members on that side would want to design the right cap-and-trade system. The members on this side look forward to doing that. We look forward to designing that right cap-and-trade system.

We believe the start to doing that is to send this piece of legislation — along with these other pieces of information, along with the 2012/2016, along with the WCI's work, along with the carbon tax and the gas tax — to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative

Initiatives. Let's do this right. It doesn't have to happen tomorrow. Let's take six months.

If the government thinks that this just might be an election issue, send this to this committee. Give them the direction to bring it back next spring in February. We'll debate those things in this House before we go out for the election. We'll make it an election issue, and then we'll come back here. This side will be on that side.

We'll have a government that cares about climate change. We'll have a government that cares more about solutions than greenwashing and a government that can answer the questions, that isn't afraid to talk to British Columbians about solutions that affect us all. I look forward to that discussion here, and I certainly look forward to that election when we can send that government packing.

M. Sather: It gives me great pleasure indeed to speak to this motion to refer Bill 18 to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives that was so ably and fulsomely presented to us by the Environment critic, the member for Vancouver-Hastings.

I couldn't agree with him more. I think, too, that the government, in fact, being totally committed, as they are, to openness and accountability, are definitely going to want to take this fine opportunity to put that mandate into action. I'm sure that they're going to. The one disagreement I do have with the Environment critic was his doubt, I guess. He expressed some doubts that this motion would pass.

I'm sure he's wrong this time, and he's seldom wrong. We in caucus know that. We're familiar with the capacities of the member and his skill and his oratorical wisdom that he's displayed here. Certainly, he's impressed some of the members on the opposition benches that sit around me.

There is no doubt that we need to get into this discussion. It's going to be valuable, and I look forward to engaging in that discussion. But noting the hour, I would reserve my place to continue the discussion at the next sitting of the House, and I would move adjournment of the debate.

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

Hon. P. Bell: Briefly, I'm joined today by my deputy, Larry Pedersen; ADM Daphne Stancil; and Gary Falk, who is sitting in today for Harvey Sasaki.

C. Evans: I want to start today just by laying out the expectation of the opposition. I have some questions and other members have some questions on agriculture. I expect that to be finished — I hope — within the next few hours. Then I expect a section on lands and then a section on fisheries. I don't know if it will all be done by 6:30, but we will move along with whatever alacrity we can.

I'm going to forget this. Yesterday the deputy offered to intervene or assist in an issue, so I want to remind him. If you could pass a card over at some point so that I could give it to the individual — how to find you — that would be great.

I'd like to start with a discussion about agritourism and on-farm marketing and the vision of the B.C. agriculture plan, much of which I think could have been written right out of the head of a wonderful Ministry of Agriculture employee, Brent Warner, who farmers know, I think from here to Wisconsin, as the person who started — first in British Columbia, then Canada and then in the United States — the idea some quarter-century ago of moving away from commodity-style marketing to some kind of experiential marketing of farm products.

It is my understanding that Brent Warner is on the verge of retirement, and my first question to the minister is: am I correct? Is the gentleman expecting to retire, and when would that be?

Hon. P. Bell: Brent is truly going to be a loss. There's a tremendous wealth of corporate knowledge in Mr. Warner, and it's going to be a real struggle for us to find a replacement. I'm sure we'll be able to.

His official end date, I believe, is in October of this year, although I understand that he may have some remaining holidays and actually be finished sometime in July.

C. Evans: The minister alludes to precisely the point that farmers have been raising with me and that

I've been actually raising for most of the last year. I think Brent has been retiring for a year or more. I was at a retirement party for the guy in Calgary. I bet that was six months ago.

The industry feels, as the minister points out, that the corporate knowledge is at risk. I think Brent was instrumental in the school plan. I know he was instrumental in the creation of the BCATA, B.C. AgriTourism Alliance. I think there are all kinds of people down on Oldfield Road and around Victoria who moved from being essentially apple growers or potato growers to experiential tourism operators selling food because of his influence.

If he leaves, as the minister says, in October, or even worse, if he has some holidays coming up, the absence of overlap runs the risk of the loss to British Columbia of this asset of North America, this icon.

My question is: what is the ministry's plan for the capture of that knowledge and initiative and making sure that Brent doesn't take away his knowledge of who the folks are, the players are, what the vision is, how it works? It will take us years to rebuild in his absence.

Hon. P. Bell: The member opposite points out one of the issues that, clearly, we've been working on over the last number of years in the ministry, which is effective succession planning. It has been a huge challenge across all government and, in fact, is a challenge in the agriculture industry as a whole, with farmers starting to retire and moving on, as it is in the forest sector, as it is in the mining industry. In virtually every industry in B.C. succession planning is one of the most significant challenges that is being faced.

We've done a number of things in the past two and a half years — I guess coming up to three years — that I've been involved in this ministry, including the summer student extension program, which is targeted at a recruitment initiative to bring in summer students who would then eventually be recruited permanently into the ministry and retained. A number of those students have been working specifically with Brent, and we're hopeful that there's going to be some knowledge transfer in that area.

As well, clearly, Brent — although a significant leader and someone that will be challenging to replace — does not work in isolation in his job specifically. He has a wide variety of individuals that he works with within the ministry. The corporate knowledge that will be retained as a result of that knowledge transfer that is ongoing with Mr. Warner now, I think, will certainly accomplish the task.

I do not want to underestimate the difficulty in replacing an individual of his character. He's done an exceptional job for a number of different governments and for many different ministers. He will be missed, but certainly, we're going to do everything we can and have been working on an orderly succession plan for him.

C. Evans: Is Mr. Warner's job posted? Can I see it, and if so, for how long has it been posted?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm not aware that it has been posted yet, but if the member would like to see the posting when it comes up, I'm sure we can provide it to him.

C. Evans: Yes. I'd like to see it when it comes up, but I'd rather see it dated 2007. The minister says that the ministry has been working on succession planning for two and a half years. I think we have here a linchpin about to walk out the door, and we don't have an advertisement for a successor. With all due respect, I don't think summer students are a plan for succession.

Why do I think it's necessary? The ag plan says the province is changing direction, and I celebrate that. As I said before, I think Brent could have written it. Essentially, it says we will move away from being bulk producers of commodity crops towards selling experience, and that includes food.

I don't know anybody, except Mr. Warner…. I think Mr. Warner taught most of the staff, and certainly had to teach all of the ministers that he's dealt with in the last decade, to learn to think that way. He's leaving now, and we haven't advertised his position?

To the minister: when does he expect that the advertisement will appear? Will there be a period of time, between the time the gentleman is replaced and the time he walks out the door, in which to transfer files, knowledge, understanding and vision?

Hon. P. Bell: The transition process with Mr. Warner has been ongoing. I may not have clearly pointed that out to the member opposite.

There has been an ongoing transfer of knowledge between his superiors and between the people that work underneath Mr. Warner, as well, so he does not act in isolation. In fact, he had just a very small role in the development of the ag plan. There are many other people that feel very passionately about the ag plan and the direction that we need to take agriculture in — really quite a different direction than the traditional commodity marketplace to far more of a niche-based marketplace.

We're confident that we will be able to replace Mr. Warner. It is one of the human resource challenges that we have, and the minister — as I'm sure the member opposite knows, having been the minister for a period of time — does not make human resource decisions. We set high-level policy structure and ask the deputy ministers to execute on that policy structure.

I think at this point I would just suggest to the member opposite that I have confidence in my staff, and that work will be done appropriately.

C. Evans: Okay, I'll move on to the question of confidence in staff. It is my impression that the agritourism sector in other provinces is well supported. In fact, in our neighbouring province of Alberta, it's my impression that there are 16 people doing Brent Warner's job.

My question is: am I correct there are 16 people in the division of agritourism in Alberta and one in B.C.?

Hon. P. Bell: Actually, we are debating the estimates for the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands in British Columbia. If the member would like to know how many staff are in the agritourism division in the province of Alberta, I'll be happy to ask the minister, George Groeneveld, when next I see him on May 30.

C. Evans: That's a fair answer. The number of 16 comes to me from farmers, and of course we need to verify whether or not…. I bring it as a rumour, thirdhand, a comment. But if in fact it's true, what does it suggest? You know, you're in Europe, you're in the eastern United States, and you're planning a western Canadian holiday. If it's true there are 16 people inviting you to an agritourism, on-the-ranch experience in Alberta, how are you going to get to B.C., where we have only one?

This is supposed to be a business-friendly government. This is supposed to be a level playing field. If it's true…. I've read pretty much the same things about Iowa, about American states, other Canadian provinces. It is my impression that we are falling vastly behind. Does the minister have a plan for the development of this new and exciting sector called agritourism, and if so, can he share it with us?

Hon. P. Bell: There are a variety of strategies within the ag plan which I'm sure the member has already noted that speak to agritourism. One of the ones that we think has real potential is the development of a wine and culinary centre. We're working with the B.C. Ag Council on the development of a wine and culinary centre, the idea being to bring the agriculture industry in B.C. closer to the Lower Mainland and into downtown Vancouver, where there is potential for significant profitability, and also using that centre as an opportunity to market the rest of the industry around British Columbia.

This has been an ongoing project that was originally initiated by the B.C. Wine Institute and moved over to the B.C. Ag Council probably a year and a bit ago, maybe two years ago — something in that order — that we think has very real potential. But there's also a wide variety of other initiatives that we are pursuing to enhance the agritourism sector.

I think that when you look at the results of what has developed, particularly in the Okanagan, not just specifically around the grape and wine industry — although clearly, that has been a very successful one — but also in the tree fruit industry…. There are some excellent examples in the Okanagan right now of companies that are building their business around agritourism.

I toured one of them last year, in fact, and I was very, very impressed with it — all tree fruit, largely apples. They've just done an absolutely wonderful job.

Clearly, we see this expanding around the province. We are working with the ranching industry on opportunities in that area. I think that there is big potential. We'll continue to work away at that over time, and I think that it will be successful.

C. Evans: Thanks to the minister for his answer. He speaks to the Okanagan. I was just in the Okanagan. I was in Vernon at the annual general meeting of BCATA, the B.C. Agri-Tourism Alliance. They pointed out to me that the book the minister is quoting from, the B.C. ag plan, does not include them in the back of the book in the list of agricultural organizations.

My question to the minister is: is BCATA seen as a legitimate agricultural organization with standing in the ministry?

Hon. P. Bell: In fact, we have provided funding to that organization through the Investment Agriculture Foundation. I have met with them a number of times and do support the work that they're doing.

C. Evans: I wonder if the minister is aware that while they were in Vernon at the annual general meeting, they laid off their one-quarter-time organizer because they no longer have enough money to pay a person one-quarter-time to keep their organization together.

Hon. P. Bell: I would point out to the member that the Investment Agriculture Foundation does invest in specific projects but not ongoing capacity. However, we do have an interest in this particular organization. I have personally met with them and would like to see an ongoing operation in British Columbia. That's part of the ag plan, to develop that. We do understand that that's an important piece, and we will do that work.

C. Evans: That's great. I kind of think that this question of stable funding for farm organizations is one that carries on from decade to decade. It has been unanswered by governments thus far. I would encourage the minister to ponder, perhaps at least for emerging organizations, the need for some kind of stable funding to get off the ground.

I fear here…. I'll wrap this up, but you see that we now have a pattern. We have an employee, somewhat of a visionary, who created something here, spread it across the continent. It is well supported with staffing in other parts of Canadian provinces and American states, and we're losing that individual. We have no replacement and, as yet, not even an advertisement.

At the same time, an organization got kick-started to assist agritourism, which is celebrated in the ag plan, and at the very moment when the ag plan comes out, the Agri-Tourism Alliance can't afford even to maintain their coordinator at one-quarter-time and is now without paid direction.

Therefore, I hope that by the time we meet again in estimates, should we actually meet again in estimates, there will be some solution to both the leadership at the staff level and leadership at the farm level in order that the vision of the ag plan might be more than words and actually take place on the ground.

S. Fraser: Thanks to the minister and his staff for taking questions here and, hopefully, bringing some clarification.

Some of the changes around meat processing — with the meat regulations specifically, and I'll talk about poultry processing — recently have led to, certainly, some investment requirements from poultry producers and processors.

I was at a meeting on the weekend, with the critic, in the Alberni Valley. It was a full house. One of the issues that came up was that there was some confusion around the original requirements in the investment that it looked like they would incur which were supposedly mandatory. Then that weakened a bit to not necessarily being mandatory but more towards the voluntary range.

Could the minister, just on the record here, comment on that, just so we can know, at this point, the state of the changes made? I'll give you the context. Some of the investment looks like it was not necessarily required, yet it was made under the auspices that it was mandatory. It's with that in mind that I'm asking the question.

Hon. P. Bell: It's hard for me to know exactly kind of where the member is coming from on this issue. It is a new regulation as of 2004; of course, implemented in 2007. It's an evolving issue with a results-based focus. As an example, there are temperature constraints that could be interpreted a number of different ways within the regulation.

It sounds to me like this is a specific case as it relates to a producer and one that we would be happy to look at, if the member would care to provide the information to us. We can probably provide a better answer and direction to the member on the basis of a specific file, as opposed to a generalization.

S. Fraser: I will do that. I'll work with those inquiring and try to get some specifics. I appreciate the offer to deal with that at a later time.

One of the other issues that came up was dealing with inspection. CFIA takes the lead on these inspections, whether the product is domestic or for export. That's my understanding. I have a few questions around that.

Can the minister confirm that the inspections from the processors themselves, on the ground…? There's no requirement to pay for inspection until 2012. Is that correct?

S. Fraser: I guess I have a question. If a producer were only producing for local consumption, domestic consumption, as opposed to for export, is there no role for the province in inspection? I understand the CFIA requirements for export and internationally. Certainly, there are requirements to that. But in the interest of the hundred-kilometre diet, that sort of thing, has there been any discussion or thought about providing inspection through provincial resources?

Hon. P. Bell: I should just explain how the work is done, because that is, in fact, the case. The Centre for Disease Control, actually, is the one that has responsibility for inspection of provincially licensed facilities, but we have been contracting with CFIA, because they have the internal capacity to physically do the inspections. There could be a point in time where a decision was made that rather than CFIA doing the inspection, another contractor…. In fact, in some parts of the province there have been veterinarians that are approved as inspectors and would provide that same service to the local abattoir.

The Centre for Disease Control is the organization that's mandated with the responsibility for provincially licensed facilities. They are currently, in most cases, contracting with CFIA to physically do the inspections, but the role is the provincial one.

S. Fraser: Staying with the inspection topic just for a moment, I know that some of the producers that I spoke with on the weekend…. Al Harley, Al's Feathers Be Gone is the name. I love the names of some of these companies. They're all very colourful. He, as others, has been finding that there is a bit of a bottleneck, potentially, around inspection.

The processors themselves are being asked to be flexible about their scheduling. Certainly, when you dealing with an inspector, there's a time requirement. It interferes with the day. Now, no one is complaining about ensuring that the products are safe for public consumption. The flexibility being requested actually hamstrings the production. My understanding is that if a processor wants to be processing, say, moving one week from three to six days, I don't believe…. Under the current processing or the inspection regulations that may not even be able to happen.

They're being asked to be flexible to accommodate an inspector's potentially changing schedule. Yet if they try to be flexible — in responding to market, for instance, and demand — they're seeing a problem with this.

Hon. P. Bell: We've not been approached by Al or any of the other processors, at this point, and had this identified as an issue. If it was to come forward as an issue, certainly it is one that we would want to deal with. We would act as the advocate, because it is under the Ministry of Health, of course, which employs the folks that do that work.

It's not one that has come to us yet, but if it is a problem, we'd encourage the member to bring his constituent's concern forward. Certainly, we would deal with it. We don't want to see that as a barrier. We need to work with all processors and producers to have an appropriate schedule, clearly, to make efficient use of everyone's time, including the facility's time.

S. Fraser: Thanks to the minister for that offer. I will take him up on that. I'll speak with Al and others that

raised the issue on the weekend and see if I can bring the specifics of it so that maybe we can find a solution that will make it a win-win for everyone.

Just one last question. It's a little bit different. There was an article in The Vancouver Sun dated March 31 of this year. It's a sound-off in the "Sound Off" section of the paper. It has caused…. I've got some inquiries about what this means, so I'm looking for clarification.

I'm just going to quote from "Sound Off." It says: "Chickens from a healthy environment are no longer available to me. It is a criminal act for this farmer to slaughter and sell her chickens from her farms."

Now, obviously, we're talking about the concerns about local access to what would be a very good product. So they're seeing this…. What people have contacted me about, reading this…. I'm looking for confirmation. Have changes happened to make it a criminal act for the farmer to slaughter and sell her chickens? Has there been a change? Have there been changes to the Criminal Code around food inspection or production?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm advised that the Criminal Code has not changed and that it would be a statutory offence, which is a different category. But it's not a criminal offence.

S. Fraser: Just so I can finish this off with a little more clarification…. There were some inquiries made about the statement that I just quoted about the Meat Inspection Act. I guess that's federal. There was an interpretation that the meat inspection regulations are quasi-criminal. So that's not correct? Well, "quasi" is a little bit loose there, but that's the quote I was given.

It raised some concerns and some eyebrows — as mine just went up, I'm sure, as I said that. Again, could I just get confirmation? Is there a fear that this has changed to make it a quasi-criminal offence?

Hon. P. Bell: I've never found the "Sound-Off" section of The Vancouver Sun to be the most reliable research tool. I suspect that's the case here as well. It's not a criminal offence. There is a set of statutory rules that have changed, which require meat to be inspected pre- and postmortem and to be slaughtered in an appropriately designed licensed facility, if that meat is to be sold.

There was clearly that change. That change took place originally in 2004 with a phase-in for implementation on September 1, 2006, and it was then delayed to September 30, 2007. In that period of time, I think, Al has become a newly licensed Feathers Be Gone facility in the member's riding. If I'm not mistaken, The Cluck Stops Here is also located in the member's riding.

C. Evans: Since my colleague has brought meat regulations back onto the table, I do have a couple of additions to yesterday's debate.

Well, the first one will make the minister happy. We talked yesterday about the efforts in my constituency, twice failed now, to locate an abattoir. Twice individuals in communities have risen up to object. The reason they get up to object is because we have been trying to locate the facility on Crown land, and that requires a consultation period.

I just want to put on the record that in both cases, I found the Ministry of Lands staff out of Cranbrook to be bending over backwards to try to help us make it work. I'm kind of hoping that that's true everywhere in the province where this abattoir question is trying to be solved. Whether or not that's true, I would like the minister to express my appreciation to the staff in Cranbrook for their work thus far and, hopefully, for whatever it takes to finish this job.

My question though. The reason why citizens were able to object to the Ministry of Lands and say we don't want…. The rationale for their objection has to do with the fact that citizens find the rules of the Ministry of Environment around incineration to give them the opening to deny the building of a furnace, and without the building of a furnace, nobody knows how to dispose of SRMs.

The reason that citizens are able to make that objection is because there are rules, I believe, in the Ministry of Environment that say that you can't run an industrial furnace within a certain number of metres of a home and a certain number of metres of a business. Even worse, those rules appear to apply to an empty piece of property that might someday be inhabited. At the same time, I believe those rules are suspended, exempted, for hospitals and crematoriums — in both cases dealing with human waste, often human waste with disease, and medical waste.

My question to the minister is: has this question of our inability to locate the waste disposal system arisen elsewhere? Does his ministry have a solution to offer, or has his ministry asked for an exemption from the Minister of Environment, the same as the Ministry of Health has obtained for human waste?

Hon. P. Bell: Just to start out with, Andrew Whale, who is our regional executive director in Cranbrook, and his team do a fantastic job. I'm glad to hear that the member opposite identifies that the Cranbrook team has been able to deliver at the level, or at least certainly tried to deliver at the level, that they've been working at. I know that Andrew will appreciate hearing that.

To speak to the second issue, incineration is not the only option for disposal of SRMs. Composting, as an example, is one of the other options. There is a variety of options for disposal of specified risk materials. However, that is not to understate the level of challenge that is being incurred across the province.

The member asked me if I was aware of any other communities where this was a problem. Clearly, Westwold has identified, even though it is not an incinerator option…. Well, I guess incineration was one of the options they've considered, but also, composting has been a challenge there. In Kamloops there was another one that was a false start that we were unable to deliver on.

We did go out and request for a proposal that closed at the end of March. I've not seen the results

from that. It was advertised provincewide for specified risk material disposal or meat waste disposal as well. We thought that might be an appropriate approach to resolving this issue. I did mention to the member yesterday that we have $12½ million in the Investment Agriculture Foundation that is specifically targeted for waste disposal across the province. This continues to be one of the challenges that we face in terms of the implementation of this strategy and one that is being felt not just in the member's riding but in other parts of the province as well.

Oh, the last question the member asked was: have we asked for an exemption in incineration? No, we haven't at this point. We still think that there are other options out there rather than looking for an exemption option, but I would not rule out that as something that we may have to consider down the road.

C. Evans: I hate to belabour this subject, but I think that we've got to work it through this year. We've certainly got to fix it this year. I was unaware that composting was an option for SRMs. I thought they had to be heated to 1,300 or 1,700 degrees and that that required an incinerator. Am I mistaken? Is composting an option for the disposal of SRMs?

Hon. P. Bell: There are three approved approaches to SRM destruction: incineration, composting and deep-site burial.

C. Evans: I'll try to educate myself on the other option. On the incineration question, am I correct that disposal of human waste is exempted in the same community where animal waste is not?

Hon. P. Bell: We don't have the answer to that question, but we'll endeavour to get it before the end of the day.

C. Evans: Changing subjects, I want to put some information on the record that has come to my attention on a subject that we were discussing yesterday, which has to do with veterinary testing — English testing. I have been advised…. This is not a question. It doesn't require a response. I just want to put it on the record.

We were discussing whether the 55 out of 60 point system for English-language skill testing in British Columbia was the norm in Canada. I'm advised that other provinces allow or require their vets to take the federal test, the Canadian Veterinarian Medical Association test, which is 50 out of 60, rather than 55. If the vets pass that, then the province honours that. It might be a possibility that we simply move to doing it the way other provinces do, if I'm correct in this information.

Secondly, I believe that we might have had the date wrong yesterday. I believe that the new testing came into effect in 2004. I hope that clears up or actually elucidates the discussion that we had yesterday, which I hope we're going to resolve.

I want to move now to the subject of labelling of British Columbia food. Last year, I think it was on the last day of the spring session, I asked the minister a question about labelling. It was, I think, the last question on the last day of the spring session.

As such, I never got a chance to ask a supplemental or to stand up the next day or the next month or even that year to have follow-up questions. So this is a lovely opportunity to follow up on the last question of the last day of the session of the last year.

My question last year was: three business organizations — Investment Agriculture, the Ag Council and the food processors — came together to consider the question of labelling British Columbia food. They asked 50 businesses that make food, from farmers to processors to retailers, if they would "be in favour of keeping Buy B.C. as their brand." All 50 — that's 100 percent — said yes.

Their reasons were: "I like the logo." "It is a recognized brand." "The public likes it." "It is an effective program." Each one of those four was a separate reason. My favourite answer was: "There's already public money invested in it."

My question was simple. Will the minister, six years later, now reinstate public funding for the Buy B.C. program? The minister answered:

Hon. Chair, I thank you for your indulgence for the time it took to read last year's questions.

Following the minister's comments, I attended some of those meetings. The minister suggested that the public meetings by the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Planning would make recommendations concerning the brand in question.

In Abbotsford and Kelowna, according to the ministry's website…. I'll read the comments. Abbotsford: "Encourage the Buy B.C. program to be brought back." Kelowna: "There is a need to strengthen the competitive advantage in local markets, i.e., to bring back the Buy B.C. program."

My question is: given that the minister has referred me, in answering this question of the B.C. brand, to the agriculture planning process engaged by the parliamentary secretary and that according to the ministry's website, what the people asked for during the planning session hearings was for the Buy B.C. program to come back, how does it come to pass that the agriculture plan

that resulted from the public hearings, which I have just quoted from, fails to reference Buy B.C.?

Hon. P. Bell: I would refer the member to strategy 1 and the first action item, which says: "Contribute $1 million per year to promote local agricultural products and develop a B.C. brand."

There currently is a branding steering committee working in the ministry that has over 20 different agrifood organizations on it and is determining the direction. I will not prejudge where that lands. Certainly, there is some interest, as the member points out, strictly in Buy B.C., but I've also clearly heard that there are producers that are interested in focusing on more local initiatives — Buy Vancouver Island, Buy Fraser Valley, Buy Okanagan and the like.

Those decisions will be made by the 20 different agrifood organizations on the steering committee that will decide how to spend that $1 million that is built into our base budget and will address that issue.

C. Evans: I'd like to move now to ask questions about Branding B.C. Agriculture and Food Production, the program design done by Ference Weicker and Company. In order that we can work together, I would like to give a copy to the minister so I can refer to pages and he'll know exactly the same information I do.

My first question. This is a 50-some-odd-page consultant's report, commissioned, I believe, by the Investment Agricultural Foundation, on the subject of this very question. What should the brand be for B.C. agriculture and food? Am I correct that the Investment Agriculture Foundation's funding primarily comes from the Crown?

C. Evans: We've established that this is public money that has been spent to investigate the question of what should be the brand for British Columbia agriculture.

Now I'd like to suggest that we turn to page 9 of this review. The consultant went out to ask producers — which would be farmers, processors, distributors and retailers of British Columbia food — what they felt about being part of a branding program. They asked 50 participants. You can see on page 9: "If a branding program for B.C. food products was revitalized, how likely is it that you would participate?" Twenty out of 50 said that there's less than a 50 percent chance that they would participate.

If you turn to page 19, 50 respondents were asked another question. "Would you be in favour of keeping Buy B.C. as the brand?" My read of the statistics on page 9 and page 19 is that on the question of "Would you be in favour of Buy B.C.?" 100 percent — not 30 out of 50 but 100 percent — of the people in private business involved in the production of food or sale of food answered yes and gave such answers as: "I like the logo and tag line," "The public like it," "It's an effective program," and "There is public money already invested in it."

My question is: is his analysis of these two scales the same as mine — that asked if they wanted to participate, 20 out of 50 said, "We don't know," but asked if they would participate if it was Buy B.C., 100 percent — 50 out of 50 — said yes and endorsed the program?

Hon. P. Bell: On page 19 of the same report, immediately under the chart that the member refers to, it states: "However, the steering committee believes that a new program featuring a new name and tag line would be in a better position to generate excitement and garner support from both industry and government."

C. Evans: That wasn't my question. I find that a fascinating sentence, and I'm getting there.

First, I want to establish whether or not the minister and I agree that, asked the question, "Do you want branding?" approximately 40 percent said, "We don't know," or "No," or "We're not sure," but asked, "If it's Buy B.C., would you participate?" 100 percent said yes.

Is there anything in my analysis of those two charts that's incorrect or a question or differs with that of the minister?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm not here to challenge the report. The member can extrapolate whatever conclusions he chooses to.

C. Evans: How much public money went into this study to ask people if they wanted a brand and, if so, what it should be?

Hon. P. Bell: We don't have that number here, but we'd be pleased to get that number for the member.

C. Evans: I accept that answer. However, am I correct in understanding that the cost of the production of this report is 100 percent federal and provincial? It's not private money. It's the people's money that went into this report that said the people wanted Buy B.C.

Hon. P. Bell: We're not sure that that's the case. In fact, the Investment Agriculture Foundation does receive funds from other sources as well. Certainly, we'd be happy to get that level of information for the member as well, acknowledging that it is being delivered through the Investment Agriculture Foundation, which is an independent arm's-length body from the ministry.

C. Evans: I'm glad we've established that public funds went into it. The answer was 50 out of 50 that wanted Buy B.C. We have now spent public money to say what it is the people want. The people want Buy B.C.

Then the sentence says, exactly as the minister correctly quoted, that the steering committee thinks we should get some different brand. I've never run into a case like this, where you do a study and ask the people

in the business — not politicians or government employees — what is it they want, and they all, 100 percent, say what it is they want, and then you say: "But we're thinking you're wrong."

My question to the minister is: on what basis would the steering committee ask a question, get an answer — the answer is unequivocal; it's 100 percent — and then reject the answer?

Hon. P. Bell: That is an independent report that was commissioned. It was not delivered by government, and I can't pretend to predict what was in the minds of the authors as they wrote that report. It is as it states, and the information is there for public consumption.

C. Evans: That's a perfectly fair answer. I have sympathy for the minister. I can't imagine what was in their minds either. A hundred percent of the producers say, "I want Buy B.C. back," and they decide that they want to reject that answer. I find that to be, possibly, a misuse of public funds.

The public hates it when we go out and do studies. There's that old saying: "You did a study, and it collects dust." Well, we did a study, and then we're going to reject it. We spent public money, and then we're going to reject the answer.

If I'm correct that 100 percent of the people in private business answered that they wanted Buy B.C. back, would the minister consider asking the steering committee to reconsider their answer, in light of the evidence?

Hon. P. Bell: I have not received the recommendations from the steering committee yet. I don't want to pre-empt what their conclusion will be. It may well be that they believe that Buy B.C. is the right option for the province, in which case I would be happy to endorse that option. It may be that they choose to go down a different road and pursue more local marketing options.

I'm going to allow those 20 different groups to come forward with their recommendations, and at that point in time, we'll make a decision.

C. Evans: I have received hundreds of letters from farmers and sellers of food asking for Buy B.C. back. My question to the minister is: have you received the same letters, either as original letters to your ministry or as copies of those that were sent to the Ministry of Finance?

Hon. P. Bell: We've received a wide variety of letters endorsing both the Buy B.C. approach and also more regional marketing initiatives. So we have received both.

I appreciate the member's passion over this issue. Clearly, it's something that he has a vested interest in. I'm not suggesting that Buy B.C. wasn't the right program for the time. I think it had some positive outcomes and some positive results, and that may be where this whole process lands.

I'm just not going to pre-empt the suggestions of 20 different groups that I have some trust and faith in and think will deliver the appropriate conclusions for us. As I said to the member, it may well be Buy B.C. I don't know that, but I'm going to allow that process to conclude.

C. Evans: If I have a vested interest, it's only in my heart. I didn't think it up. It's not my money that's in it. I thought that it was a good idea, but I take no credit for any part of it.

It is my understanding that the function of a brand is to increase market share by attempting to have the consumer identify the logo with a preference of choice. It is my understanding that the logo of Buy B.C., by the time the public was through investing in it, was identified by something like 63 percent of the people of British Columbia. Is that the understanding of the ministry?

It's my understanding by the time that public funding was withdrawn from the Buy B.C. program and it became a private company, 63 percent of consumers identified that logo as a British Columbia product in the marketplace. Is that the ministry's understanding — that we had managed to convince understanding of 63 percent of the public of what the logo meant?

Hon. P. Bell: When I said that the member had a vested interest in it…. The member was the minister when Buy B.C. was developed and clearly has a vested interest in it and was sold on it personally, and I accept that. I think that it accomplished a number of positive things, and I congratulate him on that.

However, I can also tell you that, you know, they don't build the Volkswagen Beetle anymore in North America. That was a brand that was probably more broadly known than any other consumer product that I'm aware of. There was a decision to move on, on that particular product, as well, by the company. The last time I checked, Volkswagen was doing okay.

Decisions are made. You have to stay current with the marketplace. I'm allowing that to occur right now. Again, as I've said to the member opposite, I don't know if the place where the advisory committee will land is with Buy B.C. It may well be that, or it may be more regionalized marketing initiatives, or they may take the funding that has been allocated here to build upon the food miles program and the hundred-mile diet and the notion around that particular piece of work as well. I'm going to allow that process to flow through and let the professionals make their recommendations.

C. Evans: I don't like where this is going. The implication is being drawn that I have some personal investment in this as some kind of political objective. I was not the minister when the program originated.

I would like to celebrate this minister bringing it back. I didn't think it up. It started two years before I was ever a minister of anything.

It was a good idea. It actually was the idea put forward by producers, not by the NDP. I feel that it is not in any respect analogous to the Volkswagen Beetle. I would say it is analogous to the Nike swish or the McDonald's golden arches. Although Chevrolet changes models every year, they don't throw out the word "Chevy" because it's known to 63 percent or 90 percent of the…. It has a value.

Buy B.C. had a logo value, which was earned with public funds. How much public money was invested in the public recognition of the Buy B.C. logo?

Hon. P. Bell: We're not here to debate something that occurred ten or 15 years ago. If the member would like that information, I'd be happy to provide it to him at a later date.

The Chair: Member, we should direct our questions and tie them back to the estimate that we're discussing today.

C. Evans: Absolutely. You're absolutely right. I want to discuss the estimates.

The estimates include a million bucks to go into some kind of labelling program. It's in the lovely agriculture plan. My questions all have to do with: could we see to it that that million dollars of public investment is well spent, reinforcing historical public investment and giving the people what they actually asked for instead of something else?

If we spent money on blacktop all through the 1990s and then this year's investment was to rip it up, wouldn't that be a fair subject for estimates? Are we using public money in a correct way to protect the public investment, building that road in history? That's exactly, metaphorically, true in this case.

We have invested public funds. The minister says he isn't going to tell us how much. We invested public funds in doing a report. The minister says he doesn't know today how much.

I would argue that public and private investment by Thrifty stores, by farmers, by Galey's potato growers, by the Fruit Growers Association, by Safeway and by the Crown is somewhere between 50 million and 100 million bucks. I don't know that. It might only be 40 million bucks. The ministry knows that. But that's an answer: we're going to invest a million dollars of public money in a brand. I submit that we have already invested millions of dollars, and it is successful in the public recognizing it.

I want to celebrate the minister for recapturing that consumer recognition of the logo. I do not wish to spend the entire afternoon reading all the letters that I got and that he got, too, from farmers asking for it back. These people don't vote for me. Not a single citizen in here from Nelson-Creston. I didn't think it up. I have no interest in it politically. I don't get credit for it historically. I just think it's a darned good public investment.

The minister has referred many times to either a regional branding program or a provincial branding program. Vancouver is 400 miles from producers in the Kootenays. How is a regional program, a hundred-mile diet program, going to allow the three million people in the GVRD to celebrate the food of the people in the Cariboo, northern Vancouver Island, the Kootenays or even the Okanagan? We need a provincial branding program — and I grant you, overlaid with those wonderful regional programs for regional buyers.

My question to the minister is: how are the two incompatible? How could a regional program for regional marketing be incompatible with a provincial program that everybody can belong to?

C. Evans: Is it even a new idea? Or isn't it true that during Buy B.C. as a provincial program you had this wonderful rooster on the Island…? What do you call it? You know, the Island marketing program. Island alliance. Is that right?

At any rate, isn't it true that we have had regional marketing programs at the same time as a provincial marketing program and we could have again?

Hon. P. Bell: We have, we do, and we will. We have $2 million — $1 million to be targeted specifically at regional and/or provincial marketing opportunities and $1 million for a food miles program that will deliver similar but incrementally beneficial results as well.

If we have, we do, and we will again, I'm just thrilled by that. It suggests to me that we're not in a competition between a provincial branding program, in which we have already invested public money, and regional programs, which — I agree with the minister — would be a heck of a good idea.

G. Robertson: I'd like to just follow up with some questions flowing from the critic's questions we've just heard, specifically related to food miles. I'm glad….

The Chair: Can I remind the member that we cannot use any electronic devices while we are asking questions?

G. Robertson: Certainly. It's too difficult to look at those things at the same time as talking anyway. But I will respect the Chair's directive.

A question on the food miles issue. It is mentioned once in the service plan, and the minister just outlined

a million dollars being allocated. Can the minister elaborate on where that money is being allocated, how many FTEs and, specifically, what outcomes are expected from that investment?

Hon. P. Bell: We're in the process of developing the workplan. The money is included in the base budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands on an ongoing basis.

G. Robertson: Are there any specifics to what that million dollars will be targeted to, or is it just a blank cheque with food miles planning ascribed to it? Is there anything more than that?

Hon. P. Bell: I would include planning and delivery, of course, of the program. That is the full fund or resource that will be available for the delivery of that program. Some of that, of course, will go into database systems, computer systems, various labelling initiatives and staff with the ministry and outside the ministry. So it's a variety of resources for the delivery of the program.

We also have…. Some of the people that are engaged in other parts of the ministry and that are involved in our GIS systems are also part of this project. So it's something that we think is a very attractive one and one that the consumer will find very informative in terms of making their decisions on the goods that they're purchasing.

G. Robertson: Will there be labelling requirements anticipated, related to this food miles program?

Hon. P. Bell: The program will be voluntary. We're looking at a couple of different options for the best delivery mechanism of that right now, whether it's an actual label on the product or on the price point on the store shelf. So there are a couple of options that are under consideration. The program is a voluntary program, not a mandatory program.

G. Robertson: What is the anticipated time of implementation for this program? Will it be in time for the growing season or at least for the bulk of the growing season, for summer this year?

G. Robertson: Is there a strategy by which to leverage support, funding, etc., from industry, or is this purely a government expense and program that will be rolled out?

Hon. P. Bell: This is a partnership with industry. Clearly, as a voluntary program, they're going to need to be at the table to support it. We do think that it's an attractive one. The consumer-tracking research that's been done on this clearly indicates that people in British Columbia are supportive of the notion of the hundred-mile diet.

I've had an opportunity to visit with the authors, actually, of the hundred-mile diet and got to know them a little bit. I think the work they've done is tremendous. I'm very excited about this as a delivery mechanism. Even people in Prince George, as an example, are very interested in the notion of the hundred-mile diet.

Organics and local purchasing are the two fastest-growing regimes in the province around agriculture and the ones that offer the greatest potential for profit. The entire ag plan is really built on the themes around creating those opportunities for profitability.

So I think there are very exciting and interesting programs going forward. The need to lever resources from the private sector is absolutely critical if we're going to have long-term success.

G. Robertson: Are there other funding partners committed to this project at this time? If so, can the minister give us a rundown of who is committed from the industry side?

Hon. P. Bell: We're still working through the commitment process. Once we are in a position to roll that out, we'll make that public. But we're in negotiations with a number of partners at this point.

G. Robertson: Just a word of congratulations that the minister has managed to move food miles onto the agenda of the ministry and his government. It's taken a number of years, I think, for this to come forward after good progress, particularly when my colleague, the former Minister of Agriculture in the province, had a much more aggressive strategy to support local agriculture and to promote B.C.-grown food.

So it's great to see that this is finally coming to some fruition here. Again, as I've put forth in previous estimates, previous years here, it can't happen fast enough. The opposition is extremely supportive of all initiatives to promote local agriculture, food production, and certainly, food miles are a key component of that that many of us who are active in the food industry have been hoping to see more support for from government over the years. It's good to see it happening.

A question related to this, specifically on farmers' markets, which are, again, mentioned very briefly in the service plan. Some of the facts that are put forward related to the sales and scale of farmers' markets in the province don't jibe with previous estimates and questions that I've had with the minister. So I'm curious if the minister would just clarify what level of investment, support, is taking place within the ministry for farmers' markets and for continuing to grow the base of farmers' markets and opportunities for them in communities throughout the province.

Hon. P. Bell: I am going to go from memory here, so I apologize if I miss my numbers a little bit, but I think I'm close on this. Farmers' markets generate an economic benefit of, I think, about $118.5 million

provincewide. About $60 million of that is in direct farm-gate sales, and the remainder is in additional spinoffs, coffee shops in the area and so on that might benefit from a farmers' market opportunity.

This is growing rapidly. I think that there are in the order of about 60 farmers' markets around the province. They continue to be a key component of direct delivery into the marketplace, but there are lots of other exciting initiatives as well.

I was in Revelstoke recently, visiting a distant cousin of my wife. They actually get a box of fresh vegetables every two weeks on a year-round basis right through the winter months, even out of the root cellar, from this particular producer. It's a very interesting initiative and one that certainly caught my attention.

In terms of strengthening local farmers' markets, there are a number of initiatives — the farmers' market directory, the brochure. We think there's a real opportunity to expand the farmers' market newsletters, the fresh guides that we'll be implementing in a number of different regions, focusing on some of the slow-food kind of community-led community garden initiatives and translating that into farmers' markets as well. We're also in the process of reallocating resources within the ministry and looking for an opportunity to support farmers' markets across the province at a staff level.

So a number of different initiatives. We're in the process of transitioning those for implementation this year, and we'd like to see farmers' markets grow and continue to expand. They were at $118.5 million last year, if I'm correct. I guess it would have been two years ago, I think, that that study was done. Certainly, we'd like to see that grow and grow rapidly. We think there is the potential for that to take place.

G. Robertson: Can the minister outline what expenses are foreseen in the budget for this year? It sounds like there aren't any FTEs, full-time employees, designated to support farmers' markets specifically. Can the minister just clarify if there's a pool of funding that is here and if there are any staff attached to that?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about that. We are in the process of reallocating resources within the ministry, specifically to target this as one of the areas, and that would include staff support. So I know the member has a keen interest in this area, and once that reallocation is done, I'd be happy to provide the details of it to him.

G. Robertson: I'd like to know more. I think people would generally like to know more, as farmers' market season is close upon us now. I think it would benefit the thousands of people who grow, promote and support farmers' markets around the province. They deserve to have some sense of what kind of support is coming into play here, and these are budgetary estimates.

Can the minister give an indication as to what kind of allocation is going to take place here or what kind of support will be anticipated?

Hon. P. Bell: There were resources available last year, both in staff and fiscal resources, and there will be this year. We're actually hoping to grow that number. I'm not trying to be evasive. I'm not trying to not provide the member with numbers. We simply don't have those at this point. But I will provide the member with the information on what the traditional allocation has been in this area and what the plans will be for the new allocation. I wouldn't expect that's going to take a long time. I would hope to have that information to the member within the month.

G. Robertson: I appreciate that from the minister and certainly encourage a solid and significant investment in supporting farmers' markets, as the minister outlined. The growth has been nothing short of spectacular, and I think the opportunities that have been created for small farmers and for consumers in communities around the province to access fresh, local food from their growers are fantastic and certainly warrant a good degree of support from the government. So I'll encourage them to be generous on this front, as will my colleagues.

The minister mentioned the box programs that I've been involved in, in the past, which are called community-supported agriculture, or CSAs. Is there a specific intention to support CSAs and their development here in the province, or is that just an offhand mention of a possibility some day?

Hon. P. Bell: It was the first time I was aware of it, actually, and I thought it was a very interesting initiative and something that would really blend well into the agriculture plan. So I've actually brought some of that information back to my staff and offered it.

I think the thing that was quite interesting about it was that it was being done in Revelstoke, which had probably three or four feet of snow at the time when I was there. They were being delivered this box of fresh fruits and vegetables into the community, and it was very reasonably priced. So no, it was only meant as a comment of something that I have seen very recently that I think could offer real value, especially if it was provided in a more consistent way to our growers around the province, and it is something I'd like to personally pursue.

G. Robertson: Moving now to a question about urban agriculture. As an urbanite now, coming from a history of farming and being in the food business, there's a lot of buzz in the urban areas of B.C. around urban agriculture.

Certainly, as planning is taking place, and development in particular, in the Lower Mainland, the talk of urban agriculture and integrating agriculture into

the developments taking place is a constant now. I'm curious if the ministry has dedicated any funding or support for urban agriculture and the prospects for increasing the amount of food grown within our cities.

Hon. P. Bell: Great question. There's a whole series of initiatives. This is an area that I have kind of coined "bridging the urban agriculture divide." I think there is a very real need to get urban British Columbia more engaged in what agricultural British Columbia does. A 4-H program would clearly be one of the areas where there needs to be expansion and opportunity.

When I first took responsibility for this ministry, we just under-doubled the budget for 4-H. We've gone from 1,900 members of 4-H in the province to 2,300 members in the last three years, and that continues to grow. I think it's a very positive outcome.

Ag in the classroom — we've added dollars as well. One of our interests, and one of the things that we are currently doing, is inventorying Crown lands within urban communities that could be made available for community gardens.

The school garden program is another one that we're very excited about. I've been working with my colleague the Minister of Education to develop more school gardens across the province, where there's space available on school grounds.

There's a broad-ranging array of opportunities. I would certainly support the member's contention that this is something that is of real value, and we should try to bring agriculture closer to urban British Columbia if we really want to engage and fulfil the spirit of the 100-mile diet and create a long-term opportunity for our farmers to sell into that local marketplace.

G. Robertson: I was looking for some very specific numbers on what is being invested, what is in this budget to support urban agriculture.

The minister mentions a program to identify Crown lands in urban areas, which sounds like a tangible, and perhaps the school gardens are a tangible as well. But specifically, talking about food being grown on some scale in urban communities, what is the specific expense within this budget and number of FTEs involved in supporting urban agriculture and the production of food in cities?

Hon. P. Bell: This isn't a big expense item. Crown land is Crown land that can be made available for community gardens. It's a question of inventorying it. It's a small amount of staff time going through and finding the appropriate parcels. That's being delivered through the integrated land management bureau. It's literally a few days of staff time.

I've asked the ministry to look at the opportunity of bulk seed purchasing to make seed available to community gardens and to school gardens across the province — very nominal overall cost, as well, in that area — and then to take some of our agrologists who work in our various offices around the province and take the small amount of time that's necessary to get people started in the right direction.

None of these things are large-cost items, but they deliver real, tangible results. I think the real measure of success here will be going around and looking a year from now at the number of community gardens and the number of school gardens that will be in place across the province.

So it's not something that requires significant dollars. We're not going to be purchasing lands for community gardens. There are small parcels around the province that are available, and we want to take advantage of them.

G. Robertson: Well, I'll again encourage more significant investment and support. It's one thing to have some small dollars and time allocation to support urban agriculture. It's another thing to have a focused strategy that actually has people accountable for delivering and targets set to actually produce food in our cities.

It sounds like it's more in the category of a pet project that will get some attention here and there through the ministry. We'd like to see a little more importance ascribed to increasing urban agriculture.

I'm going to bridge into the larger subject of food security in B.C. Obviously, urban agriculture is a key element of ensuring that we have enough food to survive here in B.C. The minister and I have canvassed this and debated it in previous estimates.

I have raised, on behalf of the opposition and citizens of B.C., real concerns about B.C.'s food security and the fact that we cannot supply our own food needs here in the province — nowhere near that, in fact. We're still hovering around the 50 percent mark on a good day in terms of food that we grow and produce here in B.C. Only 50 percent of what we consume is produced here in B.C.

The minister has mentioned that, in the past, the Minister of Agriculture and Lands and the Ministry of Health have been working on a strategy specific, I think, to emergency-related events. I think a lot of people around the province are concerned about food security, and we've been debating this biofuels bill in the big House. A lot of concerns around food security arise from the shift to biofuels from food crops, particularly in the northeast.

Can the minister give us a sense for the specific budget and full-time-equivalent allocations to directly address food security in B.C. and improve the unacceptable 50 percent number?

Hon. P. Bell: Specific to the food security issue, and I know this isn't what the member wants to hear, but the provincial emergency program has responsibility in the event of an emergency to ensure that there are sufficient food supplies for any given location around the province. Last year in fact, Boston Bar, I think, was cut off for several days, and they were able to provide supplies into the region during that period of time.

We have a bit of a philosophical difference here — I will say that — in that our priority in the agriculture plan is to provide for local consumption of high-value

products, thereby keeping our agriculture industry profitable. It is not to produce 100 percent of the food consumed in British Columbia. That's not the intent of the ag plan.

The intent, the direction, of the ag plan is to try and build the capacity within the industry to supply local marketplaces with high-value products. I know we have a philosophical difference there, but that is the goal and the objective of the ag plan, and the provincial emergency program has responsibility for ensuring that there are sufficient food supplies in the event of an emergency.

The member's numbers are quite accurate. We produce about half of the food that we consume in British Columbia. My goal is to make sure that our farmers are as profitable as they possibly can be.

C. Evans: I don't want to interrupt this dialogue. I'd just like to say on the record that I told the minister that I estimated five o'clock for Lands. We might be ready by quarter to. I'm guessing the Lands people are watching this on television, and they might wish to be here by that time.

G. Robertson: Well, I'm very concerned at the minister's statement that there may be an ideological difference here and that the entire focus of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands is on the profitability of the industry versus the long-term viability of the industry, which I think is a different issue. Related to that long-term viability is food security and the ability for British Columbians to have a local food supply.

It troubles me that if all of the 100-mile diet, farmers' market and community-supported agriculture strategy are merely targeted strategies for profitability and for ensuring that growers can make a little more cash for their crops versus actually addressing food security, local food needs and the climate change that inevitably results from food miles, then the government's priorities in terms of profitability versus what's good for the people are a big, scary question mark.

The minister has steered off of addressing the food security issue and what is, in effect, a food debt in the province of British Columbia. Approximately $2 billion of food has to be imported here that we haven't managed to drive the production of locally. Is there no strategy within the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands to increase the percentage of food consumed in B.C. that is grown here?

Hon. P. Bell: You know, there may be a food deficit in B.C. We have a lumber surplus and lumber credit. We have a mineral credit. So we are a free market trading economy. We export goods that we produce competitively for profit, and we import goods that we find are possible to do so efficiently. Hence, that is the reason for trying to get our agriculture industry wrapped around a marketplace where they have an opportunity to be profitable, not just in the short term but in the long term.

I'd ask the member where his suit was made — where the cloth in his suit was made. Was it made in B.C. or not? I highly doubt it. Where was his car built? You can't be everything to everyone. Let's have an agriculture industry that is profitable, sustainable and can be handed down generation to generation, so that farmers have a long-term opportunity.

One of the most frequent comments I get from the agriculture industry is that they want to be able to keep their family engaged in the industry long term. If they're not profitable, it's not possible for them to do that. They can't convince their family into taking their operation over down the road.

We have a very unique environment here. We have a tremendous climate and 250 different products that we produce in the province, many of them profitably. We need to make sure that we have effective local marketing initiatives and that we really target those initiatives.

There are many areas where I agree with the member. I know he fundamentally believes that we should be producing 100 percent of the product that we consume in B.C. I don't share that with him. I think we should produce what we can competitively and make sure that we keep our farmers profitable.

G. Robertson: Well, in terms of my beliefs around food security and producing 100 percent of our food…. It would be fantastic if we were capable of producing 100 percent of the food that's eaten here in B.C. It's not realistic at the time. What frightens me is that this minister isn't even thinking about how we start getting there.

If you look at the impacts of climate change around the world right now, if you look at what is being described as the long emergency…. The minister can maybe feel good about a short emergency program that exists to deal with the crisis in Boston Bar, when the trucks from California can't get in with their veggies. But what we're facing on a global scale right now is, in effect, the end of cheap oil, the end of globalization and what is being described as a long emergency when we will have to be more self-sufficient.

This government talks a blue streak about energy self-sufficiency. "We have to produce 100 percent of our energy here in B.C. to have any kind of faith or confidence in our economy and our ability to thrive as a province."

One would think that the Minister of Agriculture would put food security at least at the same level as, if not above, energy security as a necessity for his government to be delivering on. However, the minister avoided the question again, which was very specific to…. Are there any resources — dollars, full-time-equivalent staff — that are focused on increasing the percentage of food that we consume in B.C. being grown here in B.C.?

Hon. P. Bell: I actually, I think, could be cute in the way I tried to answer this question because, in fact,

that's what the agriculture plan does. It tries to encourage greater consumption of B.C.-grown product. Hence, rather than having an export product, the product would remain in B.C.

I think the member's real point, although he didn't articulate it accurately, is his desire to see a higher percentage of food grown in British Columbia on an ongoing basis. That is not an area we focused on in the ag plan. It is to take our existing industry and make sure that it is able to be marketed within the province and done in a profitable way.

The Chair: Yes, the division has been called. The committee will stay recessed until after the division.

G. Robertson: I am perplexed by the minister's assertion that his ministry is focused on the profitability of industry — and not putting any attention on B.C.'s food security and food self-reliance. I want to just refer to the ministry's own document called B.C.'s Food Self-Reliance, which focuses attention around the question of whether B.C.'s farmers can feed our growing population.

I'm very worried that the minister maybe hasn't paid as much attention to the document within his own ministry and has not taken any concrete steps flowing from it. Can the minister outline what specifically he will implement based on the recommendations and the findings of the food self-reliance report from his own ministry?

Hon. P. Bell: Let me, perhaps, reposition this a little bit for the member opposite. I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that the first priority for me, as minister, is to try and support the industry to a place where they are profitable, where it is a reasonable return on their investment, and that will, in turn, encourage increased levels of farming throughout the province.

Right now there are a few segments of the industry where there can be a reasonable return on investment made. There are others that are not. Our effort with the ag plan is to ensure that we increase the level of profitability to a place where people are interested in moving into the agriculture industry. That then would lead to greater levels of production throughout the province.

Philosophically, my first priority is taking our existing agricultural base, the folks that are out there working the land today, and trying to do what we can through the ag plan — through marketing strategies, through extension services, through an array of different opportunities — to get them to a place where they are profitable enough and where it becomes an attractive investment for their families and others in the future to invest and grow the industry.

G. Robertson: It sounds like the minister's focus is all about market enhancement or some strategy utilizing the market to enhance the profitability of B.C.'s agricultural industry. I'll contrast that to the government's own climate change goals, which are effectively market intervention.

It's recognizing the dramatic consequences of climate change and that we have to make changes and intervene in the marketplace — setting greenhouse gas emissions targets, bringing in carbon tax and cap-and-trade systems — effectively transforming the marketplace with the hand of government to ensure that we as a species are able to survive on this planet.

Part of that survival, obviously, depends on food and our ability to grow food. There is a very, very close relationship between the impacts of climate change and food insecurity. It sounds like the minister hasn't translated any of the directives coming through the climate change agenda of this government into food security and the need to increase significantly the production of food here in B.C., not only for climate change goals to be met but also for our population to have food closer at hand in the event that it's no longer available over large distances.

The minister talks about the whole focus being on profitability of existing industry. Does that mean that there is no focus right now on the long-term increase in production, the resilience of our food production infrastructure in B.C. and the ability of people in B.C. to source an increase — to 100 percent — of the food that they eat from here in the province? Is there no tangible strategy that he can point to in the ministry? Are there no dollars in this budget that are allocated to meeting those goals, as would be consistent with the climate change agenda?

Hon. P. Bell: I've already answered that question. I continue to reinforce that the objective of the agriculture plan is to improve profitability for our agriculture industry. Once we see the level of profitability that justifies ongoing investment in the sector, I expect that sector will grow.

G. Robertson: Does the minister see a potential conflict between the support that's envisioned through the biofuels industry and the food security and the food self-reliance as recommended in his ministry's report?

G. Robertson: Does the minister understand that the significant percentage of our cereal and oilseed crops will no longer be available for food here in the province of B.C.?

Hon. P. Bell: I don't have the exact numbers here with me, but I'm sure we can provide them to the member opposite. The grains and oilseeds industry in British Columbia is very small, probably representing in the order of 1 percent of total agriculture in B.C. So the initiatives around bioenergy really will not significantly impact our agriculture industry here in British Columbia.

G. Robertson: It's an interesting answer. Does the minister not believe that mandating biofuel production here in B.C. will divert a significant percentage of the existing cereal oilseed crops that are current being used for food?

Hon. P. Bell: This government has a mandate around green energy. We're proud of that mandate.

Clearly, the member doesn't support the use of bioenergy. I'm glad to know that. I kind of wasn't aware of that, to be honest. I thought, being as green as the member is, that he'd have an interest in utilizing biofuels and in seeing that as a viable alternative to reducing greenhouse gases.

G. Robertson: Well, I'll just make sure the minister knows — and hopefully, is able to put some time into reviewing the science — that that's an opinion that is not supported by the science that prevails around the world right now on biofuels and one that we on the opposition benches have been making the case for vigorously today and yesterday regarding the legislation for biofuels. So I'll set that aside.

Just to kind of encapsulate my concerns here. They are that the minister's focus — and, therefore, his government's focus — is ultimately on the profitability of the existing industry, which certainly needs to be an important aspect of what the ministry does. As a former farmer, I recognize the necessity for government to be supportive of industry in ways that make it viable.

At the same time, in terms of a bigger picture here and a broader strategy for this government, there's no focus on food self-reliance, as the ministry's own staff have recommended. There is no focus on food security for the province. Ultimately, this government has to be accountable for looking at the big picture of where our food comes from and how we are increasingly more self-sufficient here in B.C.

The preoccupation is with energy security. The minister clarified that. With regard to biofuels, the preoccupation is with the profitability of existing industry and not with looking forward. And then it's dressed up with a little bit of nifty support for farmers' markets and food miles programs, urban agriculture. It's stuff that's nice, stuff that's fantastic, but it's off to the side of the desk as a shiny bauble to wave around and make it look like the government is focused on food security and self-sufficiency, when in fact the scale of that investment is paltry compared with the investment that is going into more of the same and the status quo.

I just want to close with registering my utter disbelief that this government isn't recognizing the critical importance of food self-reliance. We know that staff are recommending this. We know that around the world people are putting this up as a significant priority and one which governments have got to wrestle with.

Unfortunately, this government is ignoring it, sticking with the status quo and pursuing strategies that are contradictory to food security, which makes no sense when this government trumpets the need to address climate change, which raises many of the same spectres as food insecurity.

I'll close there. I know that the member for Cariboo North has a similar theme to go on here. I thank the minister and his staff for their time.

C. Evans: Basically, for format here, I had earlier laid out an order in which I thought we would be asking questions. I'd like to change that now. We have approximately another 15 minutes to half an hour of agriculture questions, at which time we will go to fish questions that I think will take the rest of the afternoon, leaving lands for the morning.

I apologize for any inconvenience that that has caused anybody, and I wanted to give a head-up to the fisheries people.

B. Simpson: I am happy to follow on the previous MLA's questions because I think food security is going to become the major thing. I get the minister's comments about profitability, so I want to explore those a little bit.

Does the ministry currently track how many herds are being cashed out around the province?

Hon. P. Bell: We've been working with the B.C. cattlemen to track that number. It's been elusive because there are lots of very small herds, and then there are some larger ones out there. So we don't have an exact number at this point.

We have been working with and have requested that information from the B.C. Cattlemen's Association, but it does appear to be a moving target at this point and a challenging one to get.

B. Simpson: I'll get into some specifics in my area from my cattlemen's association that we can talk about.

What about farm bankruptcies in the province? Is that tracked and recorded somewhere?

Hon. P. Bell: Stats Canada does track all of that for us and reports out on an annual basis, but it's usually about a year delayed when we get that information.

Hon. P. Bell: The ministry doesn't track that. It would be available through the B.C. Assessment, but it also reflects a delay, because oftentimes loss of farm

status could take a number of years prior to kicking in. So it could easily reflect a delay and not have an accurate picture of the current state of affairs.

B. Simpson: Does the ministry track the breakup of large ranches and large farms into smaller parcels, either through the Agricultural Land Commission or some other means?

Hon. P. Bell: There are two pieces of information there — two ways of tracking that. If it is a consolidated parcel, it requires the Agricultural Land Commission approval to break that parcel into a number of different segments. Most ranches over the years, if they've been an amalgamation of Crown lands, tend to be a single parcel and would require ALC approval for breakdown. So that information would be available that way and also through the Statistics Canada information that comes out annually.

B. Simpson: As the minister also knows, there are lots of large ranches and farms that are an amalgamation of various property designations that have come together, and you don't have to go through the ALC or any approval process. You just slap the signs up for ten-acre parcels, two-acre parcels — whatever has come together.

I guess my point is that there are a bunch of metrics that we're missing right now that I think would give us an indication of the sorry state of our family farm. I know that in my neck of the woods…. My thanks to the minister for coming to Quesnel, but, as the minister well knows, we stacked the deck for the chamber meeting and made sure our agricultural community was there. The people in that room are struggling. They're struggling to stay afloat. They are longtime family farms. So they don't necessarily hit that category of fly-by-nights or others who have dabbled in farming and then went out.

For many of them, as the minister well knows, the double whammy of losing their forestry jobs or not being able to do logging contracting and what's happening on their farm is now causing them to be in dire straits.

The talk about profitability — I really struggled in listening to that, because in my own riding MLA Wyse and I have called meetings for our ranching and agricultural community to show up. Many of these folks are not necessarily predisposed to the NDP.

In fact, in the meeting we had in 150 Mile House we had 85 ranchers, and they wouldn't let the press take a picture of our MLA for Cariboo South and me with them, but they were showing up in droves. Every meeting we had, they showed up in droves, and what they told us is that we have seniors who are now getting into dire straits with the taxman because they have to get out of the farm. They can't sustain it. They can't afford it, and then the next property assessment they get, they lose their farm status. What do they do?

According to the Quesnel Cattlemen's Association, in the last year alone 30 herds of various sizes cashed out. We've had bankruptcies. We've had land conversions — which I'll get into tomorrow — to alternate uses of that land to avoid going through the ALC.

Again, to the minister: what is the minister doing? He's got this agriculture plan, which I'll speak to in a minute. We've got this agriculture plan, but the reality is that our family farm–based agriculture is in dire straits. As the minister well knows, my community said that the plan doesn't cut it. What is it that the minister's going to do to keep some of these family farms afloat and help them achieve profitability?

Hon. P. Bell: I appreciate the member's concern and his raising the issue. I think the important thing to note is that the agriculture sector in my community is very similar to the agriculture sector in the member's community. What is important for the member opposite to know is that agriculture in B.C. is a $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion industry. The cow-calf sector is under $300 million of that — something under 15 percent, perhaps 12 percent or 13 percent, of the entire agricultural industry.

Even though it's very personalized to the member for Cariboo North and personalized to me, because those are the folks that we deal with and see on the ground each and every day, the actual agriculture plan, of course, speaks to the broader sector and everyone within that broader sector. When I kind of go down and look at some of the good-news stories in the industry….

Certainly the dairy industry is doing well, the poultry industry is doing well and the grape and wine industry is doing well. The blueberry industry has had some great success, and there's been a very strong turnaround as a result of a strategic plan done by the B.C. Tree Fruits growers in the last 24 months as well. They were facing very similar challenges to the cattlemen just 24 months ago.

I very vividly recall, going to their AGM, the challenges that they faced. They worked very hard to develop a strategic plan through some funding that the ministry provided them, just a small amount of funding. They've been executing on that plan. We've provided incremental resources to the B.C. Fruit Growers Association as a result of that. It's quite remarkable, the turnaround that they've had in that period of time.

Just to put some context around it…. I know that the member doesn't mean to paint a broad-brush stroke of all of the agriculture industry, because certainly there are segments that are doing very well. I think that really points out for the member the challenge that we are faced with each and every day in this ministry — 250 different commodity groups. You are bound to have some of those commodity groups at some points in time….

Hon. P. Bell: Some of the most profitable ones are the illegal ones, as the member for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain points out. As he will well know, I'm

The challenge is that we have such a wide variety of agriculture. So part of the ag plan, actually, speaks to developing strategic plans, working with the B.C. Ag Council for individual sectors that are having challenges.

The member's talking about the beef industry. Another segment of the industry that is hurting right now is the pork sector. I don't think he has any pork operations — perhaps one or two small ones. But the large pork operations — a few in the Peace and then the remainder in the Fraser Valley — are in very difficult times. To characterize the broader industry as being in trouble I don't think is fair. I think that you need to understand that there are segments of the industry where there are challenges.

I had the opportunity to read the document that was passed to me that day, and I was a little disappointed that they didn't identify, actually, who it was that prepared the document. I went through it cover to cover. There were no names — no one that I could call and talk to and have further dialogue with — within the document. I found that a bit strange, because many of their comments were inaccurate in terms of their analysis of the ag plan, in fact.

There were some points where I think they had some legitimate concerns that we need to deal with, but there were also areas where they hadn't taken the time to read or understand it or really invested the energy that they needed to review it. That all said, because that's just simply context, I do think that what the member is pointing out is that there are very, very challenging times in the cattle industry.

We are absolutely alive to the challenges that the cattlemen are facing. I've personally met with the B.C. Cattlemen's Association — I can't even begin to count — a number of times. Ed Salle and I meet on an ongoing basis. They provided us with a series of priorities, a series of things that were important to them. One of those was, actually, to have a wildlife crop damage mitigation fund.

They were looking for a long-term strategy on the part of the province. In the ag plan, of course, we've identified a $10 million-per-year fund on a permanent basis that will be available specifically to help the cattle industry, the grains and oilseeds industry and the forage industry where they have crop damage as a result of wildlife impacts. I know in the member's riding there are a number of farmers that will be able to take advantage of that particular program, and I think it will be of great help to them.

There was a list of about seven or so long-term priorities. I think we've probably hit five of them in the ag plan. I have to go out and pull out the document that he provided to me, but I think we've probably hit five, if not six, of the long-term priorities that the B.C. Cattlemen laid out for us. They also gave us a list of about seven short-term priorities. There are a number of those short-term priorities that we hope to execute and deliver. A lot of them spoke to things like traceability and building long-term capacity in the industry.

The B.C. Cattlemen — and I have to give Ed Salle credit for this — have been very, very good to work with. They have really been productive. They've looked for out-of-the-box solutions. They know that we have constraints in terms of the amount of money we have to work with. I think they are going to, just as the B.C. Fruit Growers did, find a way to get through this. I would suggest that within a year or two we're going to be in pretty good shape in that industry as well.

It really does set, as an example, the challenges that we have on an ongoing basis in this ministry. Once we get through the cattle and pork situation that we have right now, I'm relatively certain that there will be a couple more commodity groups that we'll have to deal with going forward.

That's why in the ag plan it speaks very specifically to having an ongoing process of every year identifying a couple of the industries that are struggling on the bottom end of the overall list of products that we produce in B.C., taking ministry resources and expertise in developing strategic plans, working with those growers, setting the appropriate targets and moving them through, back to a place where they are profitable.

I apologize for the length of the answer. I think it was necessary in order to really properly point out all the key pieces. Certainly, I absolutely understand the issue of the cattle industry and where it's at today, and it is one of our top priorities to deal with in terms of getting their strategic plan, moving it through and allowing them to get back to a place where they are profitable.

B. Simpson: I'm going to take credit in my riding for that alternate agriculture. I think, likely on a per-capita basis it has the biggest operations there. More seriously, though, I think it's unfair. I will get you the author — I think that's a fair comment. And for the record, the agricultural community in North Cariboo did make a concerted effort to make a deliberate response to the ag plan. They entitled it, "A Farmers' and Ranchers' Response," but there was also a covering letter from Linda Atkinson. I believe she's the best one to respond to. I will get the minister that information, because I do think that it begs a response.

I think that the minister has a habit — and he has done it to me in the House — where the comment is "haven't read it enough" or "haven't thought about it enough," etc. I think that discounts these hard-working folks and the time and energy they actually put in to put a substantive response in.

I think what they don't agree with is the minister's perspective on it. They have different perspectives than the minister, but I think it's unfair to them and to the time that they put into it, to characterize it as, "They didn't read it," or: "They didn't understand it." So I will commit to get to the minister the contact for a response because they would like a response.

I want to be clear, and the minister has clarified it somewhat, that the farmers and ranchers in my communities felt that the ag plan wasn't a plan as much as a vision or position paper. It was long on ideas and

short on details. They said: "The agricultural plan or vision is a step towards creating the right plan that will be needed to help create an economically viable industry. This is not the plan."

To take the minister at face value, the minister has indicated that there's going to be the strategic plan. But, as we've had discussions in the minister's office, we need some assistance right now. I got myself in some trouble in 150 Mile House when I pushed back on the ranching community and said that they have to also look at changing the way they do business. They have to look at alternate ways of doing business. They have to look at grass finishing. They have to look at diversifying, even on their own land base — all of that stuff. They got a little bit pissy and mad at me for doing that, but it is fair.

In the interim as we transition them, they don't have one or two years to wait — that's what they're telling me. We've had this conversation in the minister's office, but I'd like it on the record now. Will there be federal-provincial aid to our ranching community in the short term?

Hon. P. Bell: In fact, there's been $13.1 million paid out already. It's a combination of federal-provincial funds, 60-40. So 60 percent of that is federal funds, and 40 percent is provincial into the beef cattle sector. I can tell the member opposite that we are in active negotiations with the B.C. Cattlemen for further programming that we're not yet in a position to announce.

B. Simpson: A quick point of clarification. To the minister: is that money into CAIS?

Hon. P. Bell: It's actually a variety of payments, not just CAIS. So AgriInvest and Kickstart are two of the big ones. So it's joint funding that's been paid through the normal mechanisms.

I do recall actually reading the segment that the member referred to in the response to the ag plan, and I think, with the greatest of respect to the authors of the response, there's a tremendous amount of detail in the ag plan, 69 specific different action items that are measurable, that are quantifiable, that I've committed to the B.C. Ag Council to report out annually at the ag gala dinner.

So underneath each one of those action items clearly there are many steps. One of the action items is to develop strategic plans for a couple of sectors on an annual basis. Those strategic plans could be literally hundreds of action items each — not possible if we had produced a document of that nature. It would have been thousands of pages thick, 250 different commodity groups, and we didn't really talk about any specific commodity group.

We knew that we couldn't do that. We would not be in a position to try and reflect those sorts of directions inside an ag plan. So we tried to keep it specific to actions that people could measure, that they could identify clearly, that there'd be little argument whether we'd execute or deliver on that action item. We thought that that was the best approach to the plan.

B. Simpson: By the minister's own admission, he admits that the ranching community in particular is in dire straits. I think something that indicated to them where we were going with that community would have helped. With that more detail, it would have maybe prevented some of the feedback that the minister got.

I would ask a favour of the minister, because the feedback I'm getting is that a lot of the ranchers on the ground are struggling with some of the internal mechanisms of the B.C. Cattlemen's Association — and those are their words, not mine.

I think it's important that the minister also takes the time to meet with the regional associations to hear directly from them, because there seems to be some communication flow issues within that structure. It's not surprising. It's a big industry with lots of different players. Some are on the Web; some are not. Some are paying attention; some are not.

But, I think, as you go around the province…. I know that the Quesnel Cattlemen's Association wouldn't mind a sit-down with you, as an association. I know you've sat down with the Cariboo one in the Williams Lake area a while back, but I do think that that ongoing dialogue — to put a little integrity and maybe a little bit of honesty into this straightforward dialogue with the B.C. Cattlemen's — might not be a bad practice.

I am conscious of time. I have to move on and cede the floor. I need to go just to meat regulations. I wasn't here yesterday, so I didn't get to do it, but the minister knows the questions I'm going to ask. I just need them on the public record.

In Quesnel we're one of the black holes in the province with respect to our ability to process meat. We do have some processors around us, but they're oversubscribed. It's very difficult for people to get into the queue with that. As the minister has been apprised — and there's a letter campaign now, so you're going to get a bunch of letters from folks — we're trying to get a local abattoir. And, for the record, one of the things they need to know is: will there be money in the MTAP, in the meat transitions program, for a second wave of business planning and abattoir development?

Hon. P. Bell: I would encourage the member, as I have before, to ensure that the application is in the process, and we'll consider it as it comes forward. I've seen the work that the member is referring to, and I'm a big supporter of it. I think it's very well done. I think the model is the right model. I think it's very encouraging, and I'll be looking to ensure that we have the resources necessary to fund that project.

B. Simpson: Because there are two models, I just want to be clear that we're talking about the same things. The mobile poultry abattoir is one group, and then the red meat producers is the other group that will

be putting an abattoir, hopefully, on Highway 97. So I'll take the minister at his word and get that back to the community and let them know.

Now one of the things — and again, the minister and I have discussed this, but I want it on the public record — has to do with the interim Site C licence, because part of the problem we have is providing the supports to continue the farm gate so we don't extinguish all these ranchers while we're building the abattoir. They're having trouble with the CDC person saying that they may not need an abattoir — we need to do some work around that — but they need this Site C interim licence. I'm wondering if the minister is aware of that or conscious of that and has done anything in that regard.

Hon. P. Bell: It would be helpful for me to understand, from the member opposite, if this is related to the poultry operation or the red meat operation? The red meat operation — I'm not aware of any approved plans yet for that. There may be. I don't know that. So the criterion for a class C licence is that there be approved plans in place by the Centre for Disease Control, and then class C licences can be issued — not just to one producer, but to more than one producer — in an area for ongoing production, as it was in the past.

So on the red meat side, I'm not sure what the status of that application is — if it's in, if it's been accepted. If it is, they should be able to go ahead and apply for class C. If it isn't, they would need to get their application in and their plans done in order to qualify for a class C licence.

B. Simpson: Here's the trap then, because the red meat group, and that's the group I'm talking about, is trying to move forward in the process. They can't justify putting all of the work and energy in unless they know the money is going to be there in the MTAP program to do the work.

Even if all of that gets in place…. They are having some pushback from the CDC, saying, "Do you need an abattoir or not," which is making them very nervous. That's what the letter-writing campaign will be, because they're looking for the minister to support that this is — and we've had the conversations — one of the black holes that does need to be addressed.

If they can get the minister's support, we're still looking at a year to 18 months. We could have effectively undermined the whole business case for the abattoir, if we had put all of those businesses out of business. What they're asking is, because they are doing the due diligence…. They have formed an association. They are putting a business case together. Their intent, providing the resources are there, is to get an abattoir in place. But we want to stabilize all of the existing organizations by fast-tracking the class C.

Is it possible for them to be able to put all this together, make this happen and then make everybody happy in 18 months, when we finally cut the ribbon on that abattoir? Otherwise, we're going to extinguish them in the interim.

Hon. P. Bell: The member didn't quite get to the point of information that I needed here, so I'm going to try and run at this and see if I'm correct. If I'm not, I'm sure the member will feel free to correct me.

The current model is that you have to have approved plans in place. Now, the level of information that needs to be in those plans, perhaps, is questionable, and that's where there may be an opportunity, depending on where this particular organization is at, going forward. We would have to work with them to better understand that and help expedite that process.

Once they have approved plans in place, they immediately qualify for a class C licence. So no, I don't believe there's any wait period. I think it's maybe a week or something, but it happens immediately. That class C licence is renewable as long as there's demonstrated progress towards that abattoir. It doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be concrete on the ground within six months. As long as it's clearly demonstrated that the organization is serious, that they're moving forward, that they have their plans in place, then they are able to go ahead and get ongoing renewal.

I think the real question and the part that I don't quite have enough information on to be able to respond appropriately here is the level that they are currently at in terms of the development of their plans for the abattoir. That's something that I doubt we're going to be able to resolve here today. If they feel they need incremental assistance, we'd be happy to provide those resources to make sure that that's moved through in an orderly fashion.

B. Simpson: The minister is describing the point exactly, and that is that they don't have an approved plan because they're in the second wave. What they are trying to do…. We've worked with the meat processors association that's governing all of this to try and get them some business planning money so that they can put the plan together.

The society they have formed is pushing back a little bit, saying, "We're not willing to go through all of these hoops if the MTAP money is not there," and that's the catch-22. Meanwhile, while we wait for resolution on that as to whether they're going to proceed or not to a proper business plan and the approval process, we're extinguishing, on an almost daily basis, some of the people who make the business plan viable. So that's the catch-22.

I'll take the minister at his word that when the letter-writing campaign comes in, it could be given to somebody to pay close attention to. My only concern is that we may actually be doing the right things but lose the capacity to actually make that abattoir function because we have extinguished too many farmers.

So it does need the minister's attention over the next little while. I know that the minister is very conscious of this, and hopefully, the staff will get back to people in short order. I'll leave it at that.

M. Farnworth: As a matter of fact, there is quite an agricultural community.

M. Farnworth: The member says significant cash crop. It seems that side thinks about the significant cash crops in Port Coquitlam. Well, there are.

One of them is blueberries. We have quite a few blueberry farms, a large number of blueberry farms, in Port Coquitlam. There is an important area within the ALR in Port Coquitlam.

One of the issues that does come up for my constituents is that you will have a five-acre, ten-acre, 20-acre parcel that is, for example, growing blueberries, and the parcel next to it is being used as a landfill. You're having fill being brought in. In some cases it's being raised six, nine, ten, 12 feet, and it's impacting the people who are farming.

My question is: is the ministry looking at the regulations on land being used for landfills, monitoring the increase in that? And are they looking at steps to discourage that because of the impact that it is having on people who are using agricultural land for legitimate purposes?

Hon. P. Bell: Two different types of land here: agricultural land, which I'll speak to, and then non-agricultural land. This issue was flagged for us about a year or so ago in the Fraser Valley, and we've taken very aggressive compliance and enforcement action on it, specifically.

It's been dumping on agricultural lands — so people bringing in construction waste, typically large chunks of concrete, waste material. I gather that it's quite a profitable business to accept that sort of waste. We've actually got two FTEs in the Agricultural Land Commission now that have responsibility for compliance and enforcement action.

Commissioners are monitoring in their respective regions. One of the reasons why it's good to have regionalized commissioners is that they're looking for potential dumpsites. It's also complaint-driven. If the dumping is occurring on agricultural land, we have a very active compliance-and-enforcement regime in place.

Outside of agricultural land it would then fall to the Ministry of Environment, if that was illegal dumping action. But I suspect I've hit on the primary issue.

M. Farnworth: I thank the minister for that answer. In this particular case, this land is within the agricultural land reserve, so it is classed as agricultural land.

One of the questions I have is: does the ministry have the ability…? For example, the issue then becomes that the person having the dumping done is able to say: "Oh, this is completely non-usable land, seeing as how nothing will grow here." The fact is that they've made it that way. Is one of the penalties in the ability, in terms of enforcement, to actually have the material removed that's been dumped and the land restored to what it was before it was being used as a dumpsite?

Hon. P. Bell: Yes, in fact, that is the case. I can tell the member that since October 1, 2007, when this team was established, there have been 108 inspections, with three warnings, 20 voluntary compliance actions and 14 enforcement actions that have taken place, primarily in the Fraser Valley, although the team has been around the province as well.

I can tell the member that when the Agricultural Land Commission makes an order, it is enforceable under section 58 of the act, I believe, although I don't have the act in front of me. If someone does not take the actions that are required of them under the Agricultural Land Commission's order, there can be penalties of up to a million dollars or six months in jail.

So it is a very serious issue. We take it very seriously, and we've a good team on the ground working on it now.

G. Gentner: I would like to pose a lot of questions about the agricultural land reserve and, in particular, that which is being removed up in the Chilliwack area. But I am sure that the minister would respond by telling us it's under investigation.

I'll go to something that is easier to discuss here today. I want to talk about housing standards for migrant workers in British Columbia and where we're going with this one, because holy mackerel, we don't know what the ministry wants to do. We have some orders for Richmond, we hear some other things for Delta, and we also know that there's something called seasonal agricultural workers programs.

Right to the quick. Various greenhouses in Delta are looking at Delta's bylaw. Delta seems to be hesitant now to move forward. Has the province completed a set of guidelines on migrant farmworker housing?

Hon. P. Bell: We do not have a solution as of today on this issue. It is one of the ones that certainly is a priority for us. We have a small task team established that is working with municipalities, the Agricultural Land Commission and the ministry to find something that we can implement throughout British Columbia — certainly offered up as a community bylaw or perhaps as a template bylaw that could be used, or a standard that could be used provincewide. Those are the two options we're considering at this point.

G. Gentner: Well, until there is a universal standard in the province, the minister, therefore, is of the opinion that no municipality is under any obligation to come forward with a bylaw relative to these housing issues?

Hon. P. Bell: There are actually a number of communities that already have bylaws in place, including

The context of this particular issue has grown substantially, particularly in the last five or six months. So we are eager to work with municipalities and make sure that they have the resources necessary if they wish to put their own bylaws in place or if they wish to work with a provincial set of rules.

Certainly, we are not discouraging…. I believe Delta actually chose to not proceed further with their bylaw, and I know that they have a keen interest in developing a set of rules that makes sense for them. We'd be happy to work with them on that.

G. Gentner: Therefore, under the right-to-farm legislation, can the ministry impose any of its positions on migrant housing on Delta?

Hon. P. Bell: Right now municipalities do have the authority to bring forward bylaws to regulate on-farm housing for workers. Some communities have chosen to do that, specifically Pitt Meadows, Langley, Abbotsford, Maple Ridge and Richmond. Some, for a variety of reasons, have chosen not to bring that forward.

We do think that it makes sense for the ministry to engage in this discussion and try and help communities develop appropriate regimes. It's not something that we would necessarily enforce but we would make available to communities if they chose to implement that sort of a template-type of bylaw.

Certainly, I share the member's concern that this needs to be done in a way that protects agricultural lands and that also respects surrounding neighbourhoods.

It is quite different than it's been historically. The challenges around finding sufficient farmworkers has become a very significant problem, and farmers have had to get creative in order to find those workers.

G. Gentner: If I have this correct, the minister just said that the ministry will not enforce on Delta or any municipality — even though Delta is under the right-to-farm legislation — any conditions relative to the type of housing for migrant workers.

Hon. P. Bell: I don't at all mean to be evasive here, but I do not have the ability to require Delta or any other community to bring forward bylaws specific to on-farm housing requirements. We work in a collaborative way. We hope that we can find a successful solution.

Delta is one of the triggered communities, and I think that's what the member is alluding to — that I must sign off on bylaws to ensure that they don't in any way create challenges for the agricultural community. That delegation has been in place for some period of time and continues to be. But it's certainly in our interest and in Delta's interest to find a resolution to this.

G. Gentner: The minister mentioned that the ministry may have to deal with challenges within the agricultural community relative to migrant worker housing. Therefore, the question I have is: because you don't have a standard yet — and I know that the ministry has been spending some time trying to put the standard together — do you believe that there should be different standards for farmers in Richmond, which has the maximum housing limit of 30 workers, versus Delta, which could be 42?

Hon. P. Bell: I'll go back to my original statement, which is that I do think it's appropriate for the ministry to develop a template that communities may or may not choose to use, but ultimately those decisions are best made at a municipal level.

G. Gentner: Therefore, if there is going to be a template, can the minister explain to us what it could be? Will it mean a separate room for each worker? Will there be a refrigerator for all or a stove with two hot plates for every four workers? I mean, what is this template?

Hon. P. Bell: That process is ongoing, and those specifics have not been determined as yet.

G. Gentner: Until the ministry gets its act together and can come up with a template for universal standards that municipalities can adhere to…. And I have it correct. The ministry will not impose its will upon municipalities who are hesitant to come forward with a bylaw relative to migrant housing — because there are liability issues. Therefore, I have it correct. Because it does not have a template in place and it does not have those guidelines available for municipalities, it will therefore not impose its view that a municipality must come forward at any time and produce a bylaw relative to housing standards for migrant workers.

Hon. P. Bell: Just to be clear, that's not a view necessarily. That is the law. Municipalities have complete and total jurisdiction and authority over what bylaws they choose to bring forward or not bring forward.

The question I have is respecting the Pender Harbour area where there is a large herd of Roosevelt elk that were transplanted on a program through…. I'm not sure which ministry exactly. Now there are farmers in the area who are suffering from the effects of having these animals in their area.

I'm wondering if there's any sort of program or if a program exists…. How can farmers in the Pender Harbour area access funding to assist them to mitigate the damage that they cause to their farming livelihood?

Hon. P. Bell: Thanks to the member for his question. I appreciate it. In strategy 6 of the agricultural plan, the first action item is to fund $4 million per year and seek matching federal funds of $6 million, which I believe we've accomplished, to implement a new provincial agriculture zone wildlife program that will integrate prevention, mitigation and compensation strategies. So $10 million a year, a brand-new program in place this year specifically for the problem that the member describes.

N. Simons: My question is: how can I inform the farmers how to access this program? That would be of great assistance.

Hon. P. Bell: We'll be advertising that in the coming month. If anyone has any immediate requests, they can contact any of the ministry offices around the province, and we'll connect them with the appropriate people.

C. Evans: I would like to thank the minister, especially the minister's staff. I believe that's the conclusion of agriculture questions. I thank everybody for their time.

We're going to move now to fisheries for the rest of the day. I do not know if it will conclude. Lands questions will happen tomorrow morning.

I would like to put one thing on the record, besides my appreciation and thanks. I'm not going to be here tomorrow, and I have one last question. I'm not asking to answer it. I just want to put it on the record, and maybe the minister could write to me.

It is my understanding that the land use planning staff, who have been doing such a good job in the Nelson region to sort out issues, may be transferred to Cranbrook, may be laid off, may be reassigned to treaty matters. Maybe the minister could in future write to me and inform me of his intentions with the land use planning staff presently housed in Nelson.

I'm not asking for an answer to that question today, because I know there are no lands folks here. I will be absent tomorrow, so I thank you for this ability to participate in estimates this year. We will now move to the fisheries critic.

R. Austin: I just wanted to begin by asking a question. I don't have any specific document to relate to, but I have heard that there may be some changes in terms of people from the United States bidding on fisheries quota here in British Columbia.

I realize that the minister probably has at least a representative. I realize that that's a DFO issue, but the minister would have a representative on that committee. I was just wondering if the minister has heard anything about this and, if so, what his comments would be about that.

Hon. P. Bell: It's the first I've actually ever heard of that. And as the member quite rightly points out, this ministry has responsibility for the aquaculture file but nothing to do with licensing or shifting of licensing. That is a federal responsibility. So no, the staff that I have here are not aware of the issue. I'm joined by Jim Russell, who is the director for the aquaculture division of the ministry.

R. Austin: Just to get this on the record, if it were the case, though, that fishermen in the United States were to try and bid on fisheries quotas here in British Columbia, is it fair to assume that the stance of the province would be such that they would vigorously oppose that? Of course, if this were to happen, it's my understanding that the United States would be doing this simply to buy quota and then not use it and then catch the fish as they go down further south. So is it fair to say that if it were to happen, the response from the government to British Columbia would be to vigorously oppose that kind of policy?

Hon. P. Bell: I've not turned my mind to that — first I've heard of the issue. It would not be fair of me as Minister of Agriculture and Lands, who has no responsibility for international debates or discussions or federal-provincial cross-jurisdictional issues, to comment on something of that nature. I can't even begin to comment on something of that nature.

R. Austin: Could I ask whether the minister can comment on changes to the federal Fisheries Act and how it has affected any parts of his mandate within the provincial area of fisheries?

Hon. P. Bell: There may be one slight impact to the ministry. There was a division created and some staff transferred from the aquaculture division and the ministry over to the Ministry of Environment, and that group has some interaction and some ongoing dealings, I understand, with DFO. I'm not aware…. I don't have staff here that would be. They don't work for me. They work for the Minister of Environment. I think that there may be, perhaps, a little bit of interaction going on there, but that would best be canvassed with the Minister of Environment.

R. Austin: Thank you for that answer. I'll bring that up in the estimates of the Minister of Environment then. I just want to get now to the aquaculture issue. Of course, the release and the decision that the government made — I guess two weeks ago now — to suspend aquaculture licences on the north coast has undoubtedly been very well received in northern British Columbia.

I have a question, though, in terms of the decision to decide on the area in which this suspension has been made. When the Aquaculture Committee was going around the province listening to input from various communities, we recognised that with Klemtu having aquaculture licences and a successful aquaculture industry going on there, when we brought forward any recommendations, we wanted to grandfather that community to ensure that they could continue.

I mean, my understanding is that most of the wild fish runs in the Klemtu area were essentially destroyed, probably from overfishing in the '70s. So when the aquaculture industry came there, it wasn't as though it affected any real wild runs. Our thinking was: "Well, let's create a large fish farm–free zone and grandfather Klemtu." Now, when the government came out with its decision two weeks ago…. Your decision was to sort of start north of Klemtu, and that has left a large part of the central coast that is also part of the Great Bear rainforest agreement.

So my question to the minister is: what was the thinking of the government in not going ahead with what the recommendation was from the Aquaculture Committee in terms of preserving Klemtu? I'm sure the reasoning behind where the government came from was also to make sure that Klemtu didn't get caught in a suspension of aquaculture. What was the thinking behind that?

Secondly, how does this affect that portion of the coast that is part of the Great Bear rainforest agreement? Because of course, as part of that eco-based management in that agreement, you could not really have aquaculture taking place there, at least not open-net fish farming. If the minister would like to comment on that.

Hon. P. Bell: I should just point out that the decision to suspend licensing decisions in the north coast was not exclusively met with jubilation. There were a number of communities that were quite concerned and actually were interested in developing aquaculture in the region and were quite disappointed by the decision. So it was not one of those decisions that was necessarily accepted by everyone. But I suppose nothing ever is, so that's why we come down here and have to make decisions.

Specifically to the issue of why the area just north of Klemtu was chosen, as opposed to somewhere further south and grandfathering the Klemtu area. From a practical perspective, we believe that there have been licences issued. There has been aquaculture in place from Klemtu south. To start the line at Klemtu to protect the northern fishery — specifically the Skeena, which is the issue that was always relevant and top of mind for people — was the appropriate model to take. There was no suggestion that anything further south needed to be protected, nor were we approached on that issue outside of the special legislative committee's recommendations.

I might add that in the decision around the north coast–central coast land use plan there actually are some marine protected areas. So there are actually a series of areas where no fish farming would take place anyways in between Klemtu and the southern end of the decision around the central coast land use plan. I might point out to the member — he might be unclear on this — that the actual EBM designations are land-based decisions, not marine-based decisions. There's actually nothing in EBM itself that would preclude a licence from being issued in an area that is not currently protected and south of Klemtu. I hope that's clear.

R. Austin: I realize what the minister has just said, in terms of EBM being land-based. In the spirit of eco-based management though, does the minister not agree that putting in open-net fish farms in coastal waters would not really be in the spirit of the Great Bear rain forest park and the agreement that's been made and worked on over a period of the 15, 20 years that it took to put that agreement together?

Recognizing the controversy of open-net fish farming, would the minister not agree that to actually give any licences in that section of the coast where the Great Bear rain forest agreement has been put in place would not really be in the spirit of the Great Bear rain forest agreement?

Hon. P. Bell: I was a party to the discussions around the central coast land use plan for several years — or a year, anyways — prior to signing the agreement. There was actually very little debate about aquaculture during that period of time. That was not one of the primary objectives or topics that was under consideration. However, I will add that I think ecosystem-based management has an application in the marine environment as well. I think that may be one of the pieces of the equation that would lead to a long-term sustainable aquaculture industry on the coast of British Columbia.

I think that ecosystem-based management is something we are learning from. It is, I think, something that has applications in the marine environment as well as on the land. It is one of the pieces, certainly, that we are thinking about as we go forward in the development of an aquaculture plan.

Can the minister be more specific as to how eco-based management would work in the marine environment? On the land one has far greater controls over what activity takes place. In the marine environment what happens underwater is pretty much up to nature. So I'd like the minister to give us some details as to how eco-based management would work in the water, because I'm at a loss there.

Hon. P. Bell: I think that the member shouldn't feel at a loss, because we're used to living in the air, not under the water.

I think that it is very natural to see it as a far more complex environment. I actually would agree with the member that it is a very complex environment and one that will be difficult. How will you establish objectives? How will you legalize those objectives? Those are all, I think, parts of the ongoing discussion that's taking

place right now. We need to think about how you could apply some of those key principles.

The fundamental principle, in my view, around ecosystem-based management is maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem, whether that's measured by the returns of wild salmon, as an example…. It would be one of the key indicators for me, perhaps not the only indicator. I've been corrected a number of times…. I originally was of the view that perhaps the returns of wild salmon would be the principal indicator of the ecosystem, but I've been certainly reprimanded on that issue a number of times by different individuals who say that you have to consider other factors.

I think you would establish a set of objectives, a set of key measures, perhaps first of the ecosystem and how it would naturally sustain itself. Then around those measures you would build some objectives which would, then, determine how you make decisions in the marine environment, because there are many implications and many applications that need to be considered, whether it be something, you know, that is not invasive like kayaking tours to something that is more invasive like aquaculture — so a variety of tools that would need to be put in place.

I don't want the member to think that I have the answer to this yet, because I really think that it's going to take time. I think that it may go far beyond the member's time and my time in this House, and it may be someone else that continues to evolve this. I do think that the fundamental principle of determining what the measures are that you want to utilize in the ecosystem to determine what a healthy ecosystem is, then of building a set of objectives around that to ensure that the ecosystem is protected or those measures are protected and then, on an ongoing basis, evaluating the delivery of that….

Ask yourself the question: first of all, are the measures still correct? Maybe the measures have changed for some reason. If the measures are still correct, then are the objectives delivering on the expectation for those measures? If they're not, then how do those objectives need to be changed in order to achieve the objectives that have been articulated?

For me, that's what EBM is. That's the key principle of EBM — determining what your measures are going to be, establishing your objectives, allowing those to be executed and then determining over time whether or not you're meeting your objectives. If you are, continue that behaviour. If you're not, then you have to alter that behaviour to ensure that you are meeting the objectives that you've set.

R. Austin: Would it be fair, then, to say that, with the minister's description of how EBM principles might work in an ocean-based environment…. If there were a set of criteria or objectives laid out and they're being monitored, presumably by the government, to make sure that these objectives are realized, who would be responsible for ensuring that we reach these goals? Would it be the aquaculture industry itself, then, that would actually have to try and reach these goals that the government and the industry and the environmentalists and the first nations could, first of all, all agree on, which is probably a hard thing to do in the first place…. Given that your negotiations with the first nations and the environmentalists and the industry were to agree on this style of management, would it then be up to the aquaculture industry to enforce or ensure that these targets were being met?

Hon. P. Bell: I don't think the public would have the confidence necessary to accept that model of measurement. I think it would be necessary to have an independent measuring mechanism that the public had full confidence in, given the controversy that surrounded this sector over time. I don't think that the industry would object to that. In fact, I'm sure that the industry wouldn't object to having an independent monitoring mechanism.

There's been a lot of, I think, general speculation that the industry is trying to get away with something or that they're improperly managed or poorly run, and I don't actually believe that's the case. I think that they are actually trying hard to meet objectives, but it's been such a controversial issue with just two totally opposing sides that there's really been very little constructive dialogue on this file historically. It doesn't really matter who has been in government. There just hasn't been any constructive dialogue.

I think we're starting to bridge that, perhaps for the first time. It's not been easy. It's been a lot of work, and as a result, certainly I've missed a number of deadlines in terms of delivery of an aquaculture plan. I don't apologize for that, because I think if we actually get it right it will be worthwhile to have taken the time to deliver a constructive plan as opposed to one that I just kind of arbitrarily produce and throw down and say "that's the plan" and that won't be accepted and wouldn't be delivered in a way that was constructive.

I think that for now, the public would need to have confidence in whoever it was that was monitoring and measuring and that it was understood clearly and agreed to what those standards and objectives were. It has probably been the most controversial file in British Columbia over quite a period of time, and so I think it will take extraordinary measures to regain the confidence of the public.

R. Austin: I recognize and I agree with the minister that it would be government monitoring, independent monitoring, that recognizes this and makes sure that the standards are arrived at. But to get back to my original point, it would still be, then, really up to the aquaculture industry and its own actions to reach those levels or those standards. Is that correct?

Hon. P. Bell: The member somehow made an extension or an assumption of something that I said, which may or may not be correct. He said that it would be government that would provide the monitoring,

and I actually didn't say that. I said that I thought it was important to have an independent monitoring regime. That could be government, but it could be a third-party organization as well. That's possible. I don't know the answer to that.

But I think that whoever it is that monitors would need to have the confidence of the public so that they were absolutely certain that the data that was being produced and published was accurate information. That's number one.

Now, the member just asked me a second question: would it be the industry that would have responsibility for accomplishment of the objectives? The objectives would be established. There would be an appropriate compliance and enforcement monitoring regime that was in place, but industry would clearly be taking actions that would fulfil their responsibilities based on their licensing criteria.

I'm not quite sure I've answered the question, but clearly, industry plays a role in the delivery of the actions and the expectations that are articulated in their licence or their authorization to operate. So I may have missed the answer.

The negotiations that are taking place right now, obviously, are very complex and involve a lot of groups who, in the past, I would agree have been at each other's throats. But there has been, at least in the last couple of years, quite a lot of dialogue and collaboration. You see this with CAAR and Marine Harvest, as a good example.

I'd like to take you, though, through to the notion of, say, ocean-based closed containment. If there were companies out there that wanted to do industrial, commercial-scale projects to see the viability of it — both on the commercial level and on the environmental level — to what extent would the government be willing to put dollars into that, to what extent do they expect the federal government to pony up, and would that only happen if there was collaboration from the federal government and, say, from environmental trust funds, for example?

Hon. P. Bell: This is a challenging one to answer because it's kind of an active file right now, as are most of our discussions, actually, in this particular segment of estimates.

There has been some work ongoing by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat on an analysis of closed containment. We saw that as the first step towards the pursuit of perhaps, eventually, a large commercial-scale closed containment project.

I don't want to even begin to rule out the notion that closed containment may be part of the future of aquaculture on the coast. I don't know that. I don't know the answer to that, whether it is or isn't.

I think that the discussion will be ongoing until there is an opportunity to have a commercial-scale closed containment pilot project that is done and evaluated and monitored independently, with predeterminate factors for success that are articulated and that say: "Here are the measures of success, and here is what we're looking for in terms of our triple bottom line and in terms of the potential for profitability." I'm not adverse to the notion that that could be a component of the future or a part of the future.

The member asked the question about who the funding partners might be in that. Because this crosses a number of jurisdictions for responsibility, I would see it as something that the federal government would be part of and we would be part of.

I very much like the model of the conservation incentive investments initiative — the CIII initiative — that was utilized for the central coast–north coast land use plan. In that particular situation there was money brought to the table by the environmental community as well. So I think that the logical funding partners of a project of that nature would be industry, the environmental community through foundation funding partners, the provincial government and the federal government.

I do think that there's more work that needs to go on to determine exactly what it is that you're testing or piloting. Otherwise, I think you risk a significant chance of failure. That's the process that we need to go through. Part of that was done by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat already. They've just completed some work that we're looking at now, which determines what has gone on in the past, what is real, what isn't real and how you measure that.

You know, it's one of the topics that is on people's minds, thanks in part to the member opposite's report as the Chair of the special legislative committee. I don't know that it's going to be part of the future, but I don't know that it's not going to be part of the future either.

That work needs to go on, but let's do it in a way where we don't put a significant amount of money into it and realize before we've started that we've got it wrong to begin with. We've got to make sure that, whatever the project is going to be, we're doing it right and that it does have the highest possible chance of success.

I don't want to do something around closed containment that has a significant risk of failure. I want to make sure that we give it the best possible chance. To do that, I think you've got to have the environmental community there, you have to have the scientific community there, and you have to have the academic community there. The federal government, the provincial government and industry all need to be at the table. First nations clearly need to be major drivers behind it.

Lots of partners, and lots of work to be done. I don't think we're there tomorrow — to be ready to roll something like that out — but that work is actively ongoing.

R. Austin: I'm glad to hear that that work is ongoing. I recognize that these questions are a little bit hard to answer, in the sense that you're probably having discussions right now, and obviously, you can't share all of that here in the public process.

Were the government to find the project and find the partners and find a viable project to fund, I don't see any amount of money in the service plan from the ministry, from MAL. So were you to find something that you thought was useful, would this be funded out of operating funds from MAL, or would it come from a contingency fund in the government? Where exactly in the service plan would this money come from?

Hon. P. Bell: The member is asking me to speculate, and that would be based on the quantum of cash that was involved, whether or not it was available internally within the ministry or whether or not I would have to go and have a visit with Treasury Board. There are a number of places.

We're not at a place to understand yet what sort of money may or may not be involved in the project. So it's very difficult for me to speculate on whether that would be funded internally or externally. Or perhaps someone falls out of the sky and wants to spend $30 million on it, and we don't have to fund it at all. At this point, we're not at a place where I can answer that question.

R. Austin: Now, I'd like to just ask the minister a few questions in regards to other aspects of the aquaculture report, given that we didn't see support from the government members who sat on the committee.

I recognize that when people vote a report down there may have been things in the report that they actually wanted to support, but, nevertheless, at least publicly it would appear that there was no support for any of the recommendations. Now we see, nine months later or ten months later, that the government has taken some actions and, in fact, brought into place one of the major recommendations of the Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture, which is the fish farm–free zone on the north coast.

Can the minister tell me whether there are other aspects of our report, which had over 50 recommendations, which the government is looking at in a positive light so that when there is another formal reaction to the report…? Can the minister outline any other areas that he thinks, or his staff think, will be supported by the government?

Hon. P. Bell: As the member points out, there were 50 different recommendations. What I can tell the member is that there is nothing that is off the table at this point. We are open, with our first nations partners in the discussions that are ongoing, to talking about everything that was in the report and everything that's not in the report.

It's hard for me to speculate on specific components of the report. It's still very early on. I would love to think that this was going to be done much sooner than, practically I, think it's going to be done. There's lots of work to be done. But I don't know what the industry is going to look like. It's hard for me to speculate on that.

I do think that there are many first nations communities and that there are many people who believe it's an integral part of the economy. Kitasoo/Xai'xais clearly is an example, one group that is quite happy with the way things are now. We somehow have to blend all of those pieces together and make it work.

What I am convinced of is that if we can find a collaborative solution working with our first nations partners, that is a far better long-term outcome than a solution that really would only address the issues that were brought up by one side of the debate.

We're looking at the broad-ranging issues, and there are pieces in the legislative report that caught my interest, personally, right from day one. Area management strategies is clearly one of those. I don't recall what number that was, but it's one of the ones that comes to mind immediately for me.

The special legislative report is one of the pieces that is in the discussion, in the debate right now. I'm sure that when this is all settled out the member would be able to say, "Oh, that's close, that's close, and that's close"; and: "That isn't, that isn't, and that isn't."

I don't know what all the pieces will be, but in the end I'm hopeful we're going to have a plan that will work for all British Columbians and that people have confidence in.

R. Austin: I wanted to speak for a minute about a specific area and a specific solution, and that's fallowing.

I want to speak to the minister about the Broughton, because that is a specific area where we have a large number of farms. You have a geography that is such that wild salmon, juvenile salmon are migrating out of those systems that feed out of the Broughton and then go out into the ocean. There really isn't a safe channel or a place where salmon in that area can move out towards the ocean without going past at least one, if not several, fish farms.

In the past we have seen that fallowing has been very successful when it was done there. I'm interested in asking why it is, when fallowing was suggested this particular year for specific salmon runs that are known to be at risk, that the government does not at least use that, just as an interim measure, to try to protect those runs from further extinction?

Hon. P. Bell: The member uses the term fallowing as if it's just a switch that you can flip, and then it's done. What the member is talking about is moving three-quarters of a million fish or, conversely, destroying three-quarters of a million fish, killing three-quarters of a million fish. Then how do you dispose of three-quarters of a million fish? It's very easy to kind of say: "Well, why don't you just fallow the corridor? It's not a big deal. We'll ask in January, and can you have them out by two weeks from Tuesday?"

The magnitude of the discussion…. You're talking about 3,000 tonnes of fish in a pen, in many of the

That said, I want to point out to the member that the grow-out cycle for a farm is two years. If one were to time their management decisions appropriately, it's not inconceivable that fallowing corridors could not be established if appropriate management regimes were in place. But that's not something that you decide on Tuesday and implement on Thursday. Some of the farms are, perhaps, one year into their grow-out cycle, so they won't have completed growing out until a year from now. Some are maybe six months or maybe 18 months.

To set up the right management structure for growing-out sites throughout an area like the Broughton is critically important, in my view. I think that it can play a key role in the long-term structure of the industry, but it is very complex. It needs to be done in a thoughtful, managed way over a longer period of time.

I'm not dismissing it at all. I think it is an appropriate strategy to have in place. I didn't mean to ever suggest that I was dismissing fallowing as an opportunity. I was simply dismissing the ability to execute on fallowing in a very short period of time, knowing what the production cycles were in the farms that are particularly of concern to the industry.

Long-term strategy, yes. It needs some help in order to implement that in an effective management regime. Clearly, our first nations partners have to be part of that decision-making process, and I do think that there will be a structure that can come along.

I did issue two new aquaculture licences fairly recently, Mr. Chair, and I want to point out that both of those licences were really issued to create management flexibility, not increase production. One of them closed one site that was a poor quality site, and we relocated that site. The other is a sixth site in an area that previously had five, but the licensing criteria in that area was that only four of five sites could operate. Now it's four of six sites can operate. It's not increasing production; it's providing a better management strategy or ability for the companies to manage that area more effectively.

Some of the solutions that we have to look at long term are: how do we create more management flexibility? What are the right production levels?

I know I'm going on perhaps a bit longer than I should have. I will just close off by saying that part of EBM for me is thinking about carrying capacity for any given area. What is an appropriate carrying capacity for aquaculture? It might be zero. The answer to that might be that zero is the appropriate carrying capacity. It might be 500 tonnes, it might be 1,000 tonnes, it might be 20,000 tonnes, or it might be 50,000 tonnes. I don't know.

Somehow we have to develop the science to understand, given the marine environment, what an appropriate carrying capacity would be within a region and then provide the industry with the appropriate tools to manage the environment in a way that minimizes any potential impacts.

R. Austin: Yes, when I suggested that we use fallowing, I wasn't suggesting that we decide it on Tuesday and shut it down on Thursday. I recognize that there's a lot of management that has to go into that.

My point that I was trying to make, though, is that in an area like the Broughton I think it's very, very critical…. The geography is such that it's very hard, without a fallowing regime in place, and it requires them to think and to plan long term. Without a fallowing regime in place, I think it's impossible for migrating juvenile salmon to find a safe corridor. That was what I was trying to say.

In the minister's efforts to negotiate with the first nations and with the industry…. Speaking to what the minister has just spoken to in terms of creating more sites in order to create better management, with the controversy that surrounds this industry, is that part of the problem?

If we were now to recognize that it would be better to manage each company's areas by creating more sites to enable them to have three open out of six, or whatever, and have that period of time when each site can recover back to its original state, is creating new sites the problem now? If you see it as a solution, is the actual giving of a new site part of the problem of actually creating this management regime? Do you know what I'm saying?

Hon. P. Bell: I'm a bit confused, but I'll have a go at it, though. I think that there will be a wide variety of solutions here. As I said when we were talking a little bit about closed containment, I'm not convinced that that isn't part of the solution — maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure about that, but I think that we've got to have a look at it. Is having more sites a potential solution to a better management regime? It might be. I'm not sure about that either.

What I do think is that we have to look at a wide variety of management options, and I think that carrying capacity is really critical here. Something that's going to be complex in terms of figuring out is: how do you measure that? How do you know whether it is the right carrying capacity for a given region?

Establishing area management regimes with appropriate carrying capacities, I think, would be one of the pieces of work that needs to go along to develop an effective ecosystem-based management regime that respects the life cycles of wild salmon, that respects things like clam beds, and all the other important parts of the marine environment.

It's been a very interesting discussion. I've enjoyed it, actually. I think it's been probably one of the most productive ones that has been had in aquaculture for a while. I think all of those types of things are what needs to go into the long-term building of an aquaculture plan. I see this as an adaptive management plan as well. I don't see this as something that…. Certainly, there would be a document, I guess, that'll be produced, that you'll put out and say: "Here's the aquaculture plan."

I think this is an ongoing management thing that we're going to learn from over time. The environment

is changing — global warming, climate change. All of those things are impacting what's going on in our marine ecosystem right now, and objectives and values will probably change over time as well. So it is a complex one, and I hope that I kind of answered the question.

R. Austin: My question specifically was to say look, if you actually decide that a company that currently has five sites needs, in order to better manage their operation, an extra four, is the controversy around this industry such that it becomes very difficult for the government to go and issue four new licences, even though there actually wouldn't be an increase in production? That was my question.

Hon. P. Bell: I guess the current licensing regime around aquaculture requires due diligence to be done and effective consultation to be done with first nations. As the statutory decision-maker — and I think the member knows that I retain that authority at this point as a result of a decision that I made about a year ago — whenever I make a decision, I have to be absolutely convinced that first nations have had their opportunity to be fully consulted and that they don't have any kind of significant issues that arise as a result of it.

I think that it would be premature to say that more sites is the answer or that it is the problem. I don't know that. It may be a lot fewer sites. It may be more sites. It may be some closed-containment sites and some open-net sites. I don't know what all the answers are, but I think that is what we're going to learn, over the coming months and years ahead, as we go forward.

It is a steep learning curve for everyone at this point. I'm not suggesting that we should have, and I hope that the member wouldn't take from this that I'm suggesting…. I think that there are roughly 130 sites right now on the coast. I'm not suggesting that we should have 260 and that that solves our problem. That may just create way more problems, and I don't know that.

All I'm saying is that in a couple of examples there, I do think that an incremental site actually created a better overall marine environment as a result of it. That may not be the case somewhere else.

R. Austin: A last quick question. Recognizing that this is an ongoing discussion and a very complicated discussion, can the minister let us know whether we will see an aquaculture plan at least in this parliament — prior to the election, in other words?

Hon. P. Bell: It is certainly my desire to see an aquaculture plan before that. I think that there are probably going to be some interim steps along the way. I think the final end destination of aquaculture in British Columbia will be far beyond this parliament. I strongly believe in an adaptive management strategy, where we're measuring results, determining whether or not we're achieving our objectives, and if we're not, developing new objectives to ensure that they are met.

This is going to be something that will go on for a long time, but I do think we'll have a clearly articulated plan before the end of this parliament.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would move that the committee rise, report tremendous, overwhelming progress and seek leave to sit again.

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	YEAS — 39

Coell	Ilich	Chong
Christensen	Les	Richmond
Bell	Krueger	van Dongen
Roddick	Jarvis	Nuraney
Whittred	Cantelon	Thorpe
Hagen	Oppal	de Jong
Campbell	Taylor	Bond
Hansen	Abbott	Penner
Neufeld	Coleman	Hogg
Sultan	Hawkins	Bennett
Lekstrom	Mayencourt	Polak

Yap	Bloy	MacKay
Black	McIntyre	Rustad

	NAYS — 31

Brar	S. Simpson	Fleming
Farnworth	James	Kwan
Ralston	B. Simpson	Cubberley
Hammell	Coons	Thorne
Simons	Puchmayr	Gentner
Fraser	Horgan	Lali
Dix	Bains	Robertson
Karagianis	Evans	Krog
Austin	Chudnovsky	Chouhan
Wyse	Sather	Macdonald
	Conroy